Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at hoome. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is our weekly discussion thread!
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It’s hard isn’t it? I have similar instincts, although I can turn it off when I’m being trolled. Some people don’t want to be reached. They aren’t talking in good faith. They aren’t interested in what you have to say. They know what they are and are happy about it.
You might get hurt if you try to fix everyone. It’s okay not to fix them. It’s okay not to dunk on them, either. It’s okay to say your piece and leave them to think about it. They’ll either grow and develop. Or they won’t. Liberalism provides an answer to every rebuttal. It might be a shit answer, but it has one. Sometimes planting the seed of doubt is enough.
There’s a YouTube series that you might find helpful for reframing the way that you see the people you interact with and how you engage with them: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ . This video in particular may be useful to know what you’re up against: https://youtu.be/CaPgDQkmqqM . I hope this helps and I hope you don’t get too exhausted.
Oh I’ve seen alt right playbook plenty, its very good, but thank you very much anyway.
You’re welcome.
One thing that I have to do so as not to get drawn in is not so much touching grass but sorting by local by default and sorting by subscribed manually (and not subscribing to the news comms that attract liberals). That’s still the same kind of non-solution of ‘just don’t participate’. But at least it gives you some control over not sorting by all, so you can browse but limit how much you’re exposed to people who might exhaust you.
Another thing is sorting by new by default and popping in to new threads but not engaging. Then sort by hot/active/top XYZ to see which threads got a lot of comments. If you engage in the most active threads after comrades have made the trolls ‘show their cards’, it might be easier to identify who is best to avoid. Someone who deliberately misinterprets others isn’t going to be worth your time.
That doesn’t necessarily make it easier for you not to try to convert them: would you be able to not engage in the first place if you already knew the person was insincere?
Probably not. I went back and forth today with someone who was pretty obviously bad faith, but at least my empathy wasnt going off in that case because I didnt feel bad for them or anything.
In that case, at least know that while you’re talking to one person in particular, you might still be reaching a wider audience that is paying attention, even if they don’t engage.