It seems the fediverse is continuing and growing again. Line go up is probably good!
https://fediverse.observer/stats&months=50
Total users are huge now.
There are many websites out there that pull data from the fediverse. So take that with a grain of salt. But anecdotally I am seeing a small rise in people using the various platforms as each get more mature and servers somewhat stabilize.
I dunno anything about the specific thread. I’m only highlighting that maybe it’s a sign to reflect on how you communicate with others on here, since it’s not an isolated incident. It’s possible to question people without hurting them or using harsh language.
For what it’s worth, I had a really rough time in my entire school life as well. I also tend to ask questions and point out inconsistencies, rather than “going with the flow” or accepting things at face value. I ended up with a 30% attendance rate, for various reasons. The difference here is that most people don’t have the authority to retaliate to disobedience, other than using strong words or downvoting me.
Personally, I often run into people on here who want to “argue semantics” rather than the spirit of the argument. They have their dictionary out and are ready to endlessly debate the definitions of every word in a comment, while also refusing to actually read what I wrote properly and misquoting me out of context to look bad. It’s not fun or interesting, and language isn’t as important as they think it is. I used to get mad at them for arguing in bad faith, but now I just disengage with them or tag or block them if they’re really bad.
People’s perception they are being ‘hurt’ my internet comments is entirely the problem.
And the problem is in themselves.
And those are the same people who think nobody should ever be able to question them, and are apt to response to violence and rage and insults.
There is no ‘civil’ way to challenge someone who is emotionally distrait at the existence of people they don’t like existing… and that’s what drives so much of the online hate discourse. They want to exterminate the bad feelings and think they can do so by exterminating the bad people.
Rather than… exert or develop any emotional control of themselves… they think that is hate speech if you suggest that. It’s ‘ableist’ now to suggest that people are responsible for their own emotions and reactions.
Humans are social creatures. If you say mean things to people, it will emotionally harm them.
In the same way that I’m responsible for my reaction, you’re responsible for your action; communication is a two-way street. For example, I’m currently disagreeing with you in a civil way (at least I believe so), with the intent of not harming anybody’s feelings.
If you’re frequently encountering people who are that extreme in opinion, it’s possible you’re either “in the wrong neighbourhood”, or misinterpreting their intent. I would suggest some combination of reporting, blocking, tagging; or carefully calling them out in such a way that a bystander wouldn’t confuse you with being the aggressor.
Right, so if your neighbor feels harmed by you buying a new car, are you going to return it to the dealership to make his feelings not hurt anymore?
Or is he just a weird stupid asshole who needs to get over himself and realize what car you buy is none of his business and has zero impact on him?
You say you are being civil… but what you are doing here is being a condescending arrogant jerk, you’re just caching it out in ‘polite’ terms because it gives you plausible deniability, but you are very much lecturing me on how to behave and further denying my experience as valid or real.
When a woman you know has been raped, do you suggest to her she not get raped again by being more civil to her future potential rapists?
Further, personally, I find it so weird and creepy that you tag people. That tells me that you take shit on the internet way too personally, and project your feelings onto everyone else because you fail to realize other people are not you, and you want to get up in their business, as you are doing here with me. And I don’t regard that as ‘civil’ I regard it as raging asshole behavior, just played out in passive-aggressive terminology. Because clearly I upset your feelings and you can’t let that stand, because in the end, it’s all about you. Just like weird neighbors who feel the need to ‘inform’ you they don’t like the color of your front door and will sit around and stew and resent you over it… instead of just not caring and focusing on their own front door color. Because they need to control other people due to some weird issue they have in themselves and they hate and resent what they can’t control…
And from where I stand, it’s so weirdly insane to expect strangers to cater to your own emotional states. I don’t go up to random people on the street and demand they listen to me and then threaten then when they get pissed off or weirded out. But people online… do that every moment of every day.