The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?

Hirom@beehaw.org · edit-2 1 year ago

The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?

iheartneopets@lemm.ee · edit-2 1 year ago

I’m not sure where you live, but living/growing up in the south… I can tell you that those beliefs run deep. Deep deep deep. Deeper than you can fix by just being pleasant to your neighbor.

If you try to talk to them with kindness and openness, they dig in their heels and start spewing fox news talking points like it’s the most obvious thing in the world (I’m pretty sure they like it so much because it confirms every awful belief they already had). Try to present different sources, they’re rejected as fake news. I’ve tried everything with people around here since before 2016 and nothing seems to help. Mostly I just keep to myself.

Living in the south, if you’re not indoctrinated, is very isolating. Even living in the cities doesn’t really help. You still need to dig deep and look carefully for people who don’t think you deserve fewer rights.

Edit: thinking about it more, I think the isolation is the point, and it’s how so many people in my state believe some of the same basic things when it comes to religion and politics. You learn pretty young around here that if you don’t get with the program, you’re not going to have many friends. If you didn’t go to church, especially, you lost out on most of the community’s socializing for the week. It feels very cliquey in the smaller towns especially, almost by design.

Flax@feddit.uk · 1 year ago

It seems that americans think the entire world is the american south. Generally in more civilised places outside of the U.S, people care less about other people’s beliefs.

iheartneopets@lemm.ee · 1 year ago

I definitely don’t? I was just providing my experience for the place I live. Obviously not all places are the south…? And good for you on your ‘more civilized place’, but we’re not talking about those areas.

Seems to me that, to solve rent crisis, Americans should just move into Europeans’ heads, since we seem to live there rent free already.

flora_explora@beehaw.org · 1 year ago

I think that was a stab at you saying “living in the south” as if it automatically meant south of the USA. So your US-centric world view shines through. I think no one wanted to attack your world view per se, but rather your bias.

And regarding your second comment, why so passive-aggressive? Obviously the US lives in everyone’s head rent free because it messes around with the whole world. Don’t get offended by people trying to point out that there is more in the world than one single country.

anothermember@beehaw.org · 1 year ago

I get that, I live in the south of my country too, but only the US feels entitled enough to say “the south” and expect the whole world to know where they are.

flora_explora@beehaw.org · 1 year ago

I guess it adds to the problem that it’s very context specific. When you are in your country talking in your mothertongue with someone, you would probably only say “the south” to refer to the south of your country (or another by society predefined south).

And while we are on a mostly English-speaking platform inhabitated by mostly US people, I’ve heard US people throwing around US specific terms in a lot of different contexts/countries without checking the context they are in.

anothermember@beehaw.org · 1 year ago

It’s probably the same kind of culture clash that the original video talks about. I’ve got to admit it is something that can rile me up probably more than it rationally deserves to, if I let it (and I’m sure others too).

flora_explora@beehaw.org · 1 year ago

Well, being ignored and seen as unimportant often causes anger. I get that, too.