Agreed. Though it is not just that one isolated user - the admins of Lemmy.ml are quite well-known themselves for administering their server in bad faith as well. The side-bar just says “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers” (and then a link to “What is Lemmy.ml” that returns an error when I try to click it - btw for you with an account, does it go anywhere? maybe a community that is only visible to those locally with an account? for me it says “There was an error on the server. Try refreshing your browser. If that doesn’t work, come back at a later time. If the problem persists, you can seek help in the Lemmy support community or Lemmy Matrix room.” - but what about when you click it?). And it while people on that instance constantly criticize the USA’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, nonetheless if you whisper a criticism towards the likes of Russia, China, or North Korea, you will be banned even from communities that you have never once visited. That is simply how they do things over there. (further reading, see also so, so very many examples in !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com or !fediverselore@lemmy.ca or !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works etc.)

Sadly, I am not anywhere close to joking or exaggerating. Also, while they ban people for mentioning that e.g. people died in the Tiananmen Square massacre, they also protect mods who act horribly towards their fellow human being. Here’s an interesting example that you can read it for yourself e.g. at https://hexbear.net/post/3706906/5518427 where after the mod told the poster (over a misunderstanding of an in-game event) that he wanted to kill them, and then even the unremoved comments from the mod doubles down with “nono I don’t want to shoot for pointing that it’s a game, I want to shoot you because…”, and then later tripled down still further, e.g. stating “I hope you die soon.”). To be clear, this post shows up on hexbear.net (for some reason, despite the original having been removed entirely), but the incident occurred on and the mod is from lemmy.ml - those instances are often intertwined, along with lemmygrad.ml.

So you may want to consider switching instances. A further thought: I am having to reply to you from a different instance than my original comment since I have blocked all users from lemmy.ml (although PieFed’s Notifications system is newly implemented and still not fully functional yet, causing me to have to hunt down why I received a Notification for a comment that I could not see:-). You will often face similar prejudice when speaking from that account on that instance - e.g. the apps Sync and Connect can also do such user-blocking of instances, and several instances such as lemmy.cafe and quokk.au and dubvee.org have outright defederated from lemmy.ml entirely. Thus you may sometimes feel like you are speaking into a void and wondering why nobody will respond to you - I am explaining that this may well be a reason why.

I hope that you don’t feel that I am picking on you personally, just trying to share that thought that could help you understand the contentious situation between the “tankie” vs. “liberal” instances on the Fediverse:-). If you wanted an instance that is specifically leftist, slrpnk.net seems awesome? In contrast, lemmy.ml merely pretends to be leftist, while actually advocating solely for formerly communist powers, despite them being currently capitalistic, and definitely authoritarian - e.g. you will see people praising the virtues of North Korea there, but nowhere else on the Fediverse that I have yet seen! Although for me, it’s not even what those users believe, so much as their improper argumentation form about it, e.g. here’s an example from the bad-faith user you mentioned, posted just prior to the USA election, which seems to be an attempt to encourage the BuT bOtH sIdEs EqUaL ThO rhetoric:

And I see this kind of thing so often from users on lemmy.ml, that I just blocked the entire instance - again, I hope you personally don’t feel attacked by this, just sharing my reasoning in case that may be helpful for you.:-)

A finger to sit on? How wonderful? 👍

Damnit, physics wins again!

Okay, you now know what your next drawing target should be - get quacking!

Naw. It needs jeans. Or beans. Or both.

(None of your images looks like drawings of a duck to me!?!?!?!:-P)

There literally is a !bestoflemmy@lemmy.world :-)

I suspect fowl play!

Surprisingly that advice works?

I think you just won…

Lemmy, for today. :-D

What if this is a quantum duck that is simultaneously both two ducks, but also just one duck?

I just wanted to find someone that I could say “duck off” to - can that be you? :-D

Uh oh dude… never bring a knife to a gunfight, smh… :-D

Someone writing a wall of text when it is not asked for or appreciated may be being insensitive to their audience. On the other hand, I’ve literally had people ask for it and then someone else steps in to complain, so definitely there are Karens who feel entitled to whinge no matter what you do. Just settle in your own mind whether you are doing the right thing, and let being correct remain your guide as to what to do.

I am not the person you replied to but I wanted to echo and extend their statement: you may need to come to terms with the fact that you might not have the capability to help your friend, and it’s even possible that nobody does, unless and until they become receptive to that kind of aid.

I am not saying to do nothing, but do be aware of that, e.g. if you give them money and they gamble it away, will you just keep giving them money until neither of you has any at all? And then repeat for every single one of your friends as well?

