I’ve learned to walk away. I used to bite, hard. But now I might give them the accurate answer then leave their tirade and maybe even block them. I have this lovely wife. Great kids. I’d rather put down phone and see what they’re up to than engage with some guy online who probably doesn’t even whipe their own arse.

Dumbasses posting stupid shit don’t read sourced or reasoned comments. They just fling more poo. Walk away.

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I don’t do anything. I’m the kind to completely forget about it minutes after I close whatever I was looking at. If it’s a stupid enough thing that made me angry enough, sometimes I’ll vent about it to my wife, and usually get the response of “Why do you care what a random person online you’ll never meet thinks?” but I’ve gotten that response enough for it to have really sunk in to the point where I really don’t care 99% of the time. I don’t really debate online anymore either for that reason. The most I might do is nudge somebody in the right direction if I suspect their opinion is simply based on a lack of information, but if that fails I tend to just delete my reply and move on so I’m not bothered by it again.

Try to notice why I find it so upsetting, and see if I can unpack and defuse it.

An interesting thing about Lemmy is that if you delete your comment, it also nukes every comment underneath it. So if you say something, and then people are giving you a hard time about it, and then you go out for a walk and are still annoyed about it, you can self-destruct and take them with you (this isn’t based on a true story of course, but if it was, I’d say it’s terrible in that it discourages engagement and deletes someone else’s actually-correct info, but it’s a good way to get over it all)

Look, we’re human, things upset us - what matters is how you handle being upset, not the fact that you do get upset.

Personally, I have a few rules to help me

• don’t check notifications or social media right before bed.
• if a reply or statement upsets me, I will put away my phone for as long as it takes me to process my feelings and see the comment in a more neutral light.

"bonus points for not answering ‘go outside drink water read a book’ etc etc’

Erm, well, the very first thing I suggest is going outside for a bit. A walk can do wonders.

But this is one part of a general strategy, really - when you are upset by something online, make a little space between yourself and the conversation, reflect on why it upsets you, and decide if it’s worth continuing to engage.

If it is, try to be as even-handed in your responses as possible. I find deliberately trying to tone down my own rhetoric makes me feel better - if I’m using super emotional language, all I’m doing is ratcheting up my own pissed-off-o-meter. I have a better experience trying to discuss something in good faith with a fellow human, even if they’re wrong or just being an asshole for the sake of it. Try to make a space for the other human to have a real discussion. Either it will become a good conversation, and might expose you or the other person to viewpoints you haven’t considered, or it will become clear that it’s not worth your time to continue.

If it’s not worth your time (either upon initial reflection or upon fresh evidence), just stop. Nothing good will come of continuing to go at it. Look at or do stuff that carries value for yourself instead.

How do I handle it? Poorly.

How should I handle it? Well, a few things:

If I haven’t engaged yet, I should try to keep in mind whether it’s worth my time to engage, whether I’m really qualified to represent the opposing viewpoint, etc. Often, I’m just not the right person or it’s not the right time.

If I feel like I need to change this person’s opinion in order to be okay, it’s less about them and more about me. I probably feel like there’s some part of my humanity that isn’t being recognized here. The thing is: Responding to them by being hostile to their perspective is gonna make them feel exactly the same way, and neither of us are gonna get what we want.

It’s much better to ask: “I’m curious why you see it that way. I see it differently, and here’s why” focusing way more on what I’m subjectively bringing to table rather than what makes it an objectively better argument. Curiosity also invites them into a collaborative exercise instead of a zero-sum duel. It’s crazy that we view online debates as like… if I learned something in the process, I’m the loser! What a weird way to look at it! If I phrase it in a way where we can both feel good about changing our minds just a little bit, we’ll both feel way better.

It’s also helpful to recognize the difference between positions and interests/motivations. Two people might both want an orange, but there’s only one orange. Alice’s position is “I want that orange”. But their interest might be that they want to make orange juice with it. And Bob’s interest might be that he wants to zest the peel to make an orange cake. They could easily both be happy here, but not realize it because they’re stuck fighting on what to do instead of why they want to do that. Even if I don’t get the discussion to that point, it can be helpful to assume that the other party has reasons for their position that are different from the reasons for mine, and they might both be valid.

And along those lines… just because I’m right doesn’t mean the other person is wrong. Sometimes more than one thing can be true. The world is messy, the truth resists simplicity, and plenty of things – and people – are contradictory while still being valuable.

Finally: I should try to recognize when someone is simply acting in bad faith and cut my losses way before getting emotionally invested. Sometimes online content is literally a trap, and I don’t have to keep walking towards it after already realizing it’s a trap just because I’m curious what kind of trap it is. Innuendo Studios’ series on “The Alt-Right Playbook” is a great guide to recognizing this behavior: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ

I start by not getting bothered by stupid shit said by people I don’t know and don’t care about. Only people that I know and respect have the capacity to hurt me in any way.

I don’t think it’s stupid to have a reaction to stuff that happens online, but the trick is to not get baited into investing even more into whatever it is if there is no likely resolution. It’s kind of vibes based, but sometimes you get someone who you can just tell is a bit unhinged and will never stop posting at you no matter how much they are embarrassing themselves. So I distance myself from whatever it is. Maybe just turn of notifications, other times I need to unbookmark the site to stay away or sometimes I just delete my account and move on entirely.

I’ll also often preemptively disable notifications if I think a take is going to attract weirdos.

bonus points for not answering ‘go outside drink water read a book’ etc etc

I mean I hate to say it but these are still honest, good answers even if you’ve heard them before. Sometimes you just have to touch some grass.

I don’t really engage with anything I don’t see as a thoughtful reply made in good faith. Sometimes. But I try not to.

'Murica bad people