I know the real answer is reddit but I really don’t want to go back now that I’ve already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn’t. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has been a net negative and I’m pretty much ready to move on. I just don’t know where else to go.
I’m sure this will come if the wrong way but if you’re genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.
I’m all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.
But if what you’re concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that’s just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.
I like hearing both sides of every argument even when I don’t agree with it. On reddit I could read the top comments first and then sort by controversial to hear the opposing arguements. Here I can’t do that. There usually are no opposing arguments or if there is they’re made in bad faith. It’s almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I’m more of a pick and choose type of person.
you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example
There are very few “positions” I hold. When it comes to most subjects I’m not informed enough to form strong opinions so I generally float somewhere in between. For most hot topics I see on Lemmy every day I can usually make good arguments for both ways. I may lean to one side or another but I’m often just a few well written comments away from tipping to the other direction.
you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example
There are very few “positions” I hold.
The “positions” term is usually a shorthand for the eventual distillation of your values. If you haven’t arrived yet at your positions, have you examined on your values? Values are usually far more primitive in the sense they don’t conform exactly to specific public policy, but there is usually public policy that encompasses specific values.
While its certainly possible for a person’s values to change over time. We usually arrive at what most our values are in our 20s. These are things such as:
- Your belief in the value of life; Your own vs everyone else’s in society, in the world.
- Your adoption or rejection on any specific religion or faith
- Where you decide the right balance is between individualism vs collectivism
- Your belief in personal responsibility and autonomy vs societal responsibility and obligation
I believe it is very important for each of us to examine who we are, what our values are, and then use our intellect to decide/craft which positions can be arrived at with guidance from our values.
When it comes to most subjects I’m not informed enough to form strong opinions so I generally float somewhere in between. For most hot topics I see on Lemmy every day I can usually make good arguments for both ways. I may lean to one side or another but I’m often just a few well written comments away from tipping to the other direction.
This is where your responsibility comes in. If you’re not informed enough, become so. Listen critically to arguments, don’t simply accept on face value what other proclaim is true. If you’re hearing a logical argument that seems to contradict your understanding, yet aligns with your values, challenge yourself to explore it. The phrase “steel sharpens steel” applies here. If you have healthy and strongly defined personal values, the arguments of your positions should be equally strong and stand up to scrutiny. If your positions are found faulty by your own examination, adopt all or elements of the argument that knocked your position down because its is the right one for your values and ability to critically apply logic with all the information you have available.
You made other statements about choosing a side, but realistically it isn’t just two sides. Its dozens or hundreds of nuanced views, and every single one could be flawed in some way, or incomplete. Accept that in many situations there isn’t a “right” answer. All sides represented could be wrong and the best you can do is admit this choose the least worse. This constant reexamination and frustration is both the beauty and the horror of being human.
Accept that in many situations there isn’t a “right” answer.
This is pretty much the essence of what I was trying to say there. The more you study a subject the more you realize how much nuance there is to everything so it’s near impossible to land on any clear conclusion on what to think about it. People often act as if it’s all black and white but it almost never is. Even in cases such as the war in Ukraine where it’s a pretty clear which side is the good and which is the bad one you should still be allowed to examine the alternative perspective too to better understand the “enemy” as well as realize that the good side isn’t wihout a fault either and critizicing them doesn’t automatically make you a Russian troll.
Your analysis is far too shallow to determine Good vs Bad, even in something that should be as clear cut as the Ukraine war. Morality is next to impossible to assign unless you pick a very specific basis on which to analyze it.
Your starting assumptions matter a lot in morality, like how much you value human life. There are people in this world that do not value life highly because they believe in afterlife situations that are preferable to life on earth as long as you meet the criteria for entrance. Who’s to say they are wrong from a moral perspective?
If Putin actually believes that the people in eastern Ukraine are being persecuted, and Russia is rescuing them, is that immoral? Would it be immoral for a solider to fight under the belief that they are helping people even if they are not?
Morality often comes down to belief because it’s not an objective concept.
Me, I think Putin would look better with a few more holes in him. Is that immoral? Would I be willing to sacrifice myself to kill him? No. Would I be willing to let members of my country’s armed forces sacrifice themselves to kill him despite us not really being involved in the conflict? Probably. That’s some really messy morality right there.
The thing you need to realize at the end of the day, is that morality is completely personal, and yet it’s entire purpose is to allow societies to get along. At the same time, you need to realize that you didn’t come up with your own ideas of morality, you grew up being indoctrinated (for better or worse) towards a particular type of morality.
If you had been born somewhere else, to a different family, or even just had different events happen to you in life, you would have a different set of morals.
This is the kind of comment I wish I would see here more often.
But why? This has everything to do with philosophy, and nothing to do with most posts on Lemmy.
