There are two parts to this question. One on the online community, one in the real life observations.
Online:
This is a problem I've been having with the Voat community. Everyone seems so passionate about arbitrary things, and yet, I see hardly anything being done to create, or amend the issues. We're not technically a community; in fact, it's a strange crossroads of communities that happen to all be residing in the same space.
I got here three months (well lurking, I think my profile says 1) ago. When I joined, I felt like I found home. People would argue with each other, reach a compromise, all without downvoating. I met some great friends, all of us passionate about writing. And now, a good majority of them have left due to the culture change.
Instead of discussion, I find more and more "Fuck you faggot you SJW cocksucker" sort of deals. They didn't like this. They left. I took a hiatus for awhile. But I notice more and more this mindset of witchhunting, hive minded anger, without any solution but to ban users (Not in Particular @She but also many, many others). I feel like we could be better at open discussion, without the name-calling. It weakens arguments --- granted, I've seen several good arguments going on, but it all revolves around downvoats instead of null debate.
In Real Life:
More and more, people get angry. They're angry about everything. And They offer no solutions, not feasible ones anyway. I'm pretty laid back. I try to not get angry these days, though sometimes something gets under my skin, but everyone seems to make it a black and white issues (sometimes literally) without ever seeing the facts.
My question to you, voat, is that.....
How do we take our passion and make it into something constructive? How do we regain control, and instead of only being angry and passionate, we become motivated and passionate?
I apologize for rambling. I'm getting fed up with anger with no constructive direction.
EDIT: This discussion is amazing! I haven't read through everything yet, but I'm so happy you all are really getting into this! thanks!
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[–] Lilija ago
Short answer: destroying is easy, creating is hard.
Now I did find one thing interesting. You asked basicly how to turn anger into motivation. It needs work and most people don't see that they need to do this work until things are going south.
When I was battling with depression I was extremely angry at first. I've tried to supress that anger and eventually it lead to losing all motivation. During group therapy that I've eventually attended we've done an excercise that thought me one important thing: anger and motivation come from the same place. Getting rid of anger is a wrong approach. It's something we need. But what we have to learn thruout our whole life is how to make this emotion lead to constructive action rather than burn out. I guess depending on personality for some it might be easier for others might be harder. I personally find this hard and while I'm not as angry as I used to be, I haven't rebuild my motivation the way I would like it to be. One thing that helped me for sure in keeping certain acceptable status quo is gaming. As a perfectionist I need to learn how to let go yet still move forward. While still far from perfect, I am in much better place than 10 years ago.
Enough about me ^^ Can we make people understand the issue? I really know. I'm afraid people need to realize that for themselves. Unfortunately, if someone doesn't feel their actions are harmful to themselves there is no force on earth that can make them change that. Simply because change is hard work and one needs really strong reasons in order to start on that path. Even when one realizes that they need to change it's still easier to not do anything.