this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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Actual Discussion

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Are you tired of going into controversial threads and having people not discuss things, circlejerking, or using emotional responses in place of logic? Us too.

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There is a book called “On Being Certain”, by Robert A Burton who’s a neurologist, discussing how we know what we know. He postulates that the sense of “conviction” has less to do with objective reality and far more to do with “a feeling of knowing.” He also suggests that we are far less self-aware than we think we are.

People see a different viewpoint and their body reactively brings up all the conditioning received from popular advice. Instinctively, they hit the downvote button, thinking that they are rightfully decreasing the noise of a dangerous idea and protecting the less aware.

Most people aren’t interested in debate nor challenging the reality they find themselves in, or even the framing and interpretation of that reality.

Is lemmy supposed to be better then other social media?

How do we make lemmy a more thoughtful place? Or how do we create meaningful spaces on lemmy for thoughtful discussion of opposing views?

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[–] Pulptastic@midwest.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

It is hard. A comment has to be in a pretty narrow window for me to engage in discussion. If something is adjacent to or just outside of my understanding I may choose to engage in discussions where one or both of us learn something.

There are a few areas where I am an expert and may chime in with corrections or additions to generally good comments and discussions.

If a comment is perfectly in alignment with my thoughts I may say so but that is not a productive conversation, more a symbol of fellowship.

If a comment is too far out of agreement I am not going to engage. From past experience this will never yield fruit. Either it will turn into a flame war, a perpetual chain of disagreements until one of us gives up, or getting downvoted to oblivion by a brigade who disagrees with me.

Productive discourse needs a safe space, and online is NOT a safe space.