Not saying the OP was banned fairly, but to do the devil’s advocate, there’s people with PHD in biology or medicine who still don’t believe in Evolution. You can always find idiots with PHDs, even in their chosen fields.
I’ll go ahead and say OP was probably banned fairly, judging solely by the fact that he willingly posts threads on 4chan
Anon probably used slurs and got banned for that
As someone with over a hundred banned reddit accounts, you generally don’t get banned for disagreeing. So maybe not slurs, but maybe just general rude language. Or my personal favorite, bothering the mods.
Unless he’s Richard Dawkins, people do get banned if they argue about biological sex.
Especially back in 2020 long before the API changes caused the largest wave of migration of intellectuals away from reddit.
Where have they moved to?
You best start believing in ghost stories, You’re In One.
Especially back in 2020 long before the API changes caused the largest wave of migration of intellectuals away from reddit.
Something like 1/5 of pharmacists believe homeopathy works. How the fuck can you go through that training and still believe in a hyperdilution that’s magic if you shake it the right way and never ever touch it with your fingers because that takes the magic away?
(For those who are unfamiliar I’m not even being facetious, this is what homeopaths actually believe)
20% of pharmacists believing in homeopathy? That seems ridiculously high. Do you have a source for that?
To be fair, I’ve heard that as well. My source was a trustworthy guy in lemmy.
I read it in Pharmacy Practice. I cannot find the article. Linked in this article is a photo of one the pages I had read and a link that I cannot access. The number was 19% and it was specifically Canadian pharmacists. Not sure what that looks like elsewhere.
Pharmacists and General practitioners believing in homeopathy. Physical Therapists believing in chiropractice. There’s way too many examples. But at least physical therapists don’t tend to have PHDs :D
Well they do now. Physical therapy changed to a doctoral degree several years ago. You have to get a doctor of physical therapy (DPT) degree plus pass the licensing tests to practice these days.
Physical Therapists believing in chiropractice
I will never not be mad that chiropracticians have largely avoided the hunt for woo-woo magic crystal retards. Don’t get me wrong, some people have managed to find treatment for chronic pain in things like acupuncture and chiropractic care that they couldn’t get elsewhere, but most of the time this is presented as equal to physiotherapy despite lacking any scientific support, and the inability for “alternative medicine” to cure or permanently treat people.
Placebo effect is powerful. They probably have lots of people saying X really helped with their cold/pain/cough/whatever.
Like, I didn’t believe in magic before I learned a lot of technology.
Now I do.
I have no idea about homeopathy, but you used the word “facetious” so you must be very smart and I believe everything you say.
There’s some amount of people who believe homeopathy is the same thing as essential oils and herbs, and have no idea about the hyperdilution stuff somehow. Granted, that’s not much better, but there’s at least a realm of slight possibility that you might get useful effects from those, as opposed to literal water with extra steps and flavoring added to make it taste vaguely medicinal.
We’re also talking about people who should absolutely know better regardless so maybe that offers far too much credibility to them.
Those are extremely few and far between, and they aren’t evolutionary biologists. Behe, the most famous of them, doesn’t have a PhD in biology, but a PhD in biochemistry. Those are vastly different fields, and understanding the evidence for evolution wouldn’t have been relevant to Behe’s PhD. MDs more commonly don’t believe in evolution because MDs are essentially average folks who can memorize stuff really well. MDs don’t receive training in research or how to conduct it, so they’re pretty poor at understanding primary research most of the time.
Someone with a PhD from a reputable university (essentially, one that funds their PhD programs rather than making students pay, and one that doesn’t incentivize publications directly with bonuses) will be an expert in their subject area. Behe would be able to tell you about the biochemistry of sickle cell anemia. Someone with a PhD speaking on an area outside of their expertise is perhaps more likely than the average person to be correct because they could have read and understood most primary sources even outside of their area, but I wouldn’t say it’s all that much more likely. Basically, PhDs speaking on the topic of their expertise are experts, but they’re not experts in everything.
Personally, my PhD made me like the trope of someone who could tell you everything you want to know about some esoteric subject but wouldn’t know how to make a meal.
Getting a PhD produces highly specialized knowledge, not general knowledge.
Totally, everyone who continued to a PhD in my area was batshit insane. Entirely fuckin deranged but diligent enough to write thousands of words of cogent garbage that no one could be bothered contesting.