I believe OP is young and just more into philosophy than politics… ot maybe a combo of both. I know a time when I was like that, so it’s perfectly normal.
But, unfortunately, yes, there are very few individuals out there that communicate on that level.
The more you study a subject the more you realize how much nuance there is to everything so it’s near impossible to land on any clear conclusion on what to think about it.
Take this just one step further: Understand that indecision, is a decision. That inaction, is an action.
On every topic, you can’t just look at all the arguments and say “none of these are good enough, I select none” forever. By choosing to opt out forever, you allow the voices and actions of those you disagree with to stand in your place. In these situations where there are no good choices, is where you must eventually make a choice (at least for now), and that choice isn’t going to be the best because there isn’t a best choice. Its going to be the least-worse. This is why its so critical to have explored yourself to decide what values you hold. They are your guideposts to how you evaluate and arrive at what path you choose forward.
Keep looking for better, but don’t let that paralyze you to the point of indecision and inaction.
I think OP would be good to watch the first season of the Good Place. There is a character on there that is obsessed with making the correct decision and argues so much with himself and others over every tiny nuance that could shift the balance that he never acts on anything at all unless forced.
As you said, fence sitting is in an of itself an action, almost always to the detriment of the topic at hand.
Very few subjects are the kind of where one absolutely has to pick a side. That’s kind of like saying you can’t just enjoy football but you have to choose a team to support to. No I don’t.
Just because one thing is slighly better than the alternative that doesn’t mean I’m all for that one thing then. Israel - Hamas conflict is a good example. I don’t support either side and the more I study the subject the more confusing it gets.
First, I said you can’t be inactive/indecisive forever, that is, if you want your values reflected in the world. If you’re content to having the world be whatever someone else decides for you, then I suppose you can, but that in itself is a choice.
Very few subjects are the kind of where one absolutely has to pick a side. That’s kind of like saying you can’t just enjoy football but you have to choose a team to support to. No I don’t.
I’m talking about subjects where you have an opinion for a preference. When you’re a passive watcher of football, there is no outcome that will be against your values. You have no effort to impart with watching football that will affect its outcome.
Just because one thing is slighly better than the alternative that doesn’t mean I’m all for that one thing then.
Of course not, but to affect change you may need to accept a chunk of negative with your path to get a larger chunk of positive. Again, there’s no “best” solution, only least worst.
Israel - Hamas conflict is a good example. I don’t support either side and the more I study the subject the more confusing it gets.
Its a great example! There are zero good choices here. I’m in a similar position, however what I have concluded is our inaction (yours and mine) is causing the continued deaths of the civilians of Gaza. I value the lives. The most number of lives of the civilians that are the most risk right now are those of Gaza. So I have to ask myself, what can I do to preserve as much of civilians of Gaza? It gets even more complicated in the USA where I can advocate to my representatives for support for civilians of Gaza and try to stop the continued flow of US weapons causing the harm. However, our current politics are tying military support to Taiwan (which I support), Israel (which I do not support anymore), and Ukraine (which I do support) all as one package. To stop Russia from seizing Ukraine (where Russia will eventually use the Ukrainian people for further war against others) do I have to let Israel commit genocide against Gaza’s civilians? Again, there are NO good choices here. Only least worst, and the subjective nature of which one is the least worst is guided by your values.
You will have to come to your own conclusion, but make not mistake, without you using your voice others are taking a path one way or the other and your values are not being represented.
You know you’re allowed to make comments in threads challenging people if you think their comments are too one sided?
If you suspect there is an unexplored side to something, you can ask about that, and you’ll very likely get an answer, at least as far as I’ve seen. But usually if no one does that then yeah, like you say, you’ll only see “one side”.
You don’t have to be a passive observer, you can get the discussion you want by guiding it.
You know you’re allowed to make comments in threads challenging people if you think their comments are too one sided?
Saying “I’d like to hear a different perspective” is generally interpreted by others as “Your perspective is wrong” and then the assumptions begin, which lead to accusations and bickering.
I was speaking of something substantial and specific, not just some abstract stuff. For example, idk, "why not halt all arms deliveries to Ukraine? We need the weapons/money ourselves. I.e. some actual question about the topic. Because if you can’t form a question like that, then it doesn’t even make sense really to “hear a different perspective” as this different perspective will have no meaning for you.
But it seems anyway, after reading OPs responses to this thread, that they don’t really care about diverse viewpoints, just about their own viewpoints not being disregarded/dismissed/argued against.
It gets quite tiring after a while that instead of having to defend the point you’re trying to make you instead have to defend yourself as a person. Ad-hominem is what a huge portion of active commentors here reach for when ever someone says something that they disagree with.
