This is an incredibly toxic mindset. Without real proof of what you claim, you’re just deciding that people’s opinions don’t count if they’re far enough away from your own. People are becoming nihilistic because that’s basically the best case scenario right now. It’s obvious that voting for Democrats won’t work to fix the big problems we have, and if you try to go around the Dems with a reasonable outsider like Sanders, they will literally just fall on their sword and ensure the nut job gets elected instead, while simultaneously blaming you for not falling in line hard enough for their horrible candidate.
Are the commenters you’re referring to shills, or do they do a shitty job arguing their case? Both can’t be broadly true.
Are the commenters quitting because they get yelled at, or are they shills who will keep writing that stuff until they stop getting paid? Again, both cannot be broadly true.
Without real proof of what you claim, you’re just deciding that people’s opinions don’t count if they’re far enough away from your own.
I get how you could have gotten that from what I said, but that’s not what I’m doing. I’m basing my statement not on anything about the opinions people are giving, but on:
Inconsistencies between people’s stated motivation and their behavior. One example of this is claiming that you’re panicked about the idea that Trump might win, and concern-trolling that you’re raising these issues with Biden so that they can be dealt with, but also saying objectively untrue things to criticize Biden’s record and then being uninterested in a factual discussion about them. Another example is people in this thread, who are so concerned about the plight of the working class in this country (which makes perfect sense) that they think refusing to vote is a good option (which doesn’t), but then are totally uninterested in Bernie Sanders’s organization which is advocating with some amount of success for workers’ rights from well to the left of Biden.
Weird discrepancies in voting patterns and ratios. Content like this post will have a massive pattern of voting in one direction indicating the community’s consensus, and yet the comments will be roughly 50/50 in terms of “for or against” with a really vocal handful of accounts doing all the talking on the “don’t vote” or “Biden is bad for unions” or whatever side. And, the arguments on that one side aren’t just ones I disagree with – they’re visibly bizarre, or sometimes just based on pure content-free hostility. Again just look at this thread.
There are certain unusual patterns that crop up in the shill accounts if you pay close attention to what they’re saying. One example is that they use conservative framing sometimes – e.g. they use “Democrat” as an adjective (“Democrat party”) periodically, which is a phrase I’ve never heard someone outside the American right wing say, or they frame disagreement with them as an attempt to censor or silence them, things like that.
Does all that mean they’re definitely shills? No. I talked at length with someone who had this type of viewpoint recently that I actually don’t think was a shill, specifically because he was willing to argue at length and had at least coherent and self-consistent thoughts about things, and that’s fine. I don’t think I ever used his viewpoint as a means to accuse him of being fake or not to engage with him or anything. But yeah, in light of the above events I do think it’s fair to characterize people who are doing that as being probably fake accounts (although yes the truth is I have no idea and it’s maybe a bad type of accusation to be throwing around), just because it seems like a pertinent thing to talk about.
Im a socialist and regularly say things similar to Democrat party. I use the term “lib” derogatorily, for one. Democrats have nothing to do with me and I oppose them, so why would I use their preferred language that implies they value democracy? In my experience, libs constantly use claims of shills as an excuse to ignore me, despite the fact that I’m very clearly not a shill. Whether or not I’m right or not, every time I voice opinions disagreeing with the majority liberal view, I get called a shill. Even times where I was wrong and they should have been able to have a better argument.
Where in your socialist reading did you pick up that unusual turn of phrase, I wonder
In my experience, libs constantly use claims of shills as an excuse to ignore me
I just looked over a few of your comments and all I can say is, fuckin’ wow. I think if you’re going to say Russia should have Crimea and Donbas and you’d vote for Trump over Biden, you should get used to people assuming you’re a Russian asset, whether it’s true or not.
This is an incredibly toxic mindset. Without real proof of what you claim, you’re just deciding that people’s opinions don’t count if they’re far enough away from your own. People are becoming nihilistic because that’s basically the best case scenario right now. It’s obvious that voting for Democrats won’t work to fix the big problems we have, and if you try to go around the Dems with a reasonable outsider like Sanders, they will literally just fall on their sword and ensure the nut job gets elected instead, while simultaneously blaming you for not falling in line hard enough for their horrible candidate.
Are the commenters you’re referring to shills, or do they do a shitty job arguing their case? Both can’t be broadly true.
Are the commenters quitting because they get yelled at, or are they shills who will keep writing that stuff until they stop getting paid? Again, both cannot be broadly true.
I get how you could have gotten that from what I said, but that’s not what I’m doing. I’m basing my statement not on anything about the opinions people are giving, but on:
Does all that mean they’re definitely shills? No. I talked at length with someone who had this type of viewpoint recently that I actually don’t think was a shill, specifically because he was willing to argue at length and had at least coherent and self-consistent thoughts about things, and that’s fine. I don’t think I ever used his viewpoint as a means to accuse him of being fake or not to engage with him or anything. But yeah, in light of the above events I do think it’s fair to characterize people who are doing that as being probably fake accounts (although yes the truth is I have no idea and it’s maybe a bad type of accusation to be throwing around), just because it seems like a pertinent thing to talk about.
Im a socialist and regularly say things similar to Democrat party. I use the term “lib” derogatorily, for one. Democrats have nothing to do with me and I oppose them, so why would I use their preferred language that implies they value democracy? In my experience, libs constantly use claims of shills as an excuse to ignore me, despite the fact that I’m very clearly not a shill. Whether or not I’m right or not, every time I voice opinions disagreeing with the majority liberal view, I get called a shill. Even times where I was wrong and they should have been able to have a better argument.
Where in your socialist reading did you pick up that unusual turn of phrase, I wonder
I just looked over a few of your comments and all I can say is, fuckin’ wow. I think if you’re going to say Russia should have Crimea and Donbas and you’d vote for Trump over Biden, you should get used to people assuming you’re a Russian asset, whether it’s true or not.