It’s a video about why the Internet and society itself is so divided nowadays.
Damn this couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I’ve been thinking a lot over the past months how it used to be that when you disagreed with someone, you’d still have something shared with them. Not quite the same as the social media aspect, but when TV was all broadcast on a few channels, you’d probably find a show in common. When the only news was national newspapers and broadcasters, you might both be reading the same paper but disagreeing on the articles. My thinking was going down the lines of “this meant everyone had a shared truth” which is kind of like the social media bubble that the research seems to disagree with, but also down the lines of “this meant everyone had, to an extent, a shared identity” at least within a large group like a country, linguistic or ethnic subdivision.
There was something special about the old internet. The idea that the acrimonious disagreements might have been less bitter due to their nature is tantalising. There’s also something to bear in mind for Lemmy: the old internet, as much as the interest groups it spawned, was united by a shared interest in the internet specifically - and technology in general. The internet wasn’t as necessary and ubiquitous, so most people there had to have some other motivation to be on it. That itself was a shared interest that allowed people to find commonality. Lemmy is the same: people here are a subsection of the internet, brought here because they’re drawn to openness not provided by unfederated platforms. That is its own commanlity, and it won’t exist if Lemmy outgrows those other platforms.
Well said.
Are you fucking kidding me? What rose-tinted crap is this.
The Internet has not changed, we’ve been at each others throats violent disagreeing with each other since Usenet and dialing into a BBS.
Flaming, trolling, etc. have been around from the start.
The only difference now is algorithms, but we already split off into our own subgroups and communities long before they came along.
Are you fucking kidding me? What rose-tinted crap is this.
Flaming, trolling, etc. have been around from the start.
Maybe you have this impression because you have been doing the flaming? That’s an honest suggestion there - swearing at people just because you strongly disagree (and you even have a possible understanding of why, in your view, I might be wrong - “rose tinted spectacles”) is flaming for sure.
And yes, flaming and trolling have existed since the beginning, but I don’t agree it was as bad as it is today. That is a not-unpopular view so I think just dismissing it is a bit much. There was far more willingness to engage with a disagreement and try to convince each other.
You actually think “are you fucking kidding me” is swearing at someone‽
People haven’t magically changed as a species in 2 decades. We act just the same as we did before.
I’m not the person you replied to, but I don’t use “are you fucking kidding me” in normal everyday real life conversation with strangers when they have done nothing to deserve that kind of attitude. Maybe you and your circle do. But not everyone does. Realize that. The entire Internet isn’t 4chan. Some of us adults enjoy non-confrontational social interaction.
I’m also more than four decades old, and I agree with the OP of this thread. I never got death threats for my opinions back in '98. I do now.
Mate, it’s the most mundane comment ever. Why you’re getting at all worked up over it is beyond me but okay; everyone’s gotta have something in their life even if it’s being a miserable cunt on the Internet.
Cool? I’ve never had death threats in the past or now, so rather than taking that as an indication of the state of internet users I’d rather be looking inward, no?
even if it’s being a miserable cunt
There you go again. You literally can’t stop. Your entire personality is based on putting others down and trying to feel superior over them.
Trying to feel superior while using a base and repetitive vocabulary, to boot.
Oh no I called you miserable, how horrific.
Swearwords are categorised differently than ordinary words for a reason: it’s a tool that is useful to express things more forcefully than is otherwise possible. “More forceful” takes it beyond the realm of “mundane” never mind “most mundane ever” and, yes, makes it flaming, as is calling someone a “miserable cunt.”
No-one here is actually getting worked up (maybe except you? I don’t call people “miserable cunts” unless I’m at least a bit annoyed) You’re imagining that people talking to you calmly are worked up, because you can’t imagine someone disagreeing with you on this calmly. That failure of imagination is far from the worst thing in the world, but it’s causing you to be unpleasant and, I think, to be blind to a change that has taken place over the last 20 years.
I’ve never had death threats in the past or now, so rather than taking that as an indication of the state of internet users I’d rather be looking inward, no?
One thing I know about death threats is that only a handful of people actually deserve them, but vast numbers of people receive them. Death threats therefore indicate more about the people who send them than the people who receive them. That in turn means if they have become more prevalent, something in [internet] society has changed. Telling someone to “look inward” over death threats is messed up.
And from further down the thread:
Mate, you’re the one trying to enforce some prudish seppo standards about language etiquette onto others. Why would I do anything but not consider that a miserable existence, and thus call it out?
Nobody here is telling you that you have to not swear, so this is not accurate. But swearing at people is rude, and rudeness is on the rise online. More to the point, this is exactly the angry flaming that I thought I detected in your original comment. You are incapable of judging the prevalence of flaming online because to you it was always happening - because you were doing it!
In the spirit of the post, let’s find something we both like to improve the atmosphere. I skipped through your comment history to find something I agree with and found: “Housing is a necessity, not an investment opportunity.” And hey, my country has been in a housing crisis for years and I wish it were not treated as an investment opportunity here - common ground :)
Lemmy really needs a super-upvote system
Exhibit A
You’re a {slur} for believing such {op’s source}.
Real {imagined good guys group} like me know the truth and we’re better than {punching bag other group}.