Isn’t there some stat that PhD students have 3x the mental health issues than undergrads? Which nowadays is like 100% lol
You misunderstood the statistic. Mental health issues are caused/exacerbated by academia not the other way around. Many of my cohort and friends were bullied, harassed, abused, taken advantage of by supervisors and senior academic staff who often have unreasonable demands and expect blinding unquestioning allegiance.
People who run research groups are not selected for based on their people skills but rather academic performance/pedigree, which is the biggest issue IMO.
Academia is a tough gig. Peer review and thesis chairs perform the review of candidates work, trust me they are almost always contested to varying degrees.
You know what gets me? The fact that the public seems to think that academia is well paid, I’ve had a few people make comments along that line. Cue me, manically laughing when they confusedly ask why anyone is in academia if it’s high stress and relatively poorly paid.
Truth. It’s well paid higher up the ladder but those jobs are few and far between. Depends on the country as well - the US and UK wages suuuck.
I can’t complain. I personally love it and have only worked in supportive teams.
The PHD means you passed your classes. It doesn’t mean anything you say is right.
No, there is no coursework past a master’s thesis. For the last typically ~3-4 years of graduate training, everything that you’re doing is original research. If your research isn’t good enough or done correctly, you will never get a PhD. You also have to defend your dissertation. Getting a PhD from a reputable university does mean that what you say, specifically related to your research area, is correct.
Let’s not pretend we’re in any better of a situation. Same exact thing could happen on any Lemmy server, especially since each server is a small fiefdom run by randos.
It’s already happening. People with no clue what they’re talking about starting fights
Like when people start commenting on the near-east conflict. Hardly anyone knows what the fuck is going on there yet we find many experts on the topic in the comments.
Self-propelled multipurpose couch “EXPERT”
- Crew: 1-6 strategists
(or 8 if not too fat)
- TOP SECRET!
Fuel tank
24*0.5l, 2500 comments on full tank. Possible installation of additional tank.
Air bag[safety pillow]
Optical caterpillars
Provide speed up to 100Mbps
Teflon seat for couch driver
Protects pillow from combusting
Containers of dynamic protection against enemy cat
Missle silo cover
Three couch-internet missles
Can hit/penetrate to the soul any opponent
I don’t think this is wrong. I’ve learned so much talking shit. I even use talking shit as a mechanism to learn.
I talk shit -> someone corrects me -> I learned something new. The person feels great because they corrected someone.
It’s like a free lesson and everyone wins.
But if nobody knows much of anything on the matter, how can anyone be sure they’re being corrected and learning anything? 🤔
Sources.
By the way, I have the feeling someone is about to teach me something.
That is a nice, refreshing and honest view. If I’m being honest with myself, this happened to me very often as well.
“please stop fighting and get along” is my fundamental take on most wars. It’s not particularly useful, but it helps me split the average soldier from the average “leader” that sent them to die.
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But 4chan tho is a good place for factually informed discussion. Mr Greentext has it all figured out.
No kidding. I got downvoted a dozen times because I mentioned that diet and practices help with sun burns and sunscreen isn’t the win all against the sun. I didn’t post sources right away, but when I did the hive has made up it’s mind.
I’ll recuse myself from giving you an up vote or down vote but I’ll make a suggestion. Maybe provide the proof when you make the comment, especially on a topic that might be controversial or have health risks.
Why did I need to provide sources on the comment above? Are people really curious on how diet can help your skin defend against the sun? Then let’s have a discussion I’ll post my sources. But my comment then was just in conversation, adding that diet helps, and if people wanted to know more I’ll show. I’m not going to start off every comment with a research paper worth of citations.
But above I’m arguing that there’s a hive mind mentality, and my source is my downvotes. I’m just hoping lemmy doesn’t cater to the more “popular” comments because that’s how an echo chamber turns into an information swamp. Just because something is more popular does not make it necessarily correct. I’m not responsible for people to think outside of themselves.
And before people rail against the lack of a blue link for them to hit because of something that has nothing to do with the conversation we’re having here now, here. Click below. It’s not controversial to believe what you put in your body has an effect on how your skin is built, and that can help with sun burns.
I am, on the other hand absolutely not saying that some vitamins have the same protection that a sunscreen does. Which it seems what the downvotes are for. Since I can’t see why people would be upset to know how diet can affect your skin’s ability to defend against radiations.
https://www.skincancer.org/blog/can-your-diet-help-prevent-skin-cancer/
Since I can’t see why people would be upset to know how diet can affect your skin’s ability to defend against radiations.
