There are people with perhaps-interesting content but where I sense a fence of hostility that demotivates me from giving them sustained attention. What are good workarounds?
(Maybe "translation" of the tone is a job for ChatGPT/ Claude / Grok etc?)
On social media I try not to follow people who show hostility at all. I think there are two kinds of people on Mastodon: ones who have a list of people they don't want to follow on their profile and ones who don't. I certainly have a list, but I keep it to myself.<p>There are a few people I follow who do express some hostility who I make an exception for because I really value them, the same way that I take some crap from my friends, family, co-workers and such. I don't usually tell them directly that they're on that list but I might tell them what I just told you.
What exactly are you asking about? Reading blogs where the author is explaining some issue that makes them angry?<p>Some things are worth being hostile to. For example, I don't see how one can read or talk about the war in Ukraine, without becoming extremely angry at Putin and fervently wishing to see his regime brought down.<p>But it is not healthy to spend all of your life angry, so you might pick and choose a couple of things you care about (especially if you can take action), and mostly try to tune out the rest. Unless you have a very good reason to do otherwise, I wouldn't look for a workaround, I'd rather either engage with someone as they are or not pay attention.<p>If someone is hostile to <i>you</i>, then except in rare circumstances I'm not sure I'd recommend engaging with them at all.