Well, I do think that Reddit is a bad place to look if you are looking for a site that actively attempts to retain a high quality of discourse especially site-wide.

What I gather is that "decent" is a very subjective ideal. What some of us find to be reasoned discourse is dismissed as small minded bigotry and lack of perspective by others, what is deemed valid criticism by some is seen as baiting and troublemaking by the opposition. We all tend to operate in extremes.

I think you're spot on with this.

My question is this; can you still call yourself a decent person if your go to response is seemingly always silence?

Is this basically, "Is Reddit and/or its moderaters really a decent site/decent people if they don't do anything in the face of the really nasty stuff?"

I think that Reddit tries to cover its ass legally when it becomes apparent that Reddit might need to. And otherwise I think they don't want to interfere. I don't think that makes them decent people, I think it makes them very self-interested.

Good things can arise from such freedoms but also, very very bad things, as you've observed.

where does the belief that we're all decent human beings online come from?

Because people believe we're all decent human beings offline, and they don't consider that perhaps there's a difference or a loss in such an idea when we take it virtual. This does present an interesting question of "does being online make us less human?" Which could go all sorts of fun ways. We know that taking the face, and the voice out of interactions makes them less personal: that's why people these days love texting and hate the phone, and eye contact is so hard, and etc.

I think it's easier to be mean, and/or do nothing, online. For the lack of personalization and the anonymity everyone is trumpeting on about. But just because it is easier to be mean and more people are mean, does not mean that as a whole humanity is more bad. Maybe?