A lot of your downvotes probably come from people misinterpreting your message as some woo woo bunk about replacing sunscreen with a proper diet and you won’t get sunburned, which clearly isn’t what you’re saying. However, its very easy for small, flippant comments to come across with wildly different connotations from the reader. Not really sure how to get around that, outside of way too much context.
Yeah, outside of way too much context. Reddit created a mentality where you have to comment a certain way, and only certain comments get seen. It’s self fulfilling in teaching how to talk. “reddiquite” lol
You make a valid point about sources when making a random throwaway comment.
Thanks for the link, I see what you mean about what we eat affecting our skin and it makes perfect sense. You’re right that it’s not your responsibility for other people to think outside of themselves but you could be a catalyst for it, which is something I strive for.
I like to give people the tools for them to think about any given topic and in real life I’ll often even say that I don’t want a reply to a question I posit them. I find people might be more truthful to themselves if they don’t feel the need to justify themselves to me.
I think your comment was probably misconstrued as you saying that sunscreen is useless and it’s all about diet when you obviously didn’t say nor mean that. I admit on first read I misread it that way as well and was curious about your stance. Thanks for having a conversation with me bud, hope you have a lovely day.
People need to start eating healthier in general, but they feel like they’re having their boundaries stepped all over when people tell them that. That’s one of the reasons you got downvoted probably.
Sucks to be told that you can’t eat crap, as well as knowing that americas medical system tries solving symptoms, not the root problem. But that’s the individuals responsibility. Americas medicine isn’t going to take care of you.
Loved this comment.
Typing “Source?” is quicker, but much less refined.
I try to be the difference I wanna see in the world. With certain things*
It seems the hive has made up its mind once again.
Yeah it most seems so.
I wish that it was lemmy being exceptionally self-aware and downvoting ironically but I doubt it is, bummer.
WTF are you talking about?
Settle down. I’m talking about people getting upset on a comment without acknowledging authenticity. The downvote and how a comment is buried or promoted is probably the worst thing reddit has manufactured. It’s what the post is about. And what the comment I replied to is that it’s happening here at lemmy
“These things are bad because I can’t make objectively wrong statements without being told so”
Bro is a damn toddler
just sounds to me like youre a kid and you give too much worth to a karma system.
Link the comment, maybe you didn’t deserve it but to me you just sound like a wiseguy.
Diet doesn’t replace sunscreen.I could care less about any of these systems, other than say it’s not flowing towards equitable information. You thinking I’m saying diet replaces sunscreen shows you’re not processing it.
We’re not discussing sun screen, and I’m old. Take what you want.
So you do care, got it.
As an expert on everything I find the Internet constantly frustrating.
As an expert on nothing I find the internet constantly frustrating.
As a pornography enjoyer, I really like the Internet
Op probably does not have a PHD. He posted a stupid opinion and got down voted for it, and ran to 4chan because he was sad.
Everyone on 4chan has a PHD and a active social life.
Don’t fuck with the hive mind. Many a time I’ve taken a reasonable, well-thought out and even sourced opinion and been downvoted to shit.
Shit is happening here on Lemmy too
Yes, however I’ve noticed that you may get downvotes dumped on you initially, oftentimes if your argument is decent you’ll probably rise to level or even positive after several hours. Not sure what it is with Lemmy, but I seem to encounter some comments that get downvoted right off the bat for no reason I can discern. My life doesn’t revolve around internet points, but obviously it’s nice to see upvotes and a good conversation follow a post I’ve added, but lots of downvotes without context are frustrating. Tell my why you disagree or think it doesn’t add to the discussion.
I’ve noticed that too. Sometimes when I get replied to I’ll see that the original comment is slightly in the negative. If I leave another reply and come back later it’ll be slightly in the positive. Maybe there’s some sort of bias at play, but I’ve seen this pattern a few times. Maybe people tend to be convinced by and up vote whoever left the last comment in a chain (had the last word)
All that matters is whether you’re speaking for or against the prevailing assumptions of the site/the subreddit. Most people on the internet are not experts on the topic but somehow already have their minds made up.
Also, Lemmy is not better than Reddit in this regard. Dominant opinion > everything else.
Oh yes, I’ve run into that several times. Worst were the biggest subs like /gaming or /cars. Man, never go against the crowd. I’m 90% sure that those subs are filled with industry shills and fans that won’t let you besmirch a (brand or game or car) and downvote your criticism or negative opinion for obvious reasons.
