Edit for context:
My view is transracial isn’t valid and this person is trying to dogwhistle. I’ve already blocked this person, and now they’re going after my friend saying my friend is transphobic because they disagreed with them about transracial being a thing (they’re purposefully leaving the context out so my friend looks transphobic when what my friend really said was transgender is valid but transracial isn’t)
I would say never disengage. We’ve all lost so much disengaging especially if the argument is difficult. It leaves the argument unchallenged and if you can’t answer it and you feel strongly about trans issues what did you think someone casually viewing it would think.
We need better arguments and we need honesty. If it’s a good argument, it’s a good argument denying it out of feels only weakens the entire thing.
Lemmy is filled with people who gave the right a red carpet treatment. Probably the last place we should ask questions about engagement to.
It’s like asking r/relationship about relationship advice. It’s a terrible idea
You can’t rationally debate someone out of a position they didn’t reach through rational consideration.
So you allow them to influence other people with their ideas?
It’s stuff like this why people in real life all share the same opinion on trans issues and other right wing issues. It’s this stuff that has allowed their arguments to spread. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what you were supposed to be doing. You gave them a red carpet and helped contribute to the spread of their propaganda by disengaging. Changing their opinion was not ever said as a goal. You need to challenge their opinion to show it is badly formed. If it isn’t then you need to evaluate yours.
I’m prepared to trust other people’s intelligence to see through it, and if they can’t, fuck them as well.
Part of being intelligent is being social. Being social means we mirror and sometimes go with the crowd. That’s just how it is. Which means if you think people are intelligent, it means it also should understand they will be susceptible to certain things like this
Disengaging does not help spread propaganda. Engaging and giving horrible ideas a platform does help spread propaganda.
Your “debate bro” advice is about ten years out of date.
Absolutely. If people like the idiot this post is referring to are allowed to spew bullshit without push back, then other idiots will believe it and spread it. These people need to be shamed and publicly corrected for their bullshit stance that can hurt others. I say hurt others, because an idea like this can be used to delegitimize transgender people.
I remember a study once showing that you can skew the views of any group if only 10% of that group change their opinion.
I think this is really important here because if you’re on an social media and you see nothing but right wing views, I think it does influence lots of people. This is why I get so mad seeing attitudes suggesting we should all just ignore it all like it’s a waste of time.