Any climate activists here? Want to join me on social media?

I already did, and I would like to keep the tone moderate, please. You can ask yourself if you are willing to deal with the sorrows of people who voted for Trump and Bolsonaro, that would be a good start. People really listen to Trump when he says that the solution against Corona is to inject disinfectant, because they feel threatened by the virus, and it seems to be that easy to fight and defeat it. All other men failed to present such a “fast and effective solution”, but he, our “great saviour”, has done so. (In fact, the solution is very effective: When you die of disinfectant in your blood, the virus dies, too.) You can only stop people from believing such nonsense by listening to their fears, why they are threatened, and actually “liften their ‘burden’ (or whatever it is they are thinking about this way)”.

@BertG I guess you are right about Greta and those who followed her, but no longer do obviously. But I would not think that onesided:

I fully agree that we have become too comfortable, especially in these days, and that many things must change. Trump does not like to tell this to the people, because he wants to become reelected, that is pretty obvious. He probably is the first president of the United States who says “everything is gonna be alright”. So many presidents before did not do this, which could be the reason why people have been “threatened” to change themselves more and more. He is seen by many as “the great saviour” of all times, which is a very dangerous mood, especially when almost everybody can literally see death walking next to someone…

That is exactly what I was trying to express, thank you for forming it to sentences and for sharing these!

I second that. The only way out that I can see is the one from Ronald Reagan when he addressed the U.S. people in a TV confrontation against his rival running for presidency by saying these words: “Just ask yourself: Has anything changed to the better for you over the years?” This question has to be answered again today to make people think that things actually have turned out worse. As soon as they realize, something will change for the better, because Trump is a total disgrace to the whole world, even his own party is badly divided because of his bad character.

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A start to what? What action are we taking?

To hear and evaluate reasons why people rather trust such doubtful figures. My best guess is that these people are insecure and afraid of changes, such as climate change, and that they rather want to listen to and believe in someone who says “don’t worry, we have everything under control!” Indeed, we can see how Trump and Bolsonaro, who got infected with Covid-19 himself, has everything under control… The people really deserve better, and as long as justice of a state works, I am confident that they can vote such figures out of office. I am not so confident regarding other states and their constitution that has been tailored to party interests (e.g. Poland) or - even worse - to a single man and his “fellows” (e.g. Russia).

E.g. listening to and talking with people who can make a difference at the vote box. In Austria, that really had a huge impact when the candidate of the far right, Hofer, ran against the candidate of the Greens, van der Bellen. Because he came from the Greens, many people did not trust him and became really afraid of him. But these voices silenced quickly after several prejudices were removed by talking with the people who had them. I am from Austria, and I am very grateful for not having a president from the far right, especially in times like the one we are living in now.

You might say that I do have prejudices against people like him: No, I do not think so, because the far right shows its special sympathy to right-wing radicalism on every single day. I really hate any kind of radicalism in the world, it is no good to anyone.

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Hi, interesting. Can you tell me more about fediverse and what you are about?
Thanks!

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The fediverse is a decentralized social super-network.
It consists of many small networks, running on individual servers. These are called instances.
Each instance runs a specific software. The most famous software is Mastodon, which is a microblogging service similar to Twitter. Other software projects include Pixelfed (like Instagram), Friendica (Facebook), Peertube (Youtube), WriteFreely (Wordpress), Funkwhale (Soundcloud), …
Thanks to software protocols like ActivityPub instances running on different software can still comunicate with each other.
So e.g. with a Mastodon account you can share a Pixelfed post and comment under a Pixelfed video.
My instance is a Mastodon instance with a little modification so it has a 5000 characters limit instead of 500. And it’s open for anyone who wants to share posts about the climate (and obviously is not a climate science denier or sth. like that).

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Interesting point: How do you deal with such people?

I’ll ban them of course. I’m not paying infrastructure to give them a platform. They can get a account on a different instance in the fediverse.
From there they can still engage in a reasonable discussion with me or others on my instance, but if they start trolling I’ll block them from communicating with my instance.

