Ask Lemmy

100% monkeys were not meant to have real discussions behind an anonymous wall. People act differently with little to no repercussions. Add in vocal minorities, group think, bots, and you have a recipe for hate. Good well meaning people screaming at each other from the same tent is pretty obvious on Reddit and moreso on Lemmy but it's nothing compared to Facebook and Twitter which are more representative of populations.

I'm about to go full boomer here. The Internet even pre social media was the end for globalism and what most of the west thinks of the good days (yes I realize it was far from perfect but you can submit the trend has gone changed downwards with regards to global stability). While yes it gives people the ability to safely explore and learn it more often gives a voice to shitty dumb and uneducated opinions and ideas without repercussions. Add social media and essentially the digital communications wars governments and zealots are engaging in at a scale we've never seen.

It's normal, and frankly as old as the internet (any of y'all remember the term 'flame wars'?). A lot of people here have made great points as to why it happens.

My suggestion? Ignore the attacks, and speak to the content in as even a tone you can manage if you feel the topic is worth discussing. If it gets to a point where the meat of the discussion is lost in the attacks, disengage. Recreational discussion on the net doesn't need to be a combat sport.

The worst you'll get with this approach is an accusation of 'sea-lioning', which makes some assumptions around intent you can't really correct all that well if someone's decided that's what you're doing. Though I welcome any suggestions - good faith is hard to prove online when people are so used to attack/counterattack discourse.

That's a terrible opinion and you are dumb for thinking it!!1!

You need to grow some thick skin if you are going to interact with people on the internet.