I experience Lemmy as a reflection of many of the problems in the world; there seems to be little effort to understand and respect different viewpoints. Instead of being curious about opinions one disagrees with, the community often feels almost aggressive. People end up in their own trenches. What about trying to be more open and curious about our differences instead?
Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with…
Discrediting what someone says by questioning their underlying motives instead of engaging with the actual content is called ad hominem. Along with strawmanning, it’s probably the number-one logical fallacy poisoning online discourse - and likely a major reason this whole discussion even started in the first place.
being the “errrrrrm, ackshually, you just committed a logical fallacy 🤓” dweeb in response to someone else being questioned whether they’re a fascist sympathizer, when that doesn’t actually invalidate what I said at all, when I wasn’t even talking to you – that’s an extraordinary kind of self-own, you do know that, right?
I’m gonna engage with fascists and fascist sympathizers on the same level that they engage in good-faith debate in – that is to say, on whatever level I want to at any given moment in time. If they aren’t one, let them explain what innocent ideas they’ve expressed that are so poorly received, that have lead them to believe Lemmy is “lacking tolerance and acceptance” – we’ve got entire instances dedicated to porn, anarchists, AI lovers, tankies, trans people, furries, the French – I’m very eager to hear what could possibly be Too Spicy For Lemmy that is not something along the lines of “I want to gas undesirables” or trending towards that direction.