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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2344 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 28, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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In your head, treat forums like StackOverflow, not Reddit. Whatever you want to post, someone else probably posted it in that very same thread. Forum posts are repositories of a subset of the of discussions that could be had, no need add repetitive entries.

Although, at the end of the day, it just comes down to having self-control. Treat certain spaces as 'read-only'.

Noting that we're all almost by definition addicts on here.

Ask yourself what you want to achieve. I've been trying to reduce my shit-tier reply-guy-ing, even on here, and what I've realized is that if I think about it, the utility of arguing with say, a modern degenerate Nazi/Tankie/Pedo-Fascist is something like making sure the argument doesn't go unaddressed and people don't feel like the forum as a whole is endorsing it. He can get the last word, or ten words, or thousand words, no one is going to read that far anyway, what's important to me is that it doesn't go unanswered at the top level. This is probably pointless too, but it addresses my aesthetic desire to not let it go.

So for example, if somebody on an NFL forum defends Deshaun Watson, I want to speak up to say no he's a piece of shit, but I don't think I'm going convince the piece of shit defending him, I'm going to make clear to others on the forum that this kind of thing won't go unaddressed. That only requires saying it once, not getting into a game of replies.

Don't go to any places other than the Motte.

It's not the worst bubble!

if a community is a total bubble/echochamber, no one will debate you. you will just be banned

Two suggestions:

  1. Write out a response and don't post it.

  2. Allow yourself to write a response but don't engage in debate beyond that no matter what. If the people listening are worth anything at all someone else will pick up the ball.

Furthermore, something I've noticed is very heavy founder effects and manipulation in threads elsewhere, which I suspect partially has to do with bots and more manual campaigns to influence opinions. Opinions on things can switch schizophrenically between radically pro something to radically against something, literally the same day, in the same forum.

These conversations aren't natural at all and you can't really influence them as a single person, because there isn't a single person behind them and people aren't genuinely listening anyway. You wouldn't try to show up to a political rally to have measured conversations with people.

write out the response and keep it on notepad for a day, maybe you will think differently about your original position

Two suggestions:

  1. Write out a response and don't post it.
  1. Allow yourself to write a response but don't engage in debate beyond that no matter what. If the people listening are worth anything at all someone else will pick up the ball.

This are excellent. See others' threads as prompt to clear your own thinking, or write your own essays. Sometimes I even handwrite my responses as not to be tempted to post it.

Any tips on how to avoid pointless internet debating?

"Disable inbox replies" and a firm sense of haughty superiority.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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