I don’t even know if you can see this since the post was deleted, but thank you for responding and putting real effort into your reply. I don’t have answers for a lot of the world’s problems, and I know I sometimes let my anger speak before I think things through.

I think you’re right that online spaces make it very easy to forget that a lot of people are scared or reacting from limited experience rather than acting in bad faith. I assume bad faith most often because of my lived experience in seeing this toxic rhetoric and division from various interested parties over the last 20 years. Well documented in most cases, the effects of those influencers and systems. It’s difficult not to see them as intentional, even when some entities call them incidental. It’s the optimist in me that believes that they can still be seen for what they are.

I still think some ideas are harmful and worth pushing back on, but I do agree that just treating every person with a bad or extreme take as an enemy usually doesn’t get us anywhere.

I believe it’s important to try to bring discourse back to online spaces and keep discussion alive, both here and in the real world. If I can say that I am one thing, it’s a humanist. We don’t find answers or solutions by just being angry. Sometimes it feels like the internet can’t be salvaged, but there are still some corners where real discussion happens.

I appreciate your outlook, I often think I need to make more time for work in my own community. As much as is happening in the world, the real impact is probably going to be person to person, especially if you don’t have the tools to preach from a podium.

So yeah, thank you.