2mo ago

as a rule, if you feel the need to assume what someone else is saying? don’t!

oldie meme but needed to bring this back due to recent incidents 😭

152 comments

And yet, you assumed an image on catbox would work on my device. Interesting.
- skill issue, sorry
  
  lol. It’s just iOS, voyager, vpn, and ad blocking are not conducive to seeing hosted images.

A large portion of the world is experiencing political polarization. I see the same things happening on Lemmy happen on other social media websites.
The “if you don’t agree with me you must have the exact opposite opinion” approach to debate seems to be more a problem of the participants than the platform.
- Pretty much every time I dare to say anything negative about Russia or China I'm swarmed with illiterate tankie lemmings who jump into the conclusion that criticising one empire automatically means supporting the other empire.
  
  I find that people that do this are often well informed on leftist theory, but know almost no history. I guess it's hard to accept that governing is exceptionally difficult and governments built with the best intentions are still subject to authoritarianism. Also, those governments weren't built with the best intentions, lol.
- wow can’t believe this guy wants me to kiss nazis on the lips /s
  
  I said don’t kiss Nazi ass. That’s not the same thing.
- How can you not like waffles! That's outrageous! I'm so triggered right now!
  
  That's a waffleturd take if I've ever seen one
- i feel this problem might be worse on the fediverse because of the political communities that form around instances, e.g. .ml, .blahaj.zone, .world

Me: "I like pancakes"
Lemmy: "Only a shitlib western imperialist would think that. Read more Lenin."
- Me: “I like waffles”
  Lemmy: “HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO GO MY LIFE WITHOUT PANCAKES YOU OPPRESSIVE INSENSITIVE FUCK”
- True, properly educated and vetted comrades would prefer blini.
- Nah, that's just .ml

-"Russia should not invade a sovereign country, murder its citizens and deport their children."
-"Umm, actually, the US were doing crimes in Syria and you should not support them."
- But by contrast
  "We need to negotiate an end to the war on Ukraine."
  "Oh so you want to let Russia kill all Ukrainians?"
  
  And then some people comment:
  "Yes, we should allow Russia to cleanse the Ukraine. I'm being nuanced, I swear!"

On Lemmy it's more like:
"I don't like pancakes."
"Oh, so I suppose that waffles are perfect huh??"
- Nah, it’s more like “you should delete windows now and get Linux”
  
  I agree that conversations sometimes end up being about Linux, which is unfortunate. People seldom recommend installing BSD or other free systems, which is a shame. The lesson here is that we should all install OpenBSD.

Bravery is leaving both the ifunny and imgflip watermarks.

I like to insult and block these people. My fear of course, with Lemmy being so small, is I will block everyone. Then again, that's still better than dealing with illiterate, contrarian assholes
- I feel the same way, then I look at my blocklist and it's just lemmy.ml, anime subs, 3 people, some political terms, and a bot. I also have a .world account I use when I want to view the whole Lemmy experience anyways. Tbh I still feel kinda bad about blocking .ml, there was some cool peeps on there but I just can't deal with all the tankie drama
  
  I also blocked ml, it just ain't worth it. I figure the cool people will eventually leave for another instance anyways
  
  You can block terms?

What…. This is on par with any kind of internet discourse. It’s pretty much why I hardly ever post prior to Lemmy. It doesn’t matter how well articulated the post, SOMEONE will find the need to correct or clarify unnecessarily.
- it’s really sad because i take great pride and pleasure from reading other people’s thoughts and posts. but when i try to give back, it’s immediately jumped on by dogpilers and “oh you actually meant something else…” people. and when i do the bare minimum to defend myself, they slap back with the “okay buddy, sure” and downvote my defense so it’s invisible to other readers.
  needless to say my blocklist is nearing 100 users.
  
  and downvote my defense so it’s invisible to other readers.
  Lemmy isn't an endless torrent of comments. Even downvoted ones get reached.
  
  Wanna get mad? Yesterday drag made a similar post criticising Lemmy, but it focused on the transphobia on the platform. -46 downvotes. Thread full of transphobia anyway. On Blahaj. https://lemmy.nz/post/17415487

This is anywhere on the internet.
- This is anywhere, period. You can do that with letters, you can do that with speeches, or in casual conversations.
  And you're not always wrong about it either.
  If you've played Disco Elysium, "Welcome to Revachol". If you haven't, play it. It's an amazing game
  
  "Black lives matter? So you hate cops?"
- This is just text written anywhere. There's an art to making yourself understood in different contexts.
- yeah :p bit of a hyperbolic statement my fault
  
  Well, the original post was as well, so fair enough!

