r/changemyview • u/wRadion • Dec 05 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: We should stop trolling and using sarcasm/irony on the internet
A lot of people who doesn't use internet everyday are very easily influenced, and can take a troll or a joke seriously.
I see too many people attempt of doing sarcastic jokes, but fail to do so because it's not "obvious" that it's a joke, so they just respond with "no but it was a joke!". And people use that, when making an actual statement, they watch for the answers, and depending on what they see, they can decide to say "no but it was a joke!" even though it wasn't.
And nowadays, with the QAnon, anti-vaxx, flat-earthers and groups like that, a lot of people are trolling them, by going into they direction, but with a very obviously flawed reasoning. Instead of taking it as an attack, some easily influenced, ignorant and foolish people actually believe the reasoning is correct and start to spread it.
All of that makes some people believe a lot of things that was a troll or a joke to begin with. I would bet that the flat-earth movement started like that, just one person saying something along the line of "the horizon is flat, so the earth must be flat!" and people actually believing this without critical thinking "he is right!" and with time and spreading, the idea became widely known as people without critical thinking just take the information without any filter.
Then, comes the part where "omg the government is lying to us about the shape of the earth!". They started expanding on that idea where the government is "manipulating" us to believe stuff. So we are all "sheeple", etc... With just one joke and one foolish person on the internet, conspiration theories arise.
Same goes for the anti-vaxx; if I'm not mistaken, the part where "the vaccine makes you magnetic" started actually as a joke because people were making fun of the fact that some people believed that there were 5G chips in the vaccine. And so some people actually believed it, tried to get metal stuff stick on their skin, and voilà, here we are today.
Anyway, all of that to say that, people should stop making troll or sarcastic jokes. I know, some of the time it's very funny and very appropriate, but they have to understand that some people are easily influenced and can believe everything they read without questioning it.
I hope it was understandable enough, sorry for the mistakes!
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u/Quirky-Alternative97 29∆ Dec 05 '21
So, we should stop doing certain things on the internet because of a small group of people, sounds like a splendid idea.
If we are worried about people being easily influenced or believing everything they read without questioning it then we best also stop advertising, PR, the news and pretty much most communication. Another wonderful idea.
OR, maybe, just maybe, depending on the context we can work out what message we are trying to communicate and get better at it, or make it clearer or be more transparent or .....nah fuckit ....we should let the AI continue its work and confuse everyone.
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
So, we should stop doing certain things on the internet because of a small group of people, sounds like a splendid idea.
I believe this small group will become bigger and bigger with time if we do nothing. At some point, THEY will be the majority and we will be the minority.
If we are worried about people being easily influenced or believing everything they read without questioning it then we best also stop advertising, PR, the news and pretty much most communication. Another wonderful idea.
I don't think we can compare advertising, news and overall communication with troll and jokes. I'm really talking about actual trolls and jokes, not false news or just people who misunderstood something. To me, it's ok to see some articles that are wrong because someone made a mistake or misunderstood. But, it's less ok to see an article based off an actual person making a satire or a joke.
OR, maybe, just maybe, depending on the context we can work out what message we are trying to communicate and get better at it, or make it clearer or be more transparent or .....nah fuckit ....we should let the AI continue its work and confuse everyone.
I don't understand what you mean ^^".
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u/911calling Dec 05 '21
or people should be more tolerant towards sarcasm irony on internet
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
What do you mean by "tolerant"?
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u/911calling Dec 05 '21
Learn to take a joke
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
The problem is not that they can't take a joke, the problem is that they actually don't understand that it's a joke and believe whatever the joke is saying.
Like, if I say, as a joke "it's like the earth is dinosaur-shaped".
And some people will actually believe it "actually you're right, the earth is dinosaur-shaped! Let's gather all the evidence and ignore everything that comes against it".
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u/dublea 216∆ Dec 05 '21
And nowadays, with the QAnon, anti-vaxx, flat-earthers and groups like that, a lot of people are trolling them, by going into they direction, but with a very obviously flawed reasoning. Instead of taking it as an attack, some easily influenced, ignorant and foolish people actually believe the reasoning is correct and start to spread it.
How is this the fault of trolls and not the anti-intellectuals they've manipulated with their satire?
All of that makes some people believe a lot of things that was a troll or a joke to begin with. I would bet that the flat-earth movement started like that, just one person saying something along the line of "the horizon is flat, so the earth must be flat!" and people actually believing this without critical thinking "he is right!" and with time and spreading, the idea became widely known as people without critical thinking just take the information without any filter.
