this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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I might as well post the comment here now (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 4 months ago by loaExMachina to c/[email protected]
36 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

For context, the post I'm referring to is a map of Africa with subsaharia Africa in deep green, Sudan in light green and north Africa was white or some other color. The poster was claiming nothing had ever been invented in the green zone. My comment was gonna be this:

Antiseptics before Europeans.

Iron Smelting Not the first to discover it, but recent evidence show it was invented independently.

Sudano-Sahelian Architecture

Some modern Archtecture taking inspiration from Sudano-Sahelian features such as a roof shape favoring natural ventilation. And since I just transitioned to recent inventions, there's the Cardio Pad, invented in Cameroon, to help diagnose cardiovascular disease.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Their feelings don't care about your facts.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Yeah, don't waste your time looking up sources for people who aren't interested in changing their mind.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But maybe I am interested? Fact checking isnt just useful for the primary offender but for anyone else reading their lies, that might get the wrong idea of what the truth is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Then you should do it. My point is that if you think you're going to change someone's mind who just wants to argue, your energy is better directed elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

There's value there, it's just not in convincing the person you're responding to. Speak to the other people reading their bullshit. Nonsense starts to look legitimate if it's not challenged.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sometimes I am accidentally (slightly) racist or sexist and don't realize it. Just because I was raised in a family that was pretty disconnected from society. I always appriciate it if someone pioints it out to me in a civilized manner instead of the usual "nazi" or "fucking whitetrash asshole". Insults don't make me want to change my mistake.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What are you saying to be regularly called a Nazi?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I'm not always sure, it doesn't happen weekly or even monthly, but sometimes it sticks. Maybe I have a tendency to overanalyze things where the topic is a subject of emotion. Maybe I just shouldn't mingle myself in certain topics like gender or politics. Anyways, I'm sure it's me, but if it keeps happening and I can't find out how to change myself, than I slowly turn into a Seymour Skinner i.e. "Is it me? Nah, it's them"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

The same thing happened to me when I was young. Once or twice, I asked a chain of questions that sounded an awful lot like sealioning. I've not been called a fascist more than twice, but it fucking hurts so it sticks with you.

I'm better now. Both less ignorant and very slightly more understanding of how I come across.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The amount of sealioning and goalpost moving I see is incredible. I'm happy the mods seem generally good about it in most of the lemmy instances I participate in, but holy crap some people need to have their keyboard thrown out or their fingers broken occasionally to get the message.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I am quick to block users on any platform exactly for this reason.I'm not obligated to engage with bad faith arguments or other explicit wastes of time.

Want proof X happened? Do like any rational person and spend TWENTY SECONDS on an internet search. Demanding I provide proof is just an attempt to get me to waste my time compiling sources so you can go "nuh uh."

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Arguing with someone on an online forum is very rarely going to set that individual on the right path, but I like to believe others who read the back and forth may be more persuaded. I often take initiative to explore a topic I knew little about beforehand because someone asserted something I found surprising or simply suspicious. If people go as far as to post references, it's even less of a burden on me to learn something new.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I'm more like this on Facebook. Lemmy being a bit more ""technical"" I feel like thats less of a thing, that if a Lemmy user was going to read about something they probably already did. I could be wrong but eh.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (2 children)

There are definitely times when requesting a source is healthy. I had posted what I believed to be a true fact (about cities only planting male trees. You can look in my profile and see it). Someone replied that it wasn't true. I went about looking for the original source from where I read it (admittedly almost 10-15 years ago) and learned that the original source was refuted.

Skepticism is healthy. But we're at a point where healthy skepticism and sealioning is getting difficult to tell apart.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It used to be difficult, I feel like it's easier these days to tell that someone is sealioning. If someone is so invested they're angry about it they're probably just trying to waste your time. If somebody is just like "Oh I've never heard of that, where'd you see that?" then I might link something.

That's another thing I hate that I don't put up with anymore that's kind of related, people who are all snotty and shit but when you snark back they're like "AHHHHHHH GOTCHA NOT VERY TOLERANT OF YOU" (or whatever) Whatever dude lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Tolerance is a social contract that doesn't extend to assholes. They think it is a cheat code that everyone has to calmly listen to their vile bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Quick question:

What trees have gender?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Tldr: some do. Most are hermaphrodites.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Ok so which trees can actually be male only?

I do not know any.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

100%. Everyone should watch that series.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I gotta make sure I stop replying as soon as a reasonable person would stop being convinced by the dog whistles. It’s challenging when people keep moving subject so much.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I stop replying when I start repeating myself. Asking questions is fine. Asking questions and then not listening to the answers is the problem.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fwiw, I can confirm I saw the post you're responding to as well, it was made by a racist troll who had a brand new account they switched the username on to match the name of a well known account and then spammed racist off topic crap to a bunch of different communities before getting banned (at least, I presume that's what happened, I just reported their profile and all of their posts then moved on with my day)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

Ah I see we met the same lunatic today

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That post was by a troll (their account was ten minutes old and the only other post was them saying "trolling Lemmy is so easy")

You are feeding the troll by talking about how mad it made you.

Next time, just report, block, downvote, and move on.

[–] loaExMachina 17 points 4 months ago

The thing is, I don't think right wing trolls are just looking to annoy people. They're spreading a propaganda. They want at least a part of the people who see it to believe at least a part of what they're saying. And by repeating it a lot in many places, it can work. That's why I think it's also good to make a counter propaganda sometimes, not for the troll, but some who might tend to believe them. It is also true that banning them and removing their post was objectively a good thing to do, but I still wanted to post the refutation, and since this is a comic strip community it had to do a comic strip and this is one of the two ideas I could come up with (the other idea would've been a comic presenting the inventions in question, but it would've taken too much work and I wanted to post my text right now, lol).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

I ran into exactly the same thing:

My response to illustrate how it was wrong, for the young and unaware who can get suckered into the "just asking questions" alt-right neo-fasc pipeline, included:

Various metallurgical and mining techniques. Medical techniques both ancient and new. A new type of syringe. Varieties of boats. Dolosse Blocks. Coffee as a drink.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Lmao, it happens quite often where I'll get a reply, it's wrong and/or stupid, I'll reply, send, and 'error: deleted'. Mf they need to know that they are wrongggggg shakes phone in frustration.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Engaging with obvious trolls is stupid...but getting upset that you don't get to jump on their bait before it's deleted is really stupid and an incredible waste of energy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You won't convince the troll but a lurker might think "looks about right", click on the comments and see yours.

And I don't think it's about being upset but frustrated. Putting work into something and than realize you can't post it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The people who saw the post before the "correction" are not likely to ever see it, and since it's deleted no one else is going to see it and won't benefit from the "correction"...I simply can't see why this causes distress unless you're really just doing it to correct someone and feel superior, and the deletion robbed you of that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

As I said, the frustration comes from putting work into a comment you can't post (with the intention of posting it under the post they didn't know it was deleted) and after already putting the work into the research, why not post it somewhere else instead.

[–] loaExMachina 2 points 4 months ago

The people who saw the post before the "correction" are not likely to ever see it

There's at least two people in the comments who testify having seen the post I'm talking about. If people who upvoted these comments are people who also saw it, then that makes 16 people.

I think people who saw a post on a specific community have a decent likelyhood to see a post made a few minutes later in the same community. This is Lemmy, feeds tend to be relatively slow moving.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I get where you're coming from. I really do.

That kind of racism can't be reasoned with. All the proof you have, they've seen, and are looking for a flight to refute it. It's far easier for them to lie than it is for you to prove them wrong.

Simple deleting it is the best possible outcome. Responding to them just gives them an additional platform.