When I first joined this community I saw it as a respite from reddit where I was free to chill with people without being constantly expected to debate or defend arguments or anything. Just a forum where people are nice.
Lately though it seems every active comment section is filled to the brim with, to be frank, obnoxious people who want nothing more than to fight with you about everything you say. I think they’re known as “debate bros.”
I’m not saying debate shouldn’t be happening but to be honest it’s disappointing seeing it be the only thing occurring. I’ve tried contributing in other fashions but have been met multiple times with people trying to start arguments with me about things or get me to defend “points” that I didn’t make. This in particular has been very annoying. I’ve reported every instance of this due to it not contributing but I feel as if that’s not helping.
I like talking to people I disagree with. I like conversing with differing opinions. But I feel alone in that this isn’t the only thing I want to do on a forum.
Again, I’m not trying to definitively say we shouldn’t debate at all, but just pointing out how prevalent it seems to be. Id like to just converse with people without being expected to make and defend points. I feel like that’s a major thing we should’ve left on Reddit.
If people want to debate then they can do that. I just dislike that it appears to become the base-level expectation for the instance.
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 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 think the honey moon period is over for all instances and communities when people were motivated to comment with the goal of trying to encourage user growth by being nicer than they usually are.
Now that people are settling in they are more comfortable using the fediverse like they’ve done on social media. Which does change the type of posts and comments that now come out.
So arguments are expected for even trivial topics like games. It’s good or bad thing depending on the viewpoint, but was expected outcome since motivations for posting was much different in the earlier days.
I think that it wasn’t a honey moon period, but more so people are getting settled in and attempting to bring in toxicity because some people just crave toxicity for no logical reason…
While I’m not a psychologist, I read far too much crap online, so take this as a layman’s view.
There’s been a lot of research around the dopamine feedback loop around social media, as well as the fact that arguing and “winning” is a major dopamine hit, so I wouldn’t be the least bit shocked that a lot of the more toxic people are literally addicted to the dopamine that social networks give you that they’re arguing and posting for no other reason than their next hit.
Oh no, they quite literally are. You pretty much nailed the root of it, and also brought up a good point as to why for profit social media tends to become so harmful. Engagement is prioritized, and “winning” and arguing with people drives engagement due to the dopamine hit. That’s why you will constantly see rage bait promoted across social media. It makes money.
I guess the real question, ultimately, is how do you deprogram the worst elements of this cohort so that they can like… respond and converse like a normal human without having to argue every single thing and go on and on and on until they “win”? (Which, IMO, means the other person has just gotten tired of dealing with them more than anything else.)
I will happily admit I have absolutely no idea, and will also admit that I have on more than one occasion been That Guy Posting but I really really try to not let myself be.
I think it’s a matter of being mindful of it, creating an environment where it isn’t acceptable, as well as making sure that the algorithms that tend to generate the most toxicity don’t get added in.
To add on I think it is also a thing of social norms. So if a plurality in a post starts being argumentative then it can become the default way others talk in other parts of the post.
So it sort of is an “Embody the change you want to see” thing.
Absolutely. I am not perfect whatsoever, no one is but I try my best personally to make lemmy a nice place and as a community it’s our collective responsibility to at the very least try
I haven’t been here that long, but the dopamine hits are a familiar mechanism underpinning most social media these days – something I try to do as someone who has a lot of strong opinions on stuff and am pre-disposed to debate is to still give out votes to replies that disagree with me, even strongly, as long as they are thoughtful and reasoned.
I do it because I think sometimes people can recognize that gesture and it helps them check their attitude if it is getting a bit too aggressive, it can sometimes interrupt the “debate me bro” circuit that social media so often tries to reinforce. You basically give them the dopamine reward without them feeling they have to reach that extreme end of the debate to get it from someone. But, more importantly, it’s also a small action that forces me to swallow my pride and ego a tiny bit. Clicking upvote on something you disagree with is an acknowledgement that your own ego has its flaws. It’s an exercise in maintaining perspective.
I used to be against discussion-oriented social media that doesn’t have a downvote, but going from Reddit to Beehaw has made me really appreciate how downvotes can only really feed toxicity outside some very specific use cases. On reddit you’d more often get downvotes with no response or explanation, even for innocuous comments or simply content you shared with people. Which is disheartening and makes you start to behave in a paranoid way.
The way people used the downvote was not to moderate content that added nothing to the discussion, but simply to try and shutdown ideas and content that they personally didn’t like, which is a subtle but consequential difference. Removing the downvote means that the way to deal with unwanted content is now to either confront it with words or, if you have no real justification or argument you are willing to get into, take no action.