{slur} {slur}!
Others are always in bad faith, but not us, duh.At least that’s how it looks like looking at the reports I get.
So many people talk at each other rather than taking to each other.The idea of talking to each other is flawed anyway. The fact that there are 2 sides to a discussion doesn’t automatically validate both sides. Sometimes, many times one side is just objectively wrong.
There’s also a third audience most people don’t consider: everyone reading the thread that isn’t engaging directly.
You might not convince the direct ‘opponent’ in an internet debate, but can still make an impact on others that might be more open to listening to a new perspective.
Yeah, but behind that wrong side is a valid person, and without a discussion you’ll never know how they ended up on that wrong side. Without knowing how they got there, you’ll never be able to sway them away from the wrong side and they will continue to be wrong.
I think everyone has something worth saying, but in the majority of cases I just don’t have the time, energy, or patience to get to that something.
I’m sorry to tell you that this is naive. Some people are just awful. Telling them they’re awful or showing them won’t change anything. You’re living under the delusion that people at their core are on equal footing of being basically good. They aren’t. It takes great effort and introspection to even move the needle toward good, and no one ever achieves it fully.
Take someone like Donald Trump. You think that guy has value buried deep inside? He doesn’t. He is proud of his awfulness. You think the right words or right people in his life at 77 years old are going to bring out something meaningful? C’mon…
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This is a great point for the vast majority of opinions. I have an aunt who’s a flaming, angry conservative. She and her husband lost their jobs because of Obama tax increases and he now works as a flunky for his brother.
I understand where she’s coming from because I listened. Didn’t stop me from blocking her eventually, though. One must limit the amount of toxicity one sees on a daily basis.
Good thing this never happens on Lemmy.
Yea, this is exactly my point after seeing the reports I get on lemmy.
entities with interest want to sway public opinion for their own goals. they’ll play the “us VS them” card, and its super effective.
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The demographics of the internet users have changed over time. At the beginning it was researchers, then graduate students, then normal University students. Then the affluent civilians, then the metropolitan civilians, then everyone.
Each of those demographic changes, includes a shift in the average discourse. The way researchers disagree with each other heatedly is going to be different than the way the common person disagrees with other people.
I would argue the state of the internet discourse, is a commentary on the state of direct democratic discourse. Many people are simply not equipped to have a constructive debate.
Of course the algorithms in their pursuit of engagement, just magnify this effect ensuring that the most outrageous of commenters get seen by the most people.
Rising prices, stagnant wages, impossibility to own a house, governments run by idiots who only listen to the richest assholes. Is it really any wonder why people are pissed?
Nowadays? Was it not divided when some were forced to drink from different fountains? Was it not divided with literal slavery? Civil War? Only wealthy landowners making all decisions? Only the clergy had ability to read?
Which period wasn’t so divided? Since apparently it is nowadays?
Not divided as in literally separated, but divided as in highly polarised individuals interacting with each other
High polarization has literally has gone on for centuries.
Some valid points, but then they haven’t offered any solutions and promoted the same platforms who use algorithms that are the cause of the problem by their own research.
But they did offer solutions?
Unless the solution was in the Ground News ad section, then they didn’t. All they said in the “Something More Positive” was going back to the internet 20 years ago, which is not a solution…
So you think their offered solution is unworkable? That’s different than them not having offered one - maybe you could say more about that?
Solution requires a resolution. Unless you have a time machine, that’s not a solution. We can’t go back in time.
No, but we can revert to how things were within a system. Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t invalidate it.
There are plenty of solutions to improve the situation or change the direction, reversal is not possible. Neither from technological side nor societal side.
Reversal isn’t possible… You poor bastard.
Edit: Autocorrect typo.
They did offer the solution to break off into smaller subsets instead of shouting your opinion into the void so it can be heard by the entire world.
How that is achieved is more complicated and depends on the person.
For some people, all semblance of rationality and respect for others disappears once they realise they’re anonymous and behind a screen, causing topics with nuance and complexity which deserve to be debated and discussed properly, to be reduced into morally black and white issues. Instead of making any logical arguments, groups of people will just say “If you disagree, you suck” and so it spirals.
Penny Arcade 's greater internet fuckwad theory is the GIFT that keeps being relevant.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboards-and-other-anomalies
Piped link
What the old internet did was keep your interests partitioned. You could be a well respected Pokemon fan while at the same time being a beloved member of a local white supremacist group. Without the partitioning people are more likely to allow themselves to be seen as who they are as a whole. By social media enveloping multiple interests and people not wanting to maintain a separate identity for each interest, you get people who share a great recipe but are known to be a huge misogynist. Call me crazy, but I’d rather know more about the person I’m getting information from. What they do beyond a shared interest informs me as to how trustworthy they are a person and whether I want to support them and be associated with them.
Repartitioning the internet is not a solution. I keep seeing it touted as the rose-colored glasses nostalgia that it is. This example is no different. I feel it all boils down to wanting everyone to sit around their own campfires where they can sing kumbaya together while ignoring the ones who are wanting to strip others of their rights. The history of humanity is our steady stripping away these partitions, not putting them up.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/watch?v=fuFlMtZmvY0
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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