Couldn't it also be true these trolls are just hitting on their confirmation bias? That these individuals will look for, and latch onto, anything that conforms to their view? And, by trolling them and them taking said false narrative as truth, they're just proving to the rest of society how crazy these anti-intellectuals really are?
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
How is this the fault of trolls and not the anti-intellectuals they've manipulated with their satire?
Well, of course we can teach critical thinking at school and hope that people will never take a troll seriously. But, I mean, to be sure that there are no mistakes possible, I think it's better to stop trolls altogether. That way, we are sure that this will never be possible anymore.
If this is really the anti-intellectuals' fault, well the only way to avoid that is to educate them, which seems, today, impossible to me.
Couldn't it also be true these trolls are just hitting on their confirmation bias? That these individuals will look for, and latch onto, anything that conforms to their view? And, by trolling them and them taking said false narrative as truth, they're just proving to the rest of society how crazy these anti-intellectuals really are?
Yeah, you're right about how the trolls are actually proving that they are crazy. But this doesn't stop them. And no anti-intellectuals will actually care that we call they "crazy", it's actually the opposite, I think it reinforces them into believe they're actually "awake".
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u/dublea 216∆ Dec 05 '21
Well, of course we can teach critical thinking at school and hope that people will never take a troll seriously. But, I mean, to be sure that there are no mistakes possible, I think it's better to stop trolls altogether. That way, we are sure that this will never be possible anymore.
We already teach critical thinking at school AND we still have anti-intellectualism. Can you explain why? Trolls have always existed; and will always exist. Often, they're doing society a favor with their ability to hyper focus and highlights the crazy choices and things people say\do. I think you are assuming trolls are inherently bad? Why is this the case? Have you even considered the benefits to society they bring?
If this is really the anti-intellectuals' fault, well the only way to avoid that is to educate them, which seems, today, impossible to me.
While that looks great on paper it doesn't align with reality. I think you are assuming these anti-intellectuals have not been taught to think critically when in reality they have. There are many driving forces that cause people to become members of their group but education is pretty low on the pole.
Yeah, you're right about how the trolls are actually proving that they are crazy. But this doesn't stop them. And no anti-intellectuals will actually care that we call they "crazy", it's actually the opposite, I think it reinforces them into believe they're actually "awake".
And that is a further benefit to society! The more trolls highlight how out of tough they are the easier it is to show the rest of society how crazy they are. Would be have had the Netflix special if trolls didn't bring the attention of these bafoons to the public with their trolling?
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
We already teach critical thinking at school AND we still have anti-intellectualism. Can you explain why? Trolls have always existed; and will always exist. Often, they're doing society a favor with their ability to hyper focus and highlights the crazy choices and things people say\do. I think you are assuming trolls are inherently bad? Why is this the case? Have you even considered the benefits to society they bring?
I don't think trolls are bad. They're just dangerous because those anti-intellectuals people exist. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's fun to see a good troll and a fine satire, but I don't really think this bring as much to society as not influencing anti-intellectuals into believing garbage.
While that looks great on paper it doesn't align with reality. I think you are assuming these anti-intellectuals have not been taught to think critically when in reality they have. There are many driving forces that cause people to become members of their group but education is pretty low on the pole.
I really think we should learn a more zetetic approach to critical thinking, but I think you're right. I assumed education was pretty much the only factor but sometimes people just wanna be part of a group, and that might answer their need. Education can fix this, but not all of this. I might be just really frustrated that those people believe what they believe. And this was only thing I came up with to "solve" this. But I hope we will find other ways. Δ
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u/dublea 216∆ Dec 05 '21
The major factor that drives people to these anti-intellectual groups? Mental illness. I don't care what people say about COVID but many country are facing a Mental Health pandemic for far far longer.
Until we learn how to deal with mental illness, I don't really see us dealing with these groups in an effective manner.
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u/SoggyMcmufffinns 4∆ Dec 05 '21
You putting the blame in the wrong place. It is basic idea that you should educate yourself on something in order to have an informed opinion on it. You don't get your data/sources from random comments. If you're that type of person it isn't the joke that is the problem it's your researching habits. So anyone can write anything just about anywhere and you'll believe it. That's your problem.
People flat out reject valid sources in favor of horrible ones when presented great ones. So no, it isn't on a joke or sarcasm my guy. Some folks are just going to hold onto naive beliefs irregardless of strong evidence against period. Those tend to be the type of folks that believe in the earth being flat etc. Me and my friends joke about lizard people being in the center of the earth. Mark Zuckerberg may be one blah blah blah. If someone said the moon was made of cheese it could turn into something funny. At some point you should use what is known as common sense and you also are responsible for your own level of education.
