My position formerly was that those of us whose mental health was not at stake, actually should continue to go on reddit and argue with libs, chuds, feds, whatever. Not because we would change the minds of those we're arguing with but because of the countless lurkers who would see our arguments and the seeds that would then be planted. And please stfu up with "omg this guy thinks posting is praxis! har har!" because the pipeline I followed to land on /r/chapotraphouse and then here was because I was a lurker watching those arguments and I could identify the good faith and the sensical and empathetic from the bad faith, cruel, and nihilistic bullshit. And I know there were many others like me. How many of you were libs who were fortunate enough to read some good "tankie" arguments and started thinking about the implications?

That said, we really have been shut down now. Systematically. Anything that goes against the predominant neolib narrative in any major subreddit, and a vast majority of the smaller ones, is immediately silenced one way or another. We not only get downvoted to oblivion, dogpiled with flames, shadowbanned, or just regular banned, they're doing petty shit like literally not making our up/downvotes count anywhere else on the site. (I know that's inconsequential, but it's something they do that they don't admit to that just pisses me off). So yeah... at this point, it's not even worth trying to have arguments for the sake of the lurkers - as I used to always advocate for. I still say, if you think you can be heard, go there and spout some fucking truth. But they're making it so that truth can't even be heard anymore.

I don't have a fucking clue, but maybe for those of you who still are interested in trying to win over or at least sway some terminally-online hearts & minds might consider advocating for reddit alternatives. There's always hexbear to mention, but probably better just to start spamming about the lemmy fediverse. Instead of trying to engage in arguments on reddit (like I recently would have said was a good thing to do), start trying to draw the marginally open-minded people away from that cesspit of indoctrination towards places where lurkers can once again hear a counternarrative.

I just hate "giving up" on such a massive tool of propaganda like reddit is, and leaving it entirely for the three-letter agencies to infiltrate completely without repudiation - something they've been striving for and why they banned chapo and why they're getting rid of GZD, et al. Just..... propaganda works, people. Pipelines are real. We need to establish some fucking pipelines instead of letting them have them all! Gah.