Outrage addiction is real, and politics is an easy source for people to get their fix.
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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Unpopular Opinion
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go to your cities facebook page sometime or god forbid nextdoor. People are fully addicted to being online, and mad. You'll see the same people pop up time and time again, forcing their opinions on things that are completely irrelevant. There can be a picture of a park on a nice day and these people will fly off the handle about liberals or lgbtq or something.
They literally can't help it anymore, it's a dopamine drip for them. They get to feel superior for a split second, then move onto the next post.
I think part of it is that and part of it is feeling helpless. All political news is terrible all the time, it's always outrageous and anger inducing especially because there is literally nothing you can do but vote or the much much much harder, borderline impossible, "actually run for office yourself" so a persons only outlet is online.
I think I'm guilty of this, but I try not to be nasty about it.
Anger is an easy emotion.
It's important to call out the massive influx of Kremlin and CCP propaganda on social media, and it's all over the place on Lemmy.
I mean, the original creators of Lemmy are Communists. Not my opinion; they stated that much themselves. Despite their claim that their team comes from a bunch of political ideologies, lemmy.ml is very pro-Communism, and a breeding ground for pro-Russia/China and anti-Ukraine/America content.
I'm confused, they're pro-communism but Russia isn't communist and it's a stretch to call China a strictly communist, Marxist nation.
I don't know enough about the developers of Lemmy, but in a general sense I know a lot of the pro-Russia/China stances from tankies are simply because they are the biggest anti-West powers. What they do in practice doesn't matter as much as their ability to challenge Western standards.
In essence, it's like people who support certain political candidates for being "accelerationists" or "disruptors" just because they want to see the system burn, and they're narcissistic enough to think their ideology will somehow be the one on top after the collapse.
Ideologues with a very flexible ideology? So just hypocrites really.
Sounds about right.
There are some real communists there, but it's more of a facade for Kremlin and CCP propaganda.
Fwiw I'm fine with the real communists, it's a noble ideology that at the very least provides an important counterbalance for late stage capitalism. But I hate lemmy.ml and their ilk for supporting the spread of authoritarians.
Same, communism would be a great way to go about things if people weren't involved but they are and the ones that rise to power often absolutely fucking suck.
I don't see much in the way of obvious pro-CCP and pro-Putin propaganda around here though, I see way more posts calling it out. Maybe my instance has blocked the worst offenders, I don't know.
Lemmy.world is defederated from Hexbear and Lemmygrad, which are the two most cited tankie instances. Several other instances are defederated from them as well, though I don't know them all off the top of my head.
There are other instances which remain federated with them, however, and so they may see more posts from those instances as well as potentially dramatically different comment sections with Hexbear/Lemmygrad users who are otherwise invisible to those from instances that defederated from them.
Ah, makes sense. Thanks!
obvious
It's not obvious, they know subtlety is required, and the core of most propaganda is truthful.
Something to look for is content that divides the enemies of the Kremlin/CCP (often the same). Digital divide and conquer, fueled by paid shills and LLMs.
Some examples are:
- Exacerbating conflict, like supporting extreme stances about Israel's genocide, BLM, trucker convoys, EU-UK alliance (Brexit)
- General support for extremists on both/all sides
They also more directly attack political opponents. They can't constantly say "Putin is great," it's too obvious. But they attack people.
Biden is an obvious example because they want their asset Trump to win, and an interesting example because they're also focusing on Israel and BLM as wedge issues against Biden... the Kremlin really wants Trump to win so they can steal land and control people in eastern Ukraine.
It's not limited to economics. They're pro Russia and anti West. I got banned from a ml community for saying NATO is a defensive pact.
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Yeah, it's like saying North Korea is a democracy because their government says it's a democracy.
If someone says Russia or China are communist, you don't need to listen to anything else they're saying. Regardless of.if they're talking about how great or how terrible either of those countries are.
Inb4 deluge
And oddly.the angriest ML based folks seem to log in overnight US time.
Yeah. I mean, they're all over social media but holy crap do they own on Lemmy...
Yeah, it's honestly a real bummer. I'd love to encourage people to use the Fediverse, but I won't even tell people I use it as it is.
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I block every single user who writes comments like that and nowdays I can pretty much gurantee that when I see a thread about one of these topics I'm not seeing even half of the replies because they're almost exclusively from blocked users.
I'm seeing 3 out of 12 messages in this thread.
While there is undeniable truth in what you say, I'd caution to remember that while politics dominating your life may be optional, its not for many. Trans people just trying to exist is seen as political, for instance.
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I mean, don't most people comment on politics or news which is mostly politics?
This is also not an unpopular opinion. It's not even an opinion, it's soapboxing.
It’s not even an opinion
Opinions do not have to be pre-fixed with "I think that", "I feel that", "It is my opinion that", or "IMHO" to be opinions. Take the current post title and add "I think that" to the beginning. Is it an opinion now? Yes!
Here I will do it for you:
I think that the people who write the nastiest, inflammatory comments on Lemmy are usually (not always) frequent commenters in politics related communities.
Read that and tell me that is not an opinion.
You should be able to read the post title and tell that it is not a fact.
Politics makes people fucking crazy
Alternatively, crazy makes people fucking political.
Also very true
I don't think it's an unpopular opinion to hate people politicising everything - politics should stay in politics.
Sometimes you just want to chat stupid shit and get away from all that crap.
politics should stay in politics.
Sometimes you just want to chat stupid shit and get away from all that crap.
Some folks can't "get away from all that crap" because e.g. they're a minority and their very existence is political.
That means what you wrote is an expression of your privilege, and is therefore itself a political statement.
You say that as though being a minority gives carte blanche to make any discussion you're involved in political - bigots may try to make you political, but many folks are more than happy to live and let live. I mean I certainly wouldn't want to talk about my ASD all the time.
That means what you wrote is an expression of your privilege, and is therefore itself a political statement.
The privilege to have sought out communities where I don't always have to speak about politics, or where I can debate people on more harmless subjects? You can do that too you know...
And if everything suddenly becomes political around you where it wasn't before, it might not necessarily be because you're a minority, it might be because you're the one politicising things, ala my first comment.
the personal is political
No offence to you, but that doesn't always have to be true. When the going gets serious, of course it has to be political, but one can certainly joke around and have fun without things turning political.
If you can't do literally anything with anyone without it becoming political, even in safe spaces, then the problem isn't who you are, it's that you've got nothing else to talk about but politics.
When I go to check their profile it is very common that the individual frequently comments in politics related communities.
Do you check profiles on everyone that posts non-inflammatory comments too?
You're basically asking "do you check for red flags on everybody who is not raising red flags?"
In comment threads, I usually only check post history for people I am considering blocking. It makes sense to check post history if people are instigating. If that person is just starting shit everywhere then there's no reason to listen to them, but if they have a history of reasoned discussion then maybe what they say is worth considering. (I realize how ironic this is coming from somebody who has almost no comment history on a new account)
That's fine if you're just trying to avoid whatever you consider 'red flags'.
But your post is drawing a correlation with other post activity and if you want to do that accurately you need a broader sample set.
Yes, this is the "base rate" fallacy. You may find the "red flags" your looking for, but they may actually be more common among other commenters that you don't examine.
Simply, what is the "base rate" of those red flags on average? You have to examine a random sample of commenters to know that.
He's now going through your profile.
Yep, pretty sure they'll find all the 'red flags' they're looking for.
I went through their profile so you don’t have to and there was some weird sex shit about horse boners. No need to verify, just trust me bro.
I always take a stranger's word when it comes to weird sex shit and horse boners.
To be fair, who but an expert would have a username like that?
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