The most interesting thing is when something is culturally different from the US way of life, then it’s by default wrong.
I was arguing about shopping carts in another sub and, because it is culturally appreciated in the US to return the cart, I argued that we don’t do that in our country because it’s considered unsafe and was called lazy and got heavily downvoted.
That’s unfortunate. So many of these english speaking social media platforms tend to be US point of view dominated. From an American perspective it is difficult to envision a situation where returning a cart is so unsafe that it should be universally avoided and that may have resulted in the downvotes, and it’s certainly conceivable that the inconvenience and refusal to returning a cart could be rationalized over “safety”. It’s not like that sort of rationalization doesn’t happen over other things in daily life. The only thing I could suggest is a offer a why. I’m not suggesting people will become less stubborn over the issue, but at least those who want to learn, will.
Not to restart the discussion but: The whole “returning your cart” thing is a very arbitrary metric reinforced by a meme from around 2020 and has taken hold in the fickle zeitgeist of the internet. Personally I think carts need to be returned because they block parking spaces and can roll into and damage cars. Out of curiosity, why don’t people return carts where you live?
Out of curiosity, why don’t people return carts where you live?
This is how our parking lots look:
Every parking space has a space where you can leave the car to be collected by the employees, usually in the back of the spot. You can see it green in the image. Our parking lots are huge and usually take several floors. For us it makes no practical sense to have to go back all the way to the front, or to inside the store in some cases (like in the case in the photo, where you have to go all the way inside the mall), just to return the cart.
Of course if it happens for people to park near the cart deposit space, they usually return the cart to the stack.
Lots in the US are plenty large as well, so I don’t see that as a factor. But that doesn’t explain the “safety” aspect that was mentioned. It just means your lots are designed to accommodate leaving carts and the employees are accustomed to fetching said carts, not an explanation that led to the design other than perhaps a convenience for customers.
Which doesn’t mean I’m wrong and you’re right. It’s just two different ways of doing the same thing.
On big food courts here the etiquette is to return the tray to the tray holders or to the store, but for small courts or restaurants it’s very common to leave it at the table for the employees to gather. So it is kind of inverse of the cart etiquette. In some places in the world it is common to return the tray, and in some places it is common to leave it at the table. That doesn’t mean either is wrong.
The world is big and different people have different views and cultures and ways of doing every single thing. To tell one is superior to the other when talking about these things that don’t matter so much is to impose you way above anyone else’s to feel superior.
The person that called me lazy was calling everybody where I live lazy because everyone does this thing this way, which is pretty pretentious.
You can have strong opinions about something without being judgmental about how other people live because they don’t do things the way you and your peers do.
Being culturally expected and ingrained isn’t an issue I think needs to be argued about - so long as it doesn’t cause harm. Whatever works in your country is fine. Americans have plenty of their own cultural norms that are generally unacceptable or frowned on in other parts of the world even through they are insignificant in actual meaning. However, again, it doesn’t explain the safety aspect regarding cart return.
it’s considered unsafe
Huh?
Yeah! Take that with your stupid right wing opinion that’s different than what is wanted to be heard!
If your opinion is that certain people should have less rights, you have a retarded opinion.
If you’re saying that I do, I never said any of that at all nor did the post.
Whats funny is you just used an abliest slur.
Also, fetus rights are human rights. If you disagree, you have a r-slurred opinion.
Right wing opinions are usually wrong. Not always, but overwhelmingly. It’s really to the point that if someone mentions they’re right wing I immediately take every word out of their mouth with grave skepticism because the requirement to identify as a right winger is either terminal stupidity or willingness to play into fear and anger narratives uncritically. Which is just terminal stupidity with extra steps.
Thing is, around here you have to be very careful to not even sound rightwing. You dare not point out that there’s a reason the right believes a thing without being clear to distance yourself from that reason.
You certainly don’t point out the left’s take on a rightwing opinion is wrong. I see that with gun debates all the time. “Yeah, no one actually says or believes that. It’s more like…” “FUCK YOU CHILD MURDERER!”
Here’s a related example; I’ve been beat up for saying that Trump used to be coherent. Listen to some videos from the 80s or 90s, even early 2000s. You might not agree with his words, but at least he could string a sentence together. That sort of thing gets buried in downvotes, as if I’m agreeing with or apologizing for Trump.