Instead of using the upvote as an ‘agree’ button I use it now as more of an acknowledgement of the person’s perspective as valid and not intentionally disrespectful, even if I disagree. It helps me reel myself back in if I feel that pull to dig my heels in to an unproductive degree.
I think people crave drama. If you solved the world’s problems, people would go nuts over the smallest things. You see this with HOAs and rich neighborhoods where people literally have their lives solved so they go out and make more problems for themselves. Local problems that only they can solve. People are problem solvers and when you take their problems away, they start breaking stuff.
I don’t think this is just some people, I think everyone has this on some level. Some are better at finding problems to solve rather than making them. Some people start looking externally to their lives to find problems to solve and some people immediately create problems in their own life to solve. This is how you get volunteers and people contributing to society and also people complaining your lawn is too long or too brown.
There’s probably some truth to this, though in the interest of not being too pessimistic I do think that there’s still healthy meta discussion (like this thread) that perhaps serves to remind people of why they came here. As long as that continues you may perhaps see that, while there are still people settling into a comfortable old rut, the habitual reinforcement of the community’s norms and aspirations will have a longer term effect of tempering and readjusting those old mental habits.
If someone has used something like reddit for years it creates a well-worn mental “track” in their brain for formulating interaction, often negative. While people can consciously overcome that track over the short-term (as you aptly put it, the honey moon phase) reforming the track altogether takes time and habitual mindfulness. So continually going back to these questions of “are we, as a community, where we want to be?” has real value and might be part of the solution.
If you post something you should expect a reply, and you definitely should not expect it to be a yes, man type reply. It would also depend on what you’re commenting on. All in all it’s to be expected as things grow. Sounds like what you would like to have is in all of the communities that have been defederated from the major instances. A hive mind type experience.
I literally explained in my post multiple times that I’m not looking for people to agree with everything I say.
If you couldn’t get that the multiple times I said it than I see no point in continuing it here because I don’t think it would work. My post was pretty clearly about obnoxious people that want to argue about everything so I find it almost funny that you would just… do that.
Yeah, I did it on purpose cause you seem to wanna say shit and not have a response. That’s not what this is for. Create a blog and turn off comments. You can’t cover all your bases in a post. What you’re saying is contradictory throughout your post. You want this and you want that but you want a perfectly level line of it somehow.
You can be a contrarian troll all you want but not to me. I’m not entertaining this further. Blocked and reported.
Hey man, I see his reply, I have blocked him. Contrarian people do not want discussion, they only want to be opposition, forever.
That’s very destructive and also a waste of time.
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No, it hasn’t.
Yes, it has.
You’re wrong.
I think you’re both wrong.
I think I am always right!
I’m humble enough to know I’m not always right, but in this instance I can most definitely assure you that you are wrong.
Yes, and I’ve been using beehaw less and less because of it.
Argument Clinic https://youtu.be/uLlv_aZjHXc?si=TPn9cjOH1UUOmIvC
ngl, all the people acting like this that i’ve noticed lately are from other instances lol
Can’t say I’ve noticed it on Beehaw but I have on some other instances. Just posted in one actually - was an interesting discussion on the nature of violence in media. One person immediately lashed out at the person and I’m struggling to see why as they were being civil and were just exploring ideas.
I think it’s a wider thing than Lemmy or even the internet. It feels like some kind of way of getting control over something for people who lack any control in other aspects of their lives. They can have it if they’re ‘right’ even if they have to attack people for it.
Not on beehaw specifically but across the federated spaces in general. Lemmy being the worst.
Even now someone is trying to accuse me of being transphobic because I said I lean left politically but have no political affiliations and don’t want any because the current stat of US politics is a shit show on both sides.
It’s awful and I’m abrasive as fuck once you pick a fight with me so I’m eventually going to get banned from some of these places. However I know that part of it will be on me 😅
So, I gather from what you’ve said that said argument is about you refusing to vote against Republicans and their actions, thus abandoning minorities across the country?
This is a straw man argument. You are voting democrat even though they are corporate backed and paid for. So that means you don’t care about workers and are a capitalist corporate shill, right?
Just like you have a reason to vote democrat even if they do things you don’t agree with, others have the same rights to vote for parties even if they don’t align with all the policies of the party.
Stop debating anywhere and everywhere trying to convert people to your cost. There is a time and place for everything. Guerilla debating does more harm than good. Example: this post.
I don’t think this is an appropriate reply right now considering they are already complaining about having to argue about it.
It’s just a funny situation where they are the terrible person complaining about others calling them out on the terrible things they say on the Fediverse.
It has nothing to do with toxicity at all, but just others holding them accountable.
