I think we should try to be more careful, not to automatically assume that everyone who is asking questions here about China/Ukraine etc. is always arguing in bad faith. I’ve seen multiple people who were genuinely trying to ask something here and the only response they got was mockery.
I do understand that a lot of times people who come here are trying to troll or just be annoying, but we still should try to engage in them in good faith as long as there is no reason not to do so. Not everyone who isn’t from Lemmygrad is someone hostile to our ideology, and we should try to be kinder to them.
I always try to engage with people fairly, but at the same time you can usually tell very quickly when people are honestly just misinformed and when they are actively hostile/trolling. I often see people actually give long and detailed answers to folks who ask legitimate questions, even if it may seem readily apparent to us.
In many cases I think that it’s still worth it. Even if someone does not engage in good faith, we can still explain ideas in accessible ways not necessarily for the benefit of the post office to which you are replying, but for the benefit of onlookers. I’ve heard discussions at length, especially in the context of twitter, that making arguments for the audience is an effective strategy at convincing people who may be on the fence.
No even if the only thing we can communicate is that we are not unthinking drones paid by the CPC, this can go a long way in promoting an interest in Marxism.
Others being said, I think anyone is perfectly justified in not engaging with trolls simply because it’s not your job and you don’t want to do it.
To be honest, I am not really sure if this strategy makes sense here. I don’t think there are that many onlookers when you are arguing on Lemmygrad. If you are commenting on another instance that is a different story, but here, I doubt it.
I think it is actually better here than on other instances. A liberal lurker who reads reasonable arguments might actually start to listen. But on another instance, you’d just get a dozen liberals dogpiling the “redfash tankie” and any lurkers reading will just side with the majority opinion, rather than weighing the two arguments being made and analysing them.
Exactly this. And the record of the discussion on Lemmygrad can (a) be linked on other instances, to avoid having the debate amongst die hard liberals, and (b) serve as a Q&A for people searching topics on the Lemmyverse.
That said, I have started to have discussions with others (some from LG, some not) on other instances and I just ignore the wildly liberal comments. It’s hard for the anti-communists to brand us as monsters when there are public records of us having calm, collected conversations with each other that display none of the toxicity of the extreme right and centre (as horseshoe theory wrongly predicts we would exhibit).
Exactly. Conservative spaces are incredibly toxic, full of people wishing death on others for having the gall to be born a different skin colour or sexual orientation. Over here we are always in favour of minority groups, something libs claim we are not.
And the whole “Russian/Chinese bots” things falls pretty flat when most of our conversations are amongst ourselves as well. Why would China/Russia pay/program all these bots just to simulate conversation in the hope that some random US liberal will stumble upon a 3 week old conversation, start an argument and then get an angry response? Seems like a poor use of their time.
I mean, I’ve literally seen someone argue that Dessalines is being threatened with murder by CPC. I wouldn’t put it past them.
Oh sure, some of them would insist it is completely true, because it means we’re all here as a show just for them, the most special and important person ever. It strokes their ego.
But others will look at that and (hopefully) wonder about it. It is pure conspiracy theory logic after all, and if someone starts making the most absurd claims, some will hopefully realise how nonsensical they are.
That would be interesting data to take a look at. I assume most use lemmy similar to myself, where you mostly scroll through all federated instances and don’t pay attention to the source unless necessary (except lemmygrad). But I’m open to being proven wrong.
I sort by local and new, I’d rather engage with all the content posted from comrades first before wading into the hordes of liberals
That would be interesting. Personally I mainly focus on local stuff and just sometime look on all but not sure which is more common, at least in web UI local is the default one. But even if it was all, Lemmygrad is a relatively small instance when compared with some others, so we would probably not be in many people’s feed anyway.