One More Place to Experience Rejection

I hate social media, but I joined Reddit so I could get some help with Starlink. Since then, I have asked a few things about other topics. It’s not always easy to find a forum where you can get information, and Reddit has a lot of specialized groups.

I found out Reddit has a “karma” system, which is offensive, of course, to people who are not Hindus and do not want to be dragged into the Hindu religion. It’s amazing how Hinduism has somehow escaped being labeled a religion. You can talk about karma and do yoga all day and not be accused of promoting a religion when, of course, you are.

Imagine what would happen if Reddit gave people holy points and damnation points and said comments made Jesus smile.

Reddit karma is a social credit system. If people like something you say, they give you a karma point. If not, they give you a negative karma point. If you get enough positive points, you get the privilege of starting groups. If you get enough bad points, your stuff may be put where it’s harder to find, and Reddit has shadowbanning, although I’m not sure if karma is involved in that.

So basically, it’s a system that allows other people to persecute you anonymously. As a result, you feel pressured to say things that make people happy by reinforcing what you perceive to be the existing majority opinion. It pushes you to keep useful information they won’t like to yourself. It makes healthy dissent wither and fosters the overgrowth of disinformation. So it’s a lot like Twitter. And Facebook.

Reddit has confirmed some of my prejudices.

The sad thing about prejudice is that it is usually reinforced by experience. It works, except when a prejudice is based on irrational feelings. Prejudice is generally based on years of observation. It really is a bad idea to go to black neighborhoods at night. It’s a bad idea to start a big STEM company and insist all the engineers be female. It really is dangerous to drive in China.

One of my prejudices is that lots of Internet cooking people are jerks. Boy, did Reddit confirm this. In a food group, said it was a shame known outlets published bad recipes, which it is, and three guttersnipes voted me down without being man enough to say anything.

I don’t know why food people are so hateful, but they really are. The nastiest Internet troll I ever saw, which is saying a great deal, was a food guy who called himself Sheldon Martin. His email address was penmart10@aol.com. I still remember that address, because the things he said were so foul. You can probably find his old postings online. Search for “penmart10@aol.com” and “prolapse.”

I just found some of his material. Take a look at this really mild example.

I won’t dispute your knowlege of pottery, although I seriously doubt it’s been more than remedial, probably an ugly ash tray you once made during a therapy session in a mental institution, but I know with absolute positive certainty you ain’t any kind of cook, ‘specially not a baker.

Some guy disagreed with him, politely, about pizza stones. A lot of his stuff was extremely filthy.

Another valid prejudice: there is no way to deal with Musk fans without facing a wall of insanity. There are people who will praise Tesla and Starlink no matter what. If Starlink satellites went nuts and started shooting gigawatt lasers down into daycare centers, the Muskhive would lunge at the throats of anyone who complained.

I pointed out some bad things Starlink had done, and I got whacked with Hindu demerits. There went my chances of going to Internet Nirvana and getting high with Steve Jobs.

It reminds me of communism. Communists tell people to rat on their neighbors anonymously. They tell kids to do this to their parents, and some do.

I could not resist trying to game the system. I went to a couple of areas and made some comments I knew people would love, and now I have overwhelming credit in the eyes of Krishna Berners-Lee or whatever.

It’s pretty stupid, and it shows how Satan is using the Internet to brainwash us into conformity. I guess I’ll delete my account and start a new one if I ever need Reddit again.