I’ve been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to “voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism” and “the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic” and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.

More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they’re replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.

It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling – in retrospect I’m pretty sure I could’ve built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that’s what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) – and the only reason I’m not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.

I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?

  • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialOPEnglish
    127·
    8 months ago

    You know, when I wrote in the original post that leftists didn’t read more than the first sentence of a comment before writing a reply, I thought I was exaggerating.

    What about LGBTQ rights and segregation?

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      88·
      8 months ago

      It says a lot your main complaint with “leftists” online is they ignore the gold standard of Russian propaganda…

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

      If you can’t go a sentence before saying something false, don’t expect people to write about everything else false you said and refuting each falsehood one at a time.

      Like, you’re the one saying this happens often to you, I’m just trying to help you understand why it always happens.

      If you admit the first thing is wrong, most people will move on to the second. No guarantees how long their keep going

      • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialOPEnglish
        46·
        8 months ago

        If you admit the first thing is wrong, most people will move on to the second.

        You have exactly one comment to do that before I report you for being a troll.

          • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialOPEnglish
            56·
            8 months ago

            You asked me to name one social change that had occurred over decades instead of all at once when the dam burst. I named three. The first of these, admittedly, was the least convincing. You only addressed that one.

            Move on to the second, like you said.

            Minimum wage increase? LGBTQ rights? Hell, even segregation took a few decades to fully go away, and depending on who you ask, it still hasn’t.

            Of course we should be disruptive and protest and riot. But let’s also focus on one issue at a time instead of saying “anything short of perfection in a single step is not worth fighting for at all”