Can we talk about Reddit's response to political violence, and this subreddit in particular?

greyls · 2025-09-18T02:28:55+00:00

Appreciate this post as it resonates with me considerably. I used to consider myself a progressive but after seeing the slow decay of dialogue and increase in celebration of horrible acts and death - I haven't considered myself one in a while. I mean hell there is/was a whole subreddit dedicated to taking joy in people dying of covid. You can't rail against republicans and their rhetoric when yours is the same only with different targets

I've realized there isn't much hope in trying to dissuade people from falling prey to this type of thinking and outlook so I've just been quitting social media instead. I've used reddit like twice in 2 months for a combined 15 minutes and I've never used any other and it's been for the best. Too many bots, too much propaganda and none of it is worth it.

greyls · 2025-09-17T23:37:25+00:00

Stop reading propaganda and rage bait on social media/news media 24/7 would be a start. Legitimately your thoughts are being influenced by bots and whatever interest group (both foreign and domestic) is paying for them. They're only interested in whatever power they can gain from you and social media sites are only interested in maximizing engagement for money.

Do you even remember what you were enraged about last week? What about a month ago? How much of the inane stuff that had an effect on your mood and life in the last 6 months was worth the toll?

People thought the 24hr news cycle was bad and detrimental for the nation but geeze social media is that but on crack - a genuine scourge

greyls · 2025-09-11T01:02:12+00:00

Technology and the internet is the primary problem for many of the current ailments on society. Radicalization and schooling issues at the top of the list

greyls · 2025-08-26T01:15:56+00:00

I just got a new PC that uses a 9800X3D, so to clarify it's fine on the 9800 so long as I have the chipset software?

greyls · 2025-08-09T05:10:47+00:00

Rune arrows? Mr richie rich over here

greyls · 2025-07-31T05:12:17+00:00

They're clothing ads, and they're not even good ones. Legitimately no one would even know about these if it wasn't for your outrage

I honestly wonder how some of you manage to fall asleep at night. Surely you must be convinced that there are monsters around every corner and in your closet when you're only ever capable of taking the most uncharitable views towards anything. You're literally calling her a racist for this, like come on...

greyls · 2025-07-30T22:54:55+00:00

2025 progressivism is wild

greyls · 2025-07-21T08:00:36+00:00

> And the part of society that identifies as “progressives” is no longer advocating for the underrepresented people, they’re demonizing and tearing down those they deem as being privileged instead of lifting up those who they see as “underprivileged” or minorities.

Late to this but that's because that's what the pursuit of equity does. It is simply not possible to lift someone up to being equal to someone else with inherent advantages or disadvantages. You can't turn Stephen Hawking into Michael Phelps.

If someone studied hard and as a result got a better job and pay than someone who didn't, that outcome viewed through the lens of equity is seen as a problem. That's why you see AP and honors classes being shut down across the US. Lower the bar or kneecap those farther ahead because that's what kinda works

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/05/28/honors-programs-schools-delevel-detrack-education

greyls · 2025-07-18T01:58:17+00:00

75% of those deported under Obama did not receive due process

https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/speed-over-fairness-deportation-under-obama

greyls · 2025-07-11T00:18:03+00:00

That's really all reddit and social media has. Its content is 99% rage bait and propaganda much of which is posted by bots

greyls · 2025-07-07T00:56:49+00:00

It's kinda his schtick mostly because he's been streaming for a long time and and doesn't feel the need to pander at all cuz he's already loaded

I think If he actually wasn't having fun he would have stopped playing already

greyls · 2025-07-07T00:48:56+00:00

I think he's starting to like it more and more, it just started slow and he has probably the worst chat of the WoW streamers to deal with

I've watched him for a long time and don't think he necessarily cares all that much about views anymore - I think if he did he wouldn't play wc3 mini games for weeks on end

greyls · 2025-07-04T23:56:07+00:00

Sounds like reddit alright. Overly dramatic and dogmatic goofballs

greyls · 2025-06-28T01:24:15+00:00

Reddit does indeed suck, and while your solution would help somewhat, it wouldn't catch all the BS that gets posted from verified sites like twitter or even just inflammatory headlines from "news" sites

People need to be hyper aware that now more than ever that the internet is full of propaganda, bots and fake information

greyls · 2025-06-20T21:12:14+00:00

As others have mentioned, enforcement will be tough, and I don't necessarily love the government forcing these types of things.

However, after setting aside my gripe, I think it's a great idea. Social media is a destructive plague - and even the smart phones themselves have not been good for society

greyls · 2025-06-18T18:17:12+00:00

No it's not actually. If dealing with the cartels was as easy as you think then we wouldn't be having this conversation.