Decide what you can do and what you cannot. In any case you may not be able to “save” him - that is something that as an adult he needs to do for himself, and may resent you for even trying?

I mean, that’s how they want to be, so whatever, they can enjoy it.

But that’s not how *I* want to be - and I resented having it thrust upon me without consent, in the form of being able to make an informed choice. They do not clearly state how they are, yet they are that way, hence the disconnect.

Like any authoritarian regime, they have drunk their own cool-aid and they seem to both not acknowledge it whilst simultaneously also flaunting it proudly - i.e. how they are looks to be by design, not ignorance or whatever.

And ofc the obligatory caveat that not all people on those servers are that way - e.g. you were there, until you weren’t anymore:-P. But it does form a trend. And I for one would rather that people be able to make an informed choice. Like someone go there if they want, but don’t you come here and tell me how to be.

Yes an echo chamber provides value to them in terms of an emotional reinforcement, though it’s dangerous b/c what gets reinforced becomes thereby divorced from logic. i.e., “might makes right”, which works so long as you ignore the alternative that “the pen (Reason) is mightier than the sword (Might)” - i.e. the value is purely local amongst themselves, who choose to refuse to see outside.

Even so, the code for the Fediverse came from the guy who started lemmygrad.ml iirc, and it was freely offered to the world not in spite of but b/c of that belief in communistic philosophical principles. In contrast, Reddit and most other alternatives started here in the USA - like squabbles to name one (looks to now be renamed to squabblr or something?) - did not offer their sourcecode freely, and instead tried to monetize their user base, and this too not in spite of but b/c of their own beliefs in capitalistic principles.

As long as they are honest about it though, I’m fine with them. The problem is that they are not, nor are they respectful to others… so I ban them and move on with my life. I am not kidding: if I could not have banned them, I would have left the Fediverse entirely - they are that annoying. So being able to easily improve my Fediverse experience by 95% with 1-2 instance blocks (lemmygrad.ml is often blocked by default, and many others though seemingly fewer likewise also block hexbear.net) is wonderful!:-)

Oh I did not know that. Sometimes the answer to “where would you go, if you were a troll” may just happen to be the same answer as “where would you go, if you were not a troll”:-).

Meh, to be fair, communism gave us all the likes of Mastodon and Lemmy, whereas capitalism gave us all Twitter/X and Reddit so… it’s not like I’m knocking the politics even, so much as the extremely annoying manner in which those thoughts are handled, sometimes.

Imagine a Karen who regardless of actual right vs. wrong, thinks they are right, but more importantly just enjoys slamming it into people’s faces. Like, if you really think that you are correct, why work so hard to convince people of that “fact” - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar - and who exactly are you trying to convince bully even?

Likewise even a factually correct endpoint can be made into part of an incorrect statement if arrived at via a false chain of logical deduction - i.e., even a stopped watch is right twice a day, but that doesn’t mean that you should trust the watch from then on!? A statement that includes a logical fallacy, even if deployed in order to defend a true statement, is still false, even if the underlying fact also happened to be true.

And if there is anything I am learning from the internet, it is that trolling exists, yet not everyone is a troll, and it improves my mental sanity >95% to block such. I used to be proud of never blocking anyone, ever. I grew up though, in seeing how others refuse to grow.:-D

You might try an experiment and make an account somewhere, and see how different some posts and their complement of comments look, in terms of which instances you may choose to block, and also which individuals may have blocked your instance in return…

Well *I* don’t, thus keep in mind that I may be summarizing here the reasons that others do incorrectly &/or unfairly, but from what I understand people are saying:

(1) often when people get extremely argumentative (aka bat shit insane crazy trolling) it is from there. Who wants to talk to someone who is rude, condescending, and doesn’t listen in the slightest to your POV before loudly proclaiming how very wrong you are, even while using logical fallacies (such as strawman) as they do so?:-P Counterpoint: that can happen on any sufficiently large instance e.g. lemmy.world too? Though it does seem to happen more often on lemmy.ml for whatever reason.

(2) it may be relevant (tbh I’m not entirely sure how though?) that it leans fairly hardcore to what many people e.g. in the USA would consider an extreme leftist viewpoint, as in so far to the left that it may even become uncomfortable to someone living in a society that leans more rightwards even if the person in it considers themselves an “extreme leftist” in relation to that center point. Along these lines, are “memes” merely political propaganda that happens to be drawn in a cartoonish form? (Though this is an argument pertaining to merely a community, not an entire instance.)