Mocking old folks who are worried about paying their bills?

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. It's a mean time on the board in general

Lots of very mean-spirited people saying lots of very mean things about lots of other people. It does not seem restricted to one group or the other. That said, I have seen plenty of people mocking the other DU factions - and this is the worst factionalism the board has ever seen - but not much of this mocking of the poor. I suppose I get that people making the claim immediately identify themselves as The Poor in order to pretend that the meanness coming their way is directed at The Poor (a more rhetorically effective victim strategy than seeing it as what it is, mockery directed at some online opponents for being online opponents). People aren't "mocking the poor," even in that thread: they're mocking the other online group that is, incidentally, also mercilessly mocking them, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth - the glories of our new and improved system of "civility" - a catastrophe. This particular type of dishonesty (pretending that mockery of online adversaries is mockery of poor and needy), I'll admit, bothered me more earlier, when it was first used, but it has become a tiresome commonplace, so one can only roll one's eyes at it and hope this place gets better. It can't get much worse.