2/10 people on Lemmy, is that you?
22h 36m ago by lemmy.world/u/Return_of_Chippy in lemmyshitpost
One thing I always hated about microblogs and their character limits was that it was just enough characters to spout stupid bullshit but never enough to explain to why it's wrong.
And you can't just be like "Ok I have master's degree in this specific subject" because then the response is inevitably some form of "ok then please provide sources which would allow me to condense 6 years of your education into something I can refute in 6 minutes, and refusing to do so will out you as a liar."
Why interact on an even playing field? Just make like 15 accounts and convince them they have a neurological disorder like a normal human being.
Well then they have a PhD of course. In polar bears.
If you're explaining, you're loosing.
Introduction to elementary debate, 17th addition. page 1.
That's fucking idiotic. It's basically formalizing the whole "Whoever talks loudest and proudest wins" instead of "Whoever has the most valid and factual argument wins"
It's unfortunately just how things work. Facts only matter to people who care about the truth, and a lot of people don't.
Well if the value of a belief is in its ability to predict the future and people are believing stuff that explains but cannot predict anything, then we can simply figure out a way to set ourselves up for success based on solid beliefs that accurately predict the future while they take increasing doses of cope.
I know it is not that easy but I try to live by that principle. I cannot refute someone's belief that the entire universe started existence 10 minutes ago and everything from memories to tangible goods are simply created from nothing. I can however say that predicts nothing therefore I won't engage.
set ourselves up for success [...] while they take increasing doses of cope.
This is all well and good, but they also vote. Their cope will drown us in the Atlantic.
This is fine, though, because there are different ways of convincing people. Some people are moved by facts, and some people by narratives. And some people by power; the stupidest of the three, but what can you do.
A user with the name ProbablyBaysean commenting on a thread about epistemology is peak. What are the odds?
People don't give a shit about facts dude
that's because neurotypicals don't actually care about logic and data, they only care about your seeming proud and self-confident because that makes you appear as a might-be feudal lord in their eyes and they love that shit.
George Will on Donald Trump and Twitter.
"It's perfect for him, because he can encapsulate everything he knows into 140 characters."
i wonder how intentional it was.
more argument = more engagement = more ad watching = more money
I doubt they thought that far ahead, at least when Twitter was starting. Smartphones didn’t really exist back then, except maybe some BlackBerrys and Palm Pilot-type phones. The 140 character limit on Twitter was so the tweets could fit in a standard 160 character SMS message. It operated basically entirely over SMS; I’m not sure they even had a web version in the early days. I still remember getting messages on my flip phone from 40404, the number they used. Once I was in the Oregon desert on vacation for a week without signal and when I got back to a signal my phone kept buzzing for 20 minutes as all the tweets I’d missed were delivered. No algorithm back then, you got everything from people you followed, and no advertising either.
I mean, the character limit was there originally because twitter's gimmick originally was that you'd post via SMS, which has its own char limit. They've raised the limit even before the musk takeover, so I'm inclined to believe twitter motivates ragebait in other ways.
"Never argue with stupid people because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience." George Carlin
The common pattern I see often is that they simply refuse to address or even acknowledge your points and instead just spout even more bullshit. Once I see that, I just block and move on.
I have no time for intellectually dishonest people.
Gish galloping is a well known argumentative technique to avoid scrutiny. It works so well, that now the US government is using a version of it to destroy the government at a rapid pace.
In science there is an answer "you are not even wrong" which is a polite way of saying that wat you said makes so little sense, that it cannot even be disproven.
Originally used by Wolfgan Pauli, I believe. He also said “I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.”
My version of that is "Well, you can't argue with that."
I see you have met my in-laws. This isn't just some boomer humor, they have truly transcended their Fox News addicted roots and now get really angry about aliens, chemtrails, and all sorts of bullshit.
Same here man. Its insanity. It has to be the lead. People can't be this stupid otherwise right
Ruts in thinking. Fox News has given them the tools to win any argument with little effort on their part... Any person attempting to provide a sound argument is flooded with BS and gives up... Which they consider a win.
I honestly have no idea, but I suppose it could be the lead. My own mother is bonkers and is starting to remind me of the crazy old mother from Requiem for a Dream.
Same.
So often it's me typing out a big old comment. Realizing I can preempt some nuance to help the conversation. Thinking of a dozen more little nitpicks that might happen and realizing it's just not worth it and it's really the idiocy of the argument that's making it so hard to explain myself.
You encountered Brandolini's Law aka the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle: it takes an order of magnitude more effort to debunk bullshit than it takes to produce it.
Exactly that, one bullshit goes into circulation, it spreads everywhere strengthening its flawed position. And just like it was said, facts dont even matter at that point - requiring a novel approach to disprove it.
