Do you think the mostly limited range of political views is a *strength* or a *weakness* of Lemmy? (For example, in terms of attracting new users.)
from crimeschneck@feddit.nl to fediverse@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 17:23
https://feddit.nl/post/25254183
from crimeschneck@feddit.nl to fediverse@lemmy.world on 12 Dec 17:23
https://feddit.nl/post/25254183
Sure, there are always outliers and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s just the overall impression I have.
(I wasn’t sure if !asklemmy@lemmy.world or this community would fit better for this kind of question, but I assume it fits here.)
threaded - newest
On Lemmy.world it’s a weakness. Your instance may vary
Mostly mixed. The way i think it’s a weakness is because I’m an anti authoritarian leftist, and i’d like a stronger anarchist/libertarian community on lemmy. Despite hexbear/lemmygrad/lemmy thriving, Solarpunk and dbzer0 feel a little lacking community wise. I’d also like a diverse political community, in general.
Another con is that if you even just disagree with a [bastard] moderator, they’ll immediately ban you. Happens on lemmy.world with being anti-zionist, happens on lemmy.ml under the guise of ‘rule 1’ for literally just criticizing a mod such as dessalines.
But i also think it’s a pro due to the lack of far-right content on lemmy. I remember on reddit casually seeing disgusting content, such as blatant racism (Such as arabs being called sand n-rs, Or racism against asians/immigrants in general on r/canada + r/europe) and most of that is obscure on lemmy.
I’m not denying that the Lemmy community doesn’t have problems, Lord no. But it’s much better than most other platforms.
Haha ML loves to ban you for even the slightest challenge of their views.
Don’t even need to challenge it. Just criticize a mod, and you’re banished to the void lmao
Talking about Yogthos eh?
Don’t forget our dear Dessalines, he’s a very sensitive one.
Because everyone knows, the best response when your lack of sources is met with sources is just “🤡”
The type of anarchism that says, “You must agree with my anarchism, and if you have some incorrect view, I’ll use my powers to remove you from the space” is not actually anarchism. It’s actually strikingly reminiscent of how the Russian implementation of communism had nothing to do with worker-led socialism that it was branded as. They implemented freedom by declaring themselves the arbiters of what were the allowed types of freedom and ruthlessly repressing anything else, which isn’t how it works.
In general, I think it’s a myth that if you disagree with liberal orthodoxy on lemmy.world, you’ll be banned. Plenty of people on lemmy.world constantly criticize the liberal orthodoxy and it’s fine. The people purporting the myth are either:
The occasional whining about how unfair it is that you can’t post anti-Israel stories on lemmy.world, for example, is nothing to do with reality, but is instead a disguised yearning for a space where you can’t post pro-Israel stories, and the mods will enforce that political viewpoint using their powers so the speaker can feel comfortable because all they see is things that they already agree with.
I’ve skimmed the lemmy.world modlog, and it seems you seem to be right. That was a bad example.
But my point was moreso on the stubbornness of mods. For example, if i suggest that China is bad on lemmy.ml, that’ll get me a ban under the guise of “rule 1”. Why? it’s not against the rules, it’s not bigoted or racist.
If i write controversial, or even bigoted comments, then that’s another story. I was criticizing power tripping mods that ban users if they personally disagree with them, instead of actually break the rules
Yeah, those mods are bad, and they definitely exist including unapologetically on the tankie instances. I was just saying that the mirror-image bad mod, who will delete anything anti-Israel, is almost entirely a self-serving myth by a selected group that likes to pretend.
On the other hand, if someone repeats a lie often enough, doesn't that make it true? :-P
I absolutely think that’s the idea, yes.
The world is a complicated place. Part of the optimization our brain does, to even be able to make sense of it at all without being overwhelmed, is to absorb things that you see other people saying to each other, and incorporate them into how you see the world. So I’m always interested when I see a variety of people all saying the same thing, even though that thing is demonstrably not true if you think for yourself for a few seconds.
In this case I think it’s just some kind of internal cope that they’re doing for themselves, and the repetition leading to other people potentially absorbing it is purely accidental, but it’s still a dangerous pattern.
I tend to love reading your comments - they are insightful and deep:-).
When people behave identically as a "bot" would - passing along what it has heard, without thinking twice or even so much as once about it - they can act as part of that same, dark anti-pattern. Except the danger is so much more real then b/c they "genuinely" hold their belief?
I thought that a lot of it was due to enshittification reasons to maximize profit incentive, e.g. making it hard to "search" on Reddit, yet exceedingly easy to "post", while at the same time making it harder to read the community rules prior to doing so, all to maximize "engagement". But it seems more related to human nature, which will never change.
