This post is as much for me as it is for all of you. I’m doing some live self reflection and criticism here.

I’ve been growing more and more frustrated with “Lemmy is becoming Reddit!” or more accurately, “the people from Reddit are bringing their bad habits and toxicity over to Lemmy.” But upon closer inspection, it’s mostly one instance that has by far the biggest problem with this and act by far the most like Reddit. Think you all know which instance I’m talking about. I’ve been finding myself writing paragraph or even multi paragraph responses to random people’s hot takes which they probably spent two seconds thinking through before posting, and I have been deleting them because I realized that I don’t fucking care and it’s not worth my own time, energy, or mental health. And I’m the kind of person where if they respond with some sarcastic meme comment or a further bad take, I literally cannot stop myself from engaging further, writing walls of text addressing in detail every one of their points that they probably won’t read before closing with “ok Tankie” or something.

At some point I had to ask myself, why are you doing this? You’ve just ruined your free time on Lemmy because of someone else’s shit take or toxicity. Fennekin, don’t fucking engage the next time you see something that pisses you off, because you could write a book, complete with links to scientific papers (which I have done in the past), it’s not going to resolve your being pissed off and who the hell do you think you’re trying to actually convince with a detailed response when there is clearly a hive mind that’s the genetic clone of the one from Reddit? If I think I actually have a good chance of convincing them or others that might see my comment, then yeah I will still totally write a wall of text to that effort. But in the vast majority of times this is far from the case, and I can more effectively spend my time elsewhere, like maybe actually engaging in discussions with more rational people where they could potentially be convinced by me and I could also potentially be convinced by them. To say that every single non-socialist is like the average Reddit lib would be totally wrong of course, as would be saying there is nothing we can learn from non-socialists, but I actually need to go out and look for those more rational and open minded people, which there are plenty of. Even if I’m not in a debate those people are generally more pleasant to interact with.

If you can go in and debate those people and maintain your own sanity and baseline mood, I applaud you. But I can’t. So I’m just not going to engage at all. That does not actually mean I’m going to start removing my access to lib content by blocking it or anything, I still think it’s important as a socialist to at least be aware of the takes of the opposition. And like I said in a comment just an hour or so ago, I’m confident enough in my beliefs and ideologies that I’m by no means threatened by these people, quite the opposite in fact, which is why I compulsively try to correct them and respond to them. No more of that, I need to keep myself happy first, or if not happy then at least not pissed off whenever I go on Lemmy.

  • Justice@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    I posted this comment in response to someone asking about debating and stuff. (Yeah, I just linked to my own comment.)

    It basically sums up my position on the futility and ultimately the damage, for lack of a better word, you end up causing to yourself by engaging too much with people who are operating in bad faith and/or have absolutely no conscious political ideology. That doesn’t mean they don’t have an ideology of course, but you know who I mean, I think. “I’m tired of everything being political!” Types who actually mean “the world should operate in the way it always has which benefits me and I refuse to acknowledge this because it would force me to have to either advocate for change to the current system(s) or accept I’m a shitty person.”

    There’s a contradiction of course between absolutely needing these people to become politically engaged in order to actually get anything accomplished and the simultaneous complete powerlessness we each ultimately hold as individuals.

    Now that last part of my previous statement rubs a lot of people, in my experience anyway, in a bad way. I’m speaking realistically and objectively. What each of us chooses to do ultimately has little to no effect on the overall system. People who think otherwise… no, you don’t. The truth is change only happens through the changes of a group of individuals. And I know “so if you don’t change then you are the problem” is the knee jerk logic there. Maybe that’s true in some philosophical sense or whatever the fuck. But in reality if you are the 1/100 or more likely 1/1000, 1/10000 individual who is “doing change” guess what happens? You get fucking smashed. The reality is it doesn’t matter how much that 1/1000 screams and throws a tantrum or is nice and logical, none of it matters until a bunch of individuals, probably without a consciousness about them, start doing a thing.

    That’s all incredibly abstract, and I apologize, but I’m using the abstract to illustrate reality. Maybe I’m fucking up. My only point here overall though… take it easy on yourself. If capitalism as a system is a giant dam and our goal is smash the dam until it breaks its important to remember a few things. You are just one person, working either alone or within a rather insignificant group. You pecking at the Hoover Dam of capitalism definitely is doing something, but expecting onlookers who love this hypothetical dam to just let you do it would be silly. And even if left alone, the progress you make will be tiny, essentially zero in the grand scheme. It’s probably also useful to remember that capitalism, like a dam, must be, and is, maintained by those who benefit from it otherwise nature or something else will destroy before long. What I’m saying is, capitalism is a doomed system in a long enough timeline. You are simply a possible accelerant of its destruction. (This all sounds negative with dam blowing up but whatever, make it positive somehow. Like that dam being freed in LoTR around wizard guy’s tower.)

    I don’t know. This is just how I approach this stuff after a long time languishing in my own mind. There’s really little I can do as an individual, but what little I can do is still worth it in the long run. Just don’t expect to ever see results of the work you do. Do it because it gives you purpose and because you know that you are on the right side of things and you are moving pieces of sand that will lead to a better world someday.

    A fresh reading of Capital (book plug time?) helped me too. I feel like I, we, build so many resentments for individuals and even towards ourselves that might be justifiable in a lot of ways but also don’t serve positive change. Kind of removing myself from the situation, like the soul of a person floating above his old body and just examining things, allowed me to see things in a way that made things more tolerable. Actually this sounds like I’m advocating for dissociation lol. Maybe I am? But controlled levels of it. You still gotta live in the world.

    • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
      4·
      1 year ago

      Sounds like you’re drawing a fair bit from this with your statements:

      https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

      And I think this should be treated almost like a religious person, because that’s effectively what this is, it’s the American civil religion. It’s the idea that USA #1 as an intangible, as something unquantifiable.

      So no matter how much evidence you provide that the US sucks, it doesn’t matter, because the religious tenet is “USA #1” so any evidence against that, including reality itself, must be discarded in favour of the capital “T” religious “Truth” that the US is superior.

      That’s why despite them saying things like “The US isn’t perfect” they will flatly refuse to every actually engage with this idea, and it is just another statement, much like how Christians will just trot out a “free will” statement to dismiss any issues their religion’s worldview causes.

      I have a lot more fun with these guys when I treat them like dumbass creationists arguing against evolution, because that’s effectively all it is. People so narrowminded in their (civic) religious belief that they cannot handle anything that goes against it. So just dunking on them is much more fun and productive than having a debate with them. You can’t change the mind of someone who rejects reality in favour of fantasy.