I have been noticing a lot of invective on the internet recently. Well, maybe not all that recently, it has been going on for some time. Some people do not engage in polite conversation on the internet. Or at least both parties do not. Sometime during the discussion, when one party decides they are not getting their point across, they resort to cussing, put downs and threats. I have experienced this myself, though I usually just back out of the conversation and block all notices of it. Recently, in a discussion of concealed carry, a young man from Russia, who couldn’t keep from crowing about his mastery of ‘self defense techniques’, threatened to push my gun up my ass. Of course, my gun was no threat to him at the range of thousands of miles, as his ‘self defense techniques’ were no threat to me at the same range. In another post by a friend, again about firearms, the anti-gun supporter voiced his wish that the government would kill the pro-gun poster and all his ilk, in no uncertain terms or language. I seem to remember things being a little more civil when I was growing up, a time before the internet and personal computers. That may just be my faulty memory, but I think not. There were societal controls on public comments at that time that no longer exist. If you wanted to post a review or a comment that people would see you had to go through the newspaper or some other publication. They would not print some of the words that make up the majority of internet replies these days. And your name was attached to the comment, so everyone knew who you were.
Robert E Howard said, in his famous Conan series, “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” Anonymity makes people brave enough to say things online that they wouldn’t say to the local drug dealer or street fighter down at the local bar. People post their names, or at least what they want us to think are their names. They’re still protected by the fact that most of us don’t want to spend to time and effort to find out who they really are. Or they are separated from us by enough distance that, like the young man in Russia, they have no fear that we are going to track them down and do violence to them. Of course most of us wouldn’t really do violence to them even if they lived across the street from us, though there are people in the world who would travel those thousands of miles to do just that. But mostly they post with impunity.
The biggest problem with these trolls is that they seem to have unlimited time to post, unlike those of us actually doing something productive. I have found the best strategy to deal with them is to make one final post telling them what you think of them, without resorting to their level of invective, ending the message with a statement that you are getting off that thread or blocking them, and ending with a goodbye. After that I simply leave the thread, after making sure that I no longer receive notification of their comments, or blocking them. Then, they are welcome to post as much as they want. It makes no difference to me what they have to say after that, and I am sure it pisses them off that I am no longer reading their posts.
Doug BrotherofCats Dandridge 
The REH quote hit the nail on the head. People have become extremely nasty thanks to the “freedom” from consequences that the anonymity of the Internet provides them. And if not the anonymity then the distances protect them.
Right on the button…people don’t try to win arguments with logic anymore…it’s all about name calling esp since they are now anonymous!!
Sir: I have just finished reading you Book, Ranger. It was quite a good read. You thoughts on ground combat as individual Rangers is pretty good!! I hope to see you write some Ground combat with Main Battle Tanks in it.
Though there is one thing that I would have liked to see in the book, at the end when The family adops Rebecka you did not allow for her to have a Bat Mitzva as you said she was 13 years of age. That is the age that most Jews go through that age event.
Thank you. Hadn’t really thought of the Bat Mitzva, though I could say that she really lost most of her religious beliefs during the story. When I bring her back in future books I will have to revisit her religion and see where she is then. Tank battles? Tonight I was writing a scene from book six which had heavy infantry in the attack with supporting main battle tanks. Only a little bit on the tanks though. Maybe more in a latter scene.
When you do start to think about the Ground fighting with Main Battle Tanks, Think about Hammers Slammers By David Drake or even better would be to use a type of BOLO like Keith Laumer?
I find that anonymity or not, people are just less civilized these days. Everyone is in such a hurry that they have to get past you in line, on the road, in school,in business or wherever. The need for instant gratification has multiplied a thousand fold since the internet became mainstream. If there is no need to for information, why wait for anything?
Well, all of this is fun, but when is Volume 6 coming out?
By the way, I think surface tanks would have a very big advantage over spacecraft. I think the biggest problem for a spacecraft would be finding a heat sink for the heat generated by its power plant. Space is close to a vacuum. So, getting rid of heat would be an issue. A tank could just wade into a shallow lake and have all the heat sink he needed. Of course, the tank would have to disguise itself. But, you could do this with visual plates, radar absorbers, or just going into a lake so only the weapons would show. Also, a tank could generate chemical laden fog to block radar. With abig energy weapon, a tank could take out spaceships as they orbit.
Hopefully 6 will be out by the middle or end of April. Poul Anderson, one of my favorites, wrote about the advantages of planet based weaponry versus spaceships, with the planetary weapons having the clear advantage. Unfortunately, planetary weapons, whether fixed or mbile, can’t patrol the space lanes. I know I ignore the problem of heat, with only a little mention, assuming that somehow that problem will be solved. How? If I knew that I could retire tomorrow.
I think the wormhole heat sinks are a great solution to the problem of heat dissipation. They are pretty self-explanatory and they make sense.
Doug, You just need a bigger gun with orbital characteristics. The implied threat is always the best threat. Until you run into people with no imaginations, at which point you get to pull the trigger!