Mob Behavior: What separates civilization from barbarism?

Submitted by Khalid on Wed, 2005/08/17 - 18:22

Culture | Philosophy

After a Virginia, USA school decided to sell their used Apple iBook laptops really cheap, panic and stampede ensued, as humans exhibited their worst behavior. The local newspaper, the Times Dispatch also has an article and even a slideshow showing people pushing and trampling on falling fellow human beings. Slashdot also has some comments, some from those who attended. This kind of behavior is rare in Western societies, but is part of daily life in some third world countries. It is often attributed there to several factors, like overpopulation, lack of resources, limited services, ...etc. Imagine a Western society that experiences a shortage of some vital resource, such as fuel, bread or water, would this uncivilized behavior take over? Would human selfishness cause some to get that resource at all costs, even if it means harm to others? Would "harm" here include depriving others of this resource, or even trampling them? This is just one indication that common decency and civil behavior is just a thin veneer over a more animal-like core of human being that gets out whenever it has the chance. A mob is the most dangerous thing one can get caught in. A mob has no leader, has no logic or reason, and no sense of right or wrong or morals. People who as individuals would not do bad things will certainly do them if they are in a mob where responsibility is diluted and spur of the moment actions happen. From the above, it is clear that mobs are not limited to hundreds or thousands of people in the street chanting slogans because of a political or religious reason. Some mob behavior can be exhibited in smaller groups (e.g. a group of soldiers in war, who think there is no law, and are encouraged by others behaving badly, and again diluted responsibility). We also see mob behavior in situations such as sports fans going on a rampage and destroying property and even killing people. Some Canadians, who are normally very nice people can turn into mobs because of things such as hockey. Another case of unruly mobs is when groups want political, social and economic change, such as the Seattle World Trade Conference

Resources

Wikipedia article on Street Fighting because of Sports. National Geographic on the Sports Riots: The Psychology of Fan Mayhem.

Uncivilized Behavior in Western Societies

Submitted by Pierre F. Walter (not verified) on Fri, 2006/02/24 - 12:46.

Good question. In my view, the effects of human trash being or becoming the reason of major upheaval in Western countries are to be expected much higher than in any developing country. This is simply so because the Western mindset is completely rotten, savage and barbarian since many hundreds if not thousands of years. I have spent a childhood in constant fear and violence, having grown up in Germany. And this went on and on until I could eventually leave not only Europe but the whole Western world and become a citizen of Asia, first Indonesia, then Cambodia. Then I learnt about human values, about peace, and true civilization, and about friendship. It's the Western world where the greatest massacers of the future will occur. What has the white Western culture brought to the world other than violence, perversion, oppression, slavery and mental illness? Read for example Nostradamus regarding France ... And those cultures that today by the cleanest of all countries were 'cleansed from prostitution', i.e. Thailand and the Philippines were great cultures - before they were pervaded, and perverted, by the Western mindset!!

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Ahh yes, home of the Khmer

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008/06/17 - 09:53.

Ahh yes, home of the Khmer Rouge. Thanks Commies! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ6dB0lw8Fg

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Mob Behavior: What separates civilization from barbarism?

Submitted by Pierre F. Walter (not verified) on Fri, 2006/02/24 - 12:53.

To give a clear-cut answer: Culture. What is culture? Well, it's quite awesome to answer this question in the affirmative. It's about as difficult as answering in the affirmative what love is, or life.

Krishnamurti suggested that in those cases we should try to look at the question from the negative observer standpoint. Thus the question would be: what is *not* culture? The answer clearly is: post-modern international consumer culture, the neo-colonian imperialist global industry culture is not culture. It's not culture because it's not based upon cultural values, but on pure greed and exploitation. A culture is where people have a basic agreement about values, and apply these values in their daily lives. This is not the case in Western consumer culture as it is today exported all over the world. It's a *fake-culture*, and by overriding and gradually annihilating the cultures of the countries where it's going to be established, to stay with the examples of Philippines and Thailand, it virtually erases *true* and long-during cultures and replaces them by a fake culture that is based upon our modern handphone values. That's another form of stampede, gloriously publicized in worldwide forums and news agencies, as the 'exportation of worldwide democracy' ...

