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What is your most lukewarm take? (lemy.lol)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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Something that's not super controversial, but you still really stand by it.

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[+] -18 points 1 year ago (21 children)

There's no incentive for showing compassion online, apart from virtue signaling

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This makes so little sense. Why would I care about signalling my 'virtue' to a bunch of anonymous people who have no idea who I am? I can say something nice or harsh because I believe it was affect the people who read it, even though I'll never meet them. That is rational even if it doesn't benefit me, if I care about the experiences of other people. But acting a certain way to gain positive regard for an anonymous identity is dumb af.

    And the main reason I or anyone else acts compassionately online is probably just that it's the first and easiest reaction. I don't troll or harass people, even if I would suffer no consequences from it, simply because I have no interest in doing so. I say something nice because that's what I want to say, it's not an effort or a cost.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago

    I think you missed the point completely. What I meant is people are busy sending thoughts and prayers to war & disaster victims but fail to show true compassion when someone online is going through a difficult time or otherwise misguided

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    That's a very depressing take, and I think it says more about you than anything else.

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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    What does it say about me? I don't think online culture promotes compassion, although I think it's the main value in human existence

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Phrasing matters here. There are many similar words you could have used, and I would probably agree with many of them, but you went with:

    There's no incentive for showing compassion online, apart from virtue signaling.

    If you believe there is NO other reason to be nice, other than virtue signaling, that means that EVERY time you see someone being nice online, you assume that they are only doing it to create the illusion of being a nice person.

    This is where phrasing comes in.

    If you said many or most people are only nice for this reason, we could debate the quantity, but for the most part I'd agree with that.

    But you said there is no other incentive. I have no interest in virtue signaling, but I do like to be compassionate online. I can think of various reasons why I personally show compassion online. Since you can't think of a single other reason, it must be because you've never experienced them. I must assume that any time that I see you showing compassion, it must be because you are virtue signaling, because that's the only reason you've ever experienced, and you assume that everyone else is doing the same.

    Perhaps you didn't mean exactly what you wrote, but based on the words you used, that's what you told us.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Phrasing matters here. There are many similar words you could have used

    This implies you knew what their intent was but being a pedant was more important.

    The irony of doing it in this thread with this comment from @HikingVet@lemmy.ca is too perfect.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    Not at all. I was open to the possibility that they didn't mean that, but I wrote my response under the assumption that it was their position.

    That was essentially my way of saying, if this isn't what you meant, let me know.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Seems a lot more expedient to say "if this isn't what you meant, let me know".

    No need for multiple paragraphs of pedantry about language on an AskLemmy post inquiring about people's opinions.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Excuse my phrasing, but I stand by what I wrote. Tried to keep it brief.

    Online platforms today do not offer any incentive for true positive behaviour, due to lack of community.

    By the way your response and all the downvoting kinda proves my point. Compassion shows also in how you process what you read

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I won't say that's wrong, but I look at it the other way around. I'm friendly on here because I want to create community. I know I recognize a lot of the same names every single day, and I'm sure they recognize mine as well. By being cordial to each other we create the community. No platform can create a community by itself, it's up to the users to do that. Toxic people create a toxic community, nice people create a nice community.

    So, my incentive for being friendly is to set the tone for my community. Even when I disagree with people, I try to make my points, and have a conversation instead of insulting people and yelling obscenities at them. Don't get me wrong, if you come on here with some Nazi shit, I'd give you all the hell I can muster, because I don't want those people to feel welcome here.

    I have a feeling that your down votes are from other people who are friendly and just appreciate people being nice and don't assume they are virtue signaling.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I think most people get a dopamine response from being kind.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Ok well maybe there is a very very tiny incentive (compared to real world behaviour) but it really pales in comparison to all the general cold-heartedness

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    There's no incentive to virtue signal either, though.

    For most users there's no incentives of any kind, and they go to their default, which is alternatingly butthurt and mildly helpful. A minority are sadistic, virtue signaling or similar. And of course, everyone is horny.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Of course there is incentive for online virtue signaling - all the likes and shares and attention.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It seems to me positive attention comes out of compassion as well, unless it only counts when there's no extrinsic motivation for it.

    There is quite a lot of compassionate-seeming exchanges you can find on here, right?

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