Think about it: you try reasoning with them, then get tired and block their noise from your feed, but all that does is reduces the presence of the ‘readonable minority’, allowing them to spew their rethoric to a more receptive audience. Socmed sucks.
Part of what makes Lemmy interesting is that so many people here disagree with me. I only block the profane ranting sort. I do, however, sometimes just stick to lighthearted topics for a while when I already have enough stress in my life.
I’m going to copy-paste a relevant post I made recently in response to a discussion about being baited by trolls:
My own rule is simple: I should only interact with another person online for as long as I enjoy doing so. Often I have a hard time letting someone else have the last word, especially when I feel insulted, but I’m getting good at it.
It helps to remember that many arguments are actually performances: the other guy isn’t really trying to learn anything or even to change your mind. He’s acting for an audience of people who already agree with him. When he repeats the things they want to hear, they praise him for owning the libs or something along those lines. There is never anything to be gained by being the patsy for that circle-jerk.
This is why I argue that votes should be hidden from everyone. Audience capture is one of the biggest issues on platforms like Lemmy. Many users feel like they’ve “won” an argument simply because their broad, nuance-free generalizations get upvoted by the masses.
To add to your point about avoiding engagement with certain types of users, one thing I’ve noticed that really sets some people off is when they take something I’ve said, draw their own extreme conclusions from it, and then start accusing me of something completely untrue. Instead of defending myself against these ridiculous accusations, I now either ignore them or stick firmly to the original point.
What’s fascinating is how often they double down, repeatedly trying to get me to explain why I’m not, for example, a Nazi. When I refuse to entertain their absurd line of reasoning, they seem to lose their minds.
100%
Look at this asshats interactions with me over the israel genocide before agreeing with this stupid fucking troll