Norbert Elias: Technology and Momentary Lapses Into Barbarism

March 8th, 2004 No Comments

In his essay Technization and Civilization, Norbert Elias discusses how technologies can bring about more civilized as well as more barbaric behaviors. Because societies and technologies are mutually-determining (they shape one another), we cannot draw a simple causeeffect relationship between technization and civilization. According to Elias, technologies regulate behavior, requiring more civilized conduct, but technologies are produced by humans living in civilizations, so neither technization nor civilization can be said to be the first in the process. But Elias more interesting observation is that it can indeed be observed that a spurt in technization and a spurt in civilization quite often go hand in hand in societies. [But] It

quite often happens that a counter-spurt also occurs at the newly-reached stage of technization, a spurt towards de civilization. (Johan Goudsblom and Stephen Mennell (editors). The Norbert Elias Reader: a biographical selection. 1998: Blackwell Publishers p. 214) Elias considers the example of the development of motorvehicle technologies. Nowadays we can all assume, for the most part, that all drivers will adhere to certain civilized behavior (by civilized, Elias means a degree of standardization that allows more complex societies to function; he does not mean civilized as in nice) . However, the introduction of this technology did not proceed smoothly. Car accidents and fatalities were much higher (in relation to the number of cars on the road) than today. People got hurt. People abused the new technology. Drivers, passengers, car manufacturers, and civic authorities had to come up with external constraints to correct this uncivilized behavior. The move towards decivilization introduced by new technizations makes me wonder about our experiences with technologies such as the internet. Is the prominent prescence of pornography, or the ease with which people feel they can flame others online, or the abandonment to meaningless virtuality, signs of such decivilization? The following excerpts from Elias are a useful reminder of the opportunities as well as the challenges that we face in the information age: The advance in technization has brought people all over the globe closer together. But the development of the human habitus is not keeping with the development of technization

and its consequences. Technization encourages humankind to move closer together and to unify. The more this happens, the more will the differences in human groups become apparent to human awareness. (ibid, p. 224) The triumphant advance of the aeroplane [or the internet, for that matter], as a medium for global traffic in peace and war, has decisively contributed to the growing interdependence of all states on the globe and, at the same time, is also its product. It has enormous civilizing influence, by bringing people from all regions closer to each other. [However,] [n]o group of people is pleased when it realizes that it is now more dependent on others than before. (ibid, p. 225) This last quote is not really about technization, but I found it very inspirational: The world in which we live is an emergent world, it is humankind on the move. We obscure our view of the process that we as humankind experience, if instead of accepting the world as it really is, we judge it as if it were an eternally unchanging world That is what one does when one represents the world as bad or good, as civilized or as barbaric. Humanity is in a great collective learning process We can see today that the task that lies before us is to work towards the pacification and organized unification of humankind. Let us not be discouraged in this work by the knowledge that this task will not in our lifetime progress to fruition from the experimental period in which it is now. It is certainly worthwhile and highly meaningful to set to work in

an unfinished world that will go on beyond oneself. (ibid, pp. 228-229)

The Internet

Boon or Detriment to Society?

By Rob Purdy

There is no doubt the Internet is a wondrous creation. The entire world is rapidly becoming obsessed with it. Everywhere you look you're bound to see something related to the Internet. Click on the icon at left to see an Internet growth summary. There is little doubt about how useful the Internet can be. Schoolchildren [PAGE 2] can receive help with homework, investors can keep track of stocks, sports scores and statistics are just a click away for fans. These are but a few of the myriad ways people use the Internet. When television exploded onto the scene in the 1940-50s, it provided much the same things the Internet is providing people today: entertainment and information. However, the Internet has certain advantages over television and, most importantly, it provides instant access to specific information. It is interactive, whereas television is not. Avid proponents of the Internet claim it could feasibly replace print media. The cost of publishing a newspaper or magazine online is far less than the cost of printing one. There is no need to purchase bulk paper and ink, which in itself makes publishing on the Internet more attractive. Moreover, not as many hired hands are required to publish online. Newspapers and other print media have yet to take full advantage of the Internet. Their online publications usually appear as carbon copies of their printed publications.

