> What I do see people doing when they lack control is to attempt to gain control.
One way in which people gain (the feeling of) control is to imagine the world differently (superstition, conspiracy, religion) in a way that makes them virtuous or special and others not (i.e. essentially Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment). If you haven't the power to take part in a real struggle, this is not so surprising to me.
Perhaps the temptation is to choose philosophies that have the appearance of power. Sticking pins in a voodoo doll of your boss, Mr. Scrooge for example.
Some acquaintances of mine did that at their job once and it worked a charm. The boss was permanently off on sick leave within a month. Maybe there's something to it.
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
One way in which people gain (the feeling of) control is to imagine the world differently (superstition, conspiracy, religion) in a way that makes them virtuous or special and others not (i.e. essentially Nietzsche's idea of ressentiment). If you haven't the power to take part in a real struggle, this is not so surprising to me.