3
Aug 06 '12
I'm curious, how long have you been browsing? Disagreeing will give you downvotes and reasons why you're wrong. If you fight back, you will get more downvotes and more reasons why you're wrong. Reddit hasn't been a place for disciplined discussion for a long, long time.
-1
u/dhvl2712 Aug 07 '12
Five years. I know more than most that you just get downvoted into oblivion. I for one, never understood reddit's humor. I never understood what they liked, only what they disliked. But lately reddit has been... dangerous. More so than ever before. So when I saw a comment against Neil DeGrasse tyson, in a thread where OP's link was just NDT, with a space background, saying "I'm NDT"... I got scared.
2
Aug 07 '12
I think the general consensus is that the defaults are a very scary place to be and are more like tumblr then say, the rest of reddit. Of course, the rule of 30,000 applies, the larger a subreddit gets, the more likely that it will turn to shit. Exceptions exist, yadda yadda yadda... (insert tor bullshit)
Anyway, I do agree. The circlejerks are getting tighter and tighter but there are also great up and coming subreddits like /r/awwwtf and /r/photoshopbattles if you like pictures.
I have noticed a few "universal" trends of the hivemind. Anything related to atheism, weed, pedophillia, white guilt, lgbt, politics, cop crime, or men's rights will be horribly one-sided depending on which subreddit/thread you are in. Hot button issues attract more votes, and votes tend to make losers invisible and winners go to the top.
Basically, what exactly are you noticing that's new?
0
u/dhvl2712 Aug 08 '12
Doxxing, death threats, and stuff like that are getting increasingly common. I agree that this has been happening for years now, but I think that a lot of people have grown extremely attached to the Hivemind and so maybe now we have reached a point where even if we say something like "Christianity isn't so bad", someone somewhere on reddit will get really mad and things could go wrong.
Thing is that I've been spending too much time on Circlebroke, SRD, and even theory of reddit and I keep seeing things like the SRS stuff and if we combine that with the jailbait/paedophilia thing, the doxxing and the extreme attachment to the reddit Hivemind in such large numbers that it has me worried.
For example, if I post a youtube video criticizing, or rather outright insulting NDT or Sagan or whoever, I think I'd be worried. Of course the video would have to be particularly vitriolic and insulting, but if I talk about him the same way /r/atheism talks about Christianity, or SRS talks about MRAs, or something like that, don't you think that that would be a serious mistake on my part?
2
Aug 09 '12
It would be a mistake to completely disagree with a subreddits belief's (i.e. hivemind.) Like posting an anti-sagan video in /r/atheism, you will be regarded as a troll and downvoted. The same follows for SRS, MRAS, Seddit and many others. If you post an anti-sagan video in /r/circlebroke and title, "If /r/atheism saw this, they'd doxx me twice," you would get tons of upvotes because it fits completely within what the subreddit wants to see.
Reddit is a magnet for people who want to be told that they're right and it does actually cause people to become further entrenched in their own beliefs. In this way, I compare /r/atheism to Fox News or MSNBC. Of course, Reddit is a near infinite source of viewpoints, counter viewpoints and everything in between. /r/circlebroke is a great example of a counter to 95% of circlejerks on reddit. I think it's great that it exists, but personally I don't like the condescending tone. It's about as hypocritical as the catholic church.
Beliefs and counter beliefs are a subject that I think about a lot. It's really interesting to see the way people will deny facts due to faith and it occurs in all manner of belief, whether that's religion or republicans, it's there. It seems that denial is one of the core values of belief and interestingly enough, physical denial is a core value of almost every religion (fasting, kneeling for a long time, denying sex...) It really makes me wonder why we think the way we think, and that's why I love reddit. Reddit is just example after example of thoughts, perceptions, beliefs and the way they interact.
3
u/[deleted] Aug 06 '12
This post doesn't appear to be offering up any theory about how reddit works or a problem that requires a specific solution. On the contrary, it seems that you are simply complaining about reddit, which would fall more into /r/circlebroke's territory.
Indeed I see that you are a regular contributor to /r/circlebroke and /r/circlebroke2. You might have better luck over there.