There is no interactivity between the reader and the source. Advertisements online do not offer direct gratification. Yes, the Internet is indeed spectacular. But, as the saying goes, "Behind every silver lining ..." There are several problems associated with the Internet. It allegedly opens the world to everyone, regardless of race, creed, sex, etc. But despite lowering costs of necessary technological equipment and the advent of Web TV, not everyone can afford to go online. Those who do decide to begin signing on risk becoming "addicted" [PAGE 3] to the internet. Internet Addiction (IAD) was identified two years ago by Dr. Ivan Goldberg, a New York City psychiatrist who coined the term "Internet Addiction Disorder." Dr. Goldberg said IAD is not a recognized medical addiction like alcoholism, but "more like an out-of-control behavior that threatens to overwhelm the addict's normal life." Whether or not a user becomes addicted, the attractiveness of the internet still has strong appeal. The internet can be divided into six services: 1. E-mail; 2. Telnet; 3. File Transfer Protocol; 4. Usenet news; 5. Mailing Lists; and, 6. World Wide Web. Of these, the two most used are E-mail and the WWW. I discuss E-mail briefly later. The Web, as the World Wide Web (WWW) is commonly referred to, is witnessing a massive growth. Many people confuse the Internet with the Web, thinking they are the same thing. Most major online services and internet providers shoot users straight to the web, so the confusion is somewhat justified. Adding to the confusion is the outpouring of "Web TV", a product created and designed to allow non-computer owners to surf the web/internet from their television sets. Why they didn't call it "Internet TV" will only cause more and more people to believe the Web IS the internet. Adults aren't safe from the attractive lure of what the internet can bring them. IBM and Dennis Leary challenge web users to "work the web." The Internet can be used to make money and it's not hard to do, depending on how advanced you want to get. Advanced technology always has dramatic effects on society. With the ability to work at home, a lot of people are leaving their offices for the greener grass that allows them to set their own hours, spend quality time with family and not have to deal with the often hasslesome commute to and from work.

The University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, has done extensive research on the various effects our digitally growing globe are subjected to. The advent of telecommuting, while desirable for personal reasons, harms the Central Business District.1 Another good web page put up by UW discusses "Culture and the Digital Society". Essentially, the page posits that "... new technologies wage war upon the culture they emerge into."2 Technology can't bear the blame or accept the laurels. "Technology is often seen as the culprit. However, it is the people that use and apply the technology to their projects that are at fault and make the mistakes, NOT technology. It must be recognized that information technologies are not changing what we do. Rather, they are changing the way we do it!" This is the thrust of a paper published online.3 The Internet's number one feature is email. The number of users logging on continues to skyrocket. Most do so for email capability. It allows one to stay in touch inexpensively with family, friends and acquaintances next door, in the next town, in the next state, in the next country and so on. Email is faster and cheaper than "snail mail" (regular Post Office mail). A big problem with Email is junk mail or Spam that inundates internet users' mailboxes. These useless messages usually try to entice the unwary person into investing in some form or fashion in a "get-rich-quick" scheme. So, is the internet a boon or is it detrimental? The question is being intensely investigated. It is a valid question. The simple answer, of course, is society embracing the pluses of technology and searching ardently for ways to alleive or eliminate the minuses

Is the Internet more beneficial or harmful to society (sharing (possibly false) information on a grand scale)?
The Internet allows us to communicate, discover, study etc, but how much false information finds its way into this global communication system? For example, what percentage of Internet content is true, and what is inaccurate or misleading? On the whole, is the Internet benefical or harmful to society? Your thoughts...

