There comes a time in every discussion forum user's life that they espouse an unpopular opinion. Not something unpopular in a way that they have broken any rules. But unpopular in a way that many other users want to chime in with their disagreement.
Ratioed
On twitter it is called getting "ratioed" where the unpopular tweets have a higher than normal number of comments relative to likes and retweets. It is viewed as a negative thing to happen when you are on twitter, because saying unpopular things on twitter is seen as bad.
Here on themotte saying unpopular things is not bad. We are here to have discussions with people who have different points of view. If you say something unpopular but not against the rules then you are serving the purpose of themotte. Not only have you not done something bad, you have done something good. You have provided everyone else here with content. There might be some tribal instincts in the back of your head screaming warnings at you "oh no! you have said something unpopular. quick! defend yourself, moderate your position, attack your most aggressive detractors!" These instincts are wrong. Instead, by saying something unpopular you have become the bell of the ball. The star athlete that all the recruiters want. Etc etc. We all want to talk to you!
Death by a thousand cuts
Being the center of attention and wanted by everyone can be stressful, especially when it feels like a form of infamy. There is a common failure mode that we as the mods have to witness happen again and again. The person that is at the center of attention is getting minor attacks that don't rise to the level of moderation. Multiple people might say the equivalent of "I think you are wrong because you aren't smart", or other forms of implied insults. The person at the center of attention will eventually get worn down by all these small cuts and jabs, and they will lash out at someone making the jabs. The lash out often does rise to the level of moderation.
You are the solution
The mods have talked about this phenomenon and we have realized that there isn't a good way to solve this problem through moderation. But! That doesn't mean there is no good solution at all.
These are the strategies I have used when getting ratioed, they've kept me sane, kept me calm, and helped me enjoy my time far more:
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Attitude - You are the popular one. Everyone wants to talk with you. Keep these in mind to avoid the tribal anxiety of 'everyone hates me I have to defend myself!'
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Match Effort - There are lots of responses flying at you and these responses have varying levels of effort. If someone has a low effort comment I do not respond with a well researched and cited response, I will often try and avoid responding to low effort comments altogether. Remember, you are the bell of the ball, they need to come to you.
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Prioritize the Best - Try and respond to your best disagreers first. The ones that bring up the best points, address all the things you said, or are just very polite about how they say it. You should be rewarding their effort, and hopefully signalling to other potential commentors that this is the type of comment you will respond to. This also helps with the next piece of advice:
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Refer back to yourself - Don't get frustrated saying the same thing a bunch of times. If you find yourself having the same argument in two different places, then only have it in the place with the better disagreer, and then point the other people to those posts, or just extensively quote yourself. "I addressed your point while talking with [other user], see my comment here(link)".
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Limit the back and forth - I will usually only give one response to most users. I will try and match their effort and address their points. I will try and have an extended discussion only with the best disagreers. So many instances of me moderating people happen ten or fifteen comments deep into a conversation, when almost everyone else has stopped reading. Both sides have already said the same thing multiple times, and they just become frustrated at each other "How can you resist the amazing logic and beauty of my arguments! Only a cretin and scum could fail to be convinced!" My suggestion is to just say your point and get out. You should expect to not have the last word when you are getting ratioed, so just embrace that reality up front.
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Leave when you are done - Sometimes even with all these strategies you might reach the end of your patience. You just don't want to talk about it anymore. Try and be introspective and recognize when you have reached this point. Once it happens, thank your best disagreer for the good discussion, say you are done with this topic and leave the discussion. Do not feel obligated to respond to additional comments. Your further participation is only likely to get you in trouble. You will likely get more and more frustrated until you lash out.
I also have advice for when you see someone getting ratioed and you want to join in on the dogpile. But that advice is more of a charitable nature, like it would be helpful to the community as a whole, but probably not as much to you personally. If people are interested I'll add it.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
To be fair Catholic philosophy in particular seems particularly arcane to me. I've talked with Catholics before and while they're very intelligent it feels like we have to go back to first principles because lots of the words being used just have different meanings to me than they do to them.
That's a completely fair observation. I think there's a lot of philosophical "genetic distance" between mainstream beliefs and the Catholic Christian worldview.
I always imagine it like a tree of life diagram. Modern American liberals and conservatives are twigs at the end of one of the big branches. Socialists and ethnonationalists each exist on nearby, smaller branches jutting out from the same big branch. But Catholicism and its philosophy exist on a separate big branch entirely, one who separated from the first big branch way down on the trunk where the Enlightenment happened (oversimplifying a lot but you get the idea). And so we have to cover a lot of ground to have a fruitful discussion.
Another issue is simply exposure. I often think of linguistics fluency as a metaphor here. I grew up watching American TV, news, and movies in a mainstream conservative household while attending an unusual serious Catholic school. I gained some fluency in "American liberal" ideas from mass media, "American conservative" ideas from my dad shouting at the TV and from listening to Thanksgiving arguments, and in Catholic philosophy and social teaching from school. To be exposed to the first set of ideas is nearly guaranteed, exposure to the second is not too difficult to obtain, but exposure to the third requires some intentionality and self-sacrifice on the part of one's parents which is why almost nobody gets this exposure.
I think the best way to get around this issue is to simply grant things to your interlocutor for the sake of argument. I nearly always have to suspend my disbelief about stuff like the utilitarianism, philosophical materialism, teleology, the non-existence of natures/essences, etc. when reading posts on here because there are usually a ton of assumptions baked in to the "standard worldview" that most Mottizens seems to share. And because almost nobody wants to get dragged into discussing whether or not God or souls exist merely in order to discuss the lastest transgender bathroom outrage du jour.
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