📡 Daan Berg
Cory DoctorowThis post from Tumblr's Ghostonly is the best social media advice I've ever read:
How to have a good internet experience in 8 easy steps
https://www.tumblr.com/ghostonly/667966959023996928/how-to-have-a-good-internet-experience-in-8-easy
#1 - Stop having a bad faith interpretation of every thing you read
If you think something someone said might have been something you disagree with, instead of starting an argument, ask them to clarify or ask them specific questions about what they said
You will be so surprised to find that half the people you assume are being shitty or negative just didn't phrase what they meant very well
2/
#2 - Learn to block people
It's free, it's easy, and it will save your life. Tired of someone tagging your stuff with characters from a fandom you don't like? Don't try to control them by telling them not to, just fucking block them. Less upsetting to them, less work for you, less inflammatory, more effective.
#4 - Learn to say, "It's none of my business."
Don't understand someone's desire to use neo pronouns? None of your business. Can't understand why someone is a furry? None of your business. Curious about how someone who talks about being poor can have a Starbucks in that last selfie they posted? None of your damn business.
If you don't like certain things on your dash, unfollow or block people. If you don't understand how someone can identify a certain way or do a certain thing or like a certain thing or feel a certain way or literally anything, just remember, it's none of your business.
#7 - Quit wasting energy on hating random shit
Being annoyed by a certain fandom is one thing, but actively hating things that other people do just because you're not into it is such a waste of your energy. Not only are you actively putting more negativity into the world, you're wasting your own time on things that upset you.
#8 - Unlearn purity culture
This is a big one guys. What is purity culture? It's referenced a lot, but I think a lot of you don't know what it is.
In short, purity culture is when people take many nuanced situations and try to divide them into black and white categories. There's the Good category and the Bad category. The problem is, life is not in black and white. You can't put a neat line down the middle between good and bad.
This kind of thinking is extremely regressive. Ask any therapist alive and they will tell you that black and white thinking is unhealthy and often a Symptom of Something.
Juri@pluralistic can confirm; I get gentle-but-firm reminders from my therapist *frequently.*
A good way to catch black-and-white thinking is to watch out for absolutes: words like “always,” “never,” “everyone,” and “nobody.” They’re black and white and red flags all over.
A good way to catch black-and-white thinking is to watch out for absolutes: words like “always,” “never,” “everyone,” and “nobody.” They’re black and white and red flags all over.
Ceri@jurijuri @pluralistic I see what you didn't do there. You didn't say "My therapist *always* tells me..." nice 👌🏻
Klaas Bals@pluralistic so funny you also apply black and white thinking in this toot: ask *any* therapist. I of course never do this myself. 😉
@kbals @pluralistic it is funny, but also its a quote from the article 🔗 at the beginning of the thread, where its not so much about the psychological trait of black & white thinking - also called 'splitting' {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)} but about the social phenomenon where complex, nuanced media are damned / "cancelled" for not being 100% virtuous, here called "purity culture" - not to be confused with abstinence.
https://ghostonly.tumblr.com/post/667966959023996928/how-to-have-a-good-internet-experience-in-8-easy
https://ghostonly.tumblr.com/post/667966959023996928/how-to-have-a-good-internet-experience-in-8-easy
aresand yet, some things are *always* bad and wrong, and people who insist that everything is a shade of gray can be too tolerant of intolerance
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@pluralistic black and white thinking is always a problem. Always. No exceptions. ;)
Grinning Cat 
@fishidwardrobe @pluralistic Black-and-white thinking isn't a problem in photography. :)
("The Tetons and the Snake River" by Ansel Adams, via Wikimedia Commons)
@grinningcat @pluralistic I see many beautiful shades of grey ;) 🖤
🐍@pluralistic I still remember when there was a shitstorm because on Star Trek: TNG, Data once said that there are occasions when terrorism can be not only effective, but justified and even necessary, getting the episode banned in the countries where terrorism WAS the option of last resort for oppressed people during The Troubles.
Kevin Karhan 
@6of47 @pluralistic you mean "The High Ground"...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Ground_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
@kkarhan @pluralistic Yes! That's the one! It'd been a few decades since I'd seen it, but it always stuck in my craw.
Cíat Ó Gáibhtheacháin@6of47 @pluralistic Yup! That particular episode didn't get shown on either the BBC (UK) or RTÉ (Ireland) for that reason. Mind you, the Troubles were still ongoing, so it was kind of a tone-deaf thing to say at the time.
It wasn't even a good episode either. Jonathan Frakes described it as "a stinker".
@pluralistic yeah, that rarely works.
#TransRightsAreHumanRights for example is where it works perfectly.
Cyberwizard@pluralistic it's whitewashing stuff - cleaning away the uglyness that actually happened in the past and making it pretty - redesigning reality
pirx26@pluralistic #9 Remember that no one cares about your opinion. You are not that clever.
Graydon@pluralistic Maybe not a useful frame. Purity culture is a special case of single-prescriptive-norm social regulation into an ingroup and various outgroups. It's what created the idea of blackness (by defining white as the ingroup) and damnation and a whole bunch of stuff.
Trying get rid of it is futile; it exists to define you as bad, and it's worked for millenia.
Actively pushing abide-the-bounds limits-of-conduct approaches while refusing engagement with good and bad as ideas may work.
