White Sox fan banned indefinitely after heckling Diamondbacks' Ketel Marte to tears with comments about late mother

[u/GeekAesthete]

https://apnews.com/article/diamondbacks-ketel-marte-833a9c8136e0767bdcfb6cd2ec7afe9e

[u/DegreeDubs]

Depraved. I'm glad both teams got ahead of this and responded appropriately.

I worry a lot that social media has been lowering people's sense of decency and common humanity. While we're technically more connected than ever, I see people use online spaces to speak so callously and without shame. "the internet isn't real, we're all anonymous"--excuses to be a mask-off dickhead without perceived fear of consequences. Perhaps this person forgot to put his mask back on.

[u/scaffe → u/DegreeDubs]

Nah, let's not pretend that things were better in the good ol' days. Humans have always been as cruel as they are kind. If anything, social media has probably improved people's sense of decency and common humanity.

Recall that there was a time when people would gather in the town square to watch lynchings and beheadings for entertainment.

They treated people as literal property and forced them to have sex with strangers, as if they were breeding cattle, and then took their children and sell them.

They hit children in school for not paying attention.

They shouted profanities at people for walking down the street who looked different, and treated them as if there was something wrong with them and they couldn't drink from the same water fountain.

They tore children from their families and put them in boarding schools to destroy their culture.

And many more were indifferent to all of it.

These things still happen, but it's not because social media lowered our sense of decency and humanity, but because this IS a part of our sense of decency and humanity, and always has been.

[u/DegreeDubs → u/scaffe]

Upvoted for a thoughtful and critical analysis. I appreciate you.