A new study links partisan activity on the Internet to widespread online toxicity, revealing that politically-engaged users exhibit uncivil behavior even in non-political discussions. The findings are based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of comments from over 6.3 million Reddit users.
I’m fairly political myself, and it takes pretty hefty amounts of effort to remind myself to let things go and try to just keep a respectable level of discourse. And I still fuck it up all the time.
A lot of it is mechanical. I have far fewer tools here than I do with irl political activism, I can’t use facial expression or tone or anything. So it almost feels like negative sarcasm replaces all that or something, I don’t really know, I’ll have to think about it awhile.
It’s also fucked. Like, what are we supposed to do? This is the only form of protest that some of us have. I don’t have the ability to get out and protest. I don’t have the ability to be an activist, I have a family that I need to take care of.
I know that change comes from political discourse, and we’ve VERY CLEARLY seen that has worked towards the Republicans benefit (reg. redpilling, QAnon, etc.). It’s the only way I know that I can fight back against that insanity.
Cultural change is slow, but it ultimately wins the war, and the best thing that I can do is be on the right slide of it. I understand that you win over more people by being nice, but my comments arent to “win” over the person I’m talking to…they are the “example”, and my argument is primarily for the hundreds of people that will ultimately read the post.
the religulous have a pretty sweet deal for themselves at this point. They don’t have to pay attention to anything except their favorite liars because anything else makes them uncomfortable, and if you try to talk to them legitimately, they go all special snowflake the second you let slip a profane word representing how strongly you feel and just totally stop listening. It’s worse than talking to children, at least children are trying to understand you some of the time. These people start from a place of dishonesty and never leave it.
Yep, I completely believe it.
I’m fairly political myself, and it takes pretty hefty amounts of effort to remind myself to let things go and try to just keep a respectable level of discourse. And I still fuck it up all the time.
A lot of it is mechanical. I have far fewer tools here than I do with irl political activism, I can’t use facial expression or tone or anything. So it almost feels like negative sarcasm replaces all that or something, I don’t really know, I’ll have to think about it awhile.
It’s also fucked. Like, what are we supposed to do? This is the only form of protest that some of us have. I don’t have the ability to get out and protest. I don’t have the ability to be an activist, I have a family that I need to take care of.
I know that change comes from political discourse, and we’ve VERY CLEARLY seen that has worked towards the Republicans benefit (reg. redpilling, QAnon, etc.). It’s the only way I know that I can fight back against that insanity.
Cultural change is slow, but it ultimately wins the war, and the best thing that I can do is be on the right slide of it. I understand that you win over more people by being nice, but my comments arent to “win” over the person I’m talking to…they are the “example”, and my argument is primarily for the hundreds of people that will ultimately read the post.
the religulous have a pretty sweet deal for themselves at this point. They don’t have to pay attention to anything except their favorite liars because anything else makes them uncomfortable, and if you try to talk to them legitimately, they go all special snowflake the second you let slip a profane word representing how strongly you feel and just totally stop listening. It’s worse than talking to children, at least children are trying to understand you some of the time. These people start from a place of dishonesty and never leave it.