Just a meta thought on the community as a whole, but do we really want to ban all pro-Trump content here? I’d rather a chance to talk to a pro-Trumper in a serious way, to have even a slim chance to try to convince them to be anything else under the sun. Or even just leave some food for thought, that they can chew over, that just maybe could influence their vote.
I am aware this would open us up to trolls, which would constitute the majority of pro-Trump content, but one of the things I love about Lemmy is, we can handle trolls. I think many of us did our own trolling, in our younger years, which left us with a very particular skillset that most don’t have access to.
We can, sometimes, do what most others cannot, such as detect and counter particularly good trolls.
Anyways, I don’t really know. I’m always leery of things preventing supporters of different sides from talking to each other though. Perhaps pro-Trump posts could be banned, but pro-Trump comments allowed? So we can have that chance to actually engage with them and earnestly argue our own positions.
At the end of the day, though, I think we have very little to fear from talking to them. They’re not particularly well-known for making sound arguments that any of us would find very compelling. The facts are almost always on our side–we have a profound advantage there. I appreciate chances to utilize it, which are already pretty rare.
The problem is that even if you make the best argument ever, it’s still playing chess with a pigeon. And to a non-trivial number of people, shitting on the board is a compelling argument. So the balance is changing some number of minds vs the number of people that found the nonsense to be valid.
Better to not give them the space. They have their own platforms so there’s nothing wrong with having standards for your own.
I draw a very clear line between the shitting pigeons, and the people that fall for their bullshit, I guess. I want to talk to those people falling for it. I’m willing to deal with pigeons if absolutely necessary I suppose, if they have to come with the territory.
Problem is you only have the pigeon to speak to. Everything else is people listening. Online chat has a number of flaws, one being that you can’t interact directly with your real audience and you can’t adjust to what they are thinking and be compelling, because you have no feedback.
The only way to go about your intended crusade that doesn’t just expand the range in which the pigeon shits is to go to their spaces, and they just ban good faith arguments such as yours. Better effort is put to real people, not the faceless masses of the internet.
I think this is a fairly common misconception actually, that stems from the natural difficulty of determining intentions on here. Essentially, who is trolling and who isn’t? With it being so difficult, and such a new problem that currently lacks sound answers, it has become common to simply point at stupid sounding people and call them a troll.
The error of this is that the good trolls pick their battles very carefully. If they’ve been at it for any length of time, they’ve gotten into hundreds of discussions, and can quickly feel out which ones will be productive for them, and which ones won’t.
It’s the people they’re trying to manipulate that don’t have that skill yet that are reachable, because they’re not yet deeply into it. In many cases, they’re young teens that don’t actually want to be wrong, they’ve simply been misled. It’s fairly easy to tell, for a person with experience on that side of things, which is which though.
But simply bundling them all together based on position is more counterproductive, as it reinforces what they’re being fed. They’re not all the same, any more than we are.
I feel like there are lot of assumptions being made in general for this argument. In any case, I wish you well in your efforts, hopeless as I think they may be. It’d be nice if I’m wrong.
Not that specifically. I’m more concerned that for the one you convert, two go the other way. Obviously, it’s impossible to know the real number so it very well could be me being pessimistic and overcautious.
Yeah, it’s hard to define that one. Enter the paradox of tolerance (which is not a paradox, but I digress). Excluding them risks an echo chamber, welcoming them invites a general degradation of the space (see: literally every conservative space that devolves into rabid negativity). I think that it’s less about exclusion and more about a standard. Along the lines of “you can like Trump, but if you’re going to argue, do it in good faith or get out”. Stupid nuance, making things hard…
Just a meta thought on the community as a whole, but do we really want to ban all pro-Trump content here? I’d rather a chance to talk to a pro-Trumper in a serious way, to have even a slim chance to try to convince them to be anything else under the sun. Or even just leave some food for thought, that they can chew over, that just maybe could influence their vote.
