Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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It's not just a burning building, it's a building with multiple fires in many locations with varying intensity. If you spend all your time putting out the individual fires you're not actually addressing why the fires keep getting lit.
Also the comments I'm talking about aren't actually buckets of water, they're more akin to telling the person inside the burning building to cover her mouth and stay close to the ground. Sure it might help keep her alive for a little bit (if he can manage to do those things) but he's still inside of a burning building.
Putting out the fire doesn't help those who didn't survive. That's largely why firefighters will attempt rescues before extinguishing a blaze.
I don't really disagree with your opinion other than a minor quibble - trying to reach out to people who are struggling is helpful. Your stance seems to be that it isn't a solution and where I disagree is that just because you can't solve people's problems doesn't mean you can't help them.
It's tough trying to help people because everyone wants different things. A lot of the time people clash about this. For instance, when somebody's making a post expressing their exhaustion and isolation, a lot of the time what they really want is to vent their feelings and maybe be heard. Sometimes offering any solution completely misses the point of the post.
On the flip side if I'm making a post like that and I'm in a place where I want a solution, it has to be something I can achieve. If my problem is isolation, then hearing that somebody else has gone through something similar and found something that eases their pain helps me. Their solution might not fit my needs, but now I know another human being is out there, going through similar stuff, and wants to help. It makes me feel less isolated in a way that "you need to rebuild society" simply can't compete with.
I feel like this comment most understands what I'm saying. I like that addition to the metaphor with the rescue from the burning building being escape from the capitalist economy.
I should add that the posts I was referencing were meme posts talking about less specific problems that relate to a great many people. Problems with not having enough time aren't helped by someone else showing off how he follows a rigid schedule.
I fully agree that if someone is truly reaching out for help then you should offer whatever you can, even if it's just what worked for you. Just don't prescriptive about it.