Honestly, for the person I responded to, doing literally nothing would have been better. I'm not suggesting we give people cookies for changing their minds [or whatever]. I'm just saying that being unconstructively critical is actively pushing against the kind of change and progress I would assume someone taking the position they are taking would want. Unless that's not the objective and they are in fact trying to maintain the divide. That is possible. But assuming everyone is a bot or astroturfer is no way to live. Not hitting Post is always an option.
Llamalitmus
joined 2 years ago
I think community organizing is the key. Whether it is direct participation, or supporting local/independent initiatives, or trying to influence the established parties in your area. The bad actors thrive on division, misinformation, inaction, and apathy. And the common refrain is that people don't have the resources, time or bandwidth to educate themselves or to contribute. More people need to see the redistribution of wealth upwards as a form of control. Measures that erode workers rights, equality, etc. further disempowers anyone not in the upper echelons [even those in the upper class but not in the ruling class]. We need to be willing to make sacrifices/concessions if it will benefit those with fewer advantages than ourselves specifically because they make up the foundations that allow us to exist as high up the chain as we currently are [even if that doesn't feel very high]
Given what they said regarding disagreeing with Trump's current actions, why did you feel like your response was the best way to engage?
After the repeated examples over the last decade, I think everyone in the world should have learned by now that shame, aggression, and shade dripping with schadenfreude doesn't change opinions or actions.
If you are truly concerned about making things worse for others, you might want to examine the way you interact with other human beings. Because the short term dopamine isn't worth contributing to the division that's been made worse by targeted, algorithmic influence.
We are all being fed a curated version of reality designed to appeal to our biases and stoke fear and outrage. I think we need to learn to show some grace to people who we don't fully agree with, who are trying to reach across the divide, and who might be coming to terms with the ways in which they may have been misled or caught up in an enticing movement.
And I'm not saying this is easy. It certainly isn't satisfying. I love barbed and bitter witicisms. Being shitty to someone who I feel deserves it scratches this itch in my brain that I am neither proud of, nor can deny. But it's also the definition of being selfish, since it helps no one. So idk, you do you I guess?
How is that not a start? In a world where we are fighting just to agree that a problem exists, acknowledging the problem is a step in the right direction. Is it worth celebrating? No. But saying it's not even a start is intellectually dishonest. [To say nothing of invoking the harm caused by a mob, incited by grifters, and assigning the responsibility to an individual]
And who said anything about being sympathetic? Do you have to sympathize with a person to not go out of your way to be shitty to them? [If so, that might be something you want to interrogate in yourself]
And again, I'm not saying your anger, frustration, and/or indignation is unwarranted. But none who breathe are wholly innocent. I don't know anything about you, but I think it is a safe assumption that, if you live in a western country, your family history does not go back more than 4-5 generations wherever you're living. You likely live on colonized land. [And if not that, then some other industrialized atrocity you are complicit in?] What work have you done to fix that harm? What sympathy should be granted to you, should you ever be called to account? I'm not suggesting you need to do anything other than have some restraint and decency. Is that such a radical or outrageous thing?