I’ve tried to disagree with the people who have pretty extremist views on abolishing police and the rule of law, unironically supporting anarchy, and the response has been the classic ‘Bootlicker’ insult. It’s extremely frustrating when I’d throw a party to the news the GOP has been dissolved but criticizing the more outlandish left positions gets me my honorary klan hood and thrown onto team red.
Sure I’ve got some ‘hot takes’ by the lefts’ standards but I’m not a conservative in any regard. I think the left is perfectly capable of matching the retardation of the right and I wish we could normalize calling that shit out rather than reflexively going “Ohh so you’re not on my team, your words mean nothing, bootlicker.”
Cause now I’ve got to vote for a party that hates me so the party that hates me more can lose. Yippie.
Our political system has two wolves…
The one on the furthest right is retarded… The one on the furthest left… Is also retarded.
Also wait why do both parties hate you?
Lmfao apparently. What happened here?
At which point have right wing opinions actually helped the majority of people?
They always help people…
^mostly ^white ^men
I mean… Technically white is the predominant ethnicity in America… So like… (งツ)ว
Meh, it’s always how you present the arguments. Regardless of being right or wrong, if OP comes off as dickish, it’s gonna get downvoted.
Or even better if you’re going to post a wrong reply, post it in a patronising, know-it-all tone so not only does it convince people you’re right, it crushes the soul of your opponent.
I recently posted accusing a certain company of using dirty tricks to con people and control public perception. To my surprise someone from that company was in the thread and he replied saying, “You always say that” and then lambasted me for being a crazy person with a vendetta.
But actually I’d never posted about it before. His reply was a dirty trick to control public perception.
He got upvoted to heaven and I was mauled.
Meh, it’s always how you present the arguments.
I think this plays a role, but it’s absolutely dwarfed by what people want to be true. Or, maybe, they just equate any disagreement with the hive to being “dickish.”
The audience also matters though. You can shout well-reasoned arguments into an echo chamber all you want, it still won’t change anyone’s mind.
Go to a random political sub and bring a well researched fact they don’t happen to agree with. Be as polite as you can be. See what happens.
Being_a_communist.txt
Have done it tons of times, it’s not hard.
Well, they could just have posted sources to their claims instead of just playing the self-authority card the whole time.
Yeah, but users on reddit don’t read sources, and that gets people frustrated and bored. Especially on /science or /askscience. Those subs are shitholes.
God I fucking hated ask science. It was a giant feed of garbage pseudoscience that was almost nothing but “NEW CURE FOR CANCER” or “WEED IS AWESOME”. Almost every single post and article was bull, or had extremely poor research. I remember seeing some sexist claim and it turns out the study only had 4 male and 4 female participants. The researchers acted as though the claim, and evidence, were definitive, so it was posted everywhere because of the headline.
This is why we can’t have nice things
I agree but would like to point out that I have not seen higher quality content on the science-oriented sites on lemmy either.
be me
go to reddit
lie about my credentials
start a fight
eventually just start insulting everyone
“Y GOT B&???!!!”
scurry back to racism and CP board
complain
Nah, this shit is real. I’ve seen it. Once the piling on starts it becomes hard to turn the ship around though I’ve seen it happen. People are morons and they follow the crowd. They see the downvote, and like chicken, they peck at it because others did the same.
is the phenomenon real? absolutely. is writing vague fake stories about how “This community is better than that other community. I went there, and I got downvoted even though I’m definitely right because I’m definitely an expert. Congratulations on being part of the smart community instead of the dumb one.” also real? absolutely. The two things that make me think this is bullshit are:
-
“I’m definitely right because I’m an expert in that field. No I won’t tell you what the field is.”
-
174% of the time “I got banned for having the wrong opinion” translates to “I was a complete and utter shithead to everyone and now I’m trying to pretend the issue is what I said not how I said it.”
My knowledge of echo chambers tells me that 2 is simply untrue
-
Yep, I got downvoted to oblivion on Reddit once for daring to reference (and source) a peer-reviewed paper.
What a time to be alive.
Dear fellow scholar…
OP might not have a PhD but this stuff happens a lot on reddit. A lot of people here on Lemmy have an IT background and would get a rude shock looking at some of the dominant opinions on the major technology-related subreddits, particularly those that are heavily astroturfed.
It hits like this when people with a pure CS or IT background start talking about the humanities or literally anything not purely tech-related.
“Just” is the most dangerous adverb in the English language for engineers. I catch myself making sure I revisit anytime I say it to make sure nuance is better captured.
