[TazeTSchnitzel]

Why is grinning-and-bearing harrassment by people who want you dead virtuous? “people who have grown up without having any meaningful opposition in their lives” always feels like a dogwhistle to me, because the people saying this tend to have far more privileged backgrounds than the people being harassed.

[didericis]

The entire world has been forced to act as diplomats. When coming from vastly different world views and experiences, being charitable in your interpretation of others is essential; it is important to distinguish disagreement, harassment, and true threat so as to avoid false positives and further degradation of the conversation. That charity requires having a very thick skin, and yes, it’s unfair when it’s not reciprocated and you are being targeted.

I think social media has taught us that most people are terrible diplomats. Which is to expected when a person’s threat response is engaged. Having a thick skinned and measured reaction to threat is still the best way to reduce that threat. And it requires a level of discomfort unprivileged people are generally much better at dealing with; the people who need to hear that advice most are those advantaged enough to be unfamiliar with dealing with discomfort.

I think a better solution than forcing everyone to become diplomatic or banning those who violate the norms of others is to have somewhat siloed social groups that are represented by open minded thick skinned diplomatic types that permeate the borders. That’s part of what’s appealing about a federated model; I think it better mirrors our social tendencies and historically successful political systems with diverse constituents (representative republics seem to be the only proven systems capable of dealing with lots of different peoples long term).

I’m of the opinion that the most virulent partisanship is actually due to the lack of silos rather than the echo chamber narrative. Before the internet, in group conversations stayed behind closed doors. That privacy allowed people who would be outraged at the contents of those conversations to get along in a diplomatic middle.

Now those conversations are public, and people seem to be fighting over control of one big room where all the walls have been removed.

[finiteseries]

I think a better solution than forcing everyone to become diplomatic or banning those who violate the norms of others is to have somewhat siloed social groups that are represented by open minded thick skinned diplomatic types that permeate the borders.

This is a genuinely fascinating idea that I haven’t seen before in discussion around Mastodon & co.

Not convinced it’s an actual possibility because of a lack of scarce resources & the like to actually cause diplomacy to happen over in a familiar way, but I have 0 idea of what the fediverse is like from within the fediverse, so perhaps there is something there I’m just not aware of.

Would upvote and read an insider’s “Diplomacy in the Age of Federation” esque article in a heartbeat.

[didericis]

Thank you, will consider writing one/fleshing this out.

[lmm]

> Why is grinning-and-bearing harrassment by people who want you dead virtuous?

Because it's what makes society possible.

[etripe]

The operative part is "want you dead". Ignoring murderous intent is decidedly not what makes society possible.

[cbozeman]

"It offends people, but good. They should be offended." - Paul Mooney, from Know Your History: Jesus Is Black; So Was Cleopatra