Hey, thank you! Yeah. The nature of the network can induce people to behave nice or behave mean, and to put a lot or a little effort into the stuff they are posting. I think a lot of the anonymity and ease-of-getting-on of the modern Lemmy-type internet means that you get kind of the lowest common denominator of human nature. It’s unfortunately true of commercial networks as it is of free ones.
And either way, it takes effort tp fight against those natural inclinations.
It’s a weakness. We need more anti-authoritarians here for sure. And even conservatives if nothing else so they can represent their own opinions rather than just laughing at straw-man versions of what neolibs want to say they think. I have moments I hate it here but there’s nowhere good to go and I guess I add a little diversity.
I disagree with the conservatives part. Their ideology does not deserve a place at the adults’ table. It is far too bent on undermining democracy, equity, and egalitarian society.
EDIT: To clarify, this is elementary “Paradox of Tolerance”. Those that wish to undermine democracy in an equitable society cannot be tolerated without making an end to democracy inevitable. Not all opinions are created equal. For example: “I think trans people should receive additional state-funded support.” and “I think that trans people should be murdered and/or the state should cultivate an environment amplifying their likelihood to commit suicide.” (the prevailing view expressed by the far-right through their actions and legislation) are opinions that should not be given equal treatment.
Yep, paradox of tolerance. We shouldn’t bend over for far-right, or even fascists for the sake of “pure tolerance”.
Saying, “I don’t like what they say so they shouldn’t have a voice” sounds a lot like undermining democracy to me. Them living in conservative echo chambers doesn’t increase dialog or challenge their beliefs either. Divided media and divided opinions are the tools to take down a nation. Supporting this kind of division strikes me as an example of the main kind of foreign interference this country is crumbling because of. If that was your goal, I guess congratulations?
Paradox of Tolerance. Those that intend to undermine a just and equitable society that tolerates the existence of all kinds of people cannot be tolerated.
But do we actually wait until we see how people think, or just silence them based on their opinion on one or twy divisive issues as a litmus test to justify our own intolerance? “They don’t support trans women in women sports so none of their opinions are valid.”
It’s, unfortunately, very subjective. A statement like that could be from a place of ignorance that they are willing to dig into and grow as a person. Any judgement has to include whether good faith is intended, etc. Conservativism itself is incompatible with motion towards a more just world, as rigid hierarchy is part of its core, and it is also an ideology rife with bad faith actors. Giving extra space for such an ideology that already has a far louder voice than it should have does not result in anything productive.
I’m sorry but libertarians and ancaps are just proto-feudalists that may like to smoke weed.
I agree. I should have specified, i meant left-libertarianism.
That's one thing that I've been both disappointed and surprised to not see.
The anarchist community on Reddit is fairly large, but not very anarchist. There's a very strong authoritarian bent to their claimed anarchism. I had hopes that the nature of this place would invite a community that was anarchist not only in name but in spirit, but I've seen surprisingly little sign of that, or even really of anarchism at all.
Absolutely yes. Anarchists on reddit were largely only anarchist by name, and we don’t even have a proper community here. And anarchist communities on instances such as lemmy.ml are even worse, to be honest. Most political representation on lemmy is for authoritarian leftists, where’s the love for anarchy :(
db0 is real anarchists, as far as I can tell. Because they are not overbearing about it, it’s harder to be aware of them.
I think by definition, it’s easier to be aware of the “official” self-identified anarchist communities than the ones that are just doing their own thing.
I assumed that they were at least anarchism-adjacent - it's pretty much a prerequisite for the bulk of their focus.
I hadn't really looked into their political posting much though, and yeah - even with just a cursory glance, it's promising.
And I hadn't thought about that distinction between people who simply hold a position and people who "officially" wear the label in the context of anarchism (though I've noted it often with atheists), but yeah, there's undoubtedly some truth there.
Thanks for the heads-up.
The slrpnk admins, as far as I can tell, stand in the same relationship to anarchism that your average megachurch organization does with Christianity.
If all you look at is the words, it looks like they’re supporting it.
FYI: gui.fediseer.com/instances/safelisted?tags=anarch…
Weakness, definitely. The range of “permitted” ideas is way too narrow.
I tend to agree with most common political stances on Lemmy, but still I feel I’m self-censoring occasionally.
Many instances intentionally want an echo chamber. Posts and comments are often deleted even if they’re not abusive, if they are ideologically opposed.
What ideas do you want to see more of?