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Yeah, I avoid most of that nonsense. Even the humor sites annoy me more than anything.
/r/technology is perhaps my least favorite, and the Lemmy alternatives are a bit better imo (though a little too focused on Elon Musk).
If you really want to have some fun, when an Intel CPU is out preforming an AMD one on the charts go and mention that in a thread related to CPU performance. I’m fairly sure you’ll be talking to people paid with AMD money to astroturf the shit out of Reddit who will make up every excuse they can about the situation.
Intel CPU do outperform AMD in several workloads, but on the top end, AMD seems to have the efficiency advantage.
If AMD lost in some, they outperformed in many more metrics by large enough margins.
This trend was true in past 2 gens (price and efficiency advantage with an overall perf advantage in power limited scenarios). Nothing to astroturf about it.
The weird part would be if someone is comparing a zen2 with 14gen and still sticking with AMD for “some reason”
I have similar gen Intel and AMD, the Intel chip annihilates the AMD one for bursty workloads, AMD eats Intel at everything else though (power draw especially).
Yup. Intel can boost significantly higher than base clock
I hop into the selfhosted subreddit every once in awhile and as you would imagine it’s mostly hobbyists that have no clue what they’re doing, but they’re also not very receptive to advice from people who do. They have their own set of commandments at this point it’s pretty wild.
just wondering, but what are they commonly doing wrong?
The most common thing you see is the idea that the holy grail of security being “not forwarding ports in your router”. Put your publicly accessible web service running on your unsegmented home LAN behind a cloudflare tunnel and you’re “secure”, problem solved, job done. If you point out the fact that this doesn’t solve any of the problems that go along with “port forwarding” or that CF tunnels MITMs all their data, you’ll get downvoted as a “CloudFlare hater”.
Similarly they tend to believe that there’s no reason to separate your publicly accessible server from the rest of the devices on your home LAN, especially because the home LAN is “safe”.
Wat astroturfed
It could also be about your tone. People will downvote you just because you sound like an asshole.
Yes, effective communication strategies is a vital and required skill set for the most learned among us. It is the duty of the rational to communicate knowledge and understanding to the irrational. They certainly can’t do it themselves.
Yeah. This is why ignorance is bliss.
At least until they meet the consequences of ignorance. Then again, some idiots are just plain lucky.
This has happened to me multiple times, what’s worse is that I have over corrected myself a few times with being a bit too polite. Maybe I come off as sarcastic when I do that.
The same happened to me on Lemmy. I brought evidence, they brought anecdotes, and I was the “loser” of the discussion according to the hive
Lemmy has a strong hive mentality.
Many long said that we need to address it. But it’s not currently clear as of how.
I’ve been mass downvoted here for pointing out a point in the article that nobody had even read. It’s incredible the amount of dogpiling that can happen for something so innocuous. Could have been isolated to that thread but you are definitely right about the hive mentality.
Where?
Everywhere. Just look for anything that goes against (even slightly) the leftist perspective, such as:
- anything critical of trans people competing in sports - a lot of those policies are bigoted, but there are legitimate concerns
- evidence that the economy is not as bad as people claim - e.g. cars aren’t more expensive today than they used to be, bottom of the market cars are about the same price as they were 20 years ago, after accounting for inflation (they’re actually a little cheaper in many cases, and have way more tech)
- arguments criticizing Biden/Democrats
- anything anti-socialist
And so on. The quality of the argument doesn’t matter, what matters is that it doesn’t fit the leftist agenda, so it gets downvoted like crazy.
Go ahead, try playing devil’s advocate sometime (and don’t say the equivalent of “I’m a leftist, but…”) and cite your sources and see how well your post does vs comments that ignore facts and spout common leftist rhetoric, the lower effort post will get more votes and yours will probably go negative.
Aside from criticism of Biden/Dems, in all of those cases you’re taking a position that is, in general, not true. Just because you have some facts that suggest the economy is better than we think, or that socialism doesn’t work better than capitalism, doesn’t make you correct. Just because a fact is correct doesn’t make it true. The truth is that capitalism is killing us all, and nitpicking that narrative really doesn’t help anybody. Facts that disagree with that truth are usually either misleading or literally just fabrications themselves.
Just because a fact is correct doesn’t make it true. The truth is that capitalism is killing us all, and nitpicking that narrative really doesn’t help anybody. Facts that disagree with that truth
Let me just explain what I’m hearing here: “I believe X to be true, and anything that goes against that must be false.” That’s culty thinking.
