I disagree with your premise.

It should be “The best thing that you can do for humanity is to be kind”.

Seriously. We’re living in a time when fascism is in an upswing and at least one religious leader has publicly called empathy a sin. Kindness and empathy are rebellious acts.

I’ll add: “be supportive and helpful if you can, and just shut up if you can’t”.

Fediverse is sometimes suffering from the same kind of people that Linux has - “oh you have a problem? Well, here’s the GitHub repo and a project Wiki, figure it out”.

This place is becoming very Reddit, if you post anything that deviates from someone’s beliefs they call you names and insult your intelligence. So many people can’t have a debate or discussion without jumping to personal attacks and hate. It’s really disheartening. I love political debate but there’s no such thing anymore, only name calling

Everyone’s been really nice as long as I don’t touch anything political - then it becomes a fart sniffing smug fest.

The thing that I appreciated most about Lemmy and my transition from Reddit is how cordial everyone has been. Even if a comment is taken out of context, people tend not to jump down each others throat and assume the worst, or make bad faith arguments full of fallacies. I’ve had legitimate back and forths with people, something that basically never happens on Reddit.

Give quiche a chance.

Well I came here to chew bubblegum and talk shit, and I’m all out of bubblegum.

I arrived at LEMMY after what I think we very optimistically called the Reddit Collapse. We wish. And I had toe in LEMMY and a few others at Reddit.

Recently with their abusively patronizing redesigning and gamification and just ugly bullshit, I can’t stomach Reddit at all. So LEMMY grows increasingly important, not just to me but to folks who haven’t yet even heard of it.

So, I’ll just say thanks for your post here. I have, I confess, engaged with a couple bullies on LEMMY and I always try to say… I don’t like to do this on LEMMY— and I say that precisely for the reasons you mention.

And as you encourage: I will try to be kinder, even in when feeling… hmm… less than kind.

One my favorite ways to summarize this kind of thinking is with the Bill & Ted quote “Be Excellent To Each Other, and Party On Dudes” (mostly the first half applies to this post though). The part that applies to this post, Keanu Reeves said he interprets as follows:

I think that the sentiment of it is really just be the best person, the best human being you can be, and if you do that, then you can party on and live life to the fullest, but you’re gonna be safe… You’re going to be supported, you’re going to get the gift of giving, you’re going to get the gift of receiving, you’re going to get to the gift of sharing. We’re all just some humans on a rock in space, and so it’s kinda nice to kind of promote that idea of ‘give a little, get a lot’, kind of bring it in for a group hug."

Hey thanks, I appreciate your post :)

Getting better at communication takes time and practice. Depending on where someone is in that journey, a post like this can make a big difference. And I think we can all use a reminder to be kind every so often. So, thanks for taking the time to write this out

The thing in this post about curiosity isn’t just a lemmy/online thing.

The vast majority of people are mainly interested in themselves. Like - if you have trouble on dates, making friends, getting along at work, anything to do with people in general - approaching them with a sense of sincere curiosity will completely change things overnight.

Get people to talk about themselves, be supportive in your discussions with them, and shut the fuck up wherever possible and suddenly you’re interesting, a good person, kind, whatever - traits you’ve done exactly fuck all to demonstrate, but that people will swear are true because you seem interested in them.

It’s fucking bonkers but it’s true. Curiosity can change your world.

I don’t miss the thousands of obnoxious, foul mouthed folks on FB that I routinely blocked. Haven’t experienced any of that on the fediverse yet.

@Cris_Color@lemmy.world being nice helps establish the “tone”, but I’m not sure that wouldn’t change with another “API event” on Reddit that results in another, larger mass migration.

Another suggestion I have for college graduates is to ask your alma mater if they are going to start using something other than commercial social to engage with alumni.

Most universities don’t want to make mistakes investing in the bleeding edge, but they are quick to follow. When a few schools do something, many more quickly copy that. They are also looking for low cost wins. Their engagement numbers are already telling them that Xwiiter no longer works to reach alumni or potential students.

If even a handful of alumni suggest a change at the right time, that is often enough to get them to give federated social a try.

That is when the less toxic “tone” really helps.

I disagree, yes being kind is very important but even more important is people engaging and upvoting comments.

Reddit was great because of what happened in the comment section, not the headliners, and I see very little voting engagement even in active posts.

Remember, it’s free to do and it encourages others to engage as well. But yea be kind too