The problem doesn’t seem to be that instances want to cater to a unique political group (that’s why we have federation) It’s that most instances cater to the same or similar groups. I think in general it’s better that instances are differentiated by political beliefs. For example, i don’t like Hexbear. I just block it. But if hexbear and solarpunk were a single instance, i wouldn’t be able to separate the good and the bad.
But i agree that separating yourself too much from other ideas is bad, and echo chambers are bad in general.
It’s definitely a weakness. There is an entire spectrum of personal beliefs, but wherever you are, if yours don’t align with the mods you get censored. Reality is every new users first week is finding out where they ‘belong’ and this both discourages new users, and creates detrimental echo chambers.
If your “personal beliefs” entail persecuting others for their ethnic origin, sexual orientation or gender identity, you can fuck right off. Otherwise you won’t have any trouble fitting in here.
In my experience, there’s only been a handful of mods and an equally small number of instances where I feel that is likely to happen, but for the most part it seems most mods have a pretty light touch. I’ve only had one negative experience with a mod, personally, and I post quite a bit.
For people saying it’s a weakness because it causes or is caused by censorship from the mods, are you directly experiencing it? If yes, on which instance?
I got involved in a few heated discussions with members, but I was never bothered by any moderator/admin. I’m not sure if this is due to my views (anarchism / libertarian communism) but I don’t think so since they are not the ones of the main instances I roam (.world which seems quite soc-dem to me and all the tankies one).
To me all of this seems like an overall positive thing : the lack of hardcore far right dudes is a big plus, and I don’t think the political views can really influence the quality and quantity of content you can propose otherwise (which is to my eyes why there is not that much people here). Like I don’t think rightwing people will flee from Lemmy because of the political thing, but like i think most people do: mostly because there is not that many people and therefore that many content to begin with. But there again, I never directly experienced or witnessed political censorship or exclusion, and it seems a common experience so i might not have the best point of view.
I was banned on slrpnk because I said that Trump coming to power would be a dangerous thing for the world, people in Gaza included, and asked some questions about the point of view that was being expressed.
slrpnk.net/post/14823401
ponder.cat/modlog/2765?page=1&actionType=All&user…
To me, the issue isn’t that we need to make a safe space for MAGA. Those people tend to be so obnoxious that there doesn’t even need to be a special rule for them to keep them out. The issue is that a lot of moderators seem to be nominating themselves the bosses of which are the permitted ideologies for people to talk about. Slrpnk does this, lemmy.ml does this. A lot of the niche “leftist” communities do it to anyone who’s a mainstream liberal.
Some of the big lemmy.world communities also do their own brand of bad moderation, but it’s usually not ideological, it’s just stupid.
Oh. The mods on that “anarchist” comm are bad faith actors and I doubt that they are actually anarchists - more likely authoritarian wreckers. The only things that they liked before the election was spreading tankie, anti-Biden, and anti-electoralist/accelerationist propaganda. For example, they would post anti-Biden op-eds then ban anyone who disagreed or pointed out that accelerationism has literally never had a positive outcome in recorded human history for “electioneering”.
That’s an interesting theory… I think there are some selected mods who are exactly that, but I don’t think that’s exclusive to slrpnk. One of my little conspiracy theories is that those bad actors got really good on Reddit at how to “take over” a subreddit so they can start bending it to be the way they want it to be, and I think a couple of the slrpnk mods have wormed their way into the good graces of the admins there and then used the anarchism as cover for pushing authoritarian agendas. I guess it’s possible that the slrpnk mod community as a whole is bad-faith actors, but I don’t think so.
I got curious about that one slrpnk mod who I tangled with who was pushing Green Party propaganda and deleting my comments about it, and just checked to see what he’s been up to since the election. My guess was that he would have switched to pushing “hard anarchism,” violence, reasons to hate the right wing, guns, things like that to stoke division. Nope. It’s been total crickets.
Turns out his passion for anarchism was fueled by the election, and since it’s over, he hasn’t had as much of a reason to be passionate about it. He posted 5 articles a few days ago, and right after the election he got in some kind of argument about the election which wound up getting a bunch of his comments removed, but other than that, no anarchism or participation of any kind. Weird how that works.
That’s exactly what I think. I don’t think that it’s slrpnk as a whole but that anarchism comm on the instance had very problematic mods (who have indeed gone silent, pretty much proving that they were bad faith actors). They constantly acted to spread propaganda and silence anyone who disagreed. IIRC, one even all but outted themselves as a state actor. They’re all quiet now because they got what they wanted; successfully sewing enough discord in anarchist and other anti-authoritarian communities to prevent critical mass or embrace of effective strategies for positive societal change.
