My current theory about influencing people is that, for people already convinced of a position, small, indirect, and constant statements are more influential than large, direct, and infrequent (or frequent, for that matter) statements. eg, a bunch of people mentioning offhand over the course of a few years that they're recycling is more influential than a big recycling lecture directed at a single audience. In that regard, small inaccuracies are important to counter in order to preserve a particular narrative. The current meme war around Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine is a great case study
You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
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Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#62I really struggle with this; to this day I haven't found a good resolution. I'd say by analogy you could also say: "You don't have to pursue people romantically." It's really, really true: you don't. No one will blame you for keeping to yourself. In many settings it may even be better (example: a club, where the club organizers find the drama caused by romantic entanglements annoying). But there's a problem behind th…
I think the whole point of this is about maximizing your own enjoyment of things or as the article somewhat oddly puts it, avoiding "psychic damage." In online "discussions" some people get extremely riled up when they can't convince the other guy they're wrong.
Many seem to lack the empathy/introspection to understand that you'll never be able to convince him that he's wrong anymore than he'll be able to convince you that you're wrong. Those sort of folks would generally make their lives a whole lot more enjoyable if they didn't get involved in the first place.
But if you enjoy it and it's not interfering with other things you view as more relevant? Then obviously there's no reason to avoid it. And that extrapolates to more or less everything in life.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#63Interesting date format: M01 18 2023
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#64Someone is wrong on the internet!
Come to bed, honey. No can do. Someone has to correct them. It's getting better as I age but there are times when the pressure has to be released
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#65The Serenity Prayer could easily be adapted to serve as a guide here: Grant me the serenity to accept the minds I cannot change, the courage to change the minds I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#66Cyberbullying?? Pffft just turn off your computer.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#67>There is no good way to add oxygen to a tire fire.
Combine it with hydrogen first and pour the resultant liquid on the fire (or silicon, and use the resultant solid).
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#68I have the "hide comments section" turned on my ad blocker. Makes the internet a much nicer place in general on a lot of general news/info type sites that aren't explicitly for discussion (eg. HN, Reddit). I was pretty excited a couple of years back when some bigger news sites explicitly turned off their comments saying they only generated distracting noise and added no value. Then, after that I can rigorously filter…
>I think there's huge value in going out of you way to block negative noise in bulk.
I'll go on a tweet made by a Twitter user with a large follower count and just start blocking people. AOC and Ilhan Omar are great because I can very easily pick out the crap comments being made just to try and troll them, I've started reading George Takei's tweets recently to block the trolling homophobes that respond to him.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#69My father gave me sage advice: Choose your battles.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#70Commenting because I can