Maybe people who are automatically written off as trolls and bots are actually trying to offer you an open door to helping yourself flourish.
Here’s a pretty on the nose example. There are others more recent but that one, and the structure of the discussion after, are unusually crystal clear.
If that was meant to help me help myself to flourish, I’ll remain unflourished.
Yeah. That’s definitely a bot.
I do like how cheerful it is after being told to fuck off. Hitchhikers Guide’s asshole cheerful doors are becoming reality, but with much more sinister purposes.
Oh, I don’t at all think it is a bot - I think it is a 4chan type edgelord who is cheerfully inserting “joking” fascist bullshit into the narrative. The whole point of Snyder’s piece is, the stuff is damaging whether it comes from bots or paid actors or people who have just picked up the habits of interacting like they do.
I actually have some more, somewhat more damaging (because they are more real-looking and thus harder to spot) examples: people doing the same thing of saying discouraging nonsense that favors one side particularly of the political discussion. I don’t think they are literally bots. Like Snyder says, it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day; the messaging and what impacts it has and how to react to it productively are the important things.
The only thing I’ve seen from fourchan in 10-15 years has been posted on Lemmy and before that in irc * Get a grip on yourself, I keep telling you just because people disagree with you don’t make us bots, trolls, shills, paid or otherwise, and that language is just dehumanizing us so you don’t have to confront your own dismissive arrogant self-assurededness. I have been there, probably for a couple of decades, in the day, and occasionally I go there, nowadays. If I’m doing my inner work, I don’t stay long.
Enjoy your Sunday.