But then your problem does not seem to be diversity. Why do you act like it is?
Views to the right of centre are almost entirely missing from Lemmy so the problem is lack of diversity. Or perhaps I should say one of the problems. Incivility on social media on the other hand is not an issue unique to Lemmy.
It’s almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I’m more of a pick and choose type of person.
This sums up my feelings lately very nicely. I’d say I am generally well aligned with the culture on here, and share most leftist views. However there are certain topics, and even just sub aspects of certain topics, that will net you a lot of downvotes very quick and condescending proselytizing comments if you even slightly differ from the general consensus in your views.
I’m not sure what could be done about this though, I certainly dont want Lemmy to be more welcoming towards alt right bullshit and such. But talking with a bunch of queer leftists about queer leftist things all the time is like that old south park episode where the parents become pretentious wine snobs and start getting high on their own farts. Boring, pointless self aggrandizement.
I’m a queer leftist but get kinda sick of the three topics on lemmy: linux good/america bad/Rust sometimes OK.
I want like…aquarium subreddits that are active. I wanna see mountain bike subs with good advice and live threads. I wanna see local subs that have the hottest details on obcure things like the best nude community gardens or some shit, haha. I wanna see Subaru forums where you can learn how to add a better sound system or replace an intercooler. Hell, even local city subs, where they talk about the best protected bike lanes now that summer is approaching.
The thing about lemmy is if you want to see something you got to make it yourself if it doesn’t exist
Lemmy has such a tiny active user space that most niche communities simply wont take off.
Guess how reddit started.
Not with that attitude
We will have all that, soon enough. Reddit has size over Lemmy and with size comes monetization. They’ve gone full corporate, selling our data and our content to make a profit. We’re here to stand against that. Hopefully over time we can support enough basic communities that this place will be able to grow over the years.
Until then, help implement the barebones stuff. Make sure you’re subbed to those 4 communities and make a post or two in them. And it’s really not that big of a deal if you browse Reddit from time to time, but don’t neglect the barebones communities here if you’re gonna do that.
I think some mods are a bit too happy to use their mod tools. I’ve seen opinions get moderated away because they anger people, not because they are wrong.
A mature society is able to discuss things without banning opinions they don’t agree with.
I haven’t really seen that … maybe I’m just in a way “biased” because I do have some comments that meet the “your opinion is clearly highly controversial in this room” threshold but I generally keep my composure.
There are definitely a few times where the other person has made it personal and it’s been difficult to not retaliate in kind.
lemmy.ml is not as nearly as bad now, lemmy.world on the other hand…
Most users actually wants Lemmy.world to have harch moderation, because they don’t want to be exposed to things that upset them.
I think it’s always like that. The big popular platforms are always heavily moderated. And most people are happy with it.
There are always smaller alternatives for others who feel comfortable reading things we don’t agree with sometimes in exchange for nobody controlling the feed.
I’m a bit in between. There is a Swedish site called Flashback that is really good for finding out what actually happens. The media often gives one view and leaves out many details, and it’s very fun to go read what actually happened on flashback afterwards.
I just mind that memes get deleted for no apprent reason… sometimes they give a reson, most of the time, they don’t. I mean, come on, it’s a joke…
But whatever. If people here are happy with what they get out of stricter moderation, hey, who am I to judge.
The amount of tankies and idiots with idiotic opinions is way to high on here. And in general I realy get what they are saying. Other platforms with a bigger user base don’t have that big of a problem with diversity. It bothered me too, it seems like the whole of lemmy has a very idiotic position on a lot of things and saying anything that is even in the slightest against that gets you down voted. That is something that sadly developed over time. In the early days everyone was way more friendly and less radical people were on here.
that’s just the nature of smart creative people
Well. No. Say that to yourself, but ideology and belive is a lot more complex than: I am smart, so I am left. Your believes mostly stem from influences in your childhood, like parents, friends, people you trust. It’s dangerous to lift yourself above others with different believes.
Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.
The problem is that a socialist worker doesn’t realy have a place to go to challenge their own opinion. Lemmy sadly has gone the way of an eco chamber. And for political discourse you need other people that have an opinion like yours that support you in your arguments. Currently it’s more like “this guy has a bad opinion, downvote him to hell”
It’s not enough for me to leave, because in general I realy like it here and with enough comunitys blocked it has become bearable.
I’ve seen a LOT of strawman attacks. It usually seems to be honest miscommunication, but underneath that… It looks like predisposition to combative and somewhat-dismissive hot takes.
And it works. Certain members have swung entire conversations and down votes by implying a person said something they didn’t.
It’s not unique to online fora, but the concentration seems off here.
Some of this just looks like people feeling like big fish in this small pond and finding a degree of confidence or even righteousness from the voting patterns.