Steve Mroszczak@pluralistic with the work going on with algorithms on Mastodon, I wonder if a "Certainty Filter" is possible?
I.e. surface arguments that people are putting forward with caveats (i.e. scientific papers ) lower the spread of anything with too many of those "therapist words", particularly anything in ALL CAPS
Daniel Solis@pluralistic there's an inherent solipsism to this mindset I find baffling.
@pluralistic EXACTLY!
"Why did they shifted their career or job?" - "None of your damn business!"
People will tell one details and context if they want to - there's no right to know every detail of everyone!
En3pY - Sebastian Zdrojewski@kkarhan @pluralistic i think too many people didn't really understand what "freedom" means. And that it brings some responsibility to it.
Nuki's Old Account@pluralistic I remember, after I had to drop out of college because I got sick and lost my job, being broke and working at 7-11 because that was the best job I could get on short notice, and I would still go to the Starbucks on campus, because I still wanted to maintain those connections for when I came back... And because I had over $100 in Starbucks giftcard credit on my rewards account, meaning eating there was technically free.
@pluralistic you go Cory! now, if people will just listen to you.
ComepletelyRatchet🇺🇸resists@pluralistic I like this. Nonya damnbiz 😌
Comrade Hound@pluralistic Yeah, people seem so bothered that there are things they don't understand in the world...
JohnW@pluralistic Vital reading. I have been on both sides of that bad phrasing.
@pluralistic this is espechally common when at least one person isn't a native communicator of said languague in use and/or the issue is polarizing.
zeruch@pluralistic agreed, but this requires people to not be tumescent over outrage porn, which is the single defining element of so much "discourse" these days.
The act of seeking that seems so out of reach when being just oblivious and self-righteous gives them a dopamine hit so hard they herniate their own pre-frontal lobe every 10 minutes from the excitement.
@pluralistic can confirm this sometimes works, to degrees from "Actually we almost completely agree!" through to "We completely disagree but were able to be civil and understand each other better rather than ramping up hostility and negative assumptions". Other times people either ignore your questions or assume you are being patronising, facetious, sarcastic or passive aggressive. It can help to actually say "genuine question..." or "I am genuinely interested".
Jadzia_Adrienne Dax@pluralistic @curmudgeonaf Absolutely! So well-said. People have replied to some of my toots, especially those where I might have made smart allack commentary on news stories, and helped me refine or even alter my perspective. Sometimes I pick my battles, similar to dealing with a small child. However, asking for clarification or for more info only enriches everyone's experience and knowledge. Discourse is good, disagreement is great, but constructive criticism is best, only when civil.
Laura@pluralistic I’ll add: Remember that lots of people interacting in English here are not writing or reading their native language. Sometimes dialectal variations or idioms “fly over our heads”, to use an example. If I’m making an extra effort to communicate with you, please grant me some space to edit and rephrase. You’re engaging with a global community, not everyone will get your local context — even if it’s the US.
JJ@laescude @pluralistic I sometimes wish we had a brand new language for global communication instead of English.
Unprecedented 2023
Dan O'Neill@pluralistic
API, Assume Positive Intent
Neutral to positive engagement, or don't.
Robert Link@pluralistic Love this! Thank you!!
David Zaslavsky@pluralistic love it, although I'm sure the people who could most benefit from this will either not look at it or dismiss it 😢
ekes@pluralistic
#5, as is, contradicts #1, imho. The old hacker advise is better: do your homework before you raise an issue or a question, then people will want to engage with you.
#4 is by no means so black and white, even if you follow #1. I'd rather suggest: don't make other people's business your own, unless you can justify that it really is.
VerführerVergelter@pluralistic never heard of purity culture before but I recognized it immediatly. Thanks for sharing that piece :)
Dave Humm@pluralistic Thanks for sharing this one. I've pretty much achieved following these steps and it makes life much happier on social media.
Doctor LURK@pluralistic agreed! People who think the last word in my handle is meant to be creepy just haven't lurked enough yet to know better 
💜 TypicalCapricorn 💜@pluralistic Love it. 🙌
HawkWolf@pluralistic it’s interesting to read the comments on the tumblr post that do the exact thing in number 8, to the author
jooliargh@pluralistic Brilliant advice. I found having a printed copy of this taped to my monitor for about two years helped a lot as well 😁 https://xkcd.com/386/
Andy Daitsman@jooliargh @pluralistic omg before clicking on the link I knew which one it was!
Pyperkub@jooliargh @pluralistic one of my favorites!
David F. Mendes@pluralistic muito bom
Pattacakek@pluralistic excellent advice.
Mike Richichi@pluralistic That's just plain old good *life* advice too.
Diana Staresinic-Deane@pluralistic number 8 is gold.
Patty Bluebird 🦩@pluralistic Thank you for the reminder to keep an open mind.
I've learned a lot on social media and hope to continue learning.
I've learned a lot on social media and hope to continue learning.
Brian BroadusThe realization that I can have an opinion that I keep to myself was an important one.
Also, I hate golf and golfing and there's no need to hide it.
Blaidd_3.14159@pluralistic
#8. The whole polarization with nothing in the middle and if you're not completely one then you must be completely the other.
The world is not the same as sports teams.