Asklemmy

i find this very satisfying: gently disagreeing with them via a short single positive message like "gay people do deserve respect", then letting them throw a very lengthy, time-invested tantrum before gently and completely disagreeing with their comment with another short sentence, over and over until they get tired.

i find that both very funny and I'm putting out positive messages that negate their bigotry without too much time or effort.

that's just if you have the time and inclination to engage, you aren't morally obligated to subject yourself to abusive behavior.

if it's real bad, they're probably violating a rule, and reporting them will get them banned

Did you report this person? Racists are usually quickly dispensed with, because if they’re allowed to continue unchallenged then this will become a Nazi bar.

You're not gonna change their mind.

You'd be better spending your time breaking a brick wall with your skull.

Fuck em. Block em.

I'm here for entertainment, as I assume most people are. If seeing that sort of rhetoric is a negative to you, block it. Marie Kondo your online life and yeet anything out the window that doesn't spark joy. Put your anti-MAGA efforts towards improving your IRL community where you don't have to futilely battle pseudonymous trolls.

You’ve actually found right leaning people on Lemmie? I thought they were either shoved out, bullied out or pushed out or just given up and left and went somewhere else.

Report their comments, most instances will ban them unless they comment on a Nazi instance in which case good riddance.

Call them a dumbass bitch idiot

There's a lot of other good suggestions here, so I'll just ask, what outcome are you hoping to achieve?

I tend to not reply because that will just draw more attention to them. I will post a separate top level comment rebutting their statements without referring to them.

Don't feed the trolls. If you find a bigot willing to have a good faith debate, maybe, but there is no reasoning with cult members. They have to want to change.

On the internet, you're not likely to change their mind, like at all. But in person, if you can connect with someone and bring it back to family, and community, you can slowly change someone's mind and show them that they've been lied too. It doesn't happen overnight, but it can be done.

On the interwebs, don't even bother.

When Lemmy first got popular and all debates happened and such, I kept debating politely while they kept bashing, insulting and all that. I’m over that.

When I see such opinions now, I block them. They are seriously not worth my time, energy and effort. Let them wallow in their misery.

They won’t realize it but everything bad they hope happening to others will certainly bite them back sooner or later. The moment they do not fit their (own) ideology of fascism just a tiny bit, it’ll bite them back.

Ignore them, then vote accordingly. Nothing you or I say will have any effect

I'd say don't believe in it.

This is really rare on Lemmy, but a direct logical rebuttal is not the right answer. That's like trying to force your way out of a finger trap. They have no obligation to be constrained by logic themselves, and since just giving the appearance of it is easy they'll come out looking decent on a fast, casual read.

Sending pigpoopballs is also not the best answer, since that makes them look persecuted, and blocking them just stops you from downvoting. Something in between works best.

Here's an example I remember because it did work spectacularly well: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/23469562/14918633

OP didn't know anything about the science or the history, and was obviously going off of their shitty Facebook feed. So I sidestep a bit, supplied new facts about issues they hadn't heard of a bit, and set them up to have to talk about several things they definitely do but wouldn't admit to (not reading, homophobia, and moving on when they start to lose). Boom, feigned medical emergency.

Edit: And importantly, in the actual typical Lemmy case, be nice and listen to other viewpoints. If you try this kind of approach with someone who's making a good faith effort you're the asshole and will look like it.

Report them, block them.

Where are you encountering these types of conversations on Lemmy? I haven't hardly noticed any sort of debates or conversations like that here. I just figured most conservatives just avoid this place either because they are keeping to their own echo chambers or aren't smart enough to figure out how Lemmy works

i block those fools, and the community in conservatives, some of them are bots too. theres a reason they are here, banned from reddit for the same thing.

You may feel that they go unapposed and therefore you should be a countering force, but really your efforts are moot. People have their beliefs that won’t be changed online, at least not from some internet stranger. You can make the best arguments in the world and the opposition will simply ignore your point, move the goalposts, and implement the next logical fallacy to keep proving you “wrong” or “an idiot”.

Generally, my tactic is to not engage directly, but address the rest of the audience, essentially pointing at the subject and mocking him ("Can you believe this MAGA Traitor?..."). When he tries to respond, again ignore him, and just point and laugh.

They get really frustrated being made fun of, without having the satisfaction of creating liberal outrage.

Publicly denounce them, then block them.

Reinforces to the public at large that they are unacceptable, and removes their agency to engage you.

Ignore it. It is really that simple. Like what are you going to do?

Get into arguments because someone disagrees with you on the internet? LOL

Life is already short enough as it is.

Up to you? I used to hang out on a WN part of reddit back when that was allowed and debate people but that's not a thing anymore. The problem is you have utterly no idea if you're getting through to anyone. I do feel like people had to back off their angry racial ideas and adopt a softer "racial zoo" argument that made it seem like all they wanted was to preserve racial diversity rather than eliminate any particular race. I mean at times I wonder if they were looking in the mirror going "is that really why I have this swastika tattoo?" but I have no idea.

I do think the far right cannot survive much scrutiny of its ideas because they are very irrational, but to be honest the left has done a terrible job pointing this out. I know many people even on the moderate right feel like there's a grain of truth to racism that they'll admit in private with other white people, but then once you confront racism and question common assumptions about race* all that falls apart. Many attack racism as a moral failing and that doesn't work because it makes it sound like the truth is being suppressed for moral reasons.

*The most pernicious being the idea that a person can have a single race on a fundamental level that isn't up for debate