One time I said AI porn was unethical (because it is) and people here thought I was calling for a ban on all porn. At no point did I say that porn was unethical as a rule, and if I did believe that I wouldn't have mentioned AI at all.
- It'd be nice if we could regulate porn in good faith. Every attempt to regulate it in the US has been an obvious attempt to shut it down, but it should be regulated like anything else. Sex toys, too. Lots of questionable substances are used in sex toys that probably shouldn't be inserted into the human body.
  
  Sex toys are not regulated in the us?! There are a ton of regulations in the EU unfortunately not the same in all countries but some even classify them as medical devices. There is also the standard ISO 3533 "Sex toys — Design and safety requirements for products in direct contact with genitalia, the anus, or both" which is not required at the moment? is still used as a guideline.
- this shit pisses me off, my instinct is to say irrationally, but i feel it’s probably totally rational to have your own carefully chosen words used in such a hamfisted perversion
  yesterday i made a post saying “hey look there’s a pattern to how ableist terms begin as descriptive or medical terms and its only later they are coopted as insults, the most recent of which is ‘neurodivergent’”
  top comment? “dude stop telling us to stop using the word ‘neurodivergent.’” 30+ upvotes. and when i respond saying that actually making people abandon the word wasn’t my goal? downvotes.
  like what even is the point of writing words if crusty ass debate lords insist on interpretation to mean the exact opposite 80% of the time?
  
  The short answer is that the trend you are describing does not apply to the word neurodivergent because neurodivergent is not a medical term.
  Neurodivergent is a nonmedical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently for some reason. This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn’t been identified.
  https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23154-neurodivergent
  Your argument was a false equivalency that the r-slur and neurodivergent share the same origin and thus will share the same fate. The implication of such a line reasoning is that since all of these ableist words became known as insults we shouldn't be concerned about the usage of any of them. In other words, legitimizing the r-slur and other ableist language because eventually neurodivergent will be as bad.
  People in that thread explained how neurodivergent is fundamentally different. Neurodivergent is a nonmedical word people are choosing to describe themselves as that validates them as a opposed to a medical word that was chosen for them that pathologizes them. Your argument then attempted to dismiss this by saying all of these words have different origins. When in fact they have two, medical and nonmedical.
  The euphemism treadmill argument presented by your meme attempts to ignore that distinction to make all the words seem equivalent. When in fact the words used before neurodivergent were always ableist because they were always hurtful even if that wasn't initially recognized as such by neurotypical people using them.
  Like trans and cis, neurodivergent and neurotypical acknowledge a difference without being opinionated about which side of that difference is normal or abnormal. These terms are opinionated about which side has privilege and which side does not. These kind of terms receive backlash from the people who find themselves in the privileged cis and neurotypical categories because they realize these labels exposes the power that comes from the privilege of being the default.
  Rather than engaging in a good faith discussion about this privilege, those fearful that they will lose this privilege engage in bad faith discussions intended to undermine the mechanism that exposed that privilege. These discussions tend to involve fallacies and usage of words like nuance and objective to obscure what is really happening.
  The problem for the people acting in bad faith now is, we've all done this song and dance multiple times now. We know what to look for. We will call it out. We get to keep telling the truth and using words that expose the truth.

TBF, I understand this annoying kind of 'reading into it'. at the same time, if someone starts dropping dogwhistles or starts dancing around something in a convo, i am definitely gonna read into that shit.
- If you don't like waffles just say it...
- I hate the way Nazis etc have appropriated to many phrases/actions as dog whistles.
  I don't want to offend anyone & I certainly don't support intolerence but sometimes it's just too much to keep up with.
  If someone politely points out my mistake they are helping, if they attack me for an honest mistake they are not.
  Am I right or:

In my experience, this happens way less on Lemmy than on Reddit before the IPO.
- i can’t speak to the frequency but the tone is definitely different when it happens here compared to on reddit, probably influenced by the demographic and field of interest differences. the ml roots of the place really have echoed throughout the tone of the space, so most of the arguments have a really cynical, high alert, almost superstitious affect to them that i never really encountered on reddit. (some random account i thought i was cool with is trying to like psychoanalyze my recent posts to find my true intentions? i gave up on that convo)
  your mileage may vary, of course!
  
