You’re wrong. Completely wrong on so many levels. This is all about engagement. That whole “too enlightened to engage” attitude is exactly how the right managed to take over so much of the online space. Right-wing think tanks and PR firms invested in engagement, nonstop posts, repetition, platform saturation. And it worked.

People see the same ideas echoed over and over again, and eventually it shapes how they think. That’s why regular, everyday people, people who aren’t even political start parroting right-wing talking points. Even my kids and their friends are saying this stuff.

It’s not because they believe it. It’s because that’s what they see. All the time.

The reason it’s gotten this bad? A whole chunk of people on the left thought disengaging was smart. That if they just ignored it, it would go away. It didn’t. It spread. And now we’re here.

Part of being intelligent is being social. Being social means we mirror and sometimes go with the crowd. That’s just how it is. Which means if you think people are intelligent, it means it also should understand they will be susceptible to certain things like this. I think it’s a sign of intelligence to be susceptible to certain things like this because these tactics are built on the idea that groups of people share similar social habits. Shared social habits is a sign of intelligence. It’s anti social people who failed to socialize that are harder to manipulate.

I remember a study once showing that you can skew the views of any group if only 10% of that group change their opinion.

I think this is really important here because if you’re on an social media and you see nothing but right wing views, I think it does influence lots of people. This is why I get so mad seeing attitudes suggesting we should all just ignore it all like it’s a waste of time.

Wasn’t one of the phone companies found to be purposely slowing down older phones with each new update

So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?

It’s stuff like this why people in real life all share the same opinion on trans issues and other right wing issues. It’s this stuff that has allowed their arguments to spread. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what you were supposed to be doing. You gave them a red carpet and helped contribute to the spread of their propaganda by disengaging. Changing their opinion was not ever said as a goal. You need to challenge their opinion to show it is badly formed. If it isn’t then you need to evaluate yours.

I would say never disengage. We’ve all lost so much disengaging especially if the argument is difficult. It leaves the argument unchallenged and if you can’t answer it and you feel strongly about trans issues what did you think someone casually viewing it would think.

We need better arguments and we need honesty. If it’s a good argument, it’s a good argument denying it out of feels only weakens the entire thing.

Lemmy is filled with people who gave the right a red carpet treatment. Probably the last place we should ask questions about engagement to.

It’s like asking r/relationship about relationship advice. It’s a terrible idea

But like what if we just had schools present the work. Then the work force was reasonable for testing if a candidate’s knowledge was acceptable. This way the onus is on the student. If they don’t learn, that’s on them. Professors are there to give work and grade in the sense that they challenge students to be critical of their own work. Did they cite, are the arguments logical or poor. Did they meet or exceed expectations. If they cheated… I think I see the problem. Hmmm not sure I just think maybe school should be less a mill and more about the responsibility of the student and that the workforce is responsible for determining if someone has the skills. We’ve just really relied on education system for something it isn’t. It’s really a glorified daycare that business offloaded some responsibility on to

Oh you got me. You’re right. People online are very in touch with reality

Don’t let the random deter you online. The online crowd are very out of touch

Maybe we need a new way to approach school. I don’t think I agree with turning education into a competition where the difficulty is curved towards the most competitive creating a system that became so difficult that students need to edge each other out any way they can.

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Saddam insane isn’t going to be happy about this

I have never known a North American protest to succeed at anything in my lifetime.

Yea this is what I’m hearing from my dad as well. He’s tuned into right wing media.

There was a time when it use to be that I was more informed then him. Something has changed. Hanging out on left wing social spaces has put me so far behind the information curve.

On left wing spaces I see a lot of angry reactions but nothing really informative about a current event. But then I talk to my dad and he’s got all these facts which I argue like an asshole only to find out my sources were lacking not his. It’s so frustrating.

Found some information

https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1lbggh1/i_found_vance_boelter_on_a_website_that_is_now/

My right leaning dad is saying this today. They’re being told the Iranian military is doing to seize control

They’re fucking brainwashed. They equate just protesting with some victory in their heads. No matter how small, every protest is some achievement

That’s not working. Just talking about it isn’t an accomplishment. Fuck

I listen to a bunch of media everyday but it’s not like we have a platform to share it with each other. Like if I found a decent Sam Seder clip, where am I posting it?

Yeah, people create stuff online without getting paid all the time. We literally built the Internet that way. Go back to the early days forums, blogs, dumb memes, personal websites, fan videos none of that was about money. People made stuff just to share it, to be part of something, or just because they wanted to.

It’s only after financial incentives got introduced ads, sponsorships, “influencer” money that everything started getting worse. Suddenly it’s all algorithm-chasing. Everyone’s copying each other, following trends, tweaking thumbnails, timing posts. The content got way more polished, surebut also way more boring. It’s all the same stuff over and over.

So yeah, people deserve to get paid if that’s what they want. But pretending like people only create if they’re paid is just wrong. Humans naturally create. Always have. We write songs, we draw, we tell jokes. Money didn’t start that, it ruined it. It made it a job. It made it about likes and reach and SEO. It turned the internet into a shopping mall.

Now everything online feels fake. Safe. Recycled. All because the moment you attach money to something, people start optimizing for profit instead of originality. That’s the trade-off.

There’s a whole place here called fuck AI. It’s people’s entire identity now. So yes