As in, not known to you IRL.

I’ve occasionally brought it up before, but a while back in my reddit days I was in a thread where a “professional deprogrammer” had popped in and was talking about how to “deprogram” conservatives and get them to shift left in their views. It centered around restoring their sense of community and belonging with more balanced viewpoint folks IRL and away from their online echo chambers.

I asked them if they had any way to convert someone you encounter wholly online and they said that it was basically impossible, IRL you have a decent chance, but not online.

I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit, so now I’m curious if anybody here has actually gotten an online conservative to come to the dark side light side?

  • cm0002@lemmy.worldOP
    92·
    3 days ago

    Well, this has got to be one of the only things I’ve ever upvoted from you, but yea

    Internet arguments are more about the audience than the tankie you’re arguing against.

    I’ve certainly taken that approach with the tankies these days, I used to debate them, now I don’t really because its pointless. I reply to them every time, but it’s arguments for the audience more than anything.

    When I was petitioning for !conservative@lemmy.world to turn it into a satire comm, one kind of comment I saw come up was “if they don’t have a comm where we can argue with them, how can we get them to see the light?” (And before anyone brings it up, yes there are other Lemmy spaces (and a whole instance! (HilariousChaos) that are for “serious” conservative comms like !conservative@sh.itjust.works) and I still think it’s pointless to try because of what I covered with the opening post, but I was really hoping for at least a rare case of it happening.

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
      5·
      3 days ago

      I’ve certainly taken that approach with the tankies these days, I used to debate them, now I don’t really because its pointless. I reply to them every time, but it’s arguments for the audience more than anything.

      Responding once, twice at most, is the best way.

      I think we can’t convince anyone because if you’re arguing with someone online, they’re probably trolling you if you are saying something honestly. Internet spaces are so segregated that someone who comes here to argue, is probably not arguing in good faith.

    • meyotch@slrpnk.net
      11·
      3 days ago

      Yeah, I have started to bait and be quite a jerk to people who are arguing in bad faith. But never in a drawn out way. I pop in, call them out for bad faith and jet.

      Frankly, that’s how you should deal with argumentative people in real life, tell them you don’t want to play their game and then go find another one.