Can you expand more on those idiotic positions?
“America does bad things, so I should support china/russia instead!”
“Stalin/mao were (anything besides utterly reprehensible dictators)”
“Communism could’ve worked if-“
Honorable mention to thinking this coy “I’m going to act all hyper respectful and yet also like I know more than anyone about anything” bullshit gets you anywhere.
Though to be honest, tankies spouting #1 and #2 get heavily downvoted. I don’t even see them anymore, guess my instance defederated them, but they were never strong positions here.
Perhaps it’s the defederation, but my experience here does not resemble yours.
They’re mask off on hexbear/lemmygrad, they try to be subversive on lemmy.ml. I have in fact instance blocked the first two, you can usually dodge them on .ml. Lemmy is far less enjoyable if you have not blocked them.
So, you’ve been listening to lemmy.lm…
First two sound like tankies, but communism definitely could work :P
Commune-ism sounds like a lovely idea on a small scale, you gotta solve a lot of political problems to make it work on anything bigger. Social democracies like the scandinavians seem to be the best way we currently know to run a humanitarian society.
Are they though? I just feel like we aren’t solving the issues we ought to.
First, nobody gets hungry ever again.
Then, everybody gets roof over their head.
After that, we can start discussing the next steps.
And yes, we need to do this globally, with nobody left behind.
That’s neither exclusive to communism nor has it been achieved in most purportedly communist states (I hear Vietnam’s actually been having a good run of things but I can’t speak to specifics).
Socialism != communism.
If you aren’t human, perhaps
It’s like saying we are too stupid to survive.
That is not an unthinkable scenario. The universe is so vast yet there is no sign of life anywhere else. Why? Perhaps intelligent life simply isn’t intelligent enough and they always end up destroying themselves. A so called “great filter”. Is it behind us or ahead? Who knows.
How about “There will always be someone exploiting the system/people”
I just have Lemmygrad blocked and I never see this
There’s a bunch of very active non-ml users that always turn any political discussion to “both sides are terrible, don’t vote for genocide”.
Once you start recognizing names (or blocking), it gets less depressing. But it does feel like there are a lot more fascist enablers in the political communities than there really are, just because of how fervent those few users are.
Once you start recognizing names
One of my favorite features of the Boost app is they allow you to tag a username with whatever label you want. It really helps to highlight the users that regularly argue in bad faith, troll, etc.
The amount of tankies and idiots with idiotic opinions is way to high on here.
On an internet site?! I’m shocked! Shocked!
I mostly sign jokes and shitposting communities, but the people there are surprisingly calm and diverse. I mean, surprisingly for an internet community; most could pass just as a very weird group in another context.
But if you go signing for politics communities on the internet, you’ll get the expected result.
You don’t need to know their views to know what a diverse community is. Lemmy is a heavily-
biaseebiased echochamber, they want something that’s not a heavily-biased echochamber.It’s actually important. If, for example, they are a white nationalist they don’t really count towards diversity in any kind of productive way.
You think a white nationalist is on here arguing for more diversity…?
Yes, kinda. It’s a go-to for white nationalist types to complain about a lack of diversity in opinions when they really mean they’re mad everyone hates bigotry. They feel that all conversation is biased simply because the people don’t seem to want to be haters as much as they are. So it’s not really that they want more diversity, it’s that they want the conversations to be diverse enough to accept their views.
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If you’re after moderate right flavored discussion I sympathize but you’ll have trouble finding it as the broader right has been consumed by alt right and far right. If your point is that those viewpoints specifically are missing from Lemmy then I’d say it’s a good riddance. I just wish Lemmy was as hard on some immature leftie takes.
I’m a pretty “left-winged” European, but I see the lack of a “moderate right” or “conservative” alternative as a real problem! Here on Lemmy and in the real world as well. When there is no place for them, people will feel the need to align with the far-right to at least have some points in common with others. And the only one who profits from this is the far-right. It’s important to have a mixed political Landscape, so Ideas can be exchanged, topics can be discussed in a meaningful way, and we don’t end up in an echo chamber.
I agree but I also think it’s up to them to build that space.
If your a classical conservative and believe in personal and fiscal responsibility, then it’s your job to create or contribute to a space for this.
I think this is the problem, those people let the crazies in and then turn around and blame the victim.
Man, I’m trying to remember the last time I saw a nail get hit so hard right on the head but I’m coming up empty.
I’ve skimmed some of your comments, and honestly it looks like you’re already getting a diverse experience considering your political and ideological way of thinking. That’s not a condemnation, but a quick observation.
The thing is that people actually don’t know my politics or ideologies. They think they do and then reply accordingly.
Then express yourself to let them know what you stand for, and what do you expect from them.
But why? What is being said is what matters, not whose saying it.
