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You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
71–80 of 226 posts
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#72I 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’m surprised that so many people can tickle their social itch over the internet.
There is nothing about the dynamics involved that I’d consider social.
Interaction is mostly with total strangers, almost always in text form (no subtext, no facial expression, no body language).
Comments are written at people, not to people — to illicit support for one’s position or condemnation of the opposing one.
Social networks : Being social = Sock : Loving spouse
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#73I 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.
You’re leaving lot of noise on the table if you only look with one eye.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there can be value in making an argument specifically in bettering your own understanding of a point If you want someone to educate you, the polite thing to do is ask . This kind of "stealth learning" where you say things you don't believe, expecting to learn via corrections, is inconsiderate and inefficient. I know people who have lost practically all of their friends because they couldn't bring themselves to ackn…
I think that's really depends on what you're trying to learn. If you want to learn about someone's position it may be better to ask them than play Devil's Advocate. If you want to learn about the devil's position, the other person won't be able to help you. As you mentioned, time, place, and consent are important. You see this a lot in forums dedicated to debate. What consent means in general forms like this one is a…
Or, if you just want get practice (internet) arguing, its always a good idea.
OFC, the other people need to be interested in arguing. Random debate is a valuable skill, and I don't know that I 100% agree that "consent" is important. There's a difference between harassing someone and letting them know you don't agree (we call that discourse), if they're not interested in continuing the conversation a lot of people will just stop talking. Otherwise, you don't get to say things and then have some shield that nobody will disagree with you, putting it in the public forum itself is the only consent needed.
The only major danger is when someone doesn't reply at all. The OP's article ignores the fact that argument is often not just about being right, but about winning the perception. I think it is probably better (with someone who is not being disingenuous or harassing) to state if you don't have time or interest to reply, rather than letting the other argument hang -
- the last, simplest thing said usually sticks out in onlookers brains, not the 5 paragraphs of well (or not well) thought out response.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#75I found this out recently after being perm banned from Reddit for making too many dirty jokes. It was merely a creative writing exercise for me that I didn't take seriously. Not being able to comment made me realize though I was subconsciously always looking for the worst most absurd filthy angle to setup the joke. So I probably enjoy using the site more now though I'm still annoyed at being targeted by moderators because most of my silly jokes were very well received and upvoted by actual users.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#76Reddit is great because someone can says 1 + 1 = 3, get fifty upvotes, you can point out that it's actually 2, get downvoted into oblivion, and then some other idiot will come along and say it's 4
In reality, all three people think their reasoning equates to '1 + 1 = 2', and don't understand how others are so naive not to see.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean hacker news has it too - I’ll come along and point out that 1+1 is 10 in binary or 11 if it’s ASCII.
As the old joke goes, there are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary... and nine others.
I like that joke but I guess it only makes sense written? Or how do you say it? "Ten"?
Thinking about it, "there are ten types of people" might be even funnier.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#78I hope I never feel intrinsic motivation to defend my employer.
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#79There is no option but to engage with people on the internet. Its a new domain in which a new form of social life unfolds.
We are horrible at it because the rules of "real" life engagement, honed over millenia of civilization building don't apply, but unless we figure out the new rules we miss out on something important.
The reason that after several decades of 'online' we dont converge on something agreeable has much to do with the ever changing technical platforms, outside of the control of users, which seldom have this aspect as one of their driving concern.
From their perspective the cynical "any engagement is good engagement" reigns supreme
Re: You don't have to engage with people on the Internet
#80[flagged]