I experience Lemmy as a reflection of many of the problems in the world; there seems to be little effort to understand and respect different viewpoints. Instead of being curious about opinions one disagrees with, the community often feels almost aggressive. People end up in their own trenches. What about trying to be more open and curious about our differences instead?
Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with…
Apparently you believe in freedom of speech – so long as nobody says ‘aggressive’ things to you.
As long as you’re not frequently getting blocked or banned, nobody is trampling on your ‘freedom of speech’. You’re free to say what you want. And other people are free to say what they they want, even if they use that to say your speech sucks. ‘Freedom of speech’ doesn’t mean people have to be nice to you no matter what you say. It just means you can say it. And then other people get to say their part.
Personally attacking OP with strawmen accusations for calling out the platform for being hostile toward differing views is peak irony.
No, you don’t understand. When they do it it’s good, when you do it, it’s bad!
OP’s snarky reference to free speech is hypocritical on its face. The entire thesis of their post is to attack criticism, and criticism is a form of free speech.
Pointing out hypocrisy is not a strawman.
You’re not accurately representing their view neither. At no point have they taken issue with criticism.
This whole post is about OP taking issue with criticism.
No, it’s not - it’s about the seeming inability to disagree politely.
The opposite of strawmanning is steelmanning. It’s when you recite a person’s view back to them in a way that they agree is exactly what they think. Only after that do you move on to actually discussing the disagreement - now that you’re both on the same page instead of talking past each other.
I highly doubt OP would agree with your “steelmanning” of what they said.
Removed by mod
Yes, I was never attempting to steelman OP’s argument. I was pointing out the flaws of the argument as it is given.
Steelmanning is a tool that is helpful in many situations, but that does not mean it is useful in every situation. Perhaps there is an ideal version of OP’s argument, a steelman, that I would agree with. But the actual argument that OP laid out is not ideal, it is hypocritical, and I am pointing that out.
A student who gets a poor grade on a paper does not get to go to the professor and ask them to “steelman” their argument for a better grade. The paper is judged as it is written.
No, you were just pointing out the flaws in your strawman interpretation of their argument.
Steelmanning doesn’t mean making their argument better for them or “giving them the benefit of the doubt.” It means making sure you’ve actually understood their point correctly before you start explaining why you disagree. If you can’t steelman your opponent’s view, then by definition you can’t argue against it either - because you haven’t grasped what claim you’re even trying to counter in the first place.
Not to mention, “freedom of speech” only applies to laws congress may make (even if they regularly ignore that). There is no “freedom of speech” law across the land that is some god-given right. Admins and mods are free to run their instances and communities as they wish; if you don’t like how they do it then you can leave. “Freeze peach” is always used by conservative snowflakes to cry about having their opinions called reprehensible.
Just because that’s what the USA first amendment regulates, it does not mean that is what the concept itself is.