"Copper Wire Courage"

Some time it is best to leave sleeping dogs lie.. Some one woke me up..

What do I mean by " Copper wire Courage"?

This is the courage that many people manage when they have a kilometer (mile) or two of copper wire between them and another person..

This is where an otherwise logical thinking, slowly angered polite person can become rude, obnoxious, easily angered, and sometimes violent..

Examples of this is where an otherwise polite person will, abuse a companies switchboard operator, just for asking the persons name while transfering a call.
Or when talking to a person you are having a dispute with, a settlement is easily reached.. but place a length of copper in between and the the conversation becomes a heated argument..

The same goes for forum sites like this.. Vis some threads of only this week.. place a computer and a few hundred miles of copper and glass between two people and the effect is the same..


Why is this so? your thoughts here please..
I have a few starter areas of my own..

1/ Lack of eye contact: people are unable to trust and are angered easily by people they can't make eye contact with (more phone than internet)
2/ A security by obscurity : You don't realy know who I am, you cant see me .. My Identity is obscure and you won't be able to retaliate
3/ Security by copper: (Castle wall Effect) I have 100km of copper between you and me.. so you cant hurt me.

It seems many of us have either been the Agressor or the agresee or both in this sort of incedent.. certainly I have been both..

So any other thoughts..

Cheers

People feel a whole lot more confident and intimidating when there is no possible way for the other end to retaliate. You can scream all you want and if the other end screams you hang up, end of quarrel. Its very cowardly and is usually done by people who have low self esteem in the "actual" physical world.
-NeuTron

The consequences of one's actions are not immediate if at all. When the consequences of one's actions are completely removed, courage is limitless.

I think that the lack of body language down the wire is partly to blame...........people use language differently. Face-to-face you read the other person's body language and don't take offence, you find out what they really mean?

It's a bit like a dog barking............if you can see the tail wagging you are not bothered? (you mentioned the dog analogy first :) )

Just a thought.

There is another type of courage I have run into. Not really related but, how many have notice the phenomena I call "Beer Courage"
:D

yeah

Back in the citizen's band radio days we used to refer to it has having 300 pounds of bad radio. These people were " gonna kick everybody's ass". Some of them would be stupid enough and buy those antennas with neon tips that would light up when they transmitted. You'd find out that the really bad trucker was some runt in a suburu b210.

Copper wire courage is synonymos with "road rage", "beer goggles", etc. If it puts anything between you and your inhibitions it has the same effect....who hasn't experienced this and what's the point of bringing it up in this forum????

It begs the question .... who is a closet psychoanalyst??

ok Kd, who?

Some of us are very use to arguing with sarcasm, this fails horribly online do to the lack of visual and audio clues, what is meant as tong and cheek come across as sincere, and that escalates matters. Oh and never overlook the fact that some of us may be a--holes in RL as well as online :)

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Oh and never overlook the fact that some of us may be a--holes in RL as well as online

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don't forget bballad for the people with sticks up their a$$ we always have Nightfalls_Girl on hand. :D

NOTE: This is likely to only mean something to those who have been reading the 'I'm back' thread in Addicts

Z

Unfortuintly missed that thread. I was mostly talkeing of my self. I am basicly a jerk, but that seems t obe workeing well for me in life so I am running with it.

bballad... I was joking (obviously) above..... but to be serious for a mo.....ok maybe you're being brutally honest with yourself ... sure we can all be jerks at times... but surely you have some redeeming qualities that make you not a jerk? You trying to tell me that everyone thinks you're a jerk :shocked:??? come on - I've seen you be really helpful to some folks around here - thats at least one redeeming feature going for you.

methinks you are seriously in need of a good night out with some friends and having a laugh

just MHO

Z

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Originally posted here by RoadClosed
The consequences of one's actions are not immediate if at all. When the consequences of one's actions are completely removed, courage is limitless.

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Actually it's not that courage is limitless, it's that cowardice is completely unfettered due to a lack of fear.

Again sarcasim is lost...gotta rembember those smilies....Allenb1963 I think you hit it right on the head.