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Loved the ending of that answer haha. Well it sounds really cool, I gave up social media recently and, besides Android and YouTube (I’ll check Peertube FOR SURE), i’m out of the Google sphere also. Yesterday I spent a few hours looking at alternatives to YouTube, so Peertube is some it really interest me.
I’m not into social media anymore, but I like the decentralized principle begin it all.
Is there any forum where you participate?
Thanks!

If you just want to watch YT videos, but not send data to Google I recommend invidio.us. If you create an account there you can save the proxy setting so 0 data is sent to Google. Sometimes videos don’t load or load slowly though.

Only here currently.

Thanks for the data and good luck with the site!

Cheers! :slightly_smiling_face:

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It would be interesting to know if fake news such as climate change denial and the withdrawal of false information from social media performed by Twitter and other operators really have an impact on our society. An Austrian far right activist was banned from several platforms, even his webhost dismissed him. We shall not forget that some people who are “in the scene” and organize themselves are citizens who go to the vote box, too.

My opinion:
If there would be a really effective banning, it would have a big impact.
But even the banning of Q-anon and stuff like that has an effect in my opinion.
The way I see it, it’s like turning down the volume of the music. When it’s not so loud anymore, it is reaching less people and less disturbing as well.
The kind of omnipresence of fake news linking each other back and forth lends them a kind of credibility, they really do not deserve.
Like: I have read so much about it on so many homepages (comment section …), there has to be something to it. And then people start reading into it and falling for it. Because, however ridiculous fake news and conspiracy theories are, they partially hook up with real news and confirm expectations and prejudices.
Therefore; the less such stuff is present on the web, the less influence, the better.
Well, that’s at least the way I see it.

At least people, that are not decided yet, might be less tempted/endangered to fall for fake news and conspiracy theories.

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I see it as kind of an experiment that is currently going on. Fake news are like the Corona virus: You can stop it to a certain degree, but you cannot vanish it for good anymore. Some people still believe horrible things, and there are other media than the Internet to “infect” more people and make them believe, too. That is why convincing them by talking with them is so important, some of them seem to be inconstant, seeking for help and support, which is all too human. But one day, probably the wrong person whom they falsely trust gets in their way…

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As a theory, it may be a good idea. But, how do you find these people, how do you talk to them? Who does it?

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Good questions.
One can only talk to everyone trying to convince them one at a time.

As a measure of self-protection, one should aim to establish pretty fast , if the counterpart is worth the effort. Wasting time and energy on people, that are already convinced and firm believers of nonsense can be harmful to oneself.

Just as an addon from my point of view:
Talking should always be arguments at eye level and not manipulative tactics or pressure.

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Most people who want to believe in obscure theories do this because of fear, they seem to feel threatened by so many challenges which did not exist for them before. I had a colleague in office, we are no longer in touch, because he mailed some weird things about a supposed worldwide conspiracy. I asked him to stop sending me such things, because he obviously has been influenced a lot from conspiracy theories. After I heard from another former colleague that the other one suffered from mental illness, I have begun to regret the cancelling, because what he actually needs is someone who cares for him, just by being there and by listening to him. He would never convince me, of course. But I think it is possible to at least take some fear and pain away from persons like him. I could have tried, but I think I was not strong enough to cope with the situation, not in that time… It is a long process that consists of hard work, but in the end, things will turn out well for both. Most important is that someone even tries to identify the needs of such a person, and to show some empathy and respect for the current living. My mother in law, for example, just needs a hug every day to let someone into her great heart. (Unfortunately she is suffering a lot now, because of Corona…)

Interesting story and I really feel for you and your colleague.
Still; we are not all therapists and “listening and talking” can be therapeutical, when done the proper way. But I guess it can be harmful as well, e.g. when it gives the other one the idea, to be correct, thus intensifying the mental state.
Well, that’s just my amateur - wannabe - psychological view of course; I might be totally wrong there.

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