People are just going to disagree with you, argue, insult you, and at the end, you’ve wasted your time for absolutely no gain to anyone. There’s no benefit to posting anything on Lemmy, unless you need external validation - either confirming your perspective, or seeking praise from a third party.
Exceptions are when your profile is associated with some larger organization, scheme with an obscure goal, is an attempt to gather information, or the literal goal is to waste time, your own or others.
This means that every post not meeting those exceptions is an altruistic act that you should consider being grateful for. Someone expended time and effort for the purpose of entertaining you, a complete stranger, they’ll likely never know and never meet. They wasted their own time so they could improve yours.
Yeah, I can agree with all that.
I guess I’m just quickly soured by the resident jerks in any community. Making me largely anti-social, but I still make the effort every once in a while just to see what happens. It feels like throwing a rock at a wasp’s nest before closing the screen door. Stupid but thrilling.
I feel that. Personally, I’ve decided most times it is best not to read comments responding to anything I post. And if I have questions, I’ll just research it myself rather than ask in the comments here. I see all social media as inherently toxic, and while Lemmy is less toxic than most, people still seem to enjoy shitting on others online whenever they can. And you never know if the jerk really is some high school douche or a Russian bot with an agenda or an intelligent adult with poor communication skills or a violently prideful idiot.
It helps to avoid all sensitive and important posts. There are no jerks in superbowl for example.