Been noticing that (neo)liberals, not even just fascists/conservatives, dont know what words mean. Its becoming harder and harder to talk to people when they dont know how words even work. Twice this week people have stumbled into conversations I’m having and either havent read the conversation or just only a response and fucked their way into refuting their own point.
Its driving me up a wall to have some one say “The west is liberalism personified. Its the best thing ever” for me to respond “that doesnt make any sense, how would you even justify that? what about the world wars, imperialism, slavery, 400 years of liberal history of primitive accumulation and exploitation” and then for another dipshit to come in and say “you seem to be conflating the west and liberalism commiecuck.”
What. What the fuck did you just say. That was the basis of the entire conversation. This person isnt responding to the OP, refuting the OP, and even follows the OP and likes their posts. Are these people radioactive? Is interacting with these people and dunking on them just a memetic hazard at this point?
I dont see how someone or anyone can operate on a daily basis while being unable to parse something like that. It makes me feel like these people are just bot accounts, operating purely on hallucinations post to post. And this was just one of two this week, I’ve had a few others but the brain seepage seems to be accelerating out of control.
tl;dr America is cooked when even the smug “brain geniuses” cant seem to function.
The main issue there seems to be social skills rather than illiteracy as such, which makes sense given the level of atomization our society has reached that has far surpassed even the “extreme” level of atomization we had pre-covid.
Edit: Admittedly, maybe they are also illiterate regarding the structure of arguments (premises -> inference -> conclusion) because they are attacking you for premises that you did not supply despite the other person having just supplied them a few moments ago.
I would hugely agree with this, and think it’s an underaddressed point, even on better communities like Hexbear.
An ENORMOUS part of an effective conversation/argument is empathy - understanding what the other person is thinking. What their circumstances are. What they prioritise.
I’m always complaining about my nostalgia for ye olde internet days, but back then you’d be in a forum with known users who you’d chatted to for years. You’d know all about their lives, their friendship, what their daily mood has been like, etc. Not saying arguments always went well, but there was a huge level of understanding that meant you both had a decent idea where the other was coming from.
Nowadays, the likes of Twitter, Reddit, and even Hexbear to a much smaller degree, you can make any point, and some faceless person will jump in and start arguing or misunderstanding you. They won’t understand where you’re coming from, you don’t understand where they’re coming from, you’re both talking past each other, and this just seems to be every online interaction ever now. Human conversation was never ‘designed for’ an interaction between an individual and a million floating, unheard, not-understood, argumentative voices.
Far more people online need to start realising empathising with and understanding your conversing partner is like, step #1 of any worthwhile conversation.
It’s not what I was getting at, but I do think it’s one of the most prominent issues with Hexbear that it is at best very selective in who it finds it acceptable to empathise with. It’s critically important to exercise empathy in almost every conversation of consequence, even if the conversation is centered on someone else’s attitude/outlook being unequivocally reprehensible, because you just can’t get anywhere in a conversation if you don’t understand them, and merely denouncing them doesn’t really help to advance a conversation with them (though you should of course denounce what they say and them as an actor and that can be enough when addressing other people about that person).