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Comment by csours | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a full answer, but a couple thoughts:

1. Volunteer. Somewhere, anywhere, for a good cause, for a selfish cause. Somebody will be happy to see you.

2. Stop trolling ourselves. As far as I can tell, all of the mass social media is trending sharply towards being a 100% troll mill. The things people say on social media do not reflect genuine beliefs of any significant percentage of the population, but if we continue to use social media this way, it will.

Disengage from all of the trolls, including and especially the ones on your "own side".

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> the mass social media is trending sharply towards being a 100% troll mill

I agree. It's one reason I still come to HN and it's one of the few places I bother to comment (and the only place with more than a few dozen users). The moderation and community culture against trolling makes it a generally positive experience. I do still need breaks sometimes, though, for a few months at a time.

I'd love an online community where everyone was having discussions only in good faith. Zero trolling. I can dream.

> I'd love an online community where everyone was having discussions only in good faith.

That's already readily available outside. The whole appeal of online 'communities' is that it is not that.

The appeal of an online community is having members who participate in bad faith? That's an angle I hadn't expected.

Sure. Outside already satisfies good faith discussion. There is nothing gained in duplicating the exact same thing online. Use the right tool for the job, as they say. Online discussion is a compelling in its own right because you can stop being you and take on someone else's persona to try and discuss from their vantage point. This gives opportunity to understand another side of the story in an environment that provides the necessary feedback to validate that you actually understand another side. Too often people think they understand other angles, but one will also want validation, which online discussion provides. More often than not you'll realize that you actually didn't understand it at all, so it is a valuable exercise.

Thank you for explaining your position. I don't know if I would have described that as bad faith, more like good-faith-in-disguise, but I understand what you are getting at.

> Thank you for explaining your position.

We're on the internet. Is it my position?

> I don't know if I would have described that as bad faith, more like good-faith-in-disguise

It is good faith from the author's perspective, but bad faith/trolling from the reader's perspective. It, as taken from an expectation of replication of what is found outside, is deceptive. There, of course, can be no such thing as bad faith/trolling if you remove trying to see it as a reflection of outside.

So, as the earlier comments are taken from the reader's perspective, it is what is labelled bad faith. But I too get what you're saying.

I would also argue that even people who I like a lot and have known for many years can be very different "people" online than in person. It's sometimes shocking the dichotomy. I try to remind myself and others to ignore some of the online weirdness and focus on the in person interaction.

And volunteering works not just because it's "good", but because it gives you a role where your presence matters immediately

> Stop trolling ourselves

This is so tough, though, because the things happening in the world really, genuinely, do matter and its very hard to realize that our passive emotional reaction to them is not meaningful, probably actively bad for us. If I could snap my fingers and do one thing, I'd obliterate social media from the face of the earth.

> The things people say on social media do not reflect genuine beliefs of any significant percentage of the population

The social media trolls are running the government. This can't be a serious take in 2026.

Two thoughts:

1. Almost every policy of the current US administration is deeply unpopular.

2. The vast majority of social media users do not comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule

As far as the troll mills go everyone forgot the adage from the olden days "don't feed the trolls".

Now everyone feeds the trolls.

Forget it Jake, it's engagement bait. - Chinatown (1974)

Bad incentives will ruin anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m7hf5WUs8o

Whatever else you think of Bluesky, it's a place where trolling and doomerism are rejected. The nuclear block (and a culture of block, don't engage) does wonders for denying actual trolls an audience, and secondarily for permitting people to do the virtual equivalent of walking away from someone who's behaving badly. In particular, doomerism about Trump is minimized there the same way.

There's a fine line between "rejecting doomerism" and "putting your fingers in your ears and going 'lalala'" though, and it's important not to cross it.

Sometimes I can't help but wonder if we're just shooting the messenger in placing the blame on social media.

Bluesky is full of people angry and screaming about Trump. In my feed, at least, though, the "it's all fascism, we're doomed" posters are getting blocked. It's an angry call to action that survives. They're consciously recognizing the pessimism is counterproductive and blocking.

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