Discussing politics and other contentious sunjects online feels to me like it’s counterproductive these days and even though I try not to get suckered in, I often can’t help myself. Usually though I just end up feeling frustrated and sometimes angry at the other person either missing my points or refusing to accept them.
Thinking back to conversations I’ve had here and previously on Reddit, not only can I not remember an example of me “winning” the discussion and the other person changing their mind or conceding the point, I also cannot think of a time where my mind was changed either.
So have you ever begun a discussion online with someone with a different view point to yours and either you, or they, changed the others mind?
Yes, I have changed a mind or two. Low single digit percentage, I’m sure. I’m more focused on countering bad information information or presenting a perspective that hasn’t been represented yet. I don’t really expect to change the mind of the person I’m arguing with.
As for not getting sucked in, does the Lemmy app you use have User Tags? Best feature reddit was completely missing (aside from, you know, the whole FOSS federation thing). I use the feature to apply a tag and color to users. I use yellow to warn myself about someone who I think previously argued in bad faith or might be trolling, a “proceed with caution” warning. I use red for “do not engage”; on reddit I probably would have blocked them but just red-tagging them, I can still see the rest of the community respond to them. Any time a post or comment comes up from someone I’ve red-tagged, I know not to get sucked in. I use Voyager app on Android. I don’t block much, just spam, bots, and full Nazi/CSAM apologist types.
I just tagged your name with ‘guy who colors people’ and put it in blue.
What a cool option!
Everybody’s getting tagged up now
I tag ppl I want to pay special attention to, as well. They get green. There’s a dude around here somewhere who works on the Jellyfin for Roku app, tagged green so I can spot their posts easier.
Good point, and I love when someone presenting other perspectives (even when I disagree!)
Tags are a good suggestion. I did not know about them before. Probably won’t use them. I hate to categorize ppl, and would fear that my current emotions and their state of mind when they commented would missplace them.
I think I never blocked anyone either. (probably not enough engagement from my part to feed trolls)
Never preemptively blocked obvious trolls or repost bots? Brave of you. I guess by ‘preemptive’ I mostly mean without engaging first.