“Israel is killing innocent Palestinian civilians by the tens of thousands” is a factual statement and will get upvoted because it signals that I’m on the correct side of the issue.
“Hamas is indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians while using their own population as human shields” is also an factual statement but will get you downvoted because it sounds like the kind of noises the “others” would make.
In most topics like this it’s less about wether what you’re saying is true or not but rather about who we think you are based on what you’re saying. Prefacing every message with “I’m really against what these people are doing and I think person X really is a huge asshole but…” is not something I’m interested in doing.
Then what in the hell do you want?
I thought you want diverse opinions and nuanced debate, but when you want to just engage in opposing comments and not prefacing statements with ‘I understand X, but wanna discuss Y here’, the result is just trolling, detrimental to your proposed goals.
I have yet to understand what exactly do you want, or what is missing here.
I think I see the problem. You left Reddit, but Reddit didn’t leave you.
What I mean by this is that you care more about the responses of internet strangers than you do having a genuine a discussion. As long as you’re being truthful, honest, and giving good faith arguments, then who cares if people downvote you or call you names. You’ve done your job. You’ve led that proverbial horse to water. You can’t make them drink. Let it go, and love on.
Of course we’re going to form an opinion of you based on what you say. It’s all we have. If you don’t like the opinion being formed, then give us more insight to who you genuinely are so we can change our minds. And before you say it doesn’t matter, it obviously does or you wouldn’t be here making the argument you’re making. Be honest with yourself.
you care more about the responses of internet strangers than you do having a genuine a discussion
No, it’s the exact opposite. I long for the week long debates I used to have with complete strangers about some insignificant philosophical theory somewhere deep inside a thread that’s gone inactive a long time ago and it’s just the two of us there.
About post scores I don’t care because I have them hidden anyway. I do admit though that it does get frustrating when I try to make sense of something but the damn horse just refuses to drink.
Regarding the prefacing; it probably won’t even work because people will read it as a “I’m not racist, but” kind of statement.
Regarding the problem you’re stating; I’ve quickly after joining installed a tampermonkey script which allows me to hover over the name of an instance, magazine or user and display a small context menu where I can block them. Blocking certain magazines made all the difference for me.
“Israel is killing innocent Palestinian civilians by the tens of thousands” is a factual statement and will get upvoted because it signals that I’m on the correct side of the issue.
“Hamas is indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilians while using their own population as human shields” is also an factual statement but will get you downvoted because it sounds like the kind of noises the “others” would make.
In most topics like this it’s less about wether what you’re saying is true or not but rather about who we think you are based on what you’re saying.
If you’re not offering enough of your own position in a post, then yes, those you’re posting to will make assumptions. To combat that, put your complete positions in your post and remove any doubt so people don’t have to assume. The reason both of your quoted statements would get strong responses in isolation is because posting only the one sentence in a post would suggest you don’t agree with the apposing statement that you also posted.
You will still get strong responses from smaller groups that believe one statement factual and not the other, but thats life. You’re not going to convince everyone all the time.
is also an factual statement but will get you downvoted because it sounds like the kind of noises the “others” would make.
That’s because people don’t say things just randomly, they usually have a point or a conclusion they are trying to get to. When someone sees something like that, they don’t downvote because it’s not factual, but because of the implied point.
Your implied point here is that both sides are equally at fault. You didn’t say that and I would bet you don’t think that, but that’s not how your comment reads.
It’s similar to the BLM and the all lives matter response. Yes that is factually correct, but saying it in this context and time implies less or no attention should be given to the topic at hand.
“sir this is a picture of a cat, why are you bringing the middle east into it”
We can only know what you show us. The rest we have to fill in based on what you’ve said in the past. That’s how this stuff works. It’s a back and forth. For it to work, you actually have to contribute.
My every single post would be a wall of text if I was to exhaust every possible misunderstanding and make my position absolutely clear and people would still attack me for a stance I don’t hold. My post entire history is there available for anyone to read - that’s the best I can do.
👌👌👌👌👌👌💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
Personally, I’ve found a fairly wide breadth of viewpoints on Lemmy. Perhaps what you’re experiencing is the stress that diversity brings? It’s a well-known effect of engaging with different viewpoints.
As my counselor keeps trying to get me to do: sit with your discomfort for a few minutes before reacting or taking any action. Think about your feelings and where they’re coming from.
Social science research suggests that people tend to react with anger and irritation when confronted about their biases—particularly when those biases are accurately labeled as such. Although such interactions may be unpleasant, they also tend to lead to behavioral change, and so should be welcomed as opportunities for growth. Bias is a measurable condition, but it is not a permanent one, on either the individual or the organizational level. By acknowledging it we can counter it, expanding our pool of potential collaborators and improving financial performance.
