gab
Kinda have mixed feelings about the whole isolate gab shit. Like don’t get me wrong the ideas that gab protects and provides a voice for are horrible. I just think that maybe blocking them and isolating them and trying to distance ourselves from them is only going to concentrate the horribleness and make everything even more divided.
IMO, maybe it would be better to almost create a controlled buffer zone...
1/~2
gab
...of a few instances of people that are willing to put up with some shit in order to extend a hand to maybe some of their more on the fence people. Show them a little human kindness while also disagreeing with their ideas and showing them a way out of the isolation at the fringes of society.
Yes I realize that some of these people are probably way too deep in conspiracy theories at this point, but I feel like if we want a positive long term solution, we need to
2/~3
gab probably descending into uspol
... hold our noses and meet them somewhere near where they are. If it’s the Internet filter bubble repeatedly reenforcing slightly more extreme views each and every day, then isolating them in their extremism won’t help. IMO to counter this and truly bring our country together and start repairing the damage, we need to be constantly feeding them new ideas and new perspectives in their terms. While it may be unpleasant at first...
3/~4
gab maybe I’ll get banned for my controversial take
... I think if we started by offering other ways of thinking about their worldview, like offering them a new perspective, it may help teach them to think for themselves, research their ideology just a little deeper, conduct better experiments for the flat earthers, .etc. until eventually they can start to change their own minds.
4/~5
gab maybe a positive message idk
Maybe I’m getting a bunch of things wrong cuz I’m the last person who should be talking about any of this (would be happy to have a discussion) I just think there has to be a way to separate the human aspect from their beliefs and coexist as people and find some common goal and reason to reach out, even if we disagree. Otherwise neither side is going to make an effort to understand the other.
Honestly idk how coherent or like actually useful this but hey
5/5
gab maybe a positive message idk
@ace oh shit just saw this
so like the lore about why that doesn't work is because it's not the responsibility of the people they hurt to go and rehabilitate fascists, because they're the last people the fascists will believe, and the first people they'll hurt
and what's worse is that if they're given space to communicate their ideas, it's more likely that you'll change than they will. It's the same reason police departments are never reformed from the inside.
gab maybe a positive message idk
@ace and I think the biggest thing is that fascism is an emotional response and not a logical one. A fascist can't ever be defeated by enagaging with them, because even by entertaining their viewpoint and beginning a discussion, they've won. Their goal isn't to prove that fascism is better, it's to encourage an emotional response in the people that hear their arguments, which is very different from what we're used to.
gab maybe a positive message idk
@ace as a strategy, isolation has worked incredibly well actually. the thing is, far right communities ALWAYS implode when left alone, because when they have no strawman to defeat, they turn on each other immediately. After a while, people realize that everyone in their life has abandoned them, and the only people left are white supremacists who genuinely hate each other, and they'll have no choice but to leave on their own volition.
gab maybe a positive message idk
@wgahnagl ohhhh ok that makes sense. Regarding your first point about “it’s not up to the people they hurt to rehabilitate them...” what I meant by my point there was mainly to have people who are like them (probably cis white men tbh) but are sympathetic to marginalized communities act as that barrier so they aren’t able to hurt the marginalized communities further.
But yeah I see how engaging with them could end up growing their communities...
1/~2
gab maybe a positive message idk
@wgahnagl ... do you think it might help to take the “human kindness” approach for those people who choose to leave on their own once they realize everyone has left them? Or would that just cause them to go back to their old ways?
2/2
gab maybe a positive message idk
@ace so right like once people realize how toxic those communities are and disavow them, nine times out of ten people on our side don't care that much who you were. I mean if you ask around, a big chunk of hard left fediverse users actually used to live on 4chan in the same way some chuds live on gab. It's not a lack of human kindness that they recieve, it's just them choosing to pioritize their bigoted feelings, and usually sorts itself out once they're alone.
re: gab maybe a positive message idk
@wgahnagl @ace ultimately you can't convince a fascist to stop being a fascist, the same way you can't convince a member of a cult to leave their cult or a victim of abuse to leave their abuser. It's something that needs to be a personal revelation, because the whole culture is built fundamentally around never doubting the people in power and distancing yourself from anyone who challenges their authority
gab maybe a positive message idk
gab maybe a positive message idk
@ace the reason why isolation is an effective tactic is because fascism always spreads by debating it. If you lower your bar to engage with fascist viewpoints to "deradicalize" them, the conversation isn't "how can I help the marginalized people in my life" it's "do marginalized people deserve to exist", which is a very different conversation. and upon that, it's not a 1v1 debate either. fascism is a spectator sport that thrives on putting down its opponents.