• Ilandar
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    1 year ago

    Useful idiots online are spreading “I’m just asking questions” garbage about “pizza gate” and the “covid hoax” and the “climate hoax” etc etc, and anyone who has to deal with this just gets beaten down and withdraws their participation.

    And then there are all the people who pretend to be useful idiots and heavily imply stuff whilst being careful never to explicitly say it. When you call them out, they turn around and use the “well I never said that” defence and pretend they are engaging in good faith. If you keep nailing them, eventually they have some mask off moment where they slip up and reveal their true character. We’ve seen quite a few of those here recently with the Voice discussion.

      • Ilandar
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        1 year ago

        Yeah that summarises it quite well. I guess the left leaning equivalent of this is when people are too quick to put you in a box and won’t actually give you the benefit of doubt to argue your position in good faith.* They are both big issues with online discourse and why I generally try to push people a bit so they have a chance to prove whether they are just ignorant or if there’s actually malicious intent behind what they’re saying.

        *And I make that criticism of the left as someone who is very left leaning myself. It pains me to see people undermine their arguments (or completely fail to make them) by stooping to the levels of the alt-right.