Lemmy is already diverse, you just gotta find the right instance, or multiple instances! The whole point of joining your platform to the federation is for visibility and control
I don’t quite see how the choise of instance affects much of anything except for which other instances you’re able to interact with.
there’s a couples sites out there that will show you which instances are federating with each other and you can see a trend of lemmy instances effectively creating echo chambers with moderate viewpoint dominated instances driving nearly all of it.
if this trend continues, the fediverse will eventually go the same way that the other reddit diasporas went so i’m also looking for a new place; good luck fellow wanderer
Why so vague? I would be interested in this, but there is zero actionable information in your post.
the closest thing to actionable items is to identify with op’s experience and wish them good luck
Yeah it’s hard to say. Fark? HackerNews? Bluesky? Tildes? You’ll just have to try a bunch and see what catches on with you. You’re welcome to try Lemmy again anytime, so who’s to stop you from a break from it?
I’ve been saying for a year, Lemmy and the Fediverse is specifically designed to be like a series of echochambers, since the community, the moderation and local userbase are designed all around that. Ultimately, you have the freedom to choose who and what to allow and block yourself.
Personally I think you are subjecting yourself to grief by interacting with hexbear and lemmygrad but I’m not here to scold or police what you choose to do.
I think one major difference that can make your experience negative is that posts on Reddit can’t show below zero, and people here use the downvote button more often because they have strong feelings on a topic. In my experience on controversial topics you would have various threads where both sides of an argument receive downvotes which is a sign there are diverse perspectives. You just have to live with and not be bothered by a negative score, it means nothing. Some examples:
- Israel vs. Palestine narratives (Lemmy overall leans a little more toward Palestine but I’ve seen either get downvoted depending on community over the months)
- pro-Biden vs anti-Biden (this is a very controversial one and sure some of it is anti-American propaganda and “both sides are the same”-type of sealioning, still both perspectives get downvoted).
- Ukraine (this one is easy, you’re either on a community under .ml moderation or not, which determines the overall narrative)
This is all to say that the best way to get ‘diverse’ opinions on Lemmy is to hop around various communities, brace yourself for downvotes and just try to be genuine about it. For non-controversial content we all gotta do our part, speaking of which I haven’t posted much OC lately so I’ll get onto that soon in a couple days.
I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.
The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.
Reddit was the same way to be honestly.
I can understand what you mean. The prevailing narratives tend to be America bad, cars bad, capitalism bad, Linux good, on and on. But in the vein of how you assert that you don’t want people to assume what you believe, going into a community painting users with a broad brush is going to fill the gap with your pre-conceived biases, and that isn’t conducive to good discussion. I say give it a chance, even someone that writes along the lines of what you expect may still have a tiny sliver of something that surprises you. I look at some of the more notorious users like FlyingSquid, PugJesus, PP_BOY etc. and I’ve agreed with them and disagreed with them on various topics, even if they were in line with ‘the narrative’. Other users I attempt to converse and sometimes it works out while other times I have to stop at the 3rd reply.
I’m making an effort to be better, trying to curb the ratio of responses I do that have only memes and add more original thoughts or detailed opinions to my newer comments.
I’m kind of surprised you think reddit was any different from that!
I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.
On some conversations you might be better off seeing the score. Some people will agree in terms of a vote but aren’t going to back you up in the comments. I’ve had a few conversations where the comments are demoralizing and the score shows me I’m reaching at least some people (or vise versa).
Also, something I learned from Twitter and Reddit after engaging with people too much … sometimes the right answer is just to use the block button liberally and call it a day. Some people are not interested in discussion or good faith debate they just want to yell at people on the Internet and feel smart.
I had a person I bumped into saying (all of this paraphrasing) “the press has gone to shit” because of a headline and I was like “can we not be so dramatic this is a small website, surely a bad headline from a small operation is not a new thing” then they responded with “how many headlines do you see with X Y or Z even in those mainstream outlets? It’s all gone to shit.” I ran a few searches and found a rate of about 1 article per paper per year that met their alleged example… And then they said that was malicious compliance, I’d ignored their argument, and I wasn’t acting in good faith… Like mate, I just literally took 15 minutes to check your claim out and came back to tell you; how much more good faith do you want? That was a block, that person is clearly a total waste of time, and I don’t want to interact with their “doomerism.”
In a sense it’s a blessing lemmy is kind of small because blocking one loud person that has a lot of opinions that irritate you can go a long way.
The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.
I was definitely feeling this way a couple weeks ago … ironically the worst was the weekend my birthday fell on. It just felt like everything I came across was a hot take lacking nuance.
It comes and goes… Some weeks people can/will surprise you. Some topics… I think it’s better to just leave the mob alone and let them have their echo chamber.
