Primed for conflict

[origami_itto]

The internet is getting to me lately.

It seems like everywhere people just want to be disagreeable and find fault.

Nobody is interested in establishing common ground and increasing understanding, just staking out a position and defending it. Just seeking out fault and anger.

It's almost like people are just miserable. Dis-empowered and frustrated. Ignorant. Blisteringly free of self-examination.

They are unhappy, and it makes them angry, and they don't want to (or feel like they can) look at their own responsibility for their misery so they want to blame others as an excuse to inflict it on them.

Thereby lessening the load on their own spirit, in theory.

In practice it seems like it's just adding more gravel to the heavy side of the scale.

Now in saying this... am I telling on myself? Is it my own unexamined misery and internal conflict that influences me to see this behavior?

In Taijiquan terms, am I feeling my tension against their tension or am I joined and weighing it?

I'm prone to think that thinking to even ask the question and having a willingness to use it as a jumping off point for self reflection is at least a healthy strategy for mitigating one's own neurosis and conflict seeking behavior. Maybe even the damage received from bumping into others'.

At the end of the day we have to accept the wicked world on its own terms, I just wish people worked a little more on getting along and advancing common interests.

[Giles]

It's a tricky one. To what extent do you (do I, do we) accept other viewpoints, other ideas, aim for compromise and synthesis? And sometimes also thereby reconciliation? The times when you manage to say: "I'm sorry, I am or was being an asshole, I was wrong." Or at least: "I can understand your perspective too. Maybe we can find a way to connect." I think something like that is almost always the best result.

But what do you do when you feel that the other person's viewpoint (or even actions) are so far out that 'compromise' doesn't seem possible? If someone insists that the Earth truly is flat? Do you aim for a compromise where you agree the Earth is not flat but it's not a sphere (well, oblate spheroid) either, and the compromise solution is that it's curved like a half-pipe? Not really. But you can maybe agree to differ and still respect the flat-earther as a basically decent guy. It's fairly harmless. But if he then campaigns to have Flatearthism made a compulsory school subject?
Or to take it up a notch: someone (a man) who insists that women are worthless, that rape is good clean fun, and that 11-year-old girls should be forced to marry adult men. Can we, should we, still show acceptance here? Or even compromise?
There is still the principle of "Proscribe the deed, respect the perpetrator" (It's better in German: Ächte die Tat, achte den Täter). It's a good one, but I find it challenging, and when certain lines are crossed, I can't do it, or only hardly. Maybe I need to develop further.

The Internet, and then above all social media, is a huge pressure cooker, or amplifier, or catalyst, for increasingly extreme viewpoints and discourses. Before, essentially baseless or taboo ideas, opinions, beliefs etc. would mostly remain niche or would require some kind of reality connection in order to gain traction. Now, as we all know, they become widespread and 'accepted' or 'acceptable' much more easily and quickly. Along with codes of conduct. It seems that nowadays it's quite a 'normal' move to make specifically addressed death threats - on the internet, anonymously - against a great spectrum of people who you don't like for some reason. Even if you'd never heard of them yesterday. Of course the extremer right wingers do this, and the religious fanatics and the chauvinists and mouth breathers, but also enough people from the extremer left wing, from some 'woke' quarters as well. It's modern culture. I don't think that people in general really used to be nicer back in the day. Or nastier. It's just that the new resonance spaces serve to ratchet everything up by orders of magnitude. And that changes the way people respond and bounce off each other. And it worries me too sometimes, how this will continue to develop.
So I guess I need to start by looking at my own behaviour again. Although I don't have the answers to the questions I ask above.

[Steve James]

Discord is much more profitable than agreement, for one thing. It's like talking about tcc. The discussions will be longer because no matter what anyone says, there'll immediately be someone to disagree. You'll never find a YouTube video with all likes.

There's no solution for that. However, how one responds to whatever is posted is completely under one's own control.

[Quigga]

Maybe this world just isn't meant to be perfect.

[everything]

"We ain't a sharp species. We kill each other over arguments about what happens when you die, then fail to see the fucking irony in that."

-@shitmydadsays

[Quigga]

Well how else would you find out? LOL!

[everything]

bwahahaha, finding out the hard way ASAP is certainly one way

[everything]

Discord is much more profitable than agreement, for one thing. It's like talking about tcc. The discussions will be longer because no matter what anyone says, there'll immediately be someone to disagree. You'll never find a YouTube video with all likes.

There's no solution for that. However, how one responds to whatever is posted is completely under one's own control.

took me a minute to remember, but "Discord" is ironically a super popular app for online forums/chat now. Started as a video-game oriented chat.

[yeniseri]

Discord is much more profitable than agreement, for one thing. It's like talking about tcc. The discussions will be longer because no matter what anyone says, there'll immediately be someone to disagree. You'll never find a YouTube video with all likes.

There's no solution for that. However, how one responds to whatever is posted is completely under one's own control.

Excellent observation! Discord sells, promotes itself and allows for revenue generation to enrich those who are clever enough to market it while pretending it is not there.. Musk, Trump, and the ilk of those who shout louder and enhance the lies of democracy (or is it the demise of democracy ) while pretending otherwise. My head is spinning..

[gzregorz]

FWIW I have only read the original post.

Yes, I completely agree. I stopped doing social media years ago and have never looked back. I admit I have lost touch with "facebook" friends or distant friends who still have my number but I had no choice. Just as Elon Musk purposely puts out conspiracy theories and controversy to get more clicks all social media does to get engagement. Just look at Next Door which I also don't use but know it's basically a huge complaint department.

I only do YouTube which isn't perfect but at least I can decide what to watch and for better or worse if I look up a topic YouTube purposely will give me opposing views which I credit them for. The problem with FB is you can tailor your content and news which will feed you what you want to hear. It's no wonder why if you say something.about the police (for example) everyone assumes they know everything else about you.

The good news is that because I don't do social media I spend a lot of time with my other hobbies like working out, reading (rare today) and doing activities with my dogs. When I used FB I can remember waking up and just scrolling for an hour or two on weekends. I am glad.those days are gone.

Don't even get me started on how these companies and apps sell your data making my state one of hardest to buy a house in unless you work for one of these companies.

I wish I could have an account and only ocassionally use them but I can't so I don't.

[gzregorz]

On the flip side when people disagree with me I pretty much just listen and ask few questions. Later I open up Google and fact check their talking points, think about what I would have said and instead just enjoy life. I know almost everyone is getting their news from FB and rarely read past the headlines and know it is what it is.

[gzregorz]

Read all the responses and it's good feedback.

As SJ says discord sells, like a car accident. Currently in my neighborhood people love to complain about walking their dogs off leash. I think how nice it must be that off leash dogs are your biggest.concern enough to complain online.

I'd say find a way to change your relationship with social media. I know a lot of people do the same with consumption of news too. If you what triggers you then stay away from.those triggers or in person those topics. When I hear craziness I try to think of myself as a reporter listening to random strangers. I no longer bother pushing any agenda if someone is ignorant I just don't bring up disagreements and interestingly enough I find common ground on other.topics.

I suppose I end up realizing that you can disagree on some things but agree on a lot of other things. If that isn't the case then just move on.

[gzregorz]

Funny this thing got me motivated to try FB again so people I don't see but want to keep in touch with can reach me.

Now my friends are people I actually see as friends or possible friends and no co-workers. My numbers are small and I will keep it that way.

I am going to control it and won't let it control me.

[wayne hansen]

I’m sure the old lady who was ripped to pieces by 3 dogs on the Gold Coast
Would agree with letting them run free