I go more for ‘tiresomely cynical’, but whatever.
IMO online commenters are increasingly showing pathological binary thinking - the attitude that there are exactly two sides to every issue - the Right one and the Wrong one. Questioning ANY aspect of the Right one means you’re obviously a hardcore supporter of EVERY aspect of the Wrong one. You’re either morally and ethically pure or your character is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. To me it’s a really paradoxical way of thinking about diversity and acceptance - more like we’re supposed to either wholeheartedly embrace people or despise them.
This is usually how people treat fascists. Not sure what’s surprising about it
Age group…
IMO, the reason is because scientists haven’t found a way to punch someone in their face over the internet yet.
They send SWAT teams to their houses, which is pretty close.
I’ve long thought that phones needed a taze button. Every telephone in the world should have the power to deliver a high power electric shock to the user, and the phone network should only allow the callee to taze the caller. So if you call someone, the person you have called can taze you.
I don’t see any problem with the telephone network that can’t be solved by putting a 30,000 volt potential across the caller’s jaw. Make it work on call bots too, if a computer automatically calls you and you don’t want it to, put Shearon Harris on the line. Modern problems require 2nd Amendment solutions, and if you elect me as your president in 2028 it is these policies that I shall energetically enact.
I like to carry an air horn for when scammers and other nuisances call.
How often do you have to go get the mics on your phone replaced?
Not yet. 😂
Dang! Some decent hardware then! How bout your own hearing? Getting tinnitus yet? What level of hearing protection are you using?
Fuck you!
I won’t do what you tell me.
Fuck you and I’ll see you tomorrow!
Misclicked
I’m not your you, buddy!
I have. I honestly try not to be. There’s just so many uncaring shits online. It makes me sick to think of how fucked up these trolls are to relish causing others distress. Then I become a dick
I’m trying to be better
There’s just so many uncaring shits online.
I wonder how much “hate” on the internet is this… but the reality is that is how you “see” them in your head rather than what they’re actually saying/believe. A lot of negative responses to some of the things I say is a strawman of what I actually believe/said.
Yeah see, I don’t buy that. I can say things in a less than PC way, but it takes tow to argue. If I don’t make an effort to be understood, I can’t be pissed when I’m not
And since I can’t force others do that, I can only do what I can
We are all responsible for what we say , good and bad
But thank you for sharing, sincerely
but it takes tow to argue
Eh… It really doesn’t though does it? One side can be sincerely stating points of fact/logic and others often can and do often ascribe that as “you’re a terrible person for saying that!”.
We are all responsible for what we say , good and bad
Good and bad are subjective though. There is often no black and white. I often cite and source things to show that I’m not stating anything as a matter of opinion… and out of the blue some rando comes out and tries ascribing some sense of moral straw-man claiming that I must believe something or another. Here’s an example from literally last night…
I made no statement that could even be construed as putting words in other people’s mouths… yet someone straw-manned me by definition (and didn’t even know the word for it) by Smee there trying to make some grand point that nobody was even making at that point but they thought I was.
Edit: Actually you don’t even need to look at an entirely different thread… Just look at the other response to me. Someone who wasn’t even in the conversation comes out of the blue and ascribes something I never said nor could ever have been construed as and took it to some straw-man end game nonsense.
Let me show you why it takes two…
Have a good evening
Someone hacked a roomba last year to yell the N word at people on a mic.
The WORLD has become more hateful, it is not simply perception.
I went to high school in the south, I’m not white.
The hate is not something you can process, the worst we see online, the Andrew tates, the people calling for all brown people to be deported to El Salvador, that’s Disney compared to them.
Becauae it was all they had, and the hate infused them down to the cells, such that it was all they had keeping them going.
Trump took the lid off, let them feel more comfortable talking in public.
But these are people who casually discuss how the only way to heal the world is to exterminate all the Muslims and jews, how we should nuke China now because we can, and how atheists and anybody more left than Trump needs to be castrated now for the good of America.