Yeah I’m very familiar with the block button. Some might say even petty. My blocklist is around 600 users long.
I basically block everyone who demonstrate the incapability to have a civil discussion aswell as people that only shitpost. If someone posts something like “Fuck Elon” or “ACAB” etc. it’s instant block from me. Not because I disagree but because I’m not interested in seeing those kind of comments in my feed and I think it’s safe to assume that users who write comments like that likely aren’t interested in any kind of deep discussions or intellectual honesty.
It’s a blunt weapon and I’m knowingly filtering out a lot of valuable comments on other topics aswell but I don’t care. So far it doesn’t seem to affect the flow of new content in any way. Every now and then I notice a blocked person commenting something and I log out to see what it is and more often than not I’m satisfied with my decision to block.
Relatable
Having a good idea what opinions you’re likely to see doesn’t mean there’s no point to asking. Certain opinions being prevalent is expected in any community. Any time I make a post, I can be pretty sure there will be certain kinds of responses, but there are typically some that surprise me also.
If you find that the community mentality is so entrenched that people are hostile or disparaging, just block the most offensive profiles and move on with your day.
I block quite a few profiles every day. That’s just how it is these days, when charlatans can convince millions of people to vote and vehemently influence against their own self interest.
Tildes might work for you. Politics is a banned subject, but you’ll get polite discourse on most subjects.
I found it stifling, personally. But if you like overly verbose, overly polite discussions where all opinions are respected as long as it’s long winded and politely communicated, well, that’s your place.
There’s some irony to how good thread this turned out to be
Lemmy is a federation of servers. “Lemmy” is not one political group with one viewpoint. If you’re looking for different viewpoints, try different groups, or different servers.
In another comment you said this about the comments you read:
they’re made in bad faith
I don’t think this is true. I think that what you think is “bad faith” is actually “people who disagree with me”. So far, most users of Lemmy appear to trend politically left by American standards, but that’s only because American standards are so absurdly skewed to the right that it appears to stand out. By American standards, “truth” is left-wing.
Ask yourself what you’re actually looking for.
Also, I’ve spent time on Reddit, it was only bad faith arguments in controversial. Like bots pushing propaganda bad.
Agreed, I recall this.
The problem is that all of the big instances sorta line up the same way and anything that doesn’t please them gets defederated at the speed of light and comments and posts get removed. They have the control.
Pretty ridiculous the comments that were removed.
I don’t think there is one, unfortunately. I agree that lack of ideological diversity is a problem with the Fediverse in general, but it’s a problem that likely won’t go away unless the Fediverse becomes mainstream.
What kind of ideology would you like to see more? I mean I’ve stumbled onto the whole left-right spectrum here? Few/no fascists, ultra conservatives I guess?
Not really interested in discussing things with fascists, but I’ve rarely seen anyone here who’s to the right of, like, a milquetoast social democrat.
There’s a few of us further right than that, but when I was forced to cut back on reddit I realized that political discussion online was deleterious to my mental health. I resolved to not seek out or sub any political discussion communities on the new platform. A spontaneous discussion, sure, sometimes, but I can’t do it every day.
💯
And if that eventually happens, other problems will follow.
I kinda like it the way it is. I also use Reddit, so that kinda balances things out I guess.
It’s a problem with humanity.
We naturally silo ourselves into separate groups.
That is true, but I did find a lot of people on Twitter and Reddit who I could have productive and interesting disagreements with, even though I naturally mostly followed and subscribed to people and things I did agree with.
Nah, anything else (even free speech instances) will always get defederated from the “popular” ones.
We’re stuck like this forever.
How the actual fuck is the answer Reddit?
Because there is enough people to drown out all the people being paid by political parties to post here and offset the upvotes they buy.
The DNC has dozens of paid people on this platform and Because a post may only get 100 comments the people being paid can make it look like their opinion is the popular opinion.
I’m not sure if Lemmy has a large enough userbase to warrant paying shills to sway opinion.
What would the purpose of that be? Get 20-30 politically inactive Arch Linux users to vote for Biden?
Hey man, the Linux vote could be the swing factor .
/s
BREAKING NEWS:
BIDEN USES LINUX!
“Pls Help, VIM keeps me hostage”
The Secret Service is currently trying to free him.
Bro if you think the DNC even knows what Lemmy is, letalone is teying to influence it, then you need to check yourself into inpatient psychiatric care ASAP. Give me a fucking break LoL.
Shhh, don’t tell them about the secret paid Lemmy posting jobs. I’m up to 45 Soros bucks an hour posting about fully automated luxury gay space communism a few times a week. Don’t ruin this for me!
Lol you mad.