  your mileage may vary, of course!
  Blocking all of .ml makes your experiences vastly more pleasant

Yep that's one of my pet peeves about the Internet. People love to try to put words in your mouth. It gets a bit tiring having to tell every one of those jabronis that I never said any of those words, and they should re-read what I did actually write instead.
- If I see someone's reply start with "So, you..." - I'm already rolling my eyes so fast that I'm time traveling back to nineteen-blackandwhite. In general, it's an overly reductive view on the statement that misrepresents the initial comment in order to try and spark a pointless argument.
  It's exhausting.
  (in b4 "so you hate reading comments then?" 😂)
  e: it's not just Lemmy to be fair - the other popular aggregator, most tabloid news sites with comments, and a lot of gaming news sites with social interaction are largely the same.
  
  so you want to have nuanced and reasonable discussions on the internet?

I like that the name of the platform has been written over.
"This is only happening locally here at
<place in the internet>
and not at
<every other place in the internet>
". And that's happening for every place in the internet.
Marvellous

That’s French toast erasure.

I see more Motte-and-bailey fallacy.
I see less "I like pancakes" and more "I think pancakes are superior to waffles" from the first commenter.
Then the second commenter responds, "So you hate waffles?"
Then the first commenter retreats to "No, I just like pancakes. Why are you assuming what I'm saying? Don't you understand I'm being nuanced?"
Also, nuance is one of the more recent words to have a new usage like literally, which can now mean figuratively. When people say their argument is nuanced they mean it is good or correct. It reminds me of the use objective to describe a person to pretend they don't have biases to incorrectly validate their arguments.
- me: lot of pancakes out there
  you: actually i see more waffles
  (with peace and love haha you make excellent points i just couldn’t resist)
  
  In the context of this self-referencing observation, I would say, I see lots of waffles pretending to be pancakes.

how dare you say we piss on the poor
- i never said that! i only piss on the MOON
  
  YOU HAVE 23 HOURS BEFORE THE PISS DROPLETS HIT THE FUCKING EARTH
  
  Who's more poor than the moon, though? It not just doesn't have any money, it's not even ALLOWED to own money!

I'm convinced that most people don't read anything before sharing their opinion. An opinion with zero relevance or weight is absolutely useless.
- Yeah but I preffer the pineapple before the pizza, that way the mass feels saltier.
  
  So you hate pepperoni?!
- Most people their opinion is based on feelings, which often exist because of a screaming idiot on TV.
  For example, my mom wants Islamic people out of this country, because they are criminals and do not belong here. She's lived her entire life in white neighborhoods, never had any experience with crime happening to her by anyone, but she feels this way because of a right wing politician screaming on TV. I have no issues with Islamic people while I live in a neighborhood full is mixed cultures, including many Islamic people. Any factual counter argument I present to my mom feels for her as a personal attack, because I'm attacking her feelings with logic, so the counter attacks with bullshit like "you have no respect to your parents/elders", "I'm not allowed to say anything anymore these days", "what do you know, knowledge comes with the years, I'm older so I know better". She assumes I'm just attacking her extremist comments because of puberty (I'm 37) and to make her feel bad.
  I feel like she represents most people, as most people; assuming what people say on TV / internet is true, creating a feeling and opinion based on that which is carved in stone, seeing any counter argument as a personal attack, throwing counter attacks based on words put in other's mouths because attacking that is much easier then properly constructed factual counter arguments (because they don't have any).
  FYI I ended all contact with my mom. She's angry about that too, she lacks the ability to see her actions have consequences. Again, like most people.
  You say "An opinion with zero relevance or weight is absolutely useless." That is completely true. But those opinions do make people vote in a certain way. They do fuel hate. They do spread fake news. They ruin our society. So even though they have zero relevance and weight, they are super relevant and carry a lot of weight at the same time.
- DEADASS!!!

While I don't want to deny that people try to put words into others mouths, I think context is still important. It is possible and even quite typical to send messages beyond the meaning of the actual words used in a statement and simply playing dumb when someone calls you out for doing that is also not a great look.
Think of going to a waffles-convention and just walking around claiming that you, in fact, like pancakes. Of course people are going to assume you're a troll.
It's important to think of different perspectives and at least consider if something you meant in a very innocent way might still not sit right with someone else. Certainly not easy to do, mistakes will always happen, but honestly trying makes a huge difference imo.

You hate Lemmy????!

