Comment on The best thing *you* can do for the fediverse is *just be kind*
Cris_Color@lemmy.world 1 week agoIts definitely rough, I can understand why. I live in the US and as a queer person whose loved ones are almost all minorities the outlook is feeling pretty bleak, but its definitely frustrating that it feels like even slightly different left wing ideas, or thoughts on what we do about our problems can spawn flamewars.
Literally with people you’re in the exact same camp with :/ I’m also big on political debate, I think democracy can’t function unless people can discuss with eachother what problems we have and what we think we should do about them. (And yes, I know we increasingly may not have much of democracy here in the US. I still think my statement is true of how democracy functions in general)
I think it’s really valuable to learn how people arive at worldviews other than mine.
missingstring@retrolemmy.com 1 week ago
Yeah. So much of our social media is structured to reinforce being combative. Even the upvote/downvote feature of Reddit/Lemmy etc has this effect of rewarding performativity over substance. People start competing for points and start to interpret high point totals as the equivalent of winning an argument or saying something of substance.
Since it’s a lot easier to get upvotes if you’re pithy or snarky or unserious the whole mechanism that underpins this tech tilts people toward simplistic and aggressive rhetoric.
I don’t want to get too “the medium is the message” here and complexity in political discussions (or any discussions really) have been decreasing generation over generation - so it’s not just a social media problem. But social media seems to have broken so many of the traditional guardrails we’ve had against demagoguery. It’s going to take a lot to unwind it.
Cris_Color@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I agree. You can get a lot of positive reinforcement from sincere positive engagement (this post gave me lots, lol 😅) but it’s exhausting work compared to just making a snide jab. And that really does profoundly shape peoples behavior over time.
I’m a BIG believer in the idea that the medium makes the message, and how we design the mechanics of this space shapes how we behave. Erin kissane has talked about that some in her work studying the fediverse and it’s really stuck with me.