Anonymity and group think are serious fucking drugs here - a lot of people struggle with empathy normally but even more fail to empathize across the internet. We’re all fucking people at the end of the day but some folks struggle to see other usernames as anything but “the other”.
Additionally this thread + comment system rewards extremism and controversy over reason and nuance - its much faster to absorb a comment of someone dunking on someone else than reading a well thought out of comment… the highest votes tend to go to shorter simpler statements.
Violence is inherently simple and easy to comprehend - it’s extreme and edgy - and it’s something a lot of us constantly see on these devices when playing video games. A lot of people who espouse it on the internet don’t mentally equate advocacy for violence with actual physical violence or can’t really comprehend what actual physical violence looks and feels like.