this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Asklemmy

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If I ignore/block them, it allows them to continue unchallenged. I hate getting into it with them, since they are a baseline idiot.

I guess that's it. I saw a person with a 6 month account spouting garbage, was gonna block but thought perhaps that wasn't morally responsible. Wondering what the options were.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You're not gonna change their mind.

You'd be better spending your time breaking a brick wall with your skull.

Fuck em. Block em.

[โ€“] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Sometimes, it's not about changing their mind, but influencing the many others who are less certain in their beliefs who are just reading along.

[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In that case, it's better to just make a top-level comment that's far more likely to be read than a response 4 replies deep in an insufferable debate. You don't continue the chess game for the sake of spectators once the pigeon has shat all over the board and knocked the pieces on the ground repeatedly. They're just wasting your time at that point, which for most of them is their only goal in the first place.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Also, people vastly overestimate how many people are actually going to read an argument between two online people. Only the most chronically online of redditors read that shit. Most people find it very off-putting, and you actually risk losing credibility if you continue to engage. (Said as someone who has very much and repeatedly made the error of continuing to engage.)

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

If someone can be convinced into racism and hatred they were predisposed to assholery anyway.

Fair though.

Suppose I am too jaded to entertain them anymore. Can only hear so much before entertaining the nonsense wears on my mental.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

how is blocking someone helping influence other people? youre the only human the block affects. its no different than ignoring them.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think they mean not letting the ideas go unchallenged. If someone is reading through and sees a bunch of Nazis posting hate all up somewhere with no one else saying anything, they might assume that sort of behavior is just tacitly accepted and influence their perception of the community as a whole.