No Stupid Questions

Of course we're fucking tired of the constant negativity! But that's because the reality is negative, so WTF is the alternative? Are you suggesting we should be delusional instead?

There's always going to be important issues that are going to be difficult to debate without some level of emotion, especially when talking about politics or the environment, you have to remember that this personally affects people's lives.

However it can get overwhelming and it's important that you have the self-awareness to know when you need to step away.

I know it's easy to judge the Internet by its worst actors but you have to remember that everyone needs to learn and be part of the discourse it's not just the internet, that's humanity.

No

Yeah, but in life in general, not on here. I’ve been pushing unnecessary negativity out of my life. Even in my own family, I’ve learned how people that love me and are nice to me can still be a total fucking downer and miserable to be around.

If I’m hopping on Lemmy or reading/watching some news, I know I’m going to see negative stuff. But that’s fine. You can’t learn to deal with negative shit by sheltering yourself from it completely. Think of it like your mental health immune system.

I think while some of this may be people being people (i.e. tendency to only discuss issues/problems vs accomplishments/solutions), I think there's also a technical element to it as well in Lemmy's case.

Up to the latest release of Lemmy (as of writing this is v0.19.4), admins couldn't adjust the default sort setting, which was Active. Read the docs on the sort setting and Active does what it says, surfaces those posts with recent commenting activity (taking into account score as well).

So you get this unfortunate mix of: people gravitate to discussing negative stuff, people tend not to change default settings (since despite defaults being Active, we can change these if so inclined), and the default sort settings surface whatever is being most discussed/commented on, resulting in this sort of negativity feedback loop you've observed.

I noticed and posted about this a few months ago, have tried to upvote and comment on less negatively-focused posts occasionally, but I think this may be an interesting example of a small scale systemic issue as it takes more of us doing similar to address what's being encountered. However, as more instances update to v0.19.4, I'll be interested in seeing if admins decide to switch away from the Active sort setting to try to address this in their own way.

I don't know what sort setting may be better for instances to run with instead, but I'm glad they now have the option. In the meantime I think it's worth reminding people that they currently have the option to change their default sort settings to something different to try to see different kinds of posts. Personally I switch between New and Scaled to see a variety of posts beyond many of the regular doom and gloom posts.

That's a risk of reading the news in general. For many people, it's helpful to log in less frequently. Remember, people write about things important to them, and that includes bad situations, of which there were and will always be tons of.

My suggestion? Don’t filter out anything because you need to know how other people think and what’s going on.

Yes, there’s lots and lots of disinformation and shilling, but exercise critical thinking (a part of which is knowing when to believe in something and when not to), and become almost stoic (mostly observe and analyze).

Besides all that, exercise and/or volunteer in your local community. You will feel less shit about things you cannot control.

All and probably most Local feeds are negative. If you're looking for a more positive experience, you should change the way you interact with Lemmy and the Fediverse.

First, you should investigate different instances (or consider hosting your own) and find one that sounds like it has a better vibe. Then use the Local feeds instead of All.

Second, look for better communities. Many people complain about there being different iterations of communities but this is where that's a strength of Lemmy's structure. If the news community you're frequenting is too full of downers, then look into different news communities. Or- again- if you're feeling up to it, make your own and advertise it as a light-hearted community, then moderate it as such.

I don't know how to on desktop, but on the Voyager app, I can block posts that include whatever words I want. My experience on here has noticeably improved since blocking certain words, like Musk, Trump, and Israel.

It's worse than eating fast food everyday lol

Except

Elon Musk this

Yep.

and Israel that.

Definitely that.

Microsoft ruining windows,

alwayshasbeen.jpg

AI ruining internet,

Nah. Stupid just has a new source.

right wingers and capitalism ruining the world,

Just for the 99%

police being racist and shooting innocent people,

A painfully bad generalization based on sensationalized news and really badly-trained american muni cops.

companies demanding workers into offices,

See: 'capitalism ruining the world', above.

privacy being under constant attack from all sides…

We need to aggressively shun the worst companies and keep doing it until they evolve.

And all this despite the effort I go thru to block that from my view

I see people writing 'thru' like it's a whatsapp chat with their school-chums. It's okay to dislike what you see, and it's okay to feel overwhelmed at times. Remind people - like people who think 'thru' is appropriate - that they're smarter, they know better, and they can be better, but that it's also okay to be working toward that goal without having achieved it yet.

This will all be fixed, but it feels like a lot, right now. We CAN work on more than one thing at once, too: people can learn the difference between 'the person that I saw' and 'the person whom I saw' (one of them is an insulting objectification) while they also improve how they sort recyclables. Like how your mom would tell you not to shuffle your feet while she reminded you not to slouch while you walk, there will be many cases where we can be improving one thing and it won't impact improvement in another avenue.

Just do your best. That's all anyone can ask, now as it always has been.

I've been alive long enough to tell you this has been going on since long before Lemmy and it also never stops. Newspapers were a thing before social media existed, and they also tended to draw a much more sordid and depressing picture of the world by focusing most of their reporting on negative things instead of positive ones.

I believe this is basically an evolutionary trait in humans – we tend to give far more attention to negative stimuli than positive ones because it used to be necessary for our survival. Those people who missed the sabretooth tiger sneaking up on them while they were having fun simply did not make it long enough. However, in the modern era, this has become somewhat of a problem because it can be exploited to sell newspapers and clicks, and while paying attention to all that negative input probably won't kill you, it'll at least make you extremely depressed.

The only remedy I have is to make it a habit to pay more attention to positive things in life – at least enough to create a solid counterweight to all the negative stuff. Either turn off the computer from time to time and go outside to chill, or do other things that relax you like listening to music or making art. Or you could take a page out of Mr. Roger's book and "look for the helpers" when consuming doom and gloom stories on the web – i.e. make it a habit to look for the good in the bad to avoid losing hope.

HTH