Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like things have been getting kind of unpleasant around here lately, a lot more arguments, a lot more “I’m right, you’re wrong, fuck you, now bend the knee” kind of discussions rather than actually explaining a position or trying to convince someone to change their mind.
I know tensions are high for a lot of people right now, but I really don’t want to see this place turn into yet another dead online leftist forum where the dozen or so remaining members declare themselves the One True Leftists after having chased everyone else away through their toxicity.
Just because you think you’re right about something doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole about it.
I propose a tournament of power to sort it out
The general feeling of helplessness, frustration, and all the existing problems are exacerbated by how much terrible shit happening especially in the US.
People have to remind themselves that while agitation and education is good, getting mad at people online and arguing isn’t really doing that much and i don’t consider it activism. It’s okay though. You’re allowed to not have the ability to do much, and to have to focus on yourself.
But you can’t fall into doomerism, nihilism, etc. That’s not revolutionary, and it’s not helpful. It harms you and other around you.
I also agree with others on this thread, if your actions and convictions don’t come deep down from love and empathy, you will get lost. I have a lot of hatred, but that’s because I have a lot of love, for everyone. Even people i get mad at IRL, libs, etc. I want everyone to have a happy life.
I think we’re going a little insane from seeing all this shit and being unable to do anything concrete about it. Tensions are high as you said.
In any case, i love everyone here.
As someone who has frequented Hexbear with various alts over the years, I feel like this hostile attitude comes and goes in waves (and sometimes targets specific people/threads for some reason).
Every time I see it I just want to leave the site, then I don’t see it for 3 months. It’s weird.
I would personally really enjoy “assume good faith” and “don’t be an asshole” being enforced a bit more strictly
Wait I was a lurker for 5 years the party can’t be over I just joined
I wouldn’t get too worried, whenever strangers act poorly I usually assume they’ve had a bad day/week.
What if you’re having a bad life
Haha you too?
I remember this exchange just 2 days ago. Heartbreaking stuff
https://hexbear.net/post/6350886/6563561
What’s worse? @Civility@hexbear.net is as frustrating as ever and didn’t even respond. That’s fr*cked up
😔
How can ppl be so cruel?
Ye it’s not just you.
Shit’s kinda off and I think it’s because things are pretty fucked in the world right now.
On one hand I totally get the sentiment because being angry right now is more than justified. I am angry too, angry and tired. Everything is so fucked.
On the other hand I wish that anger was more directed toward people that deserve it.
It’s all fucked and it’s all getting worse quickly.
Let’s remember to be kind to other leftists during this time as we’re all feeling it.
I just joined so idk what’s it usually like here, but it would be cool if we could get more people interacting with each other on the less political parts of the website, it would help humanize each other.
Remember there’s a human being behind the typewriter.
What do you expect from the “bullying works” board? Internal hostility is a natural byproduct of such things. Either it’s bloodsport or it’s humane, but trying to draw dividing lines so that you never need to see mom and dad fighting but your neighbor can get fucked produces the same outcome on a longer timescale.
Foucault’s Bully-rangFair. But I don’t think “bullying works” was ever intended to be aimed at fellow leftists.
That’s the “draw dividing lines so that you never need to see mom and dad fighting” part. Who is a leftist? Who is a chauvinist? etc. You can try to just aim things at the other, but that’s not a hard and fast boundary for community norms and people are ultimately going to come to conclusions that x person isn’t really a leftist as concerns that norm because they did y which we are saying is reactionary, and therefore they are a valid target.
For the record, my opinion here is not that we shouldn’t consider things reactionary, but that the “bullying works” approach is a toxic maladaptive behavior that gets in the way of working things out constructively.
Ya, I agree. The more I’ve joined irl organizations trying to build mass movements, the more I’ve been trying to turn away from the “bullying works” mentality. It was fun before, but as fascism approaches the more I feel an urgency that we need to build a real movement soon with people we don’t always agree with, like Lenin when they had to get the reactionary peasants or trade unions on board.
yeah like, it does/did serve a purpose (shutting down bad faith shitlords instead of wasting time arguing with them) but if people can’t be judicious with their dunks and withhold dunking on those who aren’t obviously just reactionaries picking a fight, then it becomes unproductive.
The point isn’t “PPB anyone who disagrees with you more than a little bit” it’s “chud dipshits that wander in and make tired, bad faith arguments deserve ridicule”. Comrades, and even earnest liberals, radlibs, clueless “apolitical” types, etc. all deserve at least a little bit of charity and explanation of why they’re wrong.
Someone just being clueless deserves an explanation but someone clearly trotting out a tired gotcha might not.
it feels like the outright wrecker chuds are just not showing up to the same extent in real life, so there there’s even less reason to have a “bullying works” mentality IRL.
