The poster you’re replying to is very much designed to drive engagement, and any attention, good or bad, serves its purposes. I’d rather not feed this particular type of poster, but if we don’t point out the flaws in its reasoning, we might lose a few of those genuine Greens and Socialists.
I don’t disagree that voting in America is a pick between a steaming mug of donkey pee, and an elephant dung sandwich, and has been this way for decades. I’m even with you in that we should have a choice that doesn’t include donkey pee and elephant dung. But the reality is you can’t have 150 million different people in the world’s largest picnic each get different food, so there HAS to be a limited menu to vote from, lest nobody can agree on what we’re gonna eat and we all go hungry. And whatever has the most votes at the end of the day will be what we all eat, and unfortunately, that looks like it’ll be between not just donkey pee and elephant dung, but that the elephant has a bad case of gastroenteritis and the bread on the sandwich is EXTREMELY mouldy, AND there are a crazy number of rabid fans of elephant dung sandwiches for some fucked up reason. There are also a lot of crazies who have a taste for donkey pee, but at least you can wash that down with a stiff alcoholic drink. The elephant diarrhoea with two mouldy pieces of bread, on the other hand, can’t be gotten rid of except with a high-pressure wash. Since I don’t want the elephant excrement consumers to dictate what I am doing, and there’s not enough sane people in the world to offset the donkey pee or elephant dung choosers, I’ll pick the lesser of two evils.
And I say this as someone who is already a lockin for Proposition 131 (Colorado’s RCV) and who has voted third party in the past.
Yeah, I’m aware. I don’t think additional engagement in here actually benefits his goals in the long run, though, so I’m more than happy to take advantage of the situation to discuss the finer points of internet trolling for the benefit of the broader community.
edit: I also actually enjoy this process somewhat, it reminds me of simpler times I suppose. lol
True. Playing Whack-A-Troll is always fun…but we do have to be careful because the Mods have taken HUGE exceptions to calling a spade a spade here, while allowing this poster we’re talking about and a whole metric fuckton of other posters with … similar MOs to post their unmitigated BS unchallenged. Something about wanting to remain civil or something, despite this poster and others like it directly and overtly saying that they’ll keep posting their nonsense just to get a rise out of us. You know, the actual definition of trolling?
Fortunately I am also a fairly skilled line toe-er. I can take full advantage of the exact same loopholes as he does.
If this community is going to go down the 4chan troll-hole, which seems steadily more likely as time goes on, I’m not letting it go without a rhetorical fight. Especially when it comes with a pleasant dose of nostalgia.
Heh, I’ll leave it to you then. I’ll point out the flaws in this poster’s logic as I can, but really…with how prolific it is (can’t say it’s a bot, can’t say it’s a bot…), that’d be a fucking full-time job.
I honestly don’t think it is a bot. I think its a young guy, teens or early 20s, very strong Trump supporter willing to do whatever might help his boy without having to do anything that’s not fun.
Could be, though I’d question the prolificness. I guess that’s why the mods come down on us so hard. You can’t be certain of anything because…well, there ARE Russian bot-farms, Trumpers (even teams of them operating in tandem), and of course True Believers ™, and short of catching the guy in the act and examining his rig, you can’t be sure what you’re dealing with. That said, IMO, there’s not really a huge difference between them when it comes to debunking them. A vote for a third party is a vote for the major party most opposed to your third party in the USA. At least until we get RCV in more places!
What makes trolls so difficult to stamp out is they enjoy the process. You used to be able to starve them by depriving them of interaction, but after qanon demonstrated that internet trolling can have real-world effects, that method stopped working. Now it’s a combination of fun and political activism. Where fun leaves off as a motivation, the activism takes over and vice-versa. The combo can reasonably make one extremely prolific, just like how somebody can spend a whole day playing a video game they really like.
The only way to truly combat them at the community level nowadays is to embrace your inner teenager and approach them with the exact same duo of motivations. Since I’m also engaging in an entertaining process, while hopefully providing some education on trolling techniques and critical thinking, I can match his enthusiasm to the extent that real life allows me.