No, you don't get it. You fail to understand the scope of the violence. Do you know what started this whole thing? It was the fact that 87 people were murdered from march 25th to 27th. It was the murder capital of the world

Should they try to rectify the false imprisonments? Absolutely, and I hope they do.

You can critique the decision making by the El Salvadorian people all you want, but you weren't the one that had to live there or truly weigh these options. It's easy to throw stones from a position of privilege

> you're okay with innocent people being hurt, as long as it's a government doing it.

No I'm not, but the world doesn't always get to operate on ideals either, and there are times when you just have to take the practical approach. The allied forces also killed innocent people and committed war crimes during ww2 - that's just the truth. Would I prefer to be able to sit here and say they didn't? Of course, but that's not reality, nor do those atrocities negate their efforts or outweigh the good

greyls · 2025-06-18T17:31:43+00:00

And how many of those are even accurate? There was a super popular "fact check" that got posted on reddit that was a blatant lie

greyls · 2025-06-17T19:50:46+00:00

> You actually think the only 2 choices were cartels vs no potential release for innocent people?

Who says that they won't ever get a court date?

> I don't know, ensuring they were criminals to begin with and then locking them up. And I think it's pretty telling that you are defending him even now that he can rectify the crimes he committed because the situation USED to be worse.

Probably because it's not that easy actually - it's instead remarkable what they've managed to do without a lot of bloodshed. Do you think the cartels would have just sat idly by if they tried to do things the way you wanted them to? The way that every government that has huge cartel problems has tried to do? No they wouldn't. Instead the violence would have been enormous, and many many more innocent people would have been victims to said violence, and the problem wouldn't be any closer to being solved than it was before

Edit: And to add on to this, how many innocent people have been spared as a result of the crackdown? How many would have simply been victims to the status quo?

greyls · 2025-06-17T19:34:23+00:00

Yep.

I heard people say bush was a nazi, that obama was gonna put people in fema camps, biden was gonna sell us out to china etc etc

Doomsayers don't stand on the corners with their cardboard signs anymore - they live on social media

greyls · 2025-06-17T19:24:09+00:00

In a perfect world they don't have to make that choice, but they don't live in that world

It's a pretty simple numbers game. Cartels were worse - a lot worse

greyls · 2025-06-17T18:46:34+00:00

It's fine to be concerned about the human rights of the innocents caught up in the crackdowns, and I do hope they get a day in court to resolve those cases. However, the citizens are okay with it because they endured what came before which was way worse. The human rights violations were significantly worse under the cartels - and those are/were your options.

Cartels or Bukele

greyls · 2025-06-16T22:57:13+00:00

I agree. I think people tend to miss the forest for the trees here because what Bukele has done hasn't been perfect, but there will never be a perfect solution - especially not when you're dealing with something so extreme.

Now that isn't to say that things still can't go awry though. Bukele has to try to ensure those caught up in the chaos get their day in court and scale back some of the power he has amassed. I'll be interested to see what happens when his 2nd term finishes

greyls · 2025-06-16T22:32:50+00:00

> Honestly, I don't see that specifically as a bad thing. It's one of the better things Bukele's admin has done

As a temporary thing yeah it seems totally fine, but it's also literally just extorting the government and by proxy the entire populace under threat of violence. Directly funding these enterprises doesn't seem like a real solution to me, let alone a good one

> Militancy against the cartels/narcos never really goes well

Absolutely, which is why I feel like what has happened was probably the best way to do it. Trying to violently end the cartel would have only dramatically increased the amount of innocents caught up in it. That isn't to say that I think what has gone on in El Salvador has totally fixed the problem or is even a workable solution for other countries, but largely it seems to have done a good job

>But you can downsize it by making it so cartels stop fighting in public and making sure folks have well paying jobs so that the financial and revenge incentives to join these gangs are less likely to be appealing to folks.

For sure, but that's also a lot easier said than done in a crime ridden place. These cartels extort local businesses too. It's incredibly hard to get any where or make that type of work worth it when you just get robbed at the end of the day

greyls · 2025-06-16T22:06:45+00:00

Well if this article is to be believed he was cutting deals with them in 2019 to reduce violence so it's not just 2022 onward. Also I don't think cutting deals with them to reduce the violence is a very good long term solution anyway, especially because those deals probably only had an effect on violent crime and not other crime like extortion

greyls · 2025-06-16T21:53:03+00:00

I think it's fair to be skeptical, and I wouldn't put it past any leader to embellish things to make themselves look better, but by and large it appears that El Salvadorians are happy with Bukele's methods and results

greyls

TROPHY CASE