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Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

Metafilter has remarkably high-quality discussion given its size.

I've been a member of various private email lists over the years which can be good, though those seem to have an active lifespan of 5--10 years, with 10 being a pretty extreme outlier.

Those communities become quite insular over time, and tend to retain less-interesting and spin out more interesting contributors.

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> Metafilter has remarkably high-quality discussion given its size.

Here's an example of the toxicity in Metafilter:

https://www.metafilter.com/194412/Canadas-Protest-on-Wheels#...

I don't even feel comfortable quoting it here.

As you can see it's the 3rd most favorited comments in that thread.

I wasn't even cherry picking, it was the first story I clicked on.

Metafilter isn’t toxic at all unless you have the wrong opinions.

And this is the takeaway for everyone using any platform anywhere. The fundamental reality is people disagree with other people.

> Metafilter isn’t toxic at all unless you have the wrong opinions.

Echo chambers have that effect on people.

On a similar post here I was given a lot of flak for posting anti-Nazi sentiments, I didn't realize that it was such a charged topic considering how it's Canadian truckers boycotting mask mandates as the mask mandates are ending and how neo-nazis are showing up in support for the whole thing.

I mean, generally, if I am at a large gathering and Nazis show up and they're on my side I would hope I would have a nice long think about what I was doing at that moment but some of these people are failing to realize that the sentiment of "they're on MY side, so it's okay now" increases the likelihood of people ending up on their side as well in the future.

There's a wide chasm between what the government and media portray this protest as, and the reality on the ground.

The following channel contains hundreds of hours of raw unedited video:

https://www.youtube.com/c/Ottawalks/videos

I challenge you to find one nazi flag there.

If you can't find any, then maybe you should rethink how much trust you place in your news sources.

What exactly prevents whoever filmed this of simply not posting any clip that's offensive? Because I've seen many videos and photos of hate symbols, and there are quite a few examples of assault and harassment

> What exactly prevents whoever filmed this of simply not posting any clip that's offensive?

It's not clips, it's live unedited raw video.

If you want to be 100% sure, you can watch it live.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ottawa+live&sp=...

> I challenge you to find one nazi flag there.

You mean in the videos extensively edited and cherry-picked to hide any reference to Nazi flags or any hate symbol?

No, he means the raw unedited videos, like the ones on channel he linked. The extensively edited and cherry-picked videos are the ones shown by corporate media and partisans.

> No, he means the raw unedited videos, like the ones on channel he linked.

Is it though? Things don't magically disappear from raw footage. Either you edit it out or not show inconvenient footage.

I mean, all this gaslighting requires you in the very least to accuse other footage from the same events and involving the same people of being fabricated.

> I would hope I would have a nice long think about what I was doing

Whenever I encounter vegetarians I remind them that Hitler also was one. For some reason they usually just scoff.

Well, yeah, because that's a dick move and not relevant.

What specifically are you pointing out as the toxic behaviour?

> What specifically are you pointing out as the toxic behaviour?

I am not the the grandparent, but with your permission, may I ask you …

Do you agree that “pie-hole” is deprecatory?

Do you agree that the question “who cares what X says?” is likely dismissive rhetoric, rather than a genuine expression of interest in who the people are who pay attention to X?

> Do you agree that the question “who cares what X says?”

Perhaps I've become desensitized, but "toxic" is not a synonym for "not supportive". Being dismissive of something or someone, or not agreeing with someone for that matter, does not mean a community or person is toxic. It just means you don't agree or support someone or something, and instead you have different opinions and support different positions.

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