Hi, are you me?
No they are me
Its unethical to have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.
Every maga I come across. Just a bag full of excuses for pedophiles.
Those are one of the groups I'm talking about
Same thing for me with tankies. Just a bag full of excuses for authoritarian regimes.
I met a guy in a sauna the other day who started preaching to me and saying that he doesn't believe in science because it contradicts the bible story of creation.
I just had nothing to say to this man. His perception of reality is so far off base that I cannot comprehend his thought processes.
did you ask him why he thinks that the bible is true?
It's pointless, then they go on a tangent about how it's the word of god etc. To them god is real and everything is about god and if they have to make leaps in logic it's just because mere people can't understand god's will
This is what lead me to question my own faith: just someone asking honest questions with real curiosity
Keep it mind it can take years for those seeds to bloom from doubt to realisation
That's a classic one too
I used to work with people who would smoke whatever weed their friend gave them but wouldn't get the covid vaccine because "you don't know what's in it"
It's not worth the effort to break down their position, and present coherent arguments back to them. They'll just completely miss what you're trying to say, and blast back more incomprehensible BS. It's just raw, blind, ignorant anger, most of the time, we can't refute emotion with logic, they just don't hear it.
Brandolini's law (or the bullshit asymmetry principle) is an Internet adage coined in 2013 by Italian programmer Alberto Brandolini. It compares the considerable effort of debunking misinformation to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The adage states:
The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.[1][2]
The challenge of refuting bullshit does not come just from its time-consuming nature, but also from the challenge of defying and confronting one's community.[3]
This explains a lot. Thank you.
i made this into a post
https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/59688671
This is wrong because it assumes refuting bullshit always takes the same form, and this little issue with it has seriously strengthened the Ben Shapiros and seriously weakened the Normals.
More people pointing out that Brandolini's Law has this unintended side effect would probably actually fix the problem, and nobody has to be a villain to do it.
I haven't got the time or the energy to argue against your point. 😶
"Right extremists are defending Democracy"
Just 2 weeks ago and I still haven't recovered from hearing that in person.
this could be because they understand "democracy" completely differently, though honestly it's probably just a cover for "our way of life" or "our interests"
like when the US goes to the middle east to spread "democracy", they're not actually spreading a better quality of life for the people, just violence and bloodshed. could be that your acquaintance meant it in that way.
Allegedly the guy who shot Charlie Kirk was a right extremist who's take was Kirk was too moderate.
So far I think it's a net gain for democracy though.
It's an interesting hypothesis
Wasn't that assumed because of the family, but he actually turned left?
Utah County prosecutor Jeffrey Gray said that Robinson's mother told investigators that her son had become more political over the last year and had started to "lean more to the left, becoming more pro-gay and trans rights–oriented".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Charlie_Kirk
Fair enough.
This does not support my hypothesis
Yes, I block them, after I make sure that they're insistent on being disingenuous, and not merely misinformed.
Related: Pretty sure I've blocked most of the .world moderators/admins at this point.
I never block. I post a lot and blocking doesn't stop them from seeing and commenting on my posts.
I don't care what idiots think, I enjoy not having to see their thoughts.
If I've blocked someone and they're commenting on something I've said... I don't care what idiots think.
Yeah, I have a pretty low tolerance for the argumentative bullshit. That's not why I'm here, and I often don't give a shit if someone is wrong.
See I enjoy arguments, they can be productive and interesting, but I don't enjoy arguments with people who are not honest with themselves, argue in bad faith, people who are either deliberately putting words in your mouth.
online arguments never change minds, they only serve to galvanize each persons prior beliefs
Its not about changing your opponent's mind. It's about the people reading along. You aren't talking to your opponent. You're talking to the audience you share with that opponent. Never forget that.
liar!
- This is not always true.
- There is a third person in this equation.
disagree, I've changed my mind several times through online arguments. Not always a flip but often reality is not as binary as you think and opposition has some important points.
i don't see it that way, my views have changed significantly because of the discussions i've had (mostly online)
False. I was deeply religious growing up but can remember the exact "debate" with an online athiest that planted the doubts and lead to my deconversion.
I think this is mostly true IRL too
People will not show you that they've been convinced, but inside something may have shifted.
So far I only really experienced this with two people on the Fediverse. @SmartmanApps@programming.dev (I have no compunction about @ing him, I assume he's blocked me since he stopped replying to me ages ago - does that mean I win??) seems mainly to use the internet to further his incorrect beliefs about maths. He's a maths teacher, but his knowledge seems to run out around the end of high school maths (contradicting some high school maths), and he doesn't have the intellect to understand how maths beyond that point even works: he fundamentally doesn't understand what a mathematical definition is, for example, so when he reads standard sources he doesn't even understand how they contradict him.
