Your father smelt of elderberries. :p
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.
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Unfortunately most places have "reply guys" in some capacity. I may have my own qualms with lemmy as a platform, but a lot of it is algorithmic and the lemmy devs are being mindful of making sure not to add the most toxic aspects of social media algorithms to lemmy. There's always those people seeking out toxicity and crave an argument on every platform. With platforms like this it's important to recognize that you curate your experience. Mute and block often. You aren't missing out on clout, or anything really. If there's anything that's hindering you from having a good time here then get rid of it. There's a lot of FOMO people have especially with browsing /all but the fediverse thrives when you curate what you want to see carefully.
It should also be noted that there's quite a few people on reddit determined to come here and try and start shit for no reason other than they find it to be fun. There's a pretty big post on reddit that I saw about lemmy being "too civil" and how the fact that there isn't a controversial sorting option, it's too boring for them to use. Some people crave conflict. Don't satisfy their craving.
Yeah, I've memorized what to click to block people in lemmy, an option that I have rarely used during my 13 years in reddit.
I don't know, my communities are fairly similar on reddit and in lemmy, but I've blocked more often here.
I wonder why.
I'm marginally attached to beehaw so maybe I'm not the best gauge to read, but I haven't really noticed what you describe.
Enjoy your weekend!
In my experience this has happened most strongly with topics relating to LLMs. Ive had good discussions on the topic too, but ive also seen lots of "BOOM I just shut down your argument!!" at any mention of negative impacts LLMs may have on society.
I'm sorry but what is a LLM? A quick search didn't do anything
Learned Language Model, a form of machine learning that people tend to call "AI". ChatGPT is an LLM
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The more people in a public place, the more likely you are to get argumentative people in the mix. There's going to be someone who throws the first punch.
I havent noticed too much of an uptick but admittedly Ive also been using the site less and the articles I do click on are either dead or ones with civil discourse so I may have just been lucky.
I wonder how much of this may relate to some folks not really knowing how else to try to interact online...? Maybe even offline as well?
Some seem primed to take any opportunity to argue, and for them I don't think it registers negatively so much as simply how one discusses stuff. A sort of playfighting if you will, worrisome & exhausting if you're not interested, but a joy (up to a point) to those that are.
I think part of this also stems from there being a lot of strong takes on certain subjects that appear in comments. Thinking of just the past few posts I've been through, I've seen statements (which i'm intentionally paraphrasing here, just using them as examples) like "all information should be free", " is better than fad languages and all opinions to the contrary are completely unbacked" (different instance to be fair), "X service should be provided for free by Y private company", etc. That's not to say that any of these takes (except the language one, in my opinion) were intentionally inviting people to debate them, but making strong claims like these does invite debate.
That being said, I think the purpose of a lot of posts is to invite discussion, and within those discussions I've often seen people agreeing with each other. From my experience, it tends to be more of an outlier when there are argumentative posts being made, but I think it stands out a bit more as well.
Also, I think that how the opposing view is presented is important. For example, I'd rather see a response that opposes an initial view to provide more discussion around the matter than "no you're wrong and a bad person"-style responses. Generally speaking, I've seen more discussion-oriented replies, but occasionally I do see the latter-style response as well, and even saw one (which I'm not pointing to) in the discussion for this post.
Edit: I should also clarify that first paragraph. Opinions to the contrary of what I listed can also be strong takes. Generally any opinion in which there is a significant population of people that disagree with it can invite discussion. The discussion itself isn't the issue in my opinion, what is the issue is how that discussion is held.
I joined Beehaw almost 3 months ago because I saw it as a place that it was possible to have an opposing or differing opinion and discuss it without being mean or hurtful. Beeple talked, Beeple listened, they had fun and maybe most importantly, Beeple knew where to draw the line when things were getting out of hand and it was time to end the discussion.
Be sure to report any hurtful, mean, unnecessarily argumentative and inappropriate behaviour. I know I have had reports made against me that mods have contacted me about. I do my best to heed them and improve my own behaviour as well to best fit each community.
Certain topics, like politics are meant to attract discussion and debate. Many headlines are specifically crafted to spark arguments and debate. If there was anything I could ask from Beeple and Beehaw visitors at large, it is to keep a cool head when discussing, think of the other person while you talk and report if you see "not nice" conduct.
When I experience an argumentative back and forth where it gets increasingly clear that the opposite person is arguing just to have a fight or is unable to see simple logic, I just stop responding. This has always been the best option for my mental health. Oops I didn't realise this is quite an old post!