Here’s how it should work: “I believe X to be true, but fact A goes against that, so I’ll look for more facts to prove or disprove X.” Science is all about making a hypothesis and finding evidence both for and against it, and then making a new hypothesis with that new information.
So the reaction to a well thought out argument that goes against your belief shouldn’t be to downvote and move on, but to challenge your opinion and look for evidence both for and against it. Take your belief as one hypothesis, take the alternative as another, and find facts that support each. Then go with the opinion that has the better evidence, or form a new one based on your findings.
Right, but I have already challenged my opinion far more than is necessary, I’m not going to start over. I used to think of myself as a capitalist, and as a liberal. But then I challenged my beliefs, and I found that they didn’t hold water. By I believe the transitive property, that means I no longer need to seriously consider whether capitalism or liberalism are reasonable views to hold.
As a result, unless I see a whole lot of new information on the subject, I am going to assume that any fact which seems to suggest capitalism or liberalism are valid systems is actually just misleading or false. And you should too. People have been having these debates with themselves for 150+ years, and all of the smartest people came up with the answer of socialism (Einstein, MLK, Lenin, etc). Meanwhile, all of the grifters and Nazi lovers came up with capitalism/liberalism
Einstein was a fan of socialism, but he was also very critical of Lenin saying he and the Bolsheviks had established a “regime of terror.” So it’s unclear what system he’d actually be in favor of, since socialism tends toward authoritarianism.
MLK was more of a democratic socialist (e.g. someone like Bernie Sanders), and he was staunchly anti-communist.
So each of those three are very different from each other.
Nazi lovers came up with capitalism/liberalism
No, Nazis hate capitalism and liberalism, by definition.
Fascism is wholly against international free market capitalism, and against any form of capitalism within the state that does not directly benefit the state. Fascist regimes consistently interfere in capitalist mechanisms.
They hate liberalism because the needs of the state supercede that rights, wants, and needs of the individual. Fascism is actually defined as being anti-liberalism, so they’re pretty much diametrically opposed.
So either you don’t understand fascism, or you’re applying the term to something completely different.
I don’t know for certain that fascists love capitalism, but capitalists sure love fascism. Most of the Uber wealthy in the mid 20th century were more than happy to work with the Nazis. And the Nazis certainly were not opposed to working with those capitalists. The two ideologies are very similar: both steadily constrict the power of the government into fewer and fewer hands, until you get situations like Nazi Germany or present day USA, where one group of a few thousand has near complete control over the country.
I was using socialism as a blanket term for “the left” there (do you know a better one?). All 3 of them were further left than Bernie Sanders, which I’d argue makes them socialists (the blanket term)
Not sure where you’re getting the idea socialism tends towards authoritarianism, it has more defenses to it than capitalism. Capitalism literally demands that a company do everything it can to co-opt the government, because if you don’t, your competitors will. By contrast, socialism is commonly referred to as “workplace democracy”. It has distributing power as widely as possible as its central tenet, IE workers owning the means of production.
You’re literally a different user. Do you have two accounts?
Nope, just someone who has the same problem.
Yeah folks on Lemmy want you to believe we are above at that but man people can be nasty here
The key word is “people.” This will happen everywhere where there are people and limited “regulation” on expertise verification unfortunately. :(
What you say is never as important as how you say it. I noticed that if I came off as a self-righteous dickhead, people would disagree with me out of principle and if the person was still wrong they’d bring neutral “Sure, but” arguments to avoid the same thing happening to them.
The only time you can be a jackass is if you do it in a funny way or the person is so far gone it’s the equivalent of default dancing on their grave.
What you say is never as important as how you say it.
In real life, maybe. But this does not line up with my experience at all on here or reddit. The up and down vote buttons are overwhelmingly used as agree/disagree buttons.
I try to be respectful in my disagreements, and often fail, but they usually doesn’t have much of an influence how bring mercilessly down voted for disagreeing with the hive. And I’ve always watched people I vehemently disagree with, who have made reasonable and respectful disagreements, get down voted tons while people attacking them will get tons of upvotes.
It’s nice to think that we respect different opinions if they are represented respectfully, but it does not seem to reflect the reality I’ve seen.
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Well, I more meant that even if you’re correct if you’re a dick about it, people won’t like it.
