this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Yeah, I mean this might my personal deficiency that other people don't have... but if I see a comment I disagree with and then I see that it has been upmodded heavily, I get a greatly increased urgency to shit on that comment to make people see how wrong it is. Totally toxic and encouraged by the scoring system.
As with anything, this is intended behavior but perhaps taken too far by some people.
A points system is the best way to get a sense of what other people think, and whether your views are generally accepted. When you're in a social setting, you can tell from nonverbal clues (e.g. if you start saying something and people frown/inch away, you know they don't agree). This is valuable.
When you see something upvoted highly that you don't agree with, OR something downvoted highly that you agree with, it could be one of two scenarios:
A. You're right, but people generally have misconceptions about the issue.
B. You have a controversial take on the issue.
It's not always clear which of these it is. That's why a lot of internet yelling matches devolve into some variation of "downvoted for truth" or "downvote all you want, facts are facts and you're just blind" - people think it's B, the person arguing thinks it's A.
To combat this, you need the following:
Reasoning and critical thinking skills are important. At the most basic, learn to distinguish fact from opinion, but also learn to understand an argument.
Be humble. Don't approach it from a "I must win this argument" mentality - try and understand why they're thinking that way.
Pick your battles. Sometimes you just have to disagree and walk away. Nobody is going to give you a prize for making the last comment in an argument.
Of course, it's easier to just not look at the numbers. But then why not just... not use lemmy/reddit/internet forums? If this isn't giving you any pleasure, why read/comment at all?
I'm getting pleasure (or something) from the discussion, not from the numbers. I'm getting anxiety and toxicity from the numbers. And I'm not claiming that everyone else is or should be like me in this or most other ways.
For what it's worth, the scores are rarely accurate, anyway, as not all instances sync scores with 100% accuracy, if they even sync them at all. Some instances don't allow or even calculate downvotes. Your score can vary wildly from instance to instance.
It's actually kinda funny to open up your comments in multiple instances to see what your scores are across communities. I've noticed that I'll get heavily downvoted on some instances, but will see highly positive scores on the same comment from my "home" instance.
Yes, it definitely encourages toxicity, and a kind of herd mentality as well.