@mikeburns

... like the fediverse, where strangers may read and boost your toots, you should accept some level of triggering from strangers and you should also consider to follow some of them.

You cannot really please everyone, so it's always possible that one of your toot will trigger someone else. If you can't accept her response, you should not toot.

OTOH, if you get an open dialogue with honest but different people, you open your mind.

@Shamar
I have yet to see the block feature used for anything besides trolls and harassers, TBH. Have you seen otherwise?

@mikeburns

This url should show you the last case: https://mastodon.social/web/statuses/100001489093977233

I can't see it, as I'm blocked.

I do not think what I said could be considered as trolling or harrassing.

Now, I do not really care about it, but if you imagine this at a scale, you can see how people isolate themselves in echo chambers even on the fediverse.

@Shamar
Looks like we've confirmed my point.

@mikeburns

Hum, so do you think that's harassment or trolling?

@Shamar
In your subtoot you implied that you were blocked because you "were different." Is that what this is? In which way?

@mikeburns

Not because I am "different", I'm a pretty boring hacker after all.

Apparently I was blocked because I had a different opinion from the blocker.

Now I do not care about that specific block. But I like to talk with people that are different from me, because I already know what people like me know.

So I like to engage discussions with people that are more interesting than me, people I do not agree with from the very beginning. /1

@mikeburns

Unfortunately it seems like that's not so common in the fediverse as it is in Italy.

Many people don't listen if you don't tell them what they like to read, and if you keep reasoning (peacefully and listening and asking for the reasons of their opinions) with them they don't even mute the conversation, they block you.

So in practice I suspect that people are so used to echo chambers, that they've lost /2

@mikeburns

...the ability to challenge their own opinions.

But guys how can you learn something if you think you already know anything worth knowing?

@Shamar
I think that's a misreading of what is going on, though.

Birdsite and others - including some fediverse instances - are crawling with accounts that coordinate attacks against underrepresented or minority people.

Those accounts organize in public via dogwhistles. So if you come in with those same dogwhistles (e.g. "free speech"), you're off to a bad start. It's a health risk for many people to push through known dogwhistles.

@mikeburns

Well I didn't considered this fact. Good point.

However we cannot allow them to deprive the #fediverse of #FreeSpeech! They don't own free speech!

#Free speech means that we #listen each other, that we try to #understand our #errors and recognize them, that we really consider the others' arguments and we assume the #risk to put our opinion at stake.

To grow #together.
To #change.
To #learn from each other.

They don't do this.
So we must.

Otherwise, those #fascisms will win!

@mikeburns

Here another fresh example: https://mastodon.social/@rotatingskull/100010857057600645

Blocked me.
Do you really think I was defending the power system of Athens? And am I ignorant if I say that western democracy was born in Athens? Or that they required a huge number of people to enforce ostracism? Or that it was a collective decision?

Everyone can build easily his echo chamber here, were nobody dare to contraddict you.
But you are not just demaging yourself, you demage everybody as you are part of this world too.