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All in all, the benefits of the internet have far outweighed its liabilities. Instant communication leads to better efficiency and productivity. If not for the net, many different ideas would never have been discovered nor gotten off the ground. As with any innovation, there will be those in society who use such technology for malicious purposes. Since the amount of and quality of information on the web can change at any given moment, it's difficult to give an accurant percentage of what is legit and what is not.

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Your face! Since the Internet's creation in America it has been more beneficial to humanity [than harmful]. The internet started out as a private network that universities around the country were utilizing to share information and research. Eventually it grew into the WWW, which may host some false information. Even at the time when only the universities were using it, there was still some false information.
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The information you get off the internet is as reliable as the organization's reputation and could possibly be bias. For instance; the BBC is going to be less bias and more informative than CBS. What I'm trying to get at is... the Internet's value is directly related to how you utilize it. Each time you open a hyperlink your request for that page is logged. Since business in this country [and all others] revolves around supply & demand; it's safe to say that enough people look for something it will be found. You decide whether to use the internet as a sedative form of entertainment or as a meeting place for like minded people.

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ProDigit

I think it's beneficial. Even to terrorists! They'll find easier ways to create weapons. But for us, it's beneficial because we benefit from the goods the internet has to offer (even like this forum). If internet on itself shows faults, and fault teachings, you're much more easy to compare pages with eachother. So even if you got some bad info, you're able to find out the truth of the matter...

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6 Scientific Reasons Social Networks Are Bad for Society

By:

Luke McKinney
July 18, 2011 772,264 views Add to Favorites
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We've always known that computer networks would destroy the world. We just thought they'd get super-intelligent first. Instead, we got social networks, which act as a stupidity X-ray: You suddenly see through the intelligent people your friends pretend to be to the LOLing Farmville players underneath. Some smart people decided to study these networks, and found that they're a bigger threat to society than Skynet. At least the rise of those machines forced us to band together and do things.

More real social interaction than all of MySpace.

#6 Everyone (Correctly) Assumes You're an Egocentric Asshole

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PDF: "Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites"

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34 (10), 2008, p 1303-1314 Narcissism is excessive self-love, inflated self-importance and unjustified feelings of entitlement. Along with electrons, it is the primary active ingredient in the Internet. Three years ago, psychologists decided to publish a research paper on its prevalence on social networking sites, presumably because they didn't think anyone would read the entire set of encyclopedias they could have filled, and simply publishing the words "Everything on all of them" felt too glib.

Researchers had 156 students fill out a survey called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) that forces subjects to choose between options like, "My body is nothing special" versus "I like to look at my body," and "I can learn from other people" versus "I can solve most global problems by spitting on them." Researchers then monitored the student's Facebook activity for what they called objective and subjective factors, and compared that with how they scored on the NPI. The scientists' goal was to see if they could isolate social networking behaviors that were more narcissistic, and to boil down complex human emotions into numbers, because that's like oxygen to them.

Getty Creative An 8.7 on the It-normalized Birthday Trauma scale according to Science.

The scientists also got strangers to rate these profiles online, and an above-average 100 of the students were female so the scientists clearly know how to get strangers to look at things online. The nine scales used included Attractiveness, Sexiness, Provocativeness and Fun. There's a chance these "scientists" were Internet-porn's R&D division.

Getty Creative Quantum communications will revolutionize streaming of our GILF threesomes!

For users of social networking, the results were not encouraging. Narcissism ratings were higher in every single category, including how narcissistic people assume you are just for having an account. Posting large amounts of information on your profile page was both perceived as narcissistic by others, and more common among narcissists. According to the study, a typical interaction on a social networking site is like a whirlwind of self-obsessed assholery: You think you're just filling out a profile, but others (correctly) assume you're an asshole for expecting strangers to care about your forty favorite movies despite doing the exact same thing themselves. So everyone is thinking, Look at this douchebag talking about things that aren't me. Meanwhile, people viewing your profile encourage your narcissism. For instance, another big indicator was "provocative pictures," aka "You're not fooling anyone by casually posting pictures like that." Strangers realize you desperately want people to stare at you (while staring at you).

