Trying to argue with conservatives.
All that they’re great at is detouring, distancing, playing down, doubling-tripling down, disassociating, strawmen and more illogical fallacies. They can’t take up an honest debate unless there are rules in place that gives them any outs from being pressed when confronted with questions they can’t give truthful answers to.
Really trying to change anyone’s mind online. I’ve just given up trying to debate evil, I just try to make people laugh at them now.
how do you know you’re not the evil one?
You’re very perceptive, clearly I could not deceive you. You play mind games well, so you must be Machiavellian. But Machiavelli hated the cynicism of realpolitik, so a fan of his writing clearly cannot be Machiavellian. So I must be the evil one.
I’m just getting started! Your username is funny, so you must have a sense of humour. Funny people tend to lean left, because comedy is an act of empathy! But it references frogs, which became right wing iconography last decade so you clearly are not a leftist!
I’ve decided. I’ll drink from my cup. Oh, look what’s that!
it’s not a mind game dude.
the people you think as evil, don’t think they are evil. they think they are good and you are evil.
if you get away from the stupid bilary of ‘good/evil’ you might better understand that life is more about what goals other people want and what they are willing to do to accomplish them.
You think Trump is evil probably, but for those that support him he is doing justice and truth to the world and fighting for good, because it’s the leftist/liberal forces that are causing evil.
the funny thing about life is most people think you are good… until you disagree with them or try to get in the way of their goals. Then you are evil.
Moral relativism detected - luckily I am already being hilarious. You’ll never catch me slipping, Satan.
who is your authority for morality? God?
I never said I’d discuss that with you, stop acting weird. 😐
true i’ve had discourse about communism and israel on here and people are not discussing anything
just stating their beliefs over and over
Lot of agendaposters online these days. It’s the easiest way to do that job I guess
I used to think peoples minds can be changed on internet, but your comment made see that i was wrong.
No you didn’t!
Fuck you he fucking did. You’re like Hitler or something
If I’m Hitler then you’re about to be Poland, you utter bastard! Get over here! Where’s my Scorpion… Thing… One sec
My mind has been changed at times, from online discussions. At least adding to my considerations and thoughts.
I hope I’m not considered evil though, maybe this comment was directed only at that kind of subset.
You don’t sound evil, do we know each other? Lmfao don’t worry about it
No, we don’t. Just a cheeky reply because your comment broadly said “anyone online”. :)
Yeah, everything OP says about arguing with conservatives applies to arguing with any other group with entrenched views. The problem is that each of those groups will insist that their own views aren’t “entrenched”, they’re just reasonable.
Social media is largely designed to group people together into like-minded communities, so you find this everywhere. Here in the Fediverse too, though of course we here in the Fediverse will insist that contrary to all those other social media platforms we’re open and diverse and not susceptible to that sort of thing.
Personally, I’ve found that one can overcome the sense of futility by reframing the debate. When I debate with someone online it’s not to change their views, because that’s basically impossible (it rarely happens but I don’t count on it). Instead, the point of debate is to try to win over the casual onlookers who aren’t participating directly. They aren’t likely to have as much of a dog in the fight and so are more amenable to having those “huh, I hadn’t thought of it that way” reactions.
The one nice thing about the Fediverse over Reddit in this regard, IMO, is the fact that we can see both the upvote and downvote count. So even if a comment of mine is being hammered with 93 downvotes I can still see that there were 18 upvotes and think to myself “at least a few people got what I was saying here.”
I’m sorry, the notion that the Fediverse has diversity of thought is actually laughable. Not just about politics.
A very specific type of person goes here.
deleted by creator
I’ve had my share of boos and hisses in my time as a jokey internet commenter. When I really bomb, knowing a few people laughed is a consolation. Reddit is just so alienating now
Well I mean it stands to reason you’re most likely arguing with paid actors using Persona Management software to have hundreds of such conversations in unison, so it’s a moot point because they’re being paid to prevent minds from being changed on subject X.
Honestly I feel like AI progression was just a cover for what was originally updated Persona Management where the human has to do even less to keep the consensus cracking and topic dilution ongoing.
Hey everyone look at this guy trying to make others laugh
/s
Ah that sweet sweet attention I would never admit to wanting. Like manna from heaven.
Hahaha!
…;)
Tbf, nobody is gonna convince me of anything now. Most of my beliefs are formed independent of the internet. From logics and some empathy.
None of the bigoted xenophobic shit aint ever gonna sway me. Nor the tankie stuff.
Lived experiences is more powerful than some texts on a screen.
This is part of the problem. If two people engage in open debate and neither of them can be convinced to change their minds about anything, then what exactly is the point?
I will listen to people and engage with their arguments, and remain openminded to be convinced. Life isn’t that simple and believing you know all the answers is naive.
Problem is I read comments from 3 separate users in the past few days that literally got banned within 24 hours for being a LLM bot lmao (read the modlogs, its getting crazier these days)
I would guess you didn’t live in Gaza, but you still have an idea of what is happening there. Of course if you did live there, it would likely take precedence over what you read about it.
You don’t actually need to take decisions about Gaza, so you could just ignore it. But you will need to take a decision about a cancer you’ve never lived before, and you will need to to use other people’s experiences about it to make that decision.
You are currently living by the “don’t put your fingers in the socket” rule, and you (likely) never tried it. You (likely) don’t understand why, or how bad it would actually be, but you’re following it, and it is a good thing for everyone involved.
Using other people’s expressed experience is absolutely necessary for your everyday life, and you will do it even if you don’t want to. Figuring out exactly how to deal with the mistakes and contradictions and lies gets complicated, and is a fundamental subject in science
The comment I replied to:
Key word: “online”
If I met them in person, I’d be more inclined to listen to them.
Oh, why so? Less likely to be a bot?
I think it’s just easier to be honest and not lie to someone to their face in real life. The ability to have your facial expressions be read and having to respond in a timely manner or admit you’re not sure is much more likely to make people argue in an honest manner
People not having as much time to “decide” to go for bad faith is interesting
I wonder if someone made an actual list of observed differences in behavior IRL and online, with the same discussion as input.
I guess people would tend to simply refuse to interact with the discussion, but they would have the same things to say, right? Like, they don’t have different opinions online and IRL. If you were giving people as much time and “confidentiality” to think and express their thoughts (which are generally seen as good things), it should look similar. Basically I think the online assholes would also be IRL assholes if you let them talk in similar conditions.
Anyways, there are differences, but I don’t see any causes for “don’t ever listen to anything due to this”
Everyone has a latitude of openness to new beliefs. They can be narrow, but it’s important to be mindful. Being entirely immovable is not only impossible, but maladaptive
That said, it’s a rare thing when a single argument is able to shift a person’s opinion. Opinions form over time and change over time, nobody ever reads just one manifesto and goes “oh, I guess I’m a communist now.”
That could be a bird’s-eye view of social judgment theory, basically the idea that successive pitches to a person’s latitude of non-commitment are the mechanism by which firm stances can change over time.
I disagree.
Okay, ready? Everyone point at them and laugh.
Good, that was our goal all along!