Why Internet Commenters Will Eventually End The World

Today I read an article by Justin Halpern about Why Internet Commenters Will Eventually End the World. If you have no idea who Justin Halpern is you’re probably more familar with the Shit My Dad Says Twitter account he created. If you don’t know what that is, then do yourself a favour and look it up. There are many life lessons to be learnt from the 140 character quotes.

In any case, this brought me to think about a very recent incident I had with my neighbour. Just a little background story, I co-own a small martial arts school that used to operate out of a local community centre. We kept the prices low so it’s affordable for families. In addition we also offer the occasional classes to the Coast Mental Health to help kids learn essential life skills in self-defense.  Due to space and cost constraints, we recently had to vacate the community centre and move into a un-used yoga studio space inside my own condo unit.

All of a suddent, without any warning I learnt that one of the residence in the building had complained about the classes. Keep in mind:

• the class sizes are very small (approx 5 students per class)
• the class only happen twice a week
• all students have Sport BC insurance for up to 2 Million
• all students are supervised at all times for access to the building
• the space is otherwise unused (but we still have to pay for through the Strata maintenace fee).
• classes are held on a designated excercise studio floor where there are no residences below us to complain about the noise

At no point in time did this person who complained attempted to speak with either myself nor the instructor, to avoid confrontation I can only imagine.

So, people now-a-days have zero accountability for their actions. And without the confrontation to teach them of the consequence otherwise, people in my generation never learn accountability. This is clearly demonstrated in the 2011 Vancouver Riot. Our martial arts school teaches students invaluable life and survival skills so they can better understand their own strength and weaknesses; skills that may one day save their lives, or the life of a loved one. Yet, for reasons I now will never know because the person did not have the human decency to speak with me in person, we are unable to provide that knowledge to these students.

To the person who complained, I do hope you read this and ask yourself if you truely did a good thing for your community. Or did you just deprive people of knowledge and skills because you felt that you were slightly inhibited. If you have children or loved ones, I hope they will never one day need the skills that we teach.