Everyone else pales in comparison.
omfg you weren't kidding. just wasted 15 minutes scrolling through his comment history. multiple pages were for a SINGLE COMMENT THREAD where he just dug his heels in about operator precedence of all things and refused to budge. completely and utterly closed-minded while being ignorant to anything much beyond middle-school level. I feel sorry for the poor saps that tried engaging with him
Yeah that was me, and now I made you suffer with me! Mahahahaaa!
But to be honest I found the whole thing quite entertaining. It's a puzzle working out what the hell he believes, because he doesn't actually have the level of awareness and understanding to state his position clearly. So every conversation he has on this it's five levels of back-and-forth before he reveals that actually he thinks that, in working out an expression like a(b+c) the very first thing you must do is apply the distributive property to turn it into (ab+ac), because he has got it in his head that the term "multiplication" only applies to multiplication with an explicit symbol like a×b, and if there is no symbol he thinks it's completely different. Hence when order-of-operations rules say "multiplication" after "brackets" he thinks that does not apply to the aforementioned case. And then his lack of awareness comes in, because it's not just that he doesn't realise he's wrong; he doesn't even realise that nobody else is doing it that way.
I'm still not completely convinced he's not a troll, but his dedication across platforms* to this one topic, and his lack of versatility as regards trolling on other topics, pushes it onto the side of sincerity.
*I googled his username and have seen him push this line on GitHub, math.stackexchange, and Mastodon - where he also has pet topics about how 0.999... ≠ 1 and how Cantor's theorem on the uncountability of the reals is wrong because, get this: infinite sets don't exist - both of these being more entertaining but worse in terms of disinformation
fuuuuuuuuck
infinity not actually existing gotta be the funniest of them all
Thankfully the fediverse is still small enough that blocking people has a noticable effect. On reddit, for every person you block there's 4 more to take their place.
I try not to argue with people on the internet. Its a complete waste or time and im actually surprised by how many people do it.
I dont think you can change anyones mind with comments.
My mind has been changed by comments on here.
People can be quite informative, patient, and empathetic. They can write eloquently and persuasively. I'm glad for those people who have helped me change my mind on topics where my view was wrong because of my ignorance or flawed logic.
But in all honesty, I probably would have been better served by in-person public discourse on those topics instead of spending my time reading a bunch of takes from strangers on the internet. In person, you (usually) know everyone participating is real. You can gauge their sincerity by their tone & inflection, facial cues, and body language.
While my mind has been changed by people on here commenting, I still would much rather step away from the internet and talk to people face to face about the topics that effect us the most.
As have mine many times. But there are certainly many people for whom learning something new is not in the cards as they have failed to learn so many other things in their life that they've come to some sort of dead end where they think they know everything yet know nothing useful to intelligent conversation.
Thats good. I just learn shallow stupid stuff on here myself. Top topics are memes, big tech dystopian stuff and Trumps daily shocking statements.
It's not about your opponent. It's about your shared audience. Tailor your arguments to convince the community reading along, not your opponent.
For me its not important if the community is convinced. :) I always make my own decisions in life and sometimes its against what the community thinks.
Its a fun and engaging way to pass the time on occasion.
Yeah sure, but it has no hope of changing any opinions. But I agree. It can be a fun activity anyway to pass time.
1/5
A fifth out of one
No, I've never tried interacting with myself like that.
Sounds like BS to me.
That's like 5 out of 10 on reddit.. so yeah.
Thing is out here, there is less polarization and if you've got the links and the facts that are verifiable, people can and do go "Ah! I did not know that... thanks!" and mean it.
Which I love.
Went to the UK and the director was shitting on vegans. I said, "you can hate them but at least they're good for climate change" (I ignored mentioning I was a vegan in the past). Holy fuck, non stop verbal diarrhea. He said that global warming isn't true because scientists have agendas. Global warming is when seasons change (I think he was being funny or facetious about that). He also said eating meat had some carbon in their bones and that's good for the earth or some shit.
I wasn't able to get a word in. I did eventually say that his definition of climate change would be agreed by no one. Then he came at me again and eventually ended it with "well, you started it".
I said, "yes and let's end it and move on"
He did not and then said more random shit.
My dad..... Ugh
"No. You're dumb. I refuse to elaborate further."
That's the only answer you should give them. More than that is wasted time.
MAGATS
Some people are just made for blocking.
The general public on games development. Sometimes even game developers on games development outside their usual sphere/scale. None of us are immune to Dunning-Kruger.
MAGAs. Sometimes I don't even debate them, I ignore them and talk about them as if they weren't there, make fun of their arguments, laugh at them, mock them, just generally bully them, without even addressing them directly. They really hate that.
