This is a great example of the kind of hyper-reactivity that makes conversation on most of the internet absolutely impossible. The parent said they didn't see this in the article, don't imagine they'd gain from it, and asked for more info about it - all totally reasonable thoughts and expressed without negativity. And yet you responded with snide superiority, as though your dialogue with this person was already an argument before it even started.
I get where you're coming from, but you have to consider these comments in context. The article we're commenting on has an entire section (3 paragraphs!) on this specific Google issue, and it was a very widely discussed news story here at the time that it happened. When smcl took issue with mcv claiming that Google was "taking steps backwards", they were implicitly ignoring or disagreeing with the section of the article that outlined how Google was in fact taking steps backwards on the issue. Indeed, if you look at the follow-up response here, smcl very clearly read the section of the article about Google, and just disagrees with the idea that internal harassment and backlash against Dalit activism leading to a planned DEI talk getting canceled constitutes "taking steps backwards", basically on what seems to be trivial semantic grounds (see the follow-up posts by smcl, which basically boil down to either "how can they take steps backwards if they're already bad" or "they're not doing any ACTUAL discrimination, they just had the CEO cancel a planned talk based on complaints from higher caste people"). The argument was already started well before pessimizer did anything, it was just framed implicitly instead of explicitly.
Probably they could have responded more charitably here, sure, but frankly I don't think it's correct to categorize "please Google this and actually read the facts about the case before arguing with someone on the internet about it" as "hyper-reactivity". Sometimes people on the internet (occasionally myself included!) really do just look before they leap.
You guys really need to calm down and assume a bit of good faith. Again, it sounded like there was some broader caste-discrimination backslide going on I was missing. I didn’t realise they meant that talk cancellation.
I know there are weirdos who hide hatred behind “just asking questions” but this case I was legit was asking if I was missing something. Didn’t realise it would cause such a fuss
100%. I found the books “how to have impossible conversations” and “crucial conversations” helpful for me, but in a nutshell they’re basically “say things in a way that protect the other side’s ego”
I would love to see some social networks silently implementing something that rewrites comments in a more diplomatic manner when displayed to everyone else.
That would be an interesting alternative to shadowbanning, especially if it came with a label ("The comment has been autotuned.") I'd like to see them offer the submitter some alternatives or provide some analysis before they post ("Please avoid sealioning").
