Hey idiot!

This post isn't (just) bitching - there is an "action item."  😇 

tl;dr: Try Kindness as the Default.

I am regularly on guard against being one of those cranky old men who say everything was better when I was a kid (or, more accurately, when I was 24-25). And as I document regularly here, things are better, on average (for humans) than ever. Nostalgia is harmful!

But I will say that I do think that the average person in the US is meaner on the internet than in real life. (Again - all this is "on average" - there are people who are cruel assholes in real life.) 

Even people who purportedly want to make things better go about it in a way that is ... let's just say ... not How to Win Friends and Influence People. 

BTW, I have been so very guilty of this.

If you spend time online and are, like nearly everyone, subject to availability bias, you are likely to come away feeling disrespected and unwelcome, even by people who should be allies.

I've often come across:

• If you eat meat, you are an idiot!
• If you don't exercise [to the level I do] you are an idiot!
• If you drink alcohol, you are an idiot!
• If you don't eat [my version of] a whole-foods plant-based diet, you are an idiot!
• If you have a chronic disease, you deserve it, you idiot! (personal example, paragraph under graph).
• If you take "poison" from Big Pharma instead of being vegan, you are an idiot! 
• If you are a conservative, you are literally an idiot!
• If you have a car, you are an idiotic monster!
• If you have a kid, you are a monster!
• If you don't have a kid, you are a fool.
• If you support Biden, you are an idiot!

Etcetera.

Given this, we can each make the world better by acting with kindness. 

Even if kindness wasn't the best way to open people's hearts and minds, it is worth it to avoid creating more anger and hatred. (And it is the only rational response to realizing that no one has free will. We are rational, no?  😉 ) 

I talk about this more in Losing, along with the caveat that making kindness our default can be incredibly hard, if not impossible.  To quote Lyle Lovett:

But what would we be if we don't even try? 
We have to try.

And we get to live in a world with cinnamon rolls!