To people shocked at the toxicity, I think you grew up in far more sheltered places.
Dude I grew up dirt poor on govt cheese in the 70s and 8os. Homeless at times, hunted and fished more for food than bought it
Sheltered? Nah.
Saddened… Dismayed? Yes
Maybe sheltered isn’t the right word.
You grew up in a nurturing home.
Everyone didn’t have that luxury, and many grew up to be assholes.
I watched my father try to kill my mother and was on the streets at 16. Nice try
I don’t say that in a mean way. I will not pretend to know your story. I can’t. Especially those who are poc( I don’t know yours and am not trying to be personal so I’m not asking )
What I’m saying is I can’t understand a poc’s full experience. I’ll never have to tell my kid to watch out for cops because of his skin color.
I can, however, understand how others sink into the anger despair and rage. I know what it’s like to wake in a jail cell, I know what hardship really is.
I also know that it is never overcome through cruelty. In fact that puts everyone, including the perpetrator, in a worse place.
So again. We don’t have to be this shitty to each other.
Okay? I never said “ALL HATE on the internet is bullshit”… I said “I wonder how much is just people constructing shit in their own head.”
This is exactly my point. You chose to interpret my words in a way that I clearly would have never intended if you actually spent time to read the words and understand them for what they were rather than some magical interpretation that clearly was never said.
Edit: Thanks for the downvote too! Proves the point further.
Edit2: And on your specific point I would argue otherwise. In the past, humans would just kill each other rather than yelling words through a machine. Literal murder -> Mean words is a de-escalation. We can do better for sure… do not misconstrue that, but to claim that we’re more hateful now, when history shows us murdering each other for less is a bit silly of a stance to take.
I think you’re actually doing here what you are accusing me of re: misinterpretting. My last comment was mild af.
The world has become more hateful. It’s not just online or in people’s heads. We have evidence that massive online warfare happens, literal psychological warfare and soldiers paid to post hate online all day every day. One independent journalist estimated at least a trillion dollars spent for various election/political meddling in 2024 and 2025, with protests in Romania, Georgia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, Germany, Poland, etc etc etc.
So yeah, you got a downvote, grow up about it. You’re wrong and didn’t contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. This isn’t even “hate,” this is simple disagreement that you are too thin-skinned to handle.
Hate is stuff like: ableism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia. Eg a roomba yelling the N word at people. It is not disagreeing with you and downvoting you, lol. For fucks sake.
Edit for your E2: The massive online armies are using online hate to conduct genocides and kill people more efficiently. With massive networks of countries with camps and slavery including Assad’s knowledge of death camps.
You’re wrong and didn’t contribute anything meaningful to the conversation.
So you think that out of all the hate on the internet… NONE of it is constructed shit in people’s own head?(keep in the mind that the article itself talks about personality disorders and DSM-5, literally talking about things like schizophrenia and ADHD… mental disorders that affect how we think are in that book). That this number is so infallibly 0% that my thought doesn’t contribute ANY meaningful value to discuss at all? You sure that it contributed nothing to the conversation and that’s why you downvoted? Cause it would appear to me that you’ve just chosen to ignore the words, ascribe your own meaning to stuff that wasn’t there and then downvoted because you didn’t like it.
It’s clear that this is happening on the internet in many cases. In saner parts of the internet (sometimes even here on lemmy) you’ll see two people arguing, a misconception clear up, and magically all the “hate” dissolved away and both parties walk away amicably.
Hate is stuff like: ableism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hate
It only means that as an adjective, or under pretense where it’s clear that we’re talking about a class of people, if that’s the case it wasn’t clear to me and I just took it as a general overall “the world seems more hateful”. Which it wasn’t used any other way in the comments up to this point this way nor the article itself. So now you’ve constructed some other thing that nobody has referenced just so you can argue some other point that nobody else was apparently making. Keep in mind that the whole thread started with “Hostile” from the article, and not “hate”. The article doesn’t reference anything about any specific classes of people, and even talks about personality disorders (so medical perspective) rather than " ableism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia" and other… uh… character flaws(? might not be the correct phrase to use but maybe the point comes across) that shitty people have.
