Comment on Reddit is a shithole

• Firipu@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Fair enough :)

  I just don’t see how believing the worst in your fellow human can encourage you to improve things.

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  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Pessimism is easy and lazy thinking. People also think it makes you look more insightful and wiser to look down your nose at everything.

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  • dyc3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Spoken like a true trekkie

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    • Firipu@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Live long and prosper!

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  • 3laws@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    believing the worst in your fellow human can encourage you

    It doesn’t, it never did, it never will.

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• shundi82@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  But the poster you replied to has a point:

  Just like most animals the greater majority of people try to avoid as many direct conflicts as possible IRL. And they’re full of empathy and compassion - even for other animals in distress and inanimate objects (saw off the fingers of a plastic doll in front of others and see how they treat you afterwards).

  But of course people will lose a part of that compassion etc once they move within society without feeling like a part of it. One example is driving a car. You’re way less aware of being a part of society even though you’re “swimming” in it. Feeling a strong individual agency and being empowered by two tons of steel while simultaneously being greatly restricted by everyone and everything around you will do that to you.

  Same goes for the (social) media landscape. We feel empowered by our own echo chambers and/or chosen media outlet while barely interacting with anyone who could challenge our beliefs (which, funnily enough, is often the right call in that context, because we can’t change strong opposing beliefs via social media). And since it’s all an indirect, mostly faceless interaction, our beliefs will automatically be strengthened and we’ll be more likely to agitate anyone with opposing beliefs (while still avoiding any direct conflict).

  So I’d say it’s more of a flaw in our design, that is being exploited, than a general lack of sympathy/empathy (of which we actually have plenty).

  Which means you can’t hold any one individual to higher standards. Because that’s not where we “fail”. It’d take a much broader appliance of social securities (housing, food, healthcare, education etc all over the world) and a fundamental change in the way we interact. But you and I won’t change that (though I guess it’s comforting telling ourselves that we could individually change things on a greater scale).

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  • Firipu@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thank you for being much more eloquent than me.

    The average troll wouldn’t be an asshole in real life. They’d likely just be an average bloke like us all that lost theirselves in online anonimity.

    Time and time again we see that in many disasters the majority of people in the affected community come together and help each other tremendously.

    There is ofcourse always rotten apples and exceptions. That doesn’t take away from the fact that people are inherintly good to their fellow human.

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  • Ringmasterincestuous@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    So everyone’s in agreement… humanity is a shithole

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  • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    One major issue is we assume the motivations of others all the time, usually negative. Add anonymity to the mix and you have social media rage. A good place to start is to occasionally think “Maybe I’m not 100% right. Maybe they are at least partially right also.”

    True psychopaths exist but not to the extent people may think.

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