Unpopular Opinion

9330 readers

129 users here now

Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!

How voting works:

Vote the opposite of the norm.

If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.

Guidelines:

Tag your post, if possible (not required)

If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].

Rules:

1. NO POLITICS

Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.

2. Be civil.

Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...

Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.

5. No trolling.

This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.

6. Defend your opinion

This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.

Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

JonsJava@lemmy.world

technopagan@lemmy.world

Dremor@lemmy.world

Online moral superiority is often just used as an excuse for cruelty (feddit.uk)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Iconoclast@feddit.uk to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Many people who loudly pride themselves for tolerance, kindness, and openness toward difference drop those principles the moment someone expresses a preference or view they dislike. Disagreement itself is fine. What is not fine is the usual responses that follows: comments whose main purpose is to insult, shame, and make the other person feel small, delivered in front of an audience that can be counted on to approve.

It's status performance. The goal is not to show why the opinion is wrong or change minds; it is to hurt the speaker and fish for applause. Feeling morally justified does not change the nature of the act; when the sole intention is to hurt they're being evil and a bully.

The people who upvote or otherwise reward those insults are part of the same behavior. Standing by and cheering while someone is targeted is participation. It supplies the social payoff that makes the cruelty worthwhile.

This is one of the reasons large parts of the internet feel needlessly hostile. When perceived moral superiority is used as cover for meanness, and when an audience reliably encourages it, the result is environments where many people simply stop speaking. The claimed values of kindness and tolerance are revealed, in those moments, as conditional.

And no, this isn't about being tolerant towards people with extreme views. The idea for this post was sparked by my previous post about AI music and the vicious personal attacks I received for admitting to enjoying some of it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] PepperoniNipple@lazysoci.al 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

That is your role. Not mine. I prefer making people like MAGAs or Zionists lose their shit, so it becomes easier for you to reach them out, or the people they insulted around them after showing their true disgusting colors.

I spent years trying to be nice; no insults, no yelling. I used to be so, so different. But it did not work. Shit got worse. They started with the "snowflake" insult back in 2015. I was just a teenager, like 16 years old, very pro-USA. I thought the USA was Humanity's "best and closest attempt at achieving a multi-cultural utopia" for so long. I was very resilient too, I endured over a decade of constant disappointments, racism and evil shit. It wasn't until Trump won again that I gave up completely on the majority of the world and America. I kinda appreciate that, though. It completely removed the mask.

I keep seeing a lot of Mexicans who have fell for American propaganda, spouting MAGA talking points, degrading themselves while praising people like Trump. Constant misogynistic comments about our female president, with no argument or opinion worth reading, just plain bigotry. Shit is expanding because they own social medias, including TikTok. They gutted education and can pretty much do whatever they want to children now. All they gotta do is tweak their algorithms I guess.

It's too late. I am 28, and I won't have the future I wanted or thought I'd have. There is no "cause" or "movement" here. Everyone is way too conformist and compliant. Both of my parents and grandparents still think "billionaires are ok, they earned it" after everything they have done to us.

People need to keep losing more; they need more pain so they finally reach the point of having nothing to lose and finally do something about their government. Otherwise, you will keep seeing them work for the same unfulfilling minimum wage we have had for decades, like little modern slaves.

I can't be nice to these people anymore. Trust me, I do try, but it's so hard once you can see the amount of destruction their ideas will lead to. Even if it's genuine innocent ignorance, I can't help but feel the need to stomp it asap. I am aware a goal of the top 1% is to keep eroding the patience and tolerance of everyone who is empathetic, by using botnets to spam heinous shit online, shit that makes people angry and depressed. They want them to get sick and die. They only want the loyal ones alive. I can't just be nice to people who are supporting something like that anymore, blindly or not.