Edit: Oh and I don’t care about downvotes. But the fact that YOU downvoted the comment was part of the point. It literally is adding context to the actual discussion we’re actively having. It’s directly related behavioral response that’s worthy of discussing in this particular discussion. Trust me I get down-voted plenty on Lemmy and couldn’t care less otherwise. Usually for not immediately jumping on a bandwagon.
I feel like I’m fighting a one-person crusade every time I respond politely to some jerk online. Last night I couldn’t sleep because some rando on the internet said mean things. Why are humans like this? Why can’t we just be nice? Sometimes I feel like we deserve to go extinct.
Because everyone wants to be popular. Most people don’t have the tools to be popular through kindness so they simply act like the other orcs instead.
Yes, and it’s a good thing. The Paradox of Tolerance. If we want a world where people are free to choose and believe and live unique and different lives, we cannot stand by and do nothing while intolerant assholes live their lives.
I’ve always been a terse asshole.
Your mother is a hamster. >:(
At least my father doesn’t smell like elderberries
But will you join us on our quest for the Holy Grail?!
No you
gasp
🍿&🫖
“Why are online discussions about politics more hostile than offline discussions?
A popular answer argues that human psychology is tailored for face-to-face interaction and people’s behavior therefore changes for the worse in impersonal online discussions…
Across eight studies, leveraging cross-national surveys and behavioral experiments (total N = 8,434), we test the mismatch hypothesis but only find evidence for limited selection effects.
Instead, hostile political discussions are the result of status-driven individuals who are drawn to politics and are equally hostile both online and offline.
Finally, we offer initial evidence that online discussions feel more hostile, in part, because the behavior of such individuals is more visible online than offline.”This fits with our understanding of personality disorders, which is that they are a small percentage of our society—around 10.5 percent, according to the recent DSM-5-TR.3
I try to avoid all politics online because it’s all raging and it’s honestly depressing that 10.5% can dominate a space like that.
Then you probably won’t like the thought that an even smaller percentage of people who think they need to get ever richer and control ever more aspects of ever more people’s lives are basically ruining our offline world.
I would prefer a star trek utopia, that’s for sure.
What a terrible headline. All of us? No. Next.
Some people deliberately come to social media for fighting. I probably used to. Maybe on occasion when I’m feeling cranky I will be less diplomatic than I really want to be.
But I find two things actually help:
- I’m not friends/following anyone I know in real life. That helps with anonymity in case I do run afoul of someone who bears a grudge, but also when someone posts aggravating bullshit, it’s not someone I care about. Which leads to…
- I’m merciless about blocking anyone and anything that I can’t engage with fruitfully. Attention is a limited resource and I don’t want to spend it all on negativity. I’m happy to hold genial conversations with folks I disagree with, but if interacting with them becomes tedious, stressful, or annoying I just bin them. Hell, if someone is a big enough prick to someone else I block them. If someone is in every thread harping on some agenda, gone.
Bluesky has a feature to mute keywords for a set period. If I need a break from news about Gaza, Trump, some trending drama, sports (like the World Cup), or just want to avoid spoilers, I mute the topic for a while.
Together, these tools make social media much less negative for me. It usually keeps me from doom scrolling or taking the rage bait.
And when I’m emotionally charged or unclear, I sometimes draft my comments elsewhere before posting. I let it sit for a bit, and if I can’t say what I mean with the tone and clarity I want, I just don’t post. Maybe 30% of my comments get binned—some after spending an hour or more working on them.
In short, I heavily curate my social interactions—both incoming and outgoing—to reduce stress and negativity. As a result, social media today is far more pleasant than it was ten years ago.