MAGAs and Anti-Vaxxers are about the only acceptable bullying targets, and they should be bullied as viciously and as relentlessly as possible. The damage they have done is incalculable, they deserve it.
I've yet to encounter either on Lemmy.
Oh they're out there. Talking ABOUT them, instead of talking TO them pisses them off because they are looking for an argument with a "Liberal®" so they can practice the conservative debate skills they hear on the radio or TV when the host sounds so smart debating nobody. They think they can do it for real (they can't), so it is immensely frustrating when their intended target won't engage, and mocks them instead.
Yes, religious pshychopath lady I know that thinks earth is 3000 years old and that democrats want to turn the US into Russia.
Yes yes, they love Trump as well, only watch fox and oann, etc.
Help. These people vote.
religious pshychopath lady I know that thinks earth is 3000 years old
Heresy! Everyone knows the earth (and the universe) was created in 40004 bc
Sure. Charlie Kirk was a fantastic example.
He's alive debating gun laws on here, that video was AI.
Yeah. They think it's me, I think it's them
I had the misfortune to run into one of those tankies I had heard about on here. They are like the extreme alt right. In that they go so far left they go right.
Like they literally blame feminism for Trump. It felt like talking to a maga. Making up their own definition of terms. Refusing to acknowledge actual definitions.
I didn't realize who it was at first then took the time to read the user name and was like . Ah. .. yes. Your reputation proceeds you. I should not engage with this individual.
Other people had made a post mentioning a few problematic users and this person had been mentioned and other people had chimed in with comments regarding said individual too. This was a while back but yeah...
This reminds me of talking to tankies on Lemmy, which is probably a futile endeavour.
For example, they seem to think that Russia's imperialist invasion of Ukraine is justified. They think that Russia murdering Ukrainians with missiles and drones is justified. I can tell them that these actions are wrong, but they won't listen.
they seem to think that Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine is justified.
They don't see it as imperialistic. With other motives it's easier to justify.
living through .ml during the first days ruzi invasion of Ukraine was quite something.
Just look at the comments that aged like fine barrel of milk: https://lemmy.ml/post/180102 sadly the wayback machine didn't archive the most toxic drivel I've seen there. At this point it was very apparent that .ml is going the way of all social reject social networks like voat or minds etc. there's a point where a social network crosses this threshold and becomes irredeemable and that was that point for .ml
This was part of why I wanted an unencrypted “X-Domestic” HTTP header. Cannot be sent across national borders, under penalty of…wrist slaps.
Not a full betrayal of one’s identity, but it could at least be used to declare “Hey, I’m a resident of the country you’re in, talking about our politics”. We know there’s an abundance of foreign manipulation going on, we just don’t know how much exactly.
yeah you're not gonna convince people who have the violence and bloodshed running through their veins; where would you even start to discuss that?
i think international law should be based on some principles that are easy to see for everybody, the whole russia situation is all fucked up and it's largely because people in russia often have such a bad quality of life that it turns into "seeking an external enemy to blame it on" which then leads to invasion.
People with positions of leadership in businesses and political organisations routinely tend to be like that.
i feel like this is talking about me.
however it's not bullshit, it's often just another point of view, and people should get more exposed to that. it's not as if i'm being mean or obtuse either. people downvote me because it doesn't (yet) fit their world model
I stumbled into a thread the other week of someone who tried to argue that basically, there exist non-invasive non-native species, as well as native invasive species.
Eh, no buddy. The Venn diagram is a single circle. Everything inside is native and therefore not invasive, and everything outside is invasive and therefore not native. Invasive === NOT native.
I live in rual northern Nevada and everyone here is hardcore brainwashed republicans. I used to try to correct them when they said dumb shit but it just made me look stupid, so now I just watch and listen to there ramblings. It’s more entertaining for me and less of a headache.
Lemme has many...
2? more like 6
If actual conservatives existed here I'd agree.
Conservative ideology is about defining underclasses that have fewer or no rights. Sadly, that type of hierarchical thinking is present everywhere and probably in everyone to some degree or another.
So we're not immune.
Conservatives do exist here, there are plenty of people that actually believe Harris would have been a good president or that the US is capable of good actions.
I've even see people unironically support USAID and the NED. That kind of far-right bullshit is why some of us left reddit.
A person who is looking to understand and be understood doesn't come across that way.
It's not dumb, and it's not overwhelm. It's an attack, a set up for something violent, or at best someone who doesn't realize they're aiding such a thing, as they're in the middle of actively doing it.
OP has a 5 day old account, just saying.
This is my return. I was Chippys_Mittens before. Had an issue with the email associated. Spent about a year here talking to people before probably. More or less I think.