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Default behavior is to allow emotions to drive thoughts, which immediately inform behavior. Times are very hard for people around the world, so it stands to reason most people online are going to be in a negative frame of mind to start with. Anger going sideways and getting projected or transferred where it shouldn’t, and solves nothing.
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Bots have definitely made their way to the Fediverse and like anywhere else their whole point is to foment disagreement and fights, as well as pressure people with a flood of information implying the majority opinion is far right, pro-AI and that sort of thing. See above, but it behooves them to create a stressful atmosphere since stressed people are angry people and angry people don’t think clearly.
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Every platform tends towards certain patterns of behavior and I am inclined to agree on the specific pattern here. It’s almost always about something personal, including political beliefs. I have seen some incredible comments and comment threads based upon someone reading whatever OP posted as if it were a personal attack or a political press conference. People also seem here, like on tumblr a decade or two ago, to think that fighting with random people online is equal to real political action. It’s not. It never will be. Worse, it seems a lot of people feel insecure about their intelligence because man do these arguments stink of someone trying to prove how smart they are against, again, some random person they don’t even know.
tl;dr, people are angry but don’t know how to handle it in a more mature manner, or they’re deliberately fomenting discord with bots because they were paid to do so, which honestly circles right back to the beginning because why do that?
I do think it’s still better here than on Reddit though. I hope that this remains the case for years to come. I had some bad shocks on Reddit which caused me to cease engaging there. Same to BlueSky, honestly. I follow some people who know what they’re talking about, but… the keyboard warriors are just too much.
Oof, I have a cat like this. Usually she’s not too bad, but if she gets agitated at all she’s a horror story. 17 years of this, too. Normally, it’s better to just tire the cat out with playtime during the day at a time more convenient for you. She wants attention, mostly. If cats didn’t have social needs they wouldn’t make good pets, and cats do have a strong need to socialize with their humans. Normally she’s good and only comes in at about 9, 9.30am when I usually want to get up. But sometimes she gets it into her head that we need to be up much earlier, usually if we’re having trouble sleeping and she notices we’re sort of awake. Or lately she wants the faceted crystal baubles in the window to throw off rainbows for her to attack, but it’s the wrong time and she doesn’t get it and thinks we activate it. She’ll take me to the stair window first thing when I get up, and put her paws up on the sill and complain and complain, but there’s aught I can do!
The contrast is that if I or my partner are feeling sick or depressed in the morning, she’s just the sweetest, kindest creature and will just snuggle and purr, and won’t care what time you finally get up. But if you’re healthy? Forget it. We say that she’s Momma to our Owen, for those of you who have seen Throw Momma From the Train.