Getty Creative Omigawd, nearly forgot to set the webcam before "accidentally" leaning forward too far!

The only negative correlation was "entertaining quotes," implying that people who post funny material online are the opposite of narcissistic. Which might mean "hate themselves." Short form: If you don't think you're inherently worth looking at, you try to be funny instead. You now understand stand-up comedy.
#5 Thousands of Friends Means None

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"The relationship between number of friends and interpersonal impressions on Facebook"

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (2008) 531-549 If someone tells you they have 4,000 friends, chances are they're including you as one of them despite having just made sure it's not the case. When you hit four digits, you have a worse definition of friends than Boo Radley, and he still spent time interacting with his friends. Michigan State University researchers studied the relationship between number of friends and

actual popularity, and found that the fourth digit of friends means you're likely getting the two longest digits on the hand from a good portion of them. We not only know you don't have three thousand friends, which is stupid, but we automatically know you don't even have three or you wouldn't have time to sit clicking "Add Friend" every night.

Getty Creative God, I wish my son would go out and take drugs. Maybe get some girls pregnant.

One-hundred and fifty-three students filled out surveys and rated fake Facebook profiles on social and physical attractiveness. These fake profiles were identical except for the number of friends listed. The scientists noticed a hill-shaped relationship between friends and attractiveness: Having more friends means you're more attractive, up to what they mysteriously failed to call the "Bullshit Threshold." At a certain point (around a thousand friends) you start looking as bad as people with only few, and even more desperate.

This is what it looks like when a scientist calls you NEEEERRRRRRD!

The scientists also analyzed the participating students. One claimed to have over 2,700 friends, and the scientists added a footnote with all the statistics re-calculated without that person. Even in a study about how many friends imaginary accounts could pretend to have, the researchers looked at this asshole and said, "They're so stupid it's throwing off our math."

Getty Editorial They also confirmed Tila Tequila as the most unpopular person on the planet.

#4 They're Reinstalling Sexism

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"The Role of Friends' Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?"

Human Communication Research 34 (2008) 28-49 Obviously, negative gender stereotypes exist on the Internet, because it's 90 percent porn. But at least they're getting paid for it. Every other woman gets it for free. Judging others by a picture is

apparently a recipe for turning people into assholes -- interacting with a monitor and keyboard means people feel less empathy. They also don't bother pretending to be nice, which is a pity, because "pretending to be nice" is pretty much what made the nonwarring part of human history possible.

commons.wikipedia.org Reversing the polarity of "civil."

A group of 389 students got course credit for letting older men and women watch them use the Internet, so that's good future career training (they were all taking "communications degrees" so it's nice to have options other than communicating a request for fries with that). Just like all innocent scientific experiments involving groups of teenagers, the results were horrifying: enough sexism to make Sterling Cooper look like the Mother Goddess Freegan Collective.

If you sit on me we use less sofa material, saving the environment.

The researchers set up fake Facebook profiles for student girls who got trashed and slept with nasty slobs (it's nice to see science is only a few years behind porn technology) and their research paper explained, "Typographical errors in these messages were intentional and reflect common writing characteristics in Facebook postings." Well done, Internet, you now write so poorly, literate people have to explain it to each other. They then set up the exact same profiles with pictures of guys. The result? "Negatively valenced messages about certain moral behaviors increased male profile owners' perceived physical attractiveness, although they caused females to be viewed as less attractive." Translation: guys are studs, girls are sluts, what else is new? But the scientists were worried that Facebook is resurrecting more ancient sexism than a group of cheerleaders having a sleepover in Castle Dracula. With more people interacting online every day, externality of gonads is once again becoming a disproportionately advantageous factor. Especially considering how it's a weak point in any style of combat.