I’ve been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to “voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism” and “the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic” and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they’re replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling – in retrospect I’m pretty sure I could’ve built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that’s what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) – and the only reason I’m not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
I understand what you are saying, and I can see how certain people would feel that way. An inadvertent slight by insinuation of sorts. In this case that is not what I’m referring to.
To answer your question truthfully, it is generally one long time friend of mine that I have determined it is better to simply not bring anything up rather than be instantly met with a negative reaction because of something. Literally, walking on egg shells attempting to avoid a subject matter that might be frowned upon.
I do see a similar sentiment on Lemmy, hence participating in this thread. Based on a book I was reading a while back I think much of it stems from social media outrage culture. By being reactionary and vocal about it, you are often met with positive reinforcement (up votes, likes etc), which can lead to this behavior carrying over to reality, where it simply doesn’t translate in the same manner.