If you're naive about it and treat every viewpoint as equally valid, then yes. The internet is filled with people just waiting to take advantage of curious minds. It's why, for example, we keep having to fight anti-vaxxers no matter how much evidence disproves them. It's why Joe Rogan became a friendly place for right-wing grifters. Its why the manosphere exists.

You need to view information suspicion and skepticism nowadays.

How would you know? Did you ask for one, or did you go straight to assumptions?

Right now, are you proving that we're not living in a Suspicion Culture?

So in other words, you don't trust your own brain to verify the difference between truth and lies.

That's weird?

Hence why I asked, "in your opinion." You can at least give specific examples of the situations you're referring to but not naming outright.

Not really, it's an amalgamation of different experiences leading to a collective sense of the cultural attitude.

It's obvious to everyone else I've talked to, if it isn't to you I don't think examples will change that.

When presented with isolated information at face value? Hell no. You gather more information and evidence, research, analyze, then use all that to make an informed judgment. Some questions you should ask when you see a claim posted somewhere:

• Who is making the claim?
• Where are they making the claim?
• Why are they making the claim? Does it benefit them?
• What evidence is there to support the claim?

So, which experiences, then?

I already stated that earlier; seeing celebrities get cancelled, and seeing people try to cancel each other on social media.

I kind of get what you mean, but it doesn't really apply to me or people I know.

If you're well educated and decently informed you can make an educated guess on the veracity of information 9/10 times before even looking it up and verifying it - which takes a few seconds these days.

So, which ones?

I would be very careful with that assumption. People are very good at making lies look truthful, sometimes even sprinkling in a small kernel of truth to feed the bigger lie. Some even make a whole career out of it. it's not easy to intuitively be able to tell fact from fiction like that.

Don't want to take sides? Crying about cancel culture?
Is that you Ed Sheeran?

Which ones what?

Voting for either right wing party doesn't inadvertently support the right, it directly supports the right. The left starts at anti-capitalism. I'm not telling you this to convince you to be more blackpilled/doomer than you possibly are. I'm also not telling you not to vote. I'm telling you this so you can hopefully try to more accurately pinpoint the cause of the issues you're seeing. It might help drive you to organize with other people who think similarly and want to change things for the better, which should alleviate what seems to be paralysis due to how you worry other people might react. Unless you're a semi-famous person with harmful views or have a history of abusing people, I wouldn't frame it as cancel culture.

What you're experiencing as "people wanting to wait for you to trip up" could be any number of things. Shit's rough out here, and people get tense when it's hard to pay for groceries and rent just to work all day at a job that treats you terribly. Hurt people hurt people as they say. We also live under a system which rewards the most cruel, selfish, hypercompetitive, grifting people imaginable and places those people in positions of power to write/pass laws that make people more tense and less likely to offer kindness or grace to a stranger saying something that sounds suspicious. This isn't just the loudmouth rude republicans. The entire system that is supported by our entire ruling body supports these kinds of people having more and more power even if the democrats act shocked and appalled.

If you want to weigh in on contemporary topics, it's best to understand the topic first (easier said than done since research requires more than just watching a youtube video or reading some random person's emotionally charged opinion about a thing in the news). But also, it's no big deal to say "I haven't researched the topic enough to give an opinion, but I'll listen to your perspective if you'd like to share". It's also possible people might come in hot if you start to label yourself centrist without stating why you lean more right than a run-of-the-mill democrat. It comes across as suspicious. It's suspicious to people who think the democrats and republicans are substantially different from each other, and it's suspicious to people who think the democrats and republicans both need to be destroyed as soon as possible because they are destroying the world.

I'm also neurodivergent and it has taken a LOT of unlearning popular "understanding" of words/phrases that were harmful or ill-defined. Maybe because I'm also queer, it kind of jump started my journey on how to not let a sick society convince myself I should hate myself because I'm broken. Fuck that. BUT ALSO being neurodivergent (depending on the flavor) can really amplify a sort of social paranoia. A certain inflection in a way someone responded to you or a micro expression could be interpreted as the first step in being ostracized from your group. If you're a people pleaser with rejection sensitivity, this will be very difficult to combat, but you can get through it!

You made a claim and then have nothing to back it up.

Did I ask for one?

Then what views to you have that you would call centrist?

Yes, literally in the post you responded to where you gave empty platitudes. I didn't go straight to assumptions. I asked a question and you skirted around it like in every other response in here.

Suspicion culture is something you just made up. You make a claim, I asked for details around it, and you deflected. Yea, people are going to be suspicious when someone comes off as trolling and won't support their claims with specifics.

Does it feel good to you to communicate like this? It certainly doesn't feel good for the receiver

I call out bullshit when I see it. I don't have feelings for trolls.

Wow

Because they're right. And now we all know which side you choose.

The Internet, and social media in particular, allows and encourages aspects of human psychology that a better world would discourage. Be prepared.

can you give an example of anything you're claiming here?

I'm not claiming anything here, but stating how I feel and asking if others have felt the same, and the comments say yes

Appreciate it

There aren't any sides man, there are just humans like you

Yes there's fascists and then there's people opposed to fascists. And anyone willing to support Fascism is not a human anything like me.

True, once life is black and white real humans can't really relate anymore

If your views on fascism aren't black and white you're a fucking fascist. You just maybe don't know it yet.

Yuuup. Progressives say they need to target centrists and independents... anyone undecided who could vote right wing for all intents and purposes is right wing.

Al Franken.