Many people who loudly pride themselves for tolerance, kindness, and openness toward difference drop those principles the moment someone expresses a preference or view they dislike. Disagreement itself is fine. What is not fine is the usual responses that follows: comments whose main purpose is to insult, shame, and make the other person feel small, delivered in front of an audience that can be counted on to approve.
It’s status performance. The goal is not to show why the opinion is wrong or change minds; it is to hurt the speaker and fish for applause. Feeling morally justified does not change the nature of the act; when the sole intention is to hurt they’re being evil and a bully.
The people who upvote or otherwise reward those insults are part of the same behavior. Standing by and cheering while someone is targeted is participation. It supplies the social payoff that makes the cruelty worthwhile.
This is one of the reasons large parts of the internet feel needlessly hostile. When perceived moral superiority is used as cover for meanness, and when an audience reliably encourages it, the result is environments where many people simply stop speaking. The claimed values of kindness and tolerance are revealed, in those moments, as conditional.
And no, this isn’t about being tolerant towards people with extreme views. The idea for this post was sparked by my previous post about AI music and the vicious personal attacks I received for admitting to enjoying some of it.
It seems to me that what’s actually happening is you tend to intentionally post things that most people would disagree with (which is the point of this community), but the things you post tend to either be based on factually incorrect foundations or are naive to the point of a troll. People then disagree with these views (which again, is what you expect them to do), but not the way you want, because they call out your naivete or untrue statements and this offends you.
Reading through your posts and supporting arguments, i genuinely assume you’re not posting in good faith. And according to one of your own posts, neither do you:
Personally attacking someone with the sole purpose of hurting them isn’t just disagreeing anymore. It’s also against the community rules.
Saying “you’re wrong” or " you haven’t thought this through" or “you seem to be making inflammatory statements to get reactions out of people” isn’t a personal attack, as much as you may dislike it.
Do you really think I made this thread because I’m offended by someone telling me I’m wrong or haven’t thought something through?
C’moon now.
That’s the exact stated reason that you made this thread.
Yes.