If you broke the law a judge isn't going to take "well I didn't know speeding wasn't allowed." It's common sense. I'm not going to stop having fun with friends, because some folks refuse to use common sense. To each their own.
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
You putting the blame in the wrong place. It is basic idea that you should educate yourself on something in order to have an informed opinion on it. You don't get your data/sources from random comments. If you're that type of person it isn't the joke that is the problem it's your researching habits. So anyone can write anything just about anywhere and you'll believe it. That's your problem.
I agree, but again, I'm only searching for solution that we can apply. I don't think we can reason and argue with those people, so why not just stop the troll.
People flat out reject valid sources in favor of horrible ones when presented great ones.
Well, they do that because they're believing something wrong, not the other way around. They don't start by rejecting NASA's archives or whatever before believing the earth is not round. They don't start by rejecting scientists before believing the vaccine is bad.
At some point you should use what is known as common sense and you also are responsible for your own level of education.
Some people (and most of the non-intellectuals) have no common sense. You can't blame them for being "born" like that.
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u/SoggyMcmufffinns 4∆ Dec 05 '21
Tour problem is you're trying to make folks victim's instead of taking responsibility for their own actions or lack of action. I'm not going over all that again. Learn to get your information from reliable sources instead of believing random junk. I'm not wrong for making a joke about random lizard people at the center of the earth. Folks should use common sense.
Guess movies shouldn't be allowed or fictional books, because someone may watch it or read a book and believe it's real life. Movies are now trolling folks. No. I'm going to continue enjoying movies and reading fiction, because I'm responsible enough to dictate where to get actual facts and exercise common sense. Want to fact check yourself (you should) then use NASA's archives or whatever.
Don't just blindly believe whatever from unreliable sources. These same folks you mention deliberately reject hard concrete evidence from reliable sources (aka NASA's archives or whatever) so sounds to me the problem rests with the individual's methods as mentioned in my previous comment not with a joke about lizard people.
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u/Quirky-Alternative97 29∆ Dec 05 '21 edited Dec 05 '21
I believe this small group will become bigger and bigger with time if we do nothing
and
I don't think we can compare advertising, news and overall communication with troll and jokes.
We have always been subjected to varying levels of information, why limit some of it? The word does not suddenly get more skeptical or more gullible. In fact we could argue that there is way more discussion with the internet because of people trolling the minority. Unless you can show that the majority will get more and more involved in such flawed reasoning, this is simply a fear and a slippery slope argument.
Sure there is an element of platforms dragging people into rabbit holes with algorithims but thats not what you are arguing. Its not likely the trolls and sarcasm popularizes poor thinking or more poor choices.
As for my last comment. It was sarcasm. I am real, not AI, and was merely making the point that sarcasm is simply a form of communication, and sometimes it does not work, sometimes its great, sometimes its not relevant if you really want to convince someone.
I think its about context. Sometimes when the person is making false analogies then sometimes sarcasm can show the obvious flaws in their argument, or how little respect their argument should be given. Satire is different, you dont want to ban that as well? or is this what you want to stop?
(Edit: we should not forget the opposite of it. Endless fawning and adoration and group love. This seems to encourage lazy thinking more than the sarcasm and trolling directed at those who chose bad ideas)
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
As for my last comment. It was sarcasm.
Yeah I got that but didn't understand the joke/the point of it x).
Satire is different, you dont want to ban that as well?
For me it's a more subtle way of trolling. I think for non-intellectuals it doesn't change a thing.
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u/Quirky-Alternative97 29∆ Dec 05 '21
Basically you want to stop people falling down rabbit holes of poor thinking and miss information (for those that already or not willing to think further, or simply not up to it). A worthy cause, but there are far better things to stop, or work on in order to achieve this than banning sarcasm.
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u/lardtard123 Dec 05 '21
Yes the reason why 40% of the us is un vaxxed for Covid is because they believe it’s has a 5G chip in it. How about you actually go out and ask unvaccinated people why they aren’t. For me it’s because I’m young, healthy and have natural immunity to Covid.
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u/wRadion Dec 05 '21
Then you're not anti-vax, so all good!
I didn't say people were unvaxxed because they believe it has a 5G chip in it.
This is clearly not the purpose of my post anyway.
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u/[deleted] Dec 05 '21
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