I am aware this would open us up to trolls, which would constitute the majority of pro-Trump content, but one of the things I love about Lemmy is, we can handle trolls. I think many of us did our own trolling, in our younger years, which left us with a very particular skillset that most don’t have access to.
We can, sometimes, do what most others cannot, such as detect and counter particularly good trolls.
Anyways, I don’t really know. I’m always leery of things preventing supporters of different sides from talking to each other though. Perhaps pro-Trump posts could be banned, but pro-Trump comments allowed? So we can have that chance to actually engage with them and earnestly argue our own positions.
At the end of the day, though, I think we have very little to fear from talking to them. They’re not particularly well-known for making sound arguments that any of us would find very compelling. The facts are almost always on our side–we have a profound advantage there. I appreciate chances to utilize it, which are already pretty rare.
You’re prolly going to have some issues there as Trump supporters engaging in good faith would be hounded off pretty much anywhere they posted.
Probably, yes. I am fully aware that what I am asking is not in any way easy or pleasant.
The problem is that even if you make the best argument ever, it’s still playing chess with a pigeon. And to a non-trivial number of people, shitting on the board is a compelling argument. So the balance is changing some number of minds vs the number of people that found the nonsense to be valid.
Better to not give them the space. They have their own platforms so there’s nothing wrong with having standards for your own.
I draw a very clear line between the shitting pigeons, and the people that fall for their bullshit, I guess. I want to talk to those people falling for it. I’m willing to deal with pigeons if absolutely necessary I suppose, if they have to come with the territory.
Problem is you only have the pigeon to speak to. Everything else is people listening. Online chat has a number of flaws, one being that you can’t interact directly with your real audience and you can’t adjust to what they are thinking and be compelling, because you have no feedback.
The only way to go about your intended crusade that doesn’t just expand the range in which the pigeon shits is to go to their spaces, and they just ban good faith arguments such as yours. Better effort is put to real people, not the faceless masses of the internet.
I think this is a fairly common misconception actually, that stems from the natural difficulty of determining intentions on here. Essentially, who is trolling and who isn’t? With it being so difficult, and such a new problem that currently lacks sound answers, it has become common to simply point at stupid sounding people and call them a troll.
The error of this is that the good trolls pick their battles very carefully. If they’ve been at it for any length of time, they’ve gotten into hundreds of discussions, and can quickly feel out which ones will be productive for them, and which ones won’t.
It’s the people they’re trying to manipulate that don’t have that skill yet that are reachable, because they’re not yet deeply into it. In many cases, they’re young teens that don’t actually want to be wrong, they’ve simply been misled. It’s fairly easy to tell, for a person with experience on that side of things, which is which though.
But simply bundling them all together based on position is more counterproductive, as it reinforces what they’re being fed. They’re not all the same, any more than we are.
I feel like there are lot of assumptions being made in general for this argument. In any case, I wish you well in your efforts, hopeless as I think they may be. It’d be nice if I’m wrong.
You really think it’s hopeless to get through to even one? Or would that just not be worth it?
edit: Just out of curiosity, what do you see the benefit of this space as, with keeping them all out?
Not that specifically. I’m more concerned that for the one you convert, two go the other way. Obviously, it’s impossible to know the real number so it very well could be me being pessimistic and overcautious.
Yeah, it’s hard to define that one. Enter the paradox of tolerance (which is not a paradox, but I digress). Excluding them risks an echo chamber, welcoming them invites a general degradation of the space (see: literally every conservative space that devolves into rabid negativity). I think that it’s less about exclusion and more about a standard. Along the lines of “you can like Trump, but if you’re going to argue, do it in good faith or get out”. Stupid nuance, making things hard…
https://www.facebook.com/
https://www.twitter.com/
https://www.4chan.org/pol/catalog/
Go wild, keep it out of here.
If you have any clue what you’re talking about, you’d know they don’t like being preached to. They have to come to you.
Trust me, I know. This is not a debate community, it’s a circlejerk community. They can go elsewhere or lurk here.
I’ll be pretty surprised if there’s many lurkers coming by, when they can’t participate whatsoever. No point.