Edit: My own solution: when it happens, get off the computer and pet the dog.
So let’s say I make a point on a post. I put forward my argument and I support it with evidence.
Now let’s say the first comment is from someone who disagrees with me, but seems to fundamentally misunderstand what I am saying, probably because they read the title of the post and immediately posted the first thing that came to mind.
But my fear, acquired from Reddit, is that people are going to read this guy’s totally inaccurate presentation of my argument and then every comment in the rest of the discussion will proceed as if that’s what I said.
And since, as we all know, fear leads to hate, my first instinct is just to berate this person for being a stupid moron.
This is a bad strategy. Not only is probably against Lemmy rules, it automatically makes me the bad guy.
So: question: how do I handle this person without tediously restating my position again, which is extremely irritating because I already wrote it once and they didn’t read it the first time. What I want is to say something that quickly quarantines the misreading comment in people’s minds so the misreading doesn’t infect the entire thread.
You don’t. Accept you are wrong and move on.
You aren’t going to be correct in every situation even with what you think is supporting evidence.
Edit: maybe don’t insult them either.
Were you intentionally trying to provide an example of what OP was taking about?
Check OPs previous post about how video games are stopping young men from rioting.
Absolutely ignoring thousands of years of non rioting before video games were invented, ignoring the many many protest since the invention of video games, and disregarding women in the entire discussion.
Source? Pretty sure there’s never once since the dawn of civilization been a thousand contiguous years in any culture that didn’t see any rioting.
Hell, very few civilizations have ever lasted 1000 years without any major upheavals.