Has eBay, but really Society, Become a Ruder, Meaner Place?

is it just me or has eBay become a far more aggreßive place since Ic began buying on it, and especially since Ic began selling on it about two years ago? Further, it seems like the hostility (at least the verbal, outright hostility) comes far more from buyers than seller, including those buyers which are more so that yet at the same time also sellers themselves. Sure, there has been a few scummy sellers who have lied about not receiving back returns, or blocking for no discernible movan, but usually there is little or no verbal interaction. The buyers however, seem to take their anger out almost exclusively through the eBay meßage system, and some were seemingly trying to actively bully me, either by trying to shame me, to intimidate me, and the stupid ones by simply hurling insults at me. It appears that the motivating factors behind most of these rude buyer outbursts is the price, but Ic have experienced one or two cases where it was me personally, and in another case me randomly, that the buyer has hated.

Ic cannot help but feel a still coldneß crystalising over/around the site. Ic also think that eBay holds a strange grudge against its sellers dealing in off-beat merchandise like myself (militaria and self-published works for me), and a growing rift (of suspicion or something deeper, more hateful) betwixt buyers and sellers. If Ic had to point to a particular action where the anger began to increase, it would have to be eBay's purge of PayPal , which really seemed to aggravate not only tensions but fraudulent/scam purchases and sales, too. Ic have a feeling, though, that eBay's ever heightening lust for buyers has for a long time been leading to the online ecwivalent of slums developing in a city, in the sense that eBay perhaps let the flood-gates become too open, introducing a plethora of new seedy buyers and sellers onto the platform.

Ic am personally sickened by the intensification of this aggreßion; Ic do not have the heart for it and so Ic have made the decision to start closing up my eBay shop, except for the two dollar item listings. Ic feel like Yoda during Order 66, with the sheer amount of hate being so disheartening, it doesans me such pain to see, even if Ic am not the receiver of it. The internet, never mind this world, was not built for good, kind folc. The internet caters to the worst impulses, or the worst judgements of humanity. Ic think Ic can say this with some certainty. A personal plea from me to ye; please refrain from adding any more hatred to this often bitter world. There is no shame in silence, if some body becomes hostile or slights ye in some fashion, find peace in remembering that increasing the level of hatred on Earth is a net-negative to mankind, including yehself. No response could be the most dignified one.

Ic would here posit no more than a hypothesis that markets may be one of the primary sources of mankind's historically increasing anger. Ic would further posit that, contrary to many historians' belief, a lack of ideology and social 'cohesion' or order, as well doesans a break down in positive human relations. Nature is both aristocratic and opinionated. Ideology always identifies an 'us' and a 'them' category, which in its absence makes every one a 'them' until proven 'us'. And concerning especially the United States, the false smile consumer service capitalism forced upon its employees makes them wish to expreß their true, frustrated resentment on their own social time. No doubt, cultural and capitalist alienation play a large part in the social decay of positivity, yet Ic now think that, apart from these two well documented phenomena, society itself and advancing technology have worsened factors by a five fold margin. Potentially worst of all, Ic have no idea how to fix any of this, if it can be fixed, that is.

The greatest symptom of these problems, which have now transformed into problems in their own right is the prevalence of small talk, all the more when considered in conjunction with the death of true philosophy, the disdain of sincerity being itself a symptom of this evil fatality. As with the folly of forced compliance with a smile, society becomes more bitter, and more suspicious. The brain is a machine of some cognitive genius. Though an individual may not consciously realise his own suspicion, or the exact source of it, the brain recognises the falseneß of a service smile, the flicker of an eye, and the erroneous stroke in a shaky tone. If mankind were not conditioned in morally dubious societies, we would make some of the best organic lie detectors, as opposed to our current achievement as the best lie manufactures. Was there ever a time where every one was entirely honest? Probably not. But to witneß such a heavy swing in the direction of falsehed presents a worrisome cwestion: how much falsehed or hostility precipitates societal collapse, and what does societal collapse realistically mean? Most fictional tellings of societal collapse occur in the aftermath, in the backdrop of the basically society-ending (post-) apocalyptic story event. Real life society is facing a gradual, non-catastrophic degradation, and the actual 'collapse' may appear in the form of super-atomisation, or the market and other aspects of society completely replacing its human interactive element.