this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
385 points (93.8% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35910 readers
2403 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] livus@kbin.social 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

@humbletightband essentially it's because more responsibility leads to more power.

Specifically, people are interested in having more power over outcomes eg avoiding hunger, discomfort, loneliness etc.

Edit: I don't mean this in a bad or selfish way, though reading back over it I can see how it could come across like that. I'm talking about having more agency and control over aspects of life for yourself and others.

That includes, say, helping with humanitarian causes.

[–] wathek@discuss.online 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Do you think society would get to the point it is if everyone just wanted more power for selfish reasons? I think it's more to do with the feeling of fulfillment that comes with responsabilities. Helping people feels good, even when you get nothing in return. Unless you expect something in return, then we're playing a different game. But your outlook on life seems pretty bleak my friend.

[–] skyspydude1@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it's necessarily bleak or selfish though, it might just be overly succinct. Sure, you can look at it as wanting power purely for selfish reasons, but I think they just boiled it down to the most basic aspect of "more responsibilities = more power = the ability to do more". You can use it however you want, hopefully altruistically, but at the end of the day a pure altruist who is well connected person with unlimited financial resources can help a lot more people than if they were broke and destitute on the edge of starvation.

[–] wathek@discuss.online 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

maybe, but i see quite a few similar reactions in this thread that make me wanna leave this place. its just slowly starting to sink in for me that lemmy is a lefty echo chamber and its basically the same 20 posts rehashed every week by people with worldviews like this. how tf can anyone expect to change anything without hope. Idk man, im just dumping my thoughts but i think im gonna get the hell off this platform and anything similar because it's not having a positive effect on me.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's not just Lemmy, it's all of social media that isn't focused on people's self-promotion (Instagram, LinkedIn etc). The leftist stuff is fairly accurate, but that's not a big deal to me.

Social media algorithms have driven the content engagement, and they figured out that controversy and anger drives the most engagement, so that's what the algorithms tend to push to drive engagement, to get more ad revenue and data from people spending more time on their platforms.

[–] livus@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

@RaoulDook I don't think we have that kind of algorithm here, thankfully.

The person you're replying to fundamentally misunderstood my comment though.

[–] livus@kbin.social 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@wathek I'm really bummed out that my comment made you want to leave!!

@skyspydude1 is right, I was just trying to point out to OP that the old saying "with power comes responsibility" actually cuts both ways and taking on more responsibility gives many people more agency and control over their lives.

how tf can anyone expect to change anything without hope.

I'm still kind of reeling here because I was trying to be encouraging not despairing. I think maybe the word "power" might have some negative connotation for you?

Cards on the table, I think the old Christian binary between altruism (good) and self-interest (bad) does us all a huge disservice. Helping others altruistically and making the world a better place is in our own best interests. We're all humans together.

[–] wathek@discuss.online 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

No i didn't mean it like that, i'm sorry. It's more of a reaction to the general vibe i get off lemmy while im in a period of trying to debug by brain. I probably misread what you actually meant. Most of lemmy is just frustrated and sad about things we have little control over. It's more the general thread reminding me of healthy ways of thinking vs the rest of lemmy. your comment just happened to be where i was thinking out loud. sorry ><

[–] livus@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

@wathek thanks. I think it was a misunderstanding caused by my poor communication.

I'm sorry that's been your experience here. It's been very different for me - I was previously on reddit and saw a lot of negativity and cynicism and despair over there. And outright meanness, shills etc.

Kbin/lemmy has made me feel much more revitalised and optimistic, I contribute way more content here, but also somehow have more free time, and I've become a bit more active in my community and local/national politics IRL as well. I feel like I'm really reconnecting with that side of life.

Unfortunately Lemmy isn't that for you, but I hope you find somewhere that is.

[–] livus@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

@wathek woah I think we're having a misunderstanding. I don't think it's "selfish" to want to have more power/control over outcomes???

One of the things @humbletightband was asking about was why people volunteer. I was responding to that part as much as anything else in the comment.

Helping people feels good

Yes it does, especially if you actually do help them. That's effecting change though. Stepping up gives you more power to actually change the world for the better, at least for the people you help. That's what I'm getting at.

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Specifically, people are interested in having more power over outcomes eg avoiding hunger, discomfort, loneliness etc.

And in many cases we need to acknowledge that this is a good thing. Everyone should be empowered to have more control and more autonomy. The problem is not everyone is afforded that luxury.

[–] livus@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

@whoisearth yes I meant it as a good thing. Control and power to effect changes we want in the world are good things.

I've had to go back and edit my comment because some people seem to have taken it in a very different spirit to how it was intended.