The rest is just checking your phone for notifications regularly, which I do anyway. lol
The poster you’re replying to is very much designed to drive engagement, and any attention, good or bad, serves its purposes. I’d rather not feed this particular type of poster, but if we don’t point out the flaws in its reasoning, we might lose a few of those genuine Greens and Socialists.
I don’t disagree that voting in America is a pick between a steaming mug of donkey pee, and an elephant dung sandwich, and has been this way for decades. I’m even with you in that we should have a choice that doesn’t include donkey pee and elephant dung. But the reality is you can’t have 150 million different people in the world’s largest picnic each get different food, so there HAS to be a limited menu to vote from, lest nobody can agree on what we’re gonna eat and we all go hungry. And whatever has the most votes at the end of the day will be what we all eat, and unfortunately, that looks like it’ll be between not just donkey pee and elephant dung, but that the elephant has a bad case of gastroenteritis and the bread on the sandwich is EXTREMELY mouldy, AND there are a crazy number of rabid fans of elephant dung sandwiches for some fucked up reason. There are also a lot of crazies who have a taste for donkey pee, but at least you can wash that down with a stiff alcoholic drink. The elephant diarrhoea with two mouldy pieces of bread, on the other hand, can’t be gotten rid of except with a high-pressure wash. Since I don’t want the elephant excrement consumers to dictate what I am doing, and there’s not enough sane people in the world to offset the donkey pee or elephant dung choosers, I’ll pick the lesser of two evils.
And I say this as someone who is already a lockin for Proposition 131 (Colorado’s RCV) and who has voted third party in the past.
Yeah, I’m aware. I don’t think additional engagement in here actually benefits his goals in the long run, though, so I’m more than happy to take advantage of the situation to discuss the finer points of internet trolling for the benefit of the broader community.
edit: I also actually enjoy this process somewhat, it reminds me of simpler times I suppose. lol
True. Playing Whack-A-Troll is always fun…but we do have to be careful because the Mods have taken HUGE exceptions to calling a spade a spade here, while allowing this poster we’re talking about and a whole metric fuckton of other posters with … similar MOs to post their unmitigated BS unchallenged. Something about wanting to remain civil or something, despite this poster and others like it directly and overtly saying that they’ll keep posting their nonsense just to get a rise out of us. You know, the actual definition of trolling?
Fortunately I am also a fairly skilled line toe-er. I can take full advantage of the exact same loopholes as he does.
If this community is going to go down the 4chan troll-hole, which seems steadily more likely as time goes on, I’m not letting it go without a rhetorical fight. Especially when it comes with a pleasant dose of nostalgia.
Heh, I’ll leave it to you then. I’ll point out the flaws in this poster’s logic as I can, but really…with how prolific it is (can’t say it’s a bot, can’t say it’s a bot…), that’d be a fucking full-time job.
I honestly don’t think it is a bot. I think its a young guy, teens or early 20s, very strong Trump supporter willing to do whatever might help his boy without having to do anything that’s not fun.
Which amounts to trolling on Lemmy apparently.
Could be, though I’d question the prolificness. I guess that’s why the mods come down on us so hard. You can’t be certain of anything because…well, there ARE Russian bot-farms, Trumpers (even teams of them operating in tandem), and of course True Believers ™, and short of catching the guy in the act and examining his rig, you can’t be sure what you’re dealing with. That said, IMO, there’s not really a huge difference between them when it comes to debunking them. A vote for a third party is a vote for the major party most opposed to your third party in the USA. At least until we get RCV in more places!
What makes trolls so difficult to stamp out is they enjoy the process. You used to be able to starve them by depriving them of interaction, but after qanon demonstrated that internet trolling can have real-world effects, that method stopped working. Now it’s a combination of fun and political activism. Where fun leaves off as a motivation, the activism takes over and vice-versa. The combo can reasonably make one extremely prolific, just like how somebody can spend a whole day playing a video game they really like.
The only way to truly combat them at the community level nowadays is to embrace your inner teenager and approach them with the exact same duo of motivations. Since I’m also engaging in an entertaining process, while hopefully providing some education on trolling techniques and critical thinking, I can match his enthusiasm to the extent that real life allows me.
The rest is just checking your phone for notifications regularly, which I do anyway. lol