No Stupid Questions

Move on with your life who gives a fuck

Make one clarifying point comment and then move on.

An example of how to do it:

You: EVs are better for the environment

Comment: Why are you saying that China should rule the world?

You: I'm saying that EV's are better for the environment no matter who makes them. Last comment.

An example on how not to do it:

You: EVs are better for the environment

Comment: Why are you saying that China should rule the world?

You: I never said that you asshole. Why are you sticking up for China, you fucking tankie. You're a troll piece of shit, etc., etc.,

Comment: You said China is amazing, you obviously want to go down on them

You: Why are you saying this shit? Etc., etc., etc. blah, blah, blah

Step 1. Remember the points don't matter

Step 2. Remember it doesn't matter if these people agree with you.

Step 3: Why should we even care if they mistook what we were saying

Step 4. If they agree feel ever so warm inside and justified in thinking what you thought... (Ignore all previous steps)

Down vote and don’t engage

Lemmy is becoming self aware

My rule to live by: never engage with comments online. I'll post a comment, but >99% of the time there is no reason to reply. I've said what I wanted. There's hardly anything to gain from trying to change anyone else's mind or elaborating further. Someone has to make it abundantly clear that they are responding in good faith to warrant a response. My life has been much better since I started doing this and I would strongly recommend everyone try it out.

Block them, don't feed the trolls.

Sometimes I give myself downvotes. Points don’t matter. Block people you find frustrating. Enjoy the people you like. Do whatever, just don’t break the rules.

I’m downvoting this.

Autists deal with this daily, on lemmy and everywhere life.

Phase 1: explain

Phase 2: just let it go

And estimate in advance if you have the energy and motivation to get into it. Mostly I don't even get into it although I would really be happy for constructive exchange.

Realize that what they say about whatever % of people being functionally illiterate is true.

my fear, acquired from Reddit, is that people are going to read this guy's totally inaccurate presentation of my argument and then every comment in the rest of the discussion will proceed as if that's what I said.

If you really feel the need to, just say "that's not what I meant, please re-read it. I think it was clear enough that I'm not going to repeat it". But I doubt the fear that others will agree with him is too real.

The rules are made up and the points don’t matter. At the end of the day, trying to argue with someone on the internet who does not have good faith in trying to hear your side of things is ultimately a pointless endeavour. Ignore them and move on.

There’s no helping some people. You might be talking about X, but they really hate Y. So they just ignore/disregard what you were trying to say, and just make it about Y.

This is one reason I don't read DMs.

I stopped trying to have conversations on Reddit years ago, I don't think it would go any better here.

Shit post, have a laugh, don't take anything people say to you seriously, they don't know you, and you can't change their mind.

And so began yet another opportunity for people to declare they're smarter or more neurodivergent (i.e. better) than everybody else.

Block them is a good strategy but also try to stick to communities that don't have that kind of hostile attitude. The culture of each community is different. I try to stay away from reddit-like behavior too.

I just say whooosh

question your assumption that you need to respond in the first place. You have no obligation to spend your energy on the "troll or functionally illiterate person" coin flip. to put it another way...

What I want is to say something that quickly quarantines the misreading comment in people's minds so the misreading doesn't infect the entire thread.

if for the sake of example we ignore the possibility that your writing actually was unclear or ambiguous, then for the misreading to "infect the entire thread", the other readers would have to have similarly poor reading comprehension, right? that or they're putting little enough effort in not to catch the original response being way off base. if that's the case, is it really that important how you are perceived?

But my fear, acquired from Reddit, is that people are going to read this guy's totally inaccurate presentation of my argument and then every comment in the rest of the discussion will proceed as if that's what I said.

Difficult as it is, I have to remind myself that the people who do this are not my target audience. They are swayed by the wind like blades of grass. Even if I convince them, they will be unconvinced by next week. The people who my words can affect are the people who bother to read what was actually said.

If I feel the need to reply, a very simple "that's not what I said but okay" and block them and move on. If they want to respond, anything they say will be longer than that sentence and the people who aren't invested will gloss over it and move on. And the people who are invested will go back and reread what I originally said. Or at least that's what I tell myself as I open up TikTok to look at videos of cats chattering and possums loudly cronching on grapes or whatever cute shit they're up to.

Stick to memes and shitposting

I'll spend time clarifying a point for person who

• seems to be asking/arguing in good faith
• seems to be capable of understanding an answer

When it's not immediately obvious what kind of commenter is asking I glance at their posting history and annotate the account with a note/tag so I remember.

Seems pointless to worry about. Just move on I guess?

On piefed I give them tags with emojis to remind myself they aren't worth engaging with.

🤪💩 for dumbshits is pretty common.

So you think you're always right, is that it?!?! You're saying everyone else is always wrong and you could never be wrong?!?!?!?! You think we're all a bunch of idiots who can't understand any of your big-brained ideas, because you're the only person smart enough to understand them?!??!?!?!?!??!?! So you think it's a waste of time to even try to explain your point?!??!?!??!?!!?!?!???!??!??!?!!?

Is that what you're trying to say?!1?1(1?11(1?1?1?1?1??1?1?????1?!!111??

If they wanna cram words never said or implied down others' throats or define things in a way only they could ever possibly understand, I simply block them. There's not going to be any effective communication when it comes to the illiterate and willfully ignorant.

I try to give them one chance. Sometimes I get pulled in deeper if I've got nothing better to do. But on the whole, respond with curiosity first. Then determine of they are worth your time. If not, ignore them and move on, interacting with those more worth your while while eye rolling the idiots.

Guess the best way is to not care much about what others think of you. Then, eventually, down votes and bad arguments made by morons really just don't even bother you. Engage with better people, ignore the rest and chuck a down vote.

At any point that I'm about to make a post online and I realize that the emotional energy required to continue engaging is more than I'm willing to commit to this particular discussion, I just bail. No reply, no downvote, just peace out. It's really not worth it.

If you ask me, unserious people like that deserve no response at all.

It’s online, people are going to deliberately misinterpret your posts.

I recommend only continuing the interactions where you and your interlocutor seem to have aligned intentions. If they are trying to understand, that's what you posted for. Help them. If they have partially understood, you have partially succeeded. Use the interaction to help them understand and find better ways of expressing yourself. But if they have named you their opponent, you won't be able to fix that through the internet. If it seems worth it, add an 'edit: Blah blah blah' note to your original post to help keep others from misunderstanding but don't try to become a teacher for someone who has decided you are the enemy. Communication won't work without good-faith effort on both sides.

This has been a problem since the early days of usenet.

I suspect there is no good solution