The line of where it’s worth struggling it out with people (constructively, respectfully), vs just ignoring or insulting them and moving on is an important one to draw, and I think it varies based on the kind of work you’re engaged in. If you’re trying to recruit to your cause, more patience is needed, but if you’re just rallying your existing supporter ingroup or carrying out an action, that’s different. But fundamentally you do want to make a good impression on the general public for most purposes, and being too harsh with people is a great way to lose that respect fast.
A leftist cooks video offhandedly mentioned that insults may possibly be inevitably hierarchy reproducing, and the more I’ve thought of it the more I’ve agreed.
Yeah, I’ve already ranted about that a lot so I didn’t want to just reproduce my spiel yet again, but I do think that this is based on a dynamic of forming a new ingroup that is just as emotionally dependent on basically exercising sadism toward an outgroup, even if it’s not fully equivalent in other respects. When you get together a bunch of people under the banner of “bullying works,” slowly but surely you’ll find that you’ve made a group of bullies, and the fact that many were bullied in the past does not necessarily mitigate this and can even heighten it instead as people re-enact their trauma.
Yeah you’re right, methinks. I was never a fan of it myself and I think we’ve grown past it.
Someone should start a thread (on /c/Hexbear?) to discuss a referendum on “bullying works”.
Maybe we can democratically push a moratorium or ban on that attitude? What purpose is it even serving right now?
What are the top posts of the month? Like 300 upvotes?
“If this gets 200 upvotes (and thus is one of the top posts for the month), ‘bullying works’ is over.”
If someone seconds that motion, copy, paste, and post.
Edit: looks like the number is 300 or so upvotes, not 200
I resonate with this sentiment, I mostly lurk because most comments and posts radiate a very foul energy of pessimism, hopelessness and thinly veiled hostility. It’s mentally taxing just to look at what other people are talking about, I can only imagine what it would be like to regularly engage with this site’s discourse. The vibes are rancid.
Most of the user base of this site is North American and it really shows in how traffic on comms about special interests is dwarfed by tired ranting, despair, doomscroll material, toxic irony, post-postmodern humor (
) and people generally looking to pick a fight.With respect, we are nowhere near the levels of vitriol that were reached during certain posting eras.
People are kinda generally more cranky, but I am not seeing the outright hostility towards each other that ebbs and flows on the forum. We are nowhere close to high tide yet.
Yeah, that’s true. Guess I just wanted to call attention to it in the hopes of heading it off and preventing it, though in retrospect even mentioning it will probably only make things worse.
Yeah. Don’t be mean to me, okay?It feels like a lot less of a “community” when people don’t really treat members of the community any different than a chud they are slam dunking on reddit or something.
I have never been a fan of twitter-dunking nor reddit snark, but I think many of us who use either or both of those sites bring some of with us here, including those who make an intentional effort to dial it down (me?). I really hate what corporations have done to social media, and i know we are all familiar with that. I often wish Hexbear (as the leading Lemmy instance) would be more diligent about community building.
I think even “reddiquite” was a nice attempt at something new, and it was successful for a bit (up till around 2012 or 13?). I still rate it like 4/10, and I think Hexbear moderation has beaten it out in some ways.
It was cool at the start of this site when we had c/userunion. Didn’t exactly work out, but it was trying something! I’m not trying to demand that the moderators just try and come up with something out of thin air, I think the community should start proposing rule changes and etiquette guidelines to c/Hexbear (that’s the local only one, right?)for unrionic discussion. Maybe we’d figure out something that sticks?
😔
As things get worse people will start getting more cranky and hostile with one another. We will start trusting each other less and less. People will draw harder lines in the sand and tolerate less crossings. The community will become more insular. On top of that you have the general background radiation of social media dunk culture which is toxic and easily internalized if you’re having a bad day and not thinking.
There are two main reasons: (in my opinion)
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It’s sometimes hard to tell comrades apart from lemmy libs looking to start shit and troll, we’ve been constantly burned by the rest of lemmy and people aren’t as trusting as they once were, Federation has been a disaster for the site’s vibes and it’s amplified by the nature of internet anonymity
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The world really fuckin sucks lmao, and grief can quickly turn to anger, especially when paired with a nagging and often ignored sense of distrust
All of that melds together to create a bad case of siege mentality, and WE’RE ALL GUILTY of it at various times
The site thrives when big things happen in the world
Just remember, when you see me, you know you’re looking at a liberal.
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There was one dude here today defending shock collars on dogs and I rightfully dunked on him. Outside of that I try to engage in good faith with others on here if they extend the same to me. Liberals and chuds that wander on here obviously don’t. I think most people living in the states rn, which is hb’s base (I think at least) are worried and upset and I get that.
