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[slammerkinbabe]

So last night I got Capital-Letter Mysterious about a Thing that I might start using LiveJournal for. It's kind of laughable, because in a way it's the simplest thing in the world, and yet it's weighing on me. I am looking around at the world right now and I'm not liking what I see. This isn't terribly new, but the degree is new. Donald Trump

Comments

[ganimede]

I hope you're not biting off more than you can chew here, I mean, there's a reason people say not to read the comments! I wonder if you might be better aiming for those who are a bit more on the fence, they tend to be more easily swayed than the hardcore types. But I hope you have lots of success and not too much hurt and frustration.

[slammerkinbabe]

Yeah, I know what you mean, and I should clarify -- at least for the beginning I am planning on sticking with talking to people who seem to be more on the fence. It's just that I'm better at talking to people online than in person and I wouldn't know where to look for people to talk to about political things IRL, so it's going to be a matter of looking through comments sections to find people who I think I can talk with profitably. I'm not going to jump on Stormfront with "#BlackLivesMatter" comments. But I do want to test the limits, over time, of who you can talk around if you're open and friendly and nonjudgmental, and how you can tell. Starting slow though.

[ganimede]

I'm glad for the clarification. I greatly admire what you're wanting to do and I was concerned that it might backfire on you. I didn't want you to get hurt and suffer for your good intentions, that's all.

[jpallan]

Of course I'm not laughing at you. I'm pre-occupied and self-centered right now, unfortunately, but I'm not laughing. Being kind is an admirable life goal.

[lietya]

I suspect the trick will be telling the true believers apart from the trolls (the latter, of course, are not going to be convinced because they didn't believe their crap in the first place), but I genuinely admire this. I also think it really can make a difference, when you have the patience and persistence to sincerely reach out.

(Definitely not laughing at you!)

[slammerkinbabe]

Yeah, that is DEFINITELY a concern. I tend to be good at spotting trolling and satire, but I'm going to have to be very very attuned to that. I think context will help; there are situations that favor provocateurs, in which trolling is likely to get some good mileage because there are a lot of sincere and therefore easily outraged people talking about their beliefs (or, less commonly, situations where trolls egg borderline radicals on to say super-radical things), and then there are situations that seem less calculated to provoke. I *think* content plus context will help me avoid most of the trolls. But we'll see. I definitely do not feel like spending a month fighting with trolls. LOL

Also I'm really glad you see the point of this and are not laughing or thinking I'm an idiot. That matters to me. Thanks. :)

[lietya]

You do have a good sense of these things - and I suppose trolls might actually be good for "luring" out people who are well-meaning and easily outraged, which will give you some other opportunities to talk to them.

I should have added that I have actually had this work personally. It took a lot of patience and effort, and periodically it backfired (person who seemed reasonable and then turned out to be a TERF who said outright "I am not trying to be inclusive" and believed "female-bodied men" are just super-butch women, ugh to you!), but I have had the same result you have where sometimes someone responds to kindness and a good-faith effort to engage. So I am not only not laughing at you, I admire you for this, because I simply don't have the energy or patience to try most of the time even when I have direct evidence that it *does* work.

[slammerkinbabe]

Yeah, I think compartmentalizing this as "This is a thing I am doing one time a day and I am treating it as a job and deliberately bringing all my patience to bear" is going to work for me better than "I'm going to be kind all the time! I'm going to engage with hateful/angry/defensive people wherever I find them!" I definitely can't just spend my life trying to get people in comments sections to have reasonable conversations. But I want to see what happens if I try to engage once per day. I mean, I'd also like to try to be more kind in general, but I like having a carefully delineated plan in this particular aspect of that. If I go into comments sections and try to change people's minds without having prepped myself for it I often come out very, very frustrated and depressed. And it's gotten so much worse in the last year, since Trump's popularity has spiked. Blergh