OpenStars

That sounds hella sus... I'm not sure I'd take either, fearing some scam? At worst I lose out on $5 or whatever, while at best I avoid whatever would have happened had I accepted.

Yeah, life makes you jaded doesn't it? :-P

Whereas conversations like this one with you has the opposite effect - thank you for your addition and the link:-).

It has gotten worse and it will only continue to do so. There are people who are respectful and hold back their darkest impulses, but there are others who choose to hold those same features in high regard, as literal virtues in their eyes. Blocking hexbear and lemmygrad has helped my own peace of mind immensely, but you would not want to block lemmy.ml or lemmy.world or such so... here we are.

I do not really see any permanent solution to this problem, short of eternal vigilance. That's just nature though, e.g. viruses constantly evolve and seek new hosts, hence hosts that do not keep up die, there's no way around needing to keep up defenses against such a tireless onslaught. Similarly for information vs. misinformation too, it seems:-(.

It has also gotten much harder to have any discussion with even the tiniest hint of subtlety on the Fediverse - is Biden/Linux/socialism/religion good or bad? "Yes." For some of us, knowing what will happen - the flood of toxic responses I mean - if we dare to speak up is enough to cause us to cringe enough that we would simply rather stay silent instead. If only the opposing side were like that too! But no, they elect not to hold their own tongues, even while expecting YOU to hold yours. That too seems just the nature of the universe.

Upvoting! I have been known to be quite offensive myself, when the situation calls for it. Although I think you are slightly incorrect - what you described seems to me to be more of a "shitpost":

a deliberately provocative or off-topic comment posted on social media, typically in order to upset others or distract from the main conversation.

Shitposting can be great fun, if everyone recognizes it for what it is, e.g. if it is literally in the name of the community, which importantly can be blocked if the user does not want to see it. It seems mostly harmless to me? Well, within reason - it has no place in a community meant for serious discussions, and I routinely block people who do not read the room and interrupt what was intended to be a more thoughtful discussion (typically I have gone through their recent post histories and only do so when it is a repeated pattern, i.e. distinguishing b/t people who never add value to any discussion vs. a one-off comment that happens to be irrelevant) - but in a meme community it can be light-hearted, good-natured fun?

Whereas trolling absolutely crosses a line, getting into territory of intentionally wanting to cause emotional harm, examples include outright insults ("you are stpupid" (sic) rather than "I believe that you might be missing some facts and here is why...") and other forms of literal abusiveness. I suppose there are exceptions - like that RoastMe sub where people would literally ask for it - but you know what I mean: consent should matter? Except to them, it does not:-(.

it just wastes all of our time. I'm not here on Lemmy to engage with babies that need a spanking - or... want one I guess? - I am here to enjoy myself! :-P So I block them, at which point they make new alt accounts to get around all the people blocking them, and the cycle continues. Though if there is an influx of like a hundred thousand of them, even if buried amidst a million non-trolls, it would radically change the very identity of the Fediverse, making it much more like Reddit (gag), and we would lose the ability to have conversations like... well, this one!:-D

I agree that not everything has to be "nice", though we do need to presume that the other side is willing to engage respectfully, or else there is no basis for a conversation. On that note, I am guessing that you have not been to Reddit lately - it really is full of actual, full-on trolls there now, after the protests. Ironically the situation is reversed 100% from what it was in the past: instead of the mods blocking the trolls, now the troll-scabs block the former mods who have been booted from their subs:-(.

Suit yourself, I guess! :-P

I often up-vote people that disagree with me, most especially when they are right and I am wrong.:-)

But I can't stand trolls - even when they speak the truth they do so in such an offensive manner.

Especially mod tools.

Probably, and it was surely glorious (if you did it right)!:-P

(Funny b/c in this pic, corps are the ones who are dicks:-P)

I bet it also has the best words. And is a stable genius too! :-P

(link)

Bold of you to think that they even think of us at all.

I actually mean that seriously: we continue seeing, over and over, that no, quite often they do NOT expect people to NOT do that, they quite simply DGAF. They pirate us, we pirate them, it becomes just another "cost of doing business", until they are strong enough to eventually crack down further. See ad blocking & Chrome recently, after multiple decades of internet ads pushing the limits.

It's like a zombie nom noming your brains - after like 2 bites it'll get bored and wander off, and it literally doesn't even need to "eat", it simply is so fucking DUMB that it doesn't know what else to do with itself. It is truly horrifying b/c while your entrails may be strewn about on the floor, or in the throats of tens of zombies, they in turn... don't even have the decency to be aware that you've died!?

Lower-level managers sell ideas to higher-level managers, and "logic" has little to do with those conversations, compared to the amount of emo-stroking that goes on "oh, you will become so rich, and powerful, and handsome, and brave, and precious" (from here:-P) - and so long as enough people play along, that happens!

Our world is just so fucking STUPID.

That said, what they do is on them, while what we do is on us. Find a way to live - hopefully by finding a way to contribute, if/where you can.

"yes"