• AnotherWorld@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 day ago

    The echo chamber is a good thing. For some reason, everyone thinks I’m obligated to read their opinions that disagree diametrically with mine, constantly, non-stop, from hundreds of thousands of bots working for propaganda. I don’t.

    • bluGill@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 day ago

      You are both right and wrong there.

      You need different opinions in your life, otherwise your echo chamber will tend to move to more extremist. Pretty soon you think those “others” are evil and so you are willing for anti-democracy coups by your side, or to fight wars to kill those infidels or other evil things. You need a steady input of other opinions to remind yourself that reasonable people can disagree and that is okay.

      Also sometimes you are wrong. Few people have the guts to read a well reasoned opinion and admit they are wrong, but it is one you should be willing for.

      Of course there is far more possible opinions than you have time to read. So eventually you have to say I don’t have time to deal with this subject and shut it out. So long as you avoid the problems of an echo chamber they are fine. Be aware of them though and make sure you are not falling into those traps anytime you shut something out.

      • AnotherWorld@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        I recognize and demand that everyone has an opinion, that everyone can speak their mind. And I have the right to have mine. And so, when all of Twitter is full of russian bots on the government payroll, there are hundreds of thousands of them, in all languages, I’m not kidding and not dramatizing. What i supposed to do about it? Read it all? Or retire to the echo chamber? I’m withdrawing, for now here, and if anything, from social media

        • bluGill@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          If by bots you mean computer programs or AI, they are not people and should be ignored/blocked. If you mean (as seems to be common) people with a different opinion, then you need to be more careful lest you get the faults of an echo chamber.

          • AnotherWorld@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            By bots, I mean people who are employed, go to work, and get paid just for writing comments, posts, and other texts, according to the orders from their superiors. You can call them a computer program, but what they are not is a person with a certain and different point of view. They have no point of view, they write what they are told to write, and yes, there are thousands of them, and they each lead a hundred fictional people. If you still didn’t know how the bot farm in Russia works, welcome to a new world

            • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 day ago

              Those still aren’t bots. Bot farms are literally a bunch of servers running computer programs. That’s not the same thing as some online sweatshop pushing disinformation manually.

        • jaxiiruff@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          Its becoming more clear that the only winning move is not to play. All of us should remember that twitter wasnt the best before musk either. Microblogging at such a large and worldwide scale is simply an outdated, deceptive, and abusive concept at this point. For a long time we have been fucking around and now we found out

          I watched a video about this and it claims that social media has advanced and grown so much that our brains are still not used to it and we all act as if echo chambers are a bad thing when in reality its actually just how its been for our entire existence. Its how we are wired right now, atleast most of us besides Gen Alpha. Being active in a local tribe, community, city, etc. Not engaging with the entire world and thousands of people at once.

    • beatnixxx@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 day ago

      The freedom of speech crowd isn’t real big on the other half of the equation. Freedom of association. No one is obligated to listen to anyone else’s bullshit. They’re free to be butthurt about it, I’m free to not give a shit.