No. Attack the argument NOT THE PERSON.
I did with my original reply up there. And even in my reply after that, I pointed out that the “terrible” on the person is because of the terrible things they say.
Fuck you. You’re the terrible person for making false assumptions and accusations at a complete stranger. Go fuck yourself.
See, that’s far more toxic than anything I said.
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You are not a good person.
You can hold others accountable without resorting to calling them a terrible person.
I completely agree. I said what I said. I don’t need to defend anything in another space.
Also my votes are none of anyone’s business which is why I left it out.
Transgender person here, please do not use me as an excuse to berate people for refusing to vote Democrat.
Hence why I said minorities in general, of which I am also one. Speaking for myself alone.
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From my perspective specifically as a Canadian, it seems that it’s an American/North American thing. Some threads I was in on reddit would be full of vitriol and hate until the Europeans woke up; then I would have some actual conversations. Of course, this is just what I think. May be other reasons for that.
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Yes, I think some of it is Beehaw-specific because everyone flocked to Beehaw with the idea of building a better community and being better then slowly reverted back to their Reddit-arguing selves.
Lemmy/kbin/Fediverse was also very bubbled to Linux and privacy-focused people, now it’s grown and keeps growing and that original bubble is very closed-minded. I’ve found a few times where I’ve mentioned some generally obvious things like “deleting Facebook means that a lot of people can’t talk to the elder folk in their family.” a common thought that is generally agreed upon but yet I got a bunch of people saying that was bullshit. A phrase I’ve started to like is “terminally online” which Lemmy seemed to be filled with. People who refuse to see there is another opinion out there and that even their opinion isn’t common. Even when their opinion is refuted by statistics. They seem to just press on.
So I see more arguing on two levels. 1) Beehaws NRE has worn off. 2) Fediverse got an influx of more people bringing in a more common mindset that the old Fediverse crowd was generally against because they lived in a bubble. (which I know I’ll get a lot of hate and arguments of “no, we didn’t”, “Linux is clearly the best OS”, “Microsoft is literally Nazis!”, “Privacy isn’t dead yet!”
Just in my experience a lot of people on the Fediverse seem to have the attitude of “my opinion is the facts” or “the one thing I read on the corner of the internet with no cites is the definitive fact!”. They are more closed off than Redditors. It’s been surprising how many posts I see saying “We don’t need to be like Reddit!” To then discover they aren’t like Reddit, they are far worse.
Frankly, this whole thing has made me second-guess trying to leave Reddit behind. The only thing stopping me is a decent phone app to it. I could see myself somehow trying to set up a PWA with RES built into it if that’s even possible. I see far more decent conversations (and open-minded people) on Reddit than here at this point and it’s a huge shame.
A lot of it is very black and white thinking/refusal to see nuance…
There’s a lot of that here, I block more than a few each day.
The generalization.
From capitalism, landlords, privacy, microsoft, non FOSS apps.
If you even post something positive about these things, they’ll pile up on you. It’s sof the real world is a simple binary thing where there’s nothing in between and all people are one dimensional.
Some days are more frustrating than others.
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Absolutely agree! There is no wiggle room. These arguments are usually someone saying something definitive and someone else saying “No, it’s directly this way and always this way. There are no alternatives!” or “The alternatives are unethical, and if you use them your entire existence is unethical!” or worse “I am superior to you if you use these unethical alternatives because I can get by without them!”
I block them all. Honestly I like it here, but if it gets too frustrating, then I might contemplate going back.
I have the same feeling and the toxicity even gets over me sometimes, but that’s more of an Internet issue that just arrived when Lemmy got more popular. For example, I saw your comment regarding ES6 and that user that replied to you isn’t from Beehaw.
I’ve felt that lemmy.world has. It feels much more like vintage Reddit.
Beehaw I haven’t experienced quite as much of the arguing for arguing’s sake. If someone’s arguing with me, they’re usually doing so in good faith.
This is what I think too. Lemmy.world also have a strong downvote culture, which seems to encourage them to pile on to each other.
I see tons of people across the threadiverse arguing that any community missing downvotes lacks any curation, which I find odd. Only upvotes tends to still propogate the best of what the zeitgeist to the top and inspire meaningful feedback when there’s a disagreement rather than just clicking on the “I don’t like this” button
I agree. If the downvote button really was used for sinking content like spam and trolling, that’s a point but it’s something that can be done with active moderation.
But since it’s used for disagreement, I don’t see the value.
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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
It’s actually “Large Language Model.”
Whooooops, that’s what I get for not verifying things sitting in my brain for a long time
No worries, I wrote an article about them recently, so it was on the top of my mind.