So you're saying Twitter is better?
/jk
Sure, it happens here, but I feel the toxicity on Lemmy is far less then on Reddit or other platforms, and with toxicity I mean including people assuming you're saying something else because they are triggered somehow. But it's very hard not to stumble upon people like that. Trolls rule the universe, they are everywhere.
- It may be less toxic, but that's only if you share the sentiments many lemmy users share. The echo chamber is louder here
  
  True. true.. true... true....
  But I'm glad I don't have to scroll through loads of right wing extremist posts all the time and constantly have to fight nazis. nazis.. nazis... nazis....
  So I'm happy with it. it.. it... it....
- I also feel like posts like these are specifically part of the toxicity, encouraging it because "haha funy"
- Just personally, I find that the toxicity around here just around group think is a little worse than reddit. It's different but it can be a lot worse, especially with the way people on Lemmy use downvotes.

I just ignore and block if it continues. I got no time for people who are responding to the voices in their head instead of what I'm actually writing.

Why do you think you're better than us?

I like cameras to capture picture
- So you don't like artists?
  
  Oh so you dont support piracy?
- Wow, so you hate screenshots??!
  
  Oh so you love screenshots very much?

Equally common, unfortunately, is people who don't state their point, they just lay out the pieces and expect you to put it together, but then if you say something bad about it suddenly that's "not what I said". Schrodinger's point.
I've developed a response to comments that do this saying-it-but-not-saying-it thing, and while I try to judge sincerity, there are false positives. An okay approach I've found is just to ask people to clarify: if they say something reasonable they're genuine, and if they dodge the question they're a troll or someone who doesn't want to admit they believe something bad.

On the other hand, a failure to make assumptions about what someone is saying leads to people being able either to willfully misrepresent their positions ("Oh, I don't hate waffles, I just bring up how the world would be better without waffles in every conversation, no matter how tangential!") or unintentionally fail to see the necessary implications of their statements ("I'm not saying waffles are better, I'm just saying pancakes are worse!")
All language has some ambiguity, which necessitates assumption in communication.

Bruh, it's so real. I made a comment that whenever I get messed up food at a restaurant, id rather just ask for a refund than ask for a replacement. Obviously there's a lot of nuance in this comment, but I had people taking all kinds of meanings from it. One guy told me I was a complete asshole and some other stuff, just because I'd rather have a refund at the McDonald's instead of asking the overworked, underpaid employees to remake my order as I sat in the drive-through, and so I wouldn't have to pull over and wait even longer.
People just want to be pissed off and angry.
- just because I'd rather have a refund at the McDonald's instead of asking the overworked, underpaid employees to remake my order
  Except what you actually said was if you ask for a replacement they're going to spit in it, so you just threaten them with a charge back if they don't refund you.
  https://lemmy.ca/comment/13396935
  The fact that you are lying about what you said seems to indicate you understand why you may have come off as an asshole.
  
  aw :( sure enough they lied
  i wish people would just be nice, it’s already so hard to have a conversation on here without the lying. thanks for doing the investigative work.
  
  Well of course I'd do a chargeback to McDonald's, lmao. Are you supporting McDonald's getting free money for messed up food? You're ridiculous. I absolutely will charge back a McDonald's or any other business that messes something up and won't make it right.
  Your comment is the opposite of a "gotcha" you creepy freak
  2nd edit: i think other people should do chargebacks too instead of letting shitty corporate policies rob them of their hard-earned money.
- And some are just trolling, that sounds like you were trolled.

I think it can be important to see the intent behind words and ask for clarifications. Oftentimes people are not direct about their opinions.
- yuh, totally! i even experienced an example of your counterexample recently https://lemmy.cafe/post/10752342/8934173
  egg on my face, i guess i worded a meme so badly it gave 180 degrees the opposite impression (to some). was super thankful to this user for being transparent and helping me identify what part to edit.

Me when I talk to my wife...
- you too? im sorry dude
  
  Idk, she's super cool to me.
  
  It's okay 😁 we're both very open about, and aware of, this issue. So I just let her know it's happening and we giggle about it (sometimes). 😄

So you admit that you're checking me out? And you wanna mate?
- whut da hell
  
  Oh sorry I was making a reference to Xavier: Renegade Angel, where Xavier somehow misinterprets the phrase "Checkmate" to be a proposition for sex, from a clone of himself. (One of those.. "Did I watch this at 3am one night or was that a fever dream?" shows)