Telling others to shut up when you disagree.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

What's up with that? We see this all the time, either in public reports, blogs, personal pages, social medias with articles the likes of "X gets completely wrecked when Y post this on his/her facebook/twitter/instagram account".

What's the matter? Why do we need to either shame people with different opinions?

When I was fairly younger, perhaps I wasn't entirely grasping the concept back then, but when I was still a child, people dreamt of being united by our differences in ideas, religion and way of thinking. We would organize those "cultural days" where people who had others in their family - or themselves a fair bit of the time - from another region share meals, routines or other unique quirks of their lives that others didn't know about.

To me, this was the definition of living in a truly progressive world where everyone could think and where everyone could live in a way that was truly unique and in accordance to their own values.

But with the explosion of users on social medias, it feel as though everyone has been polarized into one of these groups where only your idea and your perception of reality is true and other are either ignorant/dumb/stupid/misinformed/bigot/delusioned. And so, we give ourselves the right to call them on it, shame them and tell them to shut up, their ideas, values or culture being classified as stupid and thus inferior to ours, based on our subjective opinion that we take as objective.

So really, I don't get it. I'm at the beginning of my twenties, I'm starting University in a few months so I don't feel particularly old. I've worked several years as a store clerk selling games before graduating college and working in the VG industry. And during all that time, I was unable to find an answer to this question. All I've been able to do is see the world gradually becoming more polarized and righteous than it was a year earlier.

Is it human nature to always need to fight for a cause, real or unreal? Or is it because some people want us to focus on petty social wars while we turn our eyes away from greater issues? is it because we've always treated mental health as second hand and thus developed tools that only serves to emphasize the bad instead of the good?

What's your take on that?

[owbu]

Its our tribal nature. One of our primal instincts is to find the "our" people and declare all other people "not quite people". Telling you to shut up, when you voice a "not in my tribe" opionion, is just poo flinging at the invading monkey 2.0.

[Powerogue]

Its our tribal nature. One of our primal instincts is to find the "our" people and declare all other people "not quite people". Telling you to shut up, when you voice a "not in my tribe" opionion, is just poo flinging at the invading monkey 2.0.

We have refined it. We can now fling sh** at people we don't like cross-continent in a matter of miliseconds. Truly a marvel of how much better we are than all those inferior other species.

[Fencers]

What's your take on that?

People being people?

It is likely your own perception of a more coarse or hostile social dialogue is based on confirmation bias. Socially, we have never had a more accepting and robust level of cultural mingling and communication as we do now.

When I was a kid you had your 'Little Italy', "Chinatown', 'Jew Town' and 'Ghetto'. Nowadays we have whole neighborhoods we tremendous ethnic diversity in America and greater specificity; Korean, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Polish, Ukraine, Pakistani, etc areas. A lot of which have their own cultural fests nowadays with a lot of social mingling.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

People being people?

It is likely your own perception of a more coarse or hostile social dialogue is based on confirmation bias. Socially, we have never had a more accepting and robust level of cultural mingling and communication as we do now.

When I was a kid you had your 'Little Italy', "Chinatown', 'Jew Town' and 'Ghetto'. Nowadays we have whole neighborhoods we tremendous ethnic diversity in America and greater specificity; Korean, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Polish, Ukraine, Pakistani, etc areas. A lot of which have their own cultural fests nowadays with a lot of social mingling.

One some points, I do agree that some cultural bonds has been shattered for the better. On the other hands, I cannot help but see how we target some of these communities restlessly and how we enforce stereotypes on these - and no, I'm not speaking of a random 4chan user looking to create trouble.

Just look at the political thread here on mmo-champion, or even the Nostalrius thread. Both camp constantly charge at one another, just because of differing ideas. And I mean, don't get me wrong, there always have been some conflict and frictions between two fundamentally differing mentalities. Yet, perhaps because of anonimity, perhaps because of the platform people have to express their opinions, it feel as though people are being harsher and faster to shut down other people.

I remember reading a study, a few months ago, about how some people considering homosexuals as being sinners change their minds in as little as 10 minutes together. Yet we keep intimidating those who hold these beliefs to heart by calling them bigots and to shut up instead of educating them, to show them that perhaps some preconceived notions they had could be changed for the better. So I wonder why we keep on taking aggressive stance against one another while the easiest solution would be to step on our anger and use our patience instead?

[Zandalarian Paladin]

I think that if you get offended by being told "shut up" or seeing someone be told "shut up" the you should invest in a helmet, life's hard.

You've misunderstood. I don't take offense when people tell to shut up, I take offense in people who refuse to challenge their preconceived ideas.