Respectfully (I’m honestly trying here, I hope it doesn’t come off otherwise), I still don’t agree. I’ve seen plenty of times where I’ll respectfully disagree with someone and the other poster will be a complete dick back for no reason, but still line up with the agreement of the hive and get plenty more upvotes than I got.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that it will influence the outcome, but from my experience, clearly “agreeing with the hive” is overwhelmingly the most important factor when it comes to how many upvotes or downvotes you’ll get. It’s certainly not universal, as I’ve been surprised sometimes by how well my disagreement has been received, but generally speaking it’s the case.
And we aren’t talking about simply being wrong or right. One can be wrong, but not really strongly disagree, and still be accepted. I wouldn’t be surprised that (removing being nasty), the harder you make it to maintain the position of the hive mind the more likely it is to get downvoted.
I can’t think of a better system, but it’s still deeply flawed when it comes to promoting quality posts.
All that matters is whether you’re speaking for or against the prevailing assumptions of the site/the subreddit. Most people on the internet are not experts on the topic but somehow already have their minds made up.
Also, Lemmy is not better than Reddit in this regard. Dominant opinion > everything else.
This is not only true on the internet. People are more interested in preserving their assumptions than learning something.
You’re right, and it takes humility to admit that you’re wrong and someone else is right. Personally, I will try to argue for my belief based on the reasons I’m holding it in the first place; but if I can see that I’m wrong and everything I’m googling is matching what the other person says, then I’d rather have beliefs that match reality than be right.
Case and point: https://lemmy.zip/post/7995540?scrollToComments=true
That’s the funny thing: I’d you change your beliefs to match reality then you are right. You just weren’t before.
Not really, it’s the presentation and everything. Just like in real life. In what space, ever, in human existence has truth always prevailed?
Gotta cite your facts when it’s about such controversial facts.
In Reddit it doesn’t really matter. You can cite the best sources ever, use a pristine logic, and the local irrationals will still find some excuse to believe in whatever.
Just like literally everywhere else
You do see plenty of that in most places, but I feel like it’s way worse in Reddit. As if there was something there reinforcing it. (Perhaps the local culture? I have no idea.)
It’s the voting system. Truth is not democratic.
I don’t disagree that the voting system (specially karma) plays a role, but I think that Reddit embraces oversimplifications a bit too much, and that’s part of the problem - because then you get both sides discussing if 2+2 is 3 or 5, and if you say “it’s 4” nobody will bat an eye (except to screech at you).
In special, three types of false dichotomy:
- no gradation: 50 is either 0 or 100.
- no third category: since apples and bananas are different from each other, then grapes must be either a type of apple or a type of banana.
- no superset or subset: if all bananas are fruits, then all fruits are bananas.
You do see those things in Lemmy too, but nowhere as much as in Reddit; and it has consequences everywhere, including political discussion. Or in 4chan - as much as their userbases hate each other, they fall for the same logical traps.
reddit attracts a certain special kind of moron, it’s like a honey pot for them
Source?
The other key factor is to not be an insufferable dickhead when you’re posting. You can post the truest facts known to man but if you come across as a smug asshole then people will naturally be inclined to think your wrong.
I feel like your tone plays next to no part on that. If they agree and you’re rude, your rudeness becomes “justified”; if they don’t agree and you’re rude, they’ll play the victim, assume (yet another sign of stupidity) that you’re angry, or even “u rude than ur rong lol lmao”.
Same deal with explanation length; make it succinct and to-the-point and they’ll assume words on your mouth, make it verbose and well-explained and they’ll distort it.
In my old community (here, in Lemmy - showing that the problem is not exclusive to Reddit) I scolded people like this, even when I happened to agree with them. I could’ve banned them, but I have no idea on how to approach this in large scale.
[Sorry for the rambling.]
I’ve seen threads just like that on Lemmy, too. People will act like people.
All that matters is whether you’re speaking for or against the prevailing assumptions of the site/the subreddit. Most people on the internet are not experts on the topic but somehow already have their minds made up.
Bold of you to assume that they can read.
I’ve cited nonexistent sources before. It seems convincing and nobody actually checks, so the other guy got downvoted because I got sources. I can imagine they weren’t happy about it, seemed like they actually knew their shit.
Happens everywhere where there’s voting involved. Convincing argument I feel sounds right > argument that’s actually right.
Yeah, I think humans are predisposed to make decisions with our gut rather than objectively reviewing available evidence.
It’s probably an evolutionary thing. For ancient humans, quick decisive action to do what feels right probably let you pass on genes better than taking time and consideration to choose what IS right.
Feelings > Facts
Oh no
