Unpopular Opinion

This is a popular opinion, but only because most Lemmy users think this post isn't about them.

I think something one might learn over time from different sites styled like reddit and lemmy is that they are not monoliths,

There is a comment above that says the same thing, but in practice, think about it like, any give post attracts both people that agree, and disagree with it, generally strongly. The vast majority don't engage with it.

Because of this the opinions seem both stronger, and more common. But realize that any given comment thread is a microscopic percent of even the highly active users, and always a biased sample.

With regards to echo chambers, this is why I personally oppose blocklists or how on reddit you can make something 'private'. Pretending something that is problematic doesn't exist does nothing to deal with the problem. I see this as fundamentally how r/TheDonald came to be, and reedit was fundamental in building the modern white nationalist movement. Through blocking and going private, r/TheDonald shielded itself from outside criticism, so that users didn't see alternative view points, and specifically, were protected from open mockery. Originally the sub started as a troll/ joke but quickly became the defacto headquarters of the largest funnel for white nationalism the internet has ever seen. It might seem a bit over the top, but I argue that Trumps 2016 success would not have happened with out specifically r/TheDonald. Its why all of the 'truth social' and extended media took on a reddit style interactivity. It was the birthplace of the MAGA movement online. They morphed it into a self referential echo chamber, and used purity testing to filter out potential critics. Eventually it was banned entirely, but not until long after the damage was done.

So I don't agree that ideas should be shielded from criticism. The problem with that is without criticisms, they can take hold, and grow legs of their own. But at the same time, you shouldn't make too much of things when you see a strong binary online, because almost any internet discussion will be inherently polar (because only those who agree disagree with a principal or idea will be drawn to discuss it; 95% of everyone else just doesnt care).

I'm guessing this ban was on lemmy.ml? They'll ban you for not sucking Xi Jinping's peepee enthusiastially enough.

I disagree with you. I believe Lemmy is 100% immune to trolls and bad faith actors and I would like you to take the time to exhaustively disprove my contention, if you think you can. But I really doubt it.

Shout outs to all my homies in; l/ithinkbikesarenifty and all the losers in l/carssuck. I miss chatting will each and every one of you…

I think this is the new normal bud, at least here in America (god bless)… the Age of Enlightenment has passed. Find your corner and tune up your yelling voice.

Thing is, I don’t think anybody ever actually wants discussion or debate, we just all want to win our share of arguments. Sometimes with good open debate minds accidentally get changed, but that’s not what we show up for, more of a happy accident.

That "let's talk about politics" always gets bad and become food for trolls. You can't expect to get treat well. The only thing you can do is to follow every trend and vote down the few others. Perhaps that helps to feel a little bit better over the day? Ok this may be negative.

Positive are groups about special interests eg Emacs. This are more hidden pearls with no trolling and banning. Perhaps if an aggressive Vim-User comes around? I don't know. 😆

Blocking makes it better here. After 6 weeks blocking every day a lot, it's nice here now. Would be nice a user could block hole instances. Or blocking with filters. Eg Musk or some flags. What ever you want.

People that come here are malcontents pretty much by definition. And boy does it show.

I don't think it's worse, but that's only because, as far as responses from trolls and bad faith actors go, I'd rather get screeds from lunatic extremists than pseudo-leftist establishment dogma boiled down to little pieces of emotive rhetoric that are just mindlessly regurgitated over and over by bots and humans-who-might-as-well-be-bots.

Mastodon's got some professional machiavellian gaslighters on it, I promise you.

Until some Fediverse portion grows spine-enough, and methodical-systematic-process-enough, to mitigate the malevolent, then they always will win.

That's how Natural Selection works.

That's why most natural/wild mammals are filled with parasites & things, in their "utopian heaven".

We do have the potential to do better, but it requires a bedrock of spine & uprightness, of carefully blocking malevolence, & not-permitting it to own/torque our world.

I'll not "hold my breath" waiting for it.

Considered-reason's the toughest position to hold-onto, as ALL ideology/prejudice wants it obliterated, left & right, theist-religion-ideologies & anti-theist-ideologies, ALL want their ideological/prejudice supremacism.

The Great Filter, it is called: a world-species reaches adult-technology while still fundamentally unconscious-mind toddler.

Consequences are .. "expressed"/enforced.

I've been banned for

You've been banned for not running your own instance.