No you weren’t. At least not in my opinion. I was just continuing the thought not refuting anything you said.

You think the election posts were low quality? I was going more of a clean minimalist vibe instead. Got any tips?

I guess you could see it that way. Just the “opinion rather than relevancy” sounds so appropriate to the downvote topic that I assumed it was that.

If you want I’ll remove it.

This is why I would disable them. Or call them dislikes and make them add to the score. as it’s still an opinion.

I never even said to not vote. They probably thought “fuck the state” means “don’t vote”. And they are connected but not the same.

The sidebar should cover that question. In case it doesn’t here are some terms I think fall under that umbrella: socialist, anti-capitalist, anarchist.

what did I do wrong?

I think it’s non-leftists. As that is the standard in this sub.

Yeah I definitely understand that people have a tendency to project negativity into words directed at them. I guess now I have first-hand experience.

But I think I’ve had enough of this conversation. Thank you for a nice chat. Goodbye.

OK fine. I was going to leave it at that but if you’re going to keep going then so am I.

I’m going to use a code block because I don’t want to worry about formatting.

lets begin with the full context.

The post has the title of "How do I become more informed on your quadrant?" 
with a political compass depicting common responses that people in those
quadrants have to that question. 

You responded to the post with a comment: 'All just versions of "do your own research", [..]'
Naturally, as I am a person on the original meme who would respond like the meme says
I took slight offense to this. I attempted to voice that offense with a question
"How else would you reply to someone wanting to know more about a topic?"
I then followed it up with other thoughts I had because I like making comments that are 
more than just one thing.

You quote responded with "By making a coherent argument?" which lead me to write the
beginning of my response "That's only if you take everything in the internet as an argument."
This is because if someone asked me the question the title of the post is asking I wouldn't 
consider that an argument and rather point them towards someone who can communicate
better than me. (I think this thread shows exactly why. Although I believe this is partly your
fault as well) 

From here the conversation devolves in a way that is quite hard to tell what's going on so I'm
not going to bother giving a detailed description but there are points I want to touch on. 

Like you saying you're not acting hostile. I don't think that's up to you to say.
Sure your intentions may not be hostile but how someone else interprets the way you talk
is up to them. Maybe I am "reading into it" but there clearly is something to read into.

I admit the point I said about arguments don't make much sense. Technically they were arguments
and I think I'm just wrong. But the point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't frame everything
as an argument.

But this last comment definitely feels at least a little mean. And I used to think it comes naturally
to me too but if your not understanding me then apparently not.

Communication is hard.

I’m starting to doubt my ability to write coherent comments so I don’t know If this is ok but I’ll post it anyway.

I’m not making arguments. I’m discussing your comment. You are framing my discussion as arguments. I’m not against you. I’m just commenting on the things you say in order to get a better understanding. Maybe some of the things are arguments but I don’t care enough to classify them as such. Arguing is not my point, discussion is. And some times It’s useful to frame the discussion as an argument and sometimes it isn’t.

you can’t pretend in good faith that we’re talking about people asking for some crazy videos in a crazy community

Why not? Isn’t that the title of the post? The only one bringing in conspiracy theories are you.

Never implied that. Perhaps a bit more reading comprehension is in order?

I was commenting on this bit of your comment.

"[…] You can’t say I’m wrong until you watch it and address every single thing they say. […]

and this so elegantly showcases the point I’m trying to make. (You can make points without arguing) You look at everything I say as an argument against you even if I am agreeing with your example. I imagine a lot of context goes missing in text, which is a shame.

Then why so tense there, buddy?

when I wrote that comment I wasn’t. Now I am, because your acting hostile towards me and I don’t like that.

Sure. But that’s only if you take everything in the internet as an argument. This meme is not inherently about an argument. The caption is “How do I become more informed” not “I don’t agree with you on these things”. If this was framed as an argument then I could see the inherent fault in just pointing to a video. But not every discussion on the internet is an argument and the original meme does not frame the initial question as such.

If someone post on a community I frequent about wanting to become more informed I would absolutely send them to a video. Because I believe the video does a better job of explaining it than I do. If they have more specific questions afterwards. I would reply to them as best as I could (while stressing that I’m not as good at condensing information).

Also to say you need to refute every single point in an argument until you’re wrong is stupid. This is the internet not an argument board. If you’re not the kind to play to the audience you can just say “That feels wrong and I don’t care enough to find out why”. There are literally no stakes here.

How else would you reply to someone wanting to know more about a topic?

It seems to me that “look at this x” is the standard way to let someone learn more about a topic.

The other alternative is a wall of text from someone who doesn’t have the skills to consolidate information. And there are memes about that as well.

Also It’s not “do your own research” because it actually cites the things your supposed to research. The entire reason "do your own research is bad is because it doesn’t actually point you to any useful direction.

Most people do not distinguish words by capitalization. I agree with what you’re saying but most people don’t care about the difference and so I don’t really either. The only word we(anarchists) should be fighting for is anarchy, and it’s forms. We don’t need any others. Democracy, socialism, communism, even if we manage to get people to understand our definitions, in an anarchic society they won’t matter so we should let go of them. Anarchy encompasses communism, as class and wealth are both archic structures. There is no need for more terms, and the effort to clean them is too costly.

Also even though restructuring the text got rid of it at one point I had the word communism as the first word in a sentence leading me to capitalize it. Another reason why distinguishing between words by capitalization is a bad practice.

Lets ditch base10 entirely and use 0(freezing)-216(boiling). that means 0-1000 in base6.

you control the lesser power (individual) with a bigger power (the “ourselves”).

to quote: https://anarchistfaq.org/afaq/sectionA.html#seca213

anarchists recognise that individuals are the basic unit of society and that only individuals have interests and feelings. This means they oppose “collectivism” and the glorification of the group. In anarchist theory the group exists only to aid and develop the individuals involved in them.

While groups cannot think, individuals cannot live or discuss by themselves. Groups and associations are an essential aspect of individual life

Anarchism rejects the abstract individualism of capitalism, with its ideas of “absolute” freedom of the individual which is constrained by others. This theory ignores the social context in which freedom exists and grows.

In practice, both individualism and collectivism lead to a denial of both individual liberty and group autonomy and dynamics.

The link goes into more detail.

It’s not like humans didn’t arise from more anarchist structures.

A Definition for a term I’m about to use:
Archy - Hierarchy, Rule, structure of command and subordination, opposite of anarchy.

How did humans “rise” from anarchist structures? I wouldn’t call whats going on right now any better than the pre-archic societies. Those societies were destroyed because they didn’t have the structures to protect themselves against archy anarchy isn’t just no archy, it’s conscious opposition to archy. Now that we understand archic structures and their influence we can start opposing it. Pre-archic societies couldn’t

having spontaneous mobs forming to upholds the customs

Why would you need mobs? often times a single other person would be enough to stop/deter anti-social behavior.

as long as they are kept in check by a bigger power

Who controls that bigger power and what’s stopping them from becoming corrupt? There is no bigger power than the state and police is the state. You can’t have anything bigger. As soon as you have representative democracy the people will go from humans to a resource. They will be grown and molded to not care about their society and just root for their team. Governance isn’t something you can delegate to others. It makes you lazy and means you will stop thinking about the actual problems and start fighting with anyone who disagrees with you.

Representational democracy does not work. The state is a living system that has interests of it’s own and those will always be prioritized over the citizens. Sooner or later every state devolves into authoritarianism. All the while screwing over anyone who wants to live without it.

I will so thank you!

I’m surprised that an anarchist position is getting downvoted in this community. I guess the libs came to party.