No fucking shit we are. How did you crack that nut, Einstein?
this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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Some people deliberately come to social media for fighting. I probably used to. Maybe on occasion when I'm feeling cranky I will be less diplomatic than I really want to be.
But I find two things actually help:
- I'm not friends/following anyone I know in real life. That helps with anonymity in case I do run afoul of someone who bears a grudge, but also when someone posts aggravating bullshit, it's not someone I care about. Which leads to...
- I'm merciless about blocking anyone and anything that I can't engage with fruitfully. Attention is a limited resource and I don't want to spend it all on negativity. I'm happy to hold genial conversations with folks I disagree with, but if interacting with them becomes tedious, stressful, or annoying I just bin them. Hell, if someone is a big enough prick to someone else I block them. If someone is in every thread harping on some agenda, gone.
Bluesky has a feature to mute keywords for a set period. If I need a break from news about Gaza, Trump, some trending drama, sports (like the World Cup), or just want to avoid spoilers, I mute the topic for a while.
Together, these tools make social media much less negative for me. It usually keeps me from doom scrolling or taking the rage bait.
And when I’m emotionally charged or unclear, I sometimes draft my comments elsewhere before posting. I let it sit for a bit, and if I can’t say what I mean with the tone and clarity I want, I just don’t post. Maybe 30% of my comments get binned—some after spending an hour or more working on them.
In short, I heavily curate my social interactions—both incoming and outgoing—to reduce stress and negativity. As a result, social media today is far more pleasant than it was ten years ago.
BlueSky is genuinely one of the least toxic socials I've had in a while. I can agree to disagree there on normal issues like whether UBI should be given in a lump sum, weekly, monthly- it's not fucking assholes "debating" if aliens built the pyramids and whether we should drink our own pee or if good faith arguments are important or if it's "natural" to be attracted to 14yr old girls as an adult man (all topics I've seen on Lemmy).
That's one of those things where I'm happiest just not seeing or being part of that conversation. Those are unserious people and it's pointless to pretend you can have a serious conversation about those things. And even if you could, what is the value to me to wade into the nuance of when it's okay to find someone attractive when frankly it wouldn't matter—if they didn't act like aggressive horny assholes to anyone. I have 13 and 15 year old daughters. I don't really care who finds them attractive, but I do care who disrespects them, and that's not going to change when they turn 18, so again that conversation doesn't need my presence at all.
I'll agree that Bluesky is minimally toxic, but I also haven't gotten a whiff of those kinds of conversations here on Lemmy, either. The most contentious ones were in the run-up to the elections and that's just a tense time for everyone. And it's hard to let opinions we vehemently disagree with run rampant when the consequences for getting shit wrong are... well... gestures at everything.
or if it’s “natural” to be attracted to 14yr old girls as an adult man (all topics I’ve seen on Lemmy)
Wait, what?
Yeah, there are a lot of men on here who really go to bat for pedophilia. Don't even BREATHE a word about AI porn of children being immoral because it is modeled after irl children and can be made to blackmail kids etc. Don't ever argue with any Muslim misogynists on here that child marriage is bad or that feminism in Islam is good. Never be upset that a man was saying it is "probably" not good for kids if they participate in sex acts (we have specific physiological signs like bedwetting that show CSA is inherently damaging to humans) but that it should be totally normal to have your kids WATCH you fuck because they probably did that in medieval times.
And people wonder why my bio recommends BlueSky
yes and i don’t think it’s limited to politics either.
Yes. Next question, you SOB!
I think there are two sides to this. Yes, online aggression has probably peaked in recent years with the rise of worldwide pro far-right misinformation campaigns, no argument there. They were specifically targeted at the people more vulnerable to buy into hate speech propaganda.
On the other hand, I have personally noticed more constructive discussions, even after I deleted most of my anti-social media accounts and substantialy decreased my usage of Internet forums in general. It seems there's some positive trend in the middle of all that.
TL;DR: It's the .mls' fault. They're assholes all the time, but we don't see them offline because they don't have jobs
Fuck .ml, but this is true everywhere. A lot of content and discussion is produced by the terminally online, and they are pretty much by definition not happy, well-adjusted people.
Meet Anon.
Yes. It is longer than just now though.
Jonathan Haidt recently wrote in The Atlantic:
Ok but fr tho fuck Jonathan Haidt.
Haidt was JAQing off about trans people in the exact way that the Onion called out and satirized hours after their article was published. He's a "centrist" who seems to exclusively punch left, and he's just whining about getting called out with legitimate criticism.
He also got deez nuts'd iirc lol.
Edit: Shit, I had him confused with another Atlantic writer, Jonathan Chait. My bad. Haidt is also a left-punching transphobic "centrist" tho.
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Theres so much pedophilia, wanton violence, racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, transphobia... fuck all these people. May they never find peace or happiness. We owe no one politeness.
The special group of people providing negativity are probably bots anyway.
Try pitchforks