My experience on this platform has been mixed so far but one thing I’ve noticed the most is a significant contingent of the user base is really reactionary in their discourse.
This is a very typical exchange I have here :
User: I don’t like this color because it’s red.
Me: I don’t know, looks more like purple to me. What about red is bad?
User: Why don’t you fuck yourself in the face you fucking cuntfuck!
Me: OK…
Like, what gives? I don’t have this experience on other platforms. I have arguments but never this shutdown meccanism.
I wasn’t sure what you meant, so I decided to check your profile and see if I could find some examples you responded to… And I learned a lot about you in the process. You sent a single person a lot of “why are you angry” comments. You get into a LOT of arguments on politics subreddits, and even defended Kyle Rittenhouse. You noted that you need to tell people you’re left wing, because the things you say convince them you’re not.
At a certain point, the reason why so see so many angry people might be that you’re the one pissing them off. Or at the very least, you’re seeking them out.
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
I could be an asshole. I won’t debate that. Maybe I am.
My point isn’t to claim I’m not an asshole. My point is compared to other spaces the vitriol and anger here seems ramped to 100.
I think what you’re experiencing is people here being less tolerant of your assholery.
I’m Ok with that. It seems to come up in benign comments too. Thats why I was curious. I’ll own the asshole position and declare myself a loser. I’m not offended by that.
I wasn’t necessarily calling you an asshole, it’s just a quote that represents what the other commenter was talking about.
To answer your initial question, I haven’t personally noticed Lemmy being more toxic than other platforms like it. Most conversations I’ve had have been pleasant. But I tend to avoid commenting on hot button topics. You commented on a topic that people feel strongly about and got angry comment replies. I wouldn’t say that necessarily represents the site as a whole. But both of our experiences are anecdotal so it’s difficult to say which is more common.
I think you’re right. Hot button topics are just to be avoided I guess or fare repercussion.
How can we avoid being captured by epistemic bubbles though? That’s the part that scares me.
I don’t disagree. I did do that. I also did get into a few arguments, it my statements were pretty benign. I never once insulted anyone. I welcome everyone to look at my interactions with yeet (and others). Is the response proportional? You decide.
We did, and we told you what was up.
🤷♂️
Yes, terrible to “attack” the poor guy like that. He’s just concerned for the level of the discourse, poor thing.
If you take antagonistic positions and argue with folks you’re going to get responses like that. You probably have anywhere from 50 to 1500 people read that response and the chances of your words being the straw that broke any one of their backs is fairly decent.
We all have bad days. I block a fair number of people on here for being antagonistic pricks - even if they do so couched under the veil of reasonableness - because that isn’t why I come here. But other people choose violence. And I can understand.
Good point. Thanks.