I didn’t say I’d downvote in those situations. I would guess that Rule 5 needs to exist for a reason. Without it the community could get overrun with ragebait posts. Personally I wouldn’t consider any of your examples questions to be ones that violate Rule 5, but I’m not a mod and I don’t make or enforce the rules. I also wouldn’t downvote such a question myself, but I would consider reporting it if it seemed like the OP was consistently trying to pull the conversation into fractious territory. Anyway, if we want to to discuss the rules and downvoting vs. reporting, that should probably go in a meta post.
Rule 5 (“No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda”)
That has the problem of blocking genuinely stupid questions that could be used to educate away ignorance. Instead the only people willing to answer their questions are nut jobs with an agenda. E.g.
Do black people sun burn?
Would get downvoted for being racist cos everyone must know the answer to this (I don’t)
Where does the ‘Jewish conspiracy’ originate from?
Everyone would assume you’re antisemitic instead of educating you on conspiracies by Nazis and Russian slike The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But you know who does answer? Those conspiracy theorists who are more than happy to give you (wrong) answers!
Do women get horny?
Everyone assumes an ‘incel agenda’ cos it’s OBVIOUS what the answer is. No it’s some poor 13yo kid who’s unsure about things so they asked. But you know who does answer (wrongly) those questions liberally? Andrew Tate is FULL of answers and sends them down a very dangerous rabbit hole.
I can’t help feeling a lot of the modern shift towards alt-right bollocks is an almost elitist attitude that everyone has an agenda and there’s no such thing as ignorance anymore. I’m sure that was QAnons next level goal. Sow distrust in people so they refuse to answer questions (downvote, shutdown, ignore) while providing (wrong) answers to people themselves.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realise Hanlons Razor covers SO much more than people realise.
Stop assuming malicious “agendas” behind everything. At the least don’t downvote things. At best answer people genuinely.
CountVon@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
567PrimeMover@kbin.social 4 months ago
Every so often, Robert Evans from Behind the Bastards mentions this. I want to know what it is so badly, but also don't want that shit in my search history