While I see a lot of posts that would have this problem, at least the discussion are a bit more balanced compared to when the same stuff would happen on Reddit. So for example fuck cars is about the same in terms of posts, but here I tend to see a bit more back and forth and a balanced perspective on how the comments are up voted. On Reddit, any comment vaguely questioning the circle jerk will be down voted into oblivion and receive nothing but angry replies.
The amount of apolitical posts is a bit disappointing though.
Honestly? It’s tricky to find communities that give you a spread.
I can recommend picking an instance that has a secondary alignment with you (for example, country/state), as they’ll tend to pick up posts in All that may be of interest other than politics.
(Though tbf, our instance still leans left on whole. Just not so crazily)
I’m not sure whether there can be an ideologically neutral social media platform at all. I think there will always be a significant proportion of users who are not interested in discussion, arguments and open minded exchange, but rather in seeing their world view confirmed by others or simply being part of a perceived in-group.
What’s more, the sheer mass of content makes an attention economy necessary so that one can deal with this flood of information. In my opinion, the content that is easy to consume will always prevail over content that looks at a topic in all its complexity (hardly anyone is willing/has the time to read up on it). So it’s often not about who has the better arguments or actually knows something about a topic, but about who sells their posts better. In this sense, it seems to me that social media in general is not really social, but to a large extent a competition for attention.
I am not aware of any platform that could solve these problems. In my opinion, this is not really the aim, as pretty much all platforms are not really about objective information, but rather about passing the time and entertainment. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t find good discussions and serious information. But I think that this kind of content will never be the main focus of any social media plattform. The fediverse approach seems like a good try to me tho, because there can be “special interest instances” that can make their own rules to focus on whatever they are about.
I think there’s a significant difference between “neutral” and “diverse”.
For example, Reddit is big enough that if you find yourself holding an unpopular opinion in some particular subreddit and you’re getting battered with downvotes, you can probably find some other similar subreddit that’s more friendly to whatever view you’ve got that’s drawing ire. People speak derisively of “bubbles” and “echo chambers”, but really, why should I stick around and try to engage with people who just don’t want you around? Communities naturally tend to segregate themselves along ideological lines like this.
Here on the Fediverse the population’s too small to support quite so many diverse communities yet, unfortunately. So if you’ve got an unpopular minority view you can end up stuck with either routinely finding yourself serving as a punching bag or just not posting. That’s no fun.
Yes, that’s probably true. For me, however, neutrality presupposes diversity - at least to a certain degree. As in the maxim of quality journalism: the assumption here is that a journalist can never be truly objective. This is why an attempt is made to allow opposing perspectives on a topic to have their say, so that the reader or viewer can form their own opinion.
Of course, this principle does not work in an environment in which differing opinions or perspectives are generally unwelcome. This is probably the case with Lemmy and other Fediverse applications for some topics. But I think that this doesn’t just apply to the Fediverse, but to social media in general. It seems to me just as you say: if you only encounter rejection on a platform, in a community or on an instance if you disagree with the majority, you will move elsewhere - which in turn will probably lead to you eventually finding yourself in an environment where the majority of others are of the same opinion.
Of course, it would be highly desirable if people were more open-minded, but I’m afraid that’s a utopia. In any case, I don’t have the impression that the advent of social media has fundamentally brought open exchange forward.
On the contrary, I have the impression that political discourse in many countries, for example, is now characterized by the very strategies that make social media posts successful: the abbreviated presentation of complex contexts, the invocation of enemy stereotypes, sometimes even straight-up trolling. But perhaps this is just a perception error on my part.
Kbin interacts with Lemmy and seems to me to contain reasonable people willing to have respectful discussions
speak for yourself nerd
Yeah that too, though this issue is the most prevalent on certain .ml instances and can be avoided by not commenting there to begin with.
Absolutely. There’s a small handful of sites full of insufferable stalinists. Thank god I didn’t discover Lemmy when I was 14, I might have been swallowed right up.
Just block those instances, your experience will be better immediately. And don’t hesitate to block individual users, even if they’re not breaking any rules or anything. Finding something to be annoying is plenty of reason not to want it as part of your internet experience.
I don’t mind extremists as long as they’re intellectually honest and willing to have a good-faith discussion and don’t just immediately attack you personally when you challenge their beliefs. One of the biggest issues here is that when you bring up a point people immediately draw conclusions about you and then they reply as if you really are this caricature of the “other” that they’re imagining.
And yeah I’m very familiar with the block feature. My blocklist is around 600 users long. I’ve blocked like 3 people already today and it’s only 9am.
Without the slightest hint of sarcasm or irony, this made me want to give you a hug.
Can I join in on that hug?
The more, the merrier!
That’s the solution.
I think the .ml ones are tailored to be extreme opinions in one direction
