I found that things became much more pleasant on here when I blocked hexbear. I recently blocked lemmy.ml as well, but I may reverse that if I find that I’m missing too much good content.
I’m open to other ideas on how to mostly avoid people who love conflict or argue in bad faith.
I definitely agree with this. I signed up with ml just because it was a big instance and generally found it confusing when first setting up an account. So far I think it’s worked out because they have good up time and haven’t insulated themselves too much compared to a lot of instances that will defederate at the drop of a hat. Hexbear can be hard to read at times because many users can turn so hateful so quickly, but I do think their perspective can be at the very least interesting even when it is clearly misguided.
I do strongly dislike that every large instance has formed its own stereotype and opinions are immediately dismissed if they are coming from an instance that is stereotyped as having ‘bad options’.