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The irony in my discussions with that other user is that I wholeheartedly agree we need viable third parties. And to your point, we desperately need election reform. But their willful ignorance of the fact we need to put out the house fire before we start discussing changes to building codes is the kicker.
The sad thing is that all the current third party candidates are useful idiots and not viable alternatives. And with democracy literally on the line, there’s not any real option other than acting like an adult and casting a ballot for the only option that moves us forward. And then the day after Election Day, start doing the real work to fix this for every Election Day thereafter.
You're being too generous by thinking they give two shits about third parties. That's just the angle they've chosen for Lemmy.
Oh, I have my suspicions about their motivations but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they’re coming from a genuine but terribly misguided point of view. Sort of Hanlon’s razor :) Like many of the third party candidates they so fervently support (not even sure who they’re voting for now, it seems to change frequently), they don’t need to be knowingly in on the con to still be useful - and perhaps more useful to certain parties if they are unaware.
Yeah. I mean, them posting every 20 minutes starting 3 months before the election thing, despite getting constant pushback, makes me feel quite justified in my conclusion. Normal people just simply would never do what they're doing. Their motivation could be something else. But whatever it is, the behavior is very unhealthy and suspect.
In posts that user has given different replies to the same comment of mine multiple times, minutes apart, seemingly unaware they were doing so. Sus to me.
Back when twitter was a thing, for my rep had a social media 'minion' army that managed propaganda accounts, multiple people per account to pretend to be voters with 'concerns' about Dems. This felt the same.
They've done that to me too. They accuse me of stalking them sometimes too, seeming excited to do so, so I feel like they do that to a lot of people but it's hard to keep track of who is who for them
I have to be extremely careful with my words here since calling someone a troll is against the rules, and the user has also shown he's very happy to report even the slightest perceived rules violation.
I think the agenda hypothesis is possible, but I'm getting more and more convinced he's doing what he is doing because it gives him some sort of pleasure. I think he enjoys getting people to argue with him. I think he enjoys knowingly dancing around the letter of the law whilst ignoring its spirit - gleefully reminding others to "please be civil". I think he enjoys getting others to lash out and subsequently reporting them.
That's what I think their motivation is.
You might be right that this is all their motivation is, but the timing and singular topic of interest is far too suspicious for me to ignore. I mean they definitely take pleasure in being a deranged hall monitor, though, don't get me wrong.
As for accusing them of being a troll... We are simply discussing a hypothetical user. No one has mentioned any username. No rules broken here!
Could be suspicious activity for sure, but then again think about it this way: what better time and angle of attack to choose if you're looking to get people on the internet riled up?