BlueSky is genuinely one of the least toxic socials I’ve had in a while. I can agree to disagree there on normal issues like whether UBI should be given in a lump sum, weekly, monthly- it’s not fucking assholes “debating” if aliens built the pyramids and whether we should drink our own pee or if good faith arguments are important or if it’s “natural” to be attracted to 14yr old girls as an adult man (all topics I’ve seen on Lemmy).
or if it’s “natural” to be attracted to 14yr old girls as an adult man (all topics I’ve seen on Lemmy)
Wait, what?
Yeah, there are a lot of men on here who really go to bat for pedophilia. Don’t even BREATHE a word about AI porn of children being immoral because it is modeled after irl children and can be made to blackmail kids etc. Don’t ever argue with any Muslim misogynists on here that child marriage is bad or that feminism in Islam is good. Never be upset that a man was saying it is “probably” not good for kids if they participate in sex acts (we have specific physiological signs like bedwetting that show CSA is inherently damaging to humans) but that it should be totally normal to have your kids WATCH you fuck because they probably did that in medieval times.
And people wonder why my bio recommends BlueSky
That’s one of those things where I’m happiest just not seeing or being part of that conversation. Those are unserious people and it’s pointless to pretend you can have a serious conversation about those things. And even if you could, what is the value to me to wade into the nuance of when it’s okay to find someone attractive when frankly it wouldn’t matter—if they didn’t act like aggressive horny assholes to anyone. I have 13 and 15 year old daughters. I don’t really care who finds them attractive, but I do care who disrespects them, and that’s not going to change when they turn 18, so again that conversation doesn’t need my presence at all.
I’ll agree that Bluesky is minimally toxic, but I also haven’t gotten a whiff of those kinds of conversations here on Lemmy, either. The most contentious ones were in the run-up to the elections and that’s just a tense time for everyone. And it’s hard to let opinions we vehemently disagree with run rampant when the consequences for getting shit wrong are… well… gestures at everything.
No fucking shit we are. How did you crack that nut, Einstein?
Yes. Next question, you SOB!
I think there are two sides to this. Yes, online aggression has probably peaked in recent years with the rise of worldwide pro far-right misinformation campaigns, no argument there. They were specifically targeted at the people more vulnerable to buy into hate speech propaganda.
On the other hand, I have personally noticed more constructive discussions, even after I deleted most of my anti-social media accounts and substantialy decreased my usage of Internet forums in general. It seems there’s some positive trend in the middle of all that.
Not my experience. Just try to post some slightly unpopular opinion and good luck with the virtue signaling, whatever the topic is, and which is mostly done for fake internet points, I bet.
“Virtue signaling”
Hmmm that’s telling language.
What does “telling language” means, in this context? I’ve never heard that. Not a native speaker.
If you are implying that I’m defending “unpopular” stuff such as racism, sexism, or any kind of right-wing “free speech”, you’re plainly wrong. I’m talking about much less sensitive topics (technology, for instance). As an example, I’ve been attacked for saying that I profoundly dislike Mozilla and that I don’t care if the disappeared (they should, actually).
Give your imagination a rest.
Now you got me curious. What’s the argument against Mozilla?
I’m not going to discuss that again, I’ve already wasted too much time explaining why I despise them, nor I’m going to apologize for celebrating their demise, when it comes. If you disagree, just start donating to them.
People really don’t like Mozilla parasites being called for their grift.
I think is one of the main reasons for why there is such a lot of hostile discussion online, people read something which they infer as a hint of something they dont like and from there extrapolate into the worst person they imagine who could be saying that and proceed to righteously strike them down (with words).
TL;DR: It’s the .mls’ fault. They’re assholes all the time, but we don’t see them offline because they don’t have jobs
Fuck .ml, but this is true everywhere. A lot of content and discussion is produced by the terminally online, and they are pretty much by definition not happy, well-adjusted people.