[apples]

You've misunderstood. I don't take offense when people tell to shut up, I take offense in people who refuse to challenge their preconceived ideas.

thats not true

you take offense to people holding onto preconceived ideas which you dont believe in

which is lol

[Bathory]

People don't know how to argue and telling someone to shut up, or resorting to personal attacks, is way easier.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

thats not true

you take offense to people holding onto preconceived ideas which you dont believe in

which is lol

You're giving me intentions that I do not have and/or share. This is, ironically, also one of the equivalencies of telling someone to shut up, by putting words he did not say to derail.

[apples]

You're giving me intentions that I do not have and/or share. This is, ironically, also one of the equivalencies of telling someone to shut up, by putting words he did not say to derail.

so how often do you challenger your perceptions on the existence of yourself, or that apples or red, or any of the other infinite number of things you can think about at any given second.

pretending that you challenge every notion in existence is just silly

[Zandalarian Paladin]

so how often do you challenger your perceptions on the existence of yourself, or that apples or red, or any of the other infinite number of things you can think about at any given second.

pretending that you challenge every notion in existence is just silly

Again, you're giving me intentions that I do not have.

The point is not challenging every single bit of information to the point where you cannot possibly do otherwise. It's to challenge these preconceived notions when they deserve to be challenged, instead of trying to shut the other person down. It doesn't mean you have to agree or to blindly accept that your vision is most definitely untrue. It's about curiosity of understanding someone else's take on a given topic.

[apples]

Again, you're giving me intentions that I do not have.

It's to challenge these preconceived notions when they deserve to be challenged,

this is literally what i said the first time

you challenge things when you believe they need to be challenged

which is lol

[The Stormbringer]

The anonymity of the internet gives people a feeling of power and freedom, allowing them a more outspoken and even rude position on things. It also means, since everything is digital rather than face to face, that people can immediately dismiss other people who they don't agree with, avoiding any awkwardness that might be produced in real life.

So yeah, people being people + anonymity = more vocal assholes online.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

this is literally what i said the first time

you challenge things when you believe they need to be challenged

which is lol

It is not, because they do not deserve to be challenged when you subjectively decide that your idea is wrong. That's the ability to keep an open mind about a given line of thought when new evidence arise, or when a new theory grow up. There's a huge difference between this and the subjectivity which you imply here.

Because it's the internet.
If you post something about solution X, you will probably not get a reaction from someone that likes X, but thinks Y or Z is a better idea.
No, instead the first reaction will probably be by someone that absolutely hates X.
Opposites attract, you are more likely to 'encounter' someone that thinks the complete opposite.

Another issue with Nostalrius and US politics is that you basically have two camps, two opinions that rise above the other ones.
We really don't have that on r/thenetherlands. When there's a thread there you have people that support ten different political parties, all of them giving a small little twist to their ideas on the topic.


Again: The internet.
First of all you don't have to change one person's mind in 10 minutes. You have a million people that all need 10 minutes each.
And the second part is that people often lack the will to be educated.
So often have I seen a user put in quality time to debunk and explain a topic to user A.
And the next day user A just continues to be ignorant and acts as if someone hasn't spend half an hour typing out a post to explain certain things.

It is true that when people have a large array of differing thoughts, this clear-cut division tend to fall off or even disappear in some cases. Yet this behavior used on the internet seems to be reproduced by medias at large and not just limited to the United States.

Also, about that ten minutes, the way I explained it in the main thread may not be clear, but I meant it the way you did. Each individuals require 10 minute by themselves with a person of an opposite group.

To close on this, I think that while some people lack the will to be educated - or, as some refer to, trolls whom goal is just to create public unrest (who are a very small minority), I also think that a lot of these people prefer to group together in self defense, therefore regrouping whenever one feel threatened in his/her ideology.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Most things aren't black and white.
Things that are black and white just get more heat and attention.
And things that are controversial generate income for the media, so why wouldn't they reproduce as much of it as possible?


That requires that pro and anti-people are equally driven and in the same amount of numbers.
If the internet has taught you something it should be that people prefer to talk about stuff they are against.
That's why, without derailing, so many people online seem to be against immigration while this hardly is reflected in elections.

Another thing is: Why bother?
What benefit does it give person A to explain to person B on the other side of the world that vaccines do not cause autism.
When in reality person B will just insult person A, get banned, create a second account and just continue as if person A just didn't post many researches.

People don't get on social media to be educated.
If you want to get educated on something, you will go to ELI5 or find unbiased articles.
People go to social media to find people that agree with them.

I wish this was not true, but there's no doubt that in the current state of things, it is true.

But doesn't it feel useless then to even bother exchanging, or is it the new way people have found to express their anger without anyone to answer to for their behavior?

[Independent voter]

I told my gf to shut up, it had the exact opposite effect I was hoping for.