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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8708003" data-attributes="member: 7026617">No, I'm serious (and I am old).  You see it in more benign cases too; its just much easier for anyone with any particular set of interests or attitudes to make contact than it was previously.  This has been very obvious to me because I participated in APAs (amateur press association publications) decades ago, and it was pretty much the only game in town to get in communication with groups with common interests and stay in communication with them.  And it was, bluntly, a crapton of work.  I'm not saying that like it was a virtue, because it was not.  And I have no doubt it absolutely put off people who would have wanted to participate in discussion.But over time, the Internet has made it progressively easier and easier to do this; people who would have found USENET arcane to use, and only located mailing lists with difficulty, found it easier when fora started being a thing you could easily access from the Web.  In some respects Discords and things like FB groups make it even easier (though both have issues with large groups).That seriously just was a sea change.I'm agnostic about whether hate is more common, but I'm absolutely certain its more easy for more of them to talk to each other, and to intrude into areas they previously would have been unlikely to find.  And its for the same reason its easier for people in minority groups to make contact and interact than it used to be.  Its a two-edged sword.</blockquote>

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