Comment on Intellectual
sirico@feddit.uk 8 hours ago
This meme kind of sums up a lot of my Reddit experience and why I left.
Not because people shouldn’t question themselves or accept they might be wrong. That is healthy. The problem is how often that idea gets turned into a performance.
A lot of Reddit now feels less like people having a conversation and more like people trying to prove they are the only enlightened person in the room. Every joke gets dissected. Every casual comment becomes a debate. Every disagreement gets reframed as “you just didn’t understand,” “you’re emotional,” or “you need to question your beliefs.”
It stops being curiosity and becomes status-seeking and ultimatly boring as fuck. Been so nice to have actual convosations where if I have my view challenged and changed it’s not a huge reaction.
It’s not Reddit. I know quite a few people who seem to think anyone will agree with them if they just explain it properly.
Because it is entirely impossible for someone to disagree with them, so if you don’t hold the same opinion, it’s because you don’t understand things well enough.
I stopped thinking this way when I realized why the tortoise wins the race and not the hare. People often just… don’t do things they should do, even when they’re aware of their responsibilities, and understand how easy it would be. Like reassessing your beliefs when confronted with a fact you can’t argue with - it’s easy to do, but people just… don’t. This just didn’t click for me. For decades I thought everyone would naturally have the motivation to do something simple, maybe not right away, but eventually.
Slow and steady wins the race not because it’s better than being quick and nimble, but because the person who can do it effortlessly knows how easy it would be, and puts it off to the point where it never gets done. So the person who gets off their ass and gets things done will win even if they’re slow. The motivation to do things is more important than the skill to do them easily.
In my experience people stop thinking because it would put them in conflict with the people and institutions they’re attached to or relybon for patronage there is no morality or laziness involved its just politics
I think that’s a reason why they might choose not to change their minds, but often it seems that they don’t even think about it enough to get to that point. It’s not so much “I may be wrong, but I still want to get along with my friends who agree with me” as it is “I don’t know why you’re wrong… but I’ve decided that you still are.” The difference is that, even if they don’t have any groups anchoring them to it, people still hold tightly to their opinion.
This is intrinsic to idealist thinking. Liberals literally think history is a struggle of ideas and the most correct ones will win if everyone just sits down and thinks about it.
They would! Unfortunately, that’s not how humans work. Why sit down and think about it when you can just take the other guy’s stuff?
And if you’re not good at thinking, how are you supposed to know when the guy you’re sitting down with isn’t just bullshitting you?
Why sit down and think about it when you can just take the other guy’s stuff?
The liberal would probably say something like “the social contract prevents this kind of behavior, enlightenment thinking, etc.” The materialist would point out that behavior is exactly what society is organized around, because we have mutually exclusive class interests with the people doing the taking.
Yeah, sometimes you just gotta kill those who disagree.
Wait until you hear how the philosophy of the ruling class achieves and maintains dominance.
Hint: It’s not by calm, measured debate with the people it oppresses.
You’re clearly baiting something.
Haven’t you ever heard the saying that it’s difficult to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it?
This alone should tell you that you sometimes need more than just ideas. Like, sometimes you need to cut their salary.
That’s what’s refreshing on Lemmy people will contradict you or call you out for ranting, but almost always in a respectful way. Unless you mention libidos, some people get really upset about that, lol.
We all hate reddit +4 status to you you can have some of mine
spacegoat@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
1st Reddit ban: saying Putin should be dealt with after he took Crimea.
2nd Reddit ban: arguing that the countryclub feature on subs was racist back when they required photos of skin color.
3rd Reddit “ban”: recently tried again, immediately shadow banned for saying that ill-behaved Israeli settlers in Thailand should be dealt with harshly by the military. Post instantly moderated by AI. Deleted my account.
Reddit has strayed far from its original vision and purpose