Yeah. I think they’re pretty good at exploiting tribal thinking, such that “he’s an anarchist just like us” or “he’s a vegan just like us” leads people to rally around someone, and overlook weird things that they’re doing.
Okay thanks for sharing your experience, it seems indeed a very good example of how bad it can be Thanks also for the explanation about the instance in the answer
Normally I'd say it was a weakness but the right has significantly departed from reality in most countries for way too long now. It's incredibly rare to find a right-winger who can be present in a discussion without spewing a whole lot of vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit.
So I find their absence refreshing, desirable and a strength of Lemmy.
I find the same on the left wing. Everytime I put out a slightly right wing position I get attacked and a ton of down votes.
Every time anyone mentions on Lemmy right wing positions it is with only to attack a strawman version that is very removed from what most right wing people think/do.
Downvotes can’t actually hurt you.
Personally, I’m fine with saying unpopular things and getting downvoted for it. Mods removing a disallowed viewpoint is something different.
They will only do that if the opinion actually resonates lol
Haha yes, that’s usually the issue. I talked down below about getting banned on slrpnk because of some things I was saying. The comment thread with all the highly-upvoted replies getting removed by the mod, and the downvoted stuff intact, is hilarious to me:
slrpnk.net/post/14823401/11895951
The same mod also had a habit of arguing with people, while removing their comments but leaving his own side of the argument intact. He’s still a moderator there. In my opinion slrpnk needs to spend less time talking about anarchism and more time embodying anarchism.
well you did kinda invade their safe space with common sense ideas, shit lord hehe
“We’re anarchists.”
“Cool. Here’s an urgent problem I see for the world that I think we should work on.”
“SHIT COCK GET OUT DISALLOWED We don’t say that here. You’re receiving a gentle ban, to think about what you’ve done. Be better.”
That's the current modding situation across any community focused on working class politics... as if people running them are not interested in helping the peasants.
Why would anyone act like that on social media... for free at that
Oh my god… This is spot on. I feel like everyone here is mostly larping.
This moderator behavior here is exactly what you’d see on reddit lol
I use solarpunk and disappointed that it happened to you. I felt like solarpunk was the best instance Lemmy has, it feels like it has the least amount of echo chamber. Maybe I’m wrong.
I moderate my own community in solarpunk and I will try my best to not be like the moderator you talk about
I think you will see that these accusations have little substance, are taken out of context and argued in bad faith 🤷♂️
All I’ve done is link to the comments section illustrating what I was saying had happened, had happened.
Here he is, arguing with people while removing their comments and leaving his comments in place: slrpnk.net/post/14823401/11894346
I have no idea why you’re defending this guy. Like I said, the communities that try to “protect” their points of view, saying that one viewpoint is permitted in their space but other ones are will get you banned, generally become laughingstocks over time. It’s very different from protecting against abuse or racism, when you “protect” your space against people who don’t agree with some particular detail the way some particular person has interpreted it, and appoint an arbiter of what are the allowed interpretations, to ban anyone they disagree with. I think you should abandon that practice, and the censorship of ideas you disagree with, if you want to say that you’re supporting an instance that respects individual human freedom.
I don’t really have a problem with you in general, I was a little bit surprised that you came out swinging to defend this moderator. Maybe this all sounds like sour grapes on my part, but that is usually the result of banning people for disagreeing with you. It sparks a surprising amount of resentment.
We already explained in detail why we supported their moderation decision and you bringing it up again without providing the necessary context in which this happened is just bad faith shit slinging hoping some of it sticks.
That “explained in detail” is your interpretation. In most non-authoritarian communities, nobody has a monopoly on providing the blessed correct interpretation of what happened. I wasn’t even speaking to why I was moderated or the interpretations on the part of the slrpnk people that led to it, just what happened. You can provide your interpretation of the events and the reasons why I was temp banned, sure.
slrpnk.net/post/14823401
In my opinion, the broader context is that if someone wants to say their opinion, it’s okay if they disagree with someone. It’s not an “attack” and people don’t need to be “defended” against seeing enemy points of view, as long as they’re reasonable. You seem to have a different context you like to frame things in, where a post with 10 comments needs to be locked and half the comments removed if they are expressing an incorrect point of view. Like I keep saying, I think you are expressing anarchist trappings while violating anarchist principles in how you run your instance, and also creating a bad reputation for your instance, when you do that. You do you, though.
That thread is wild. I had no clue slrpunk was like that (I only go to some non-political communities on slrpunk).
I don’t think slrpnk is “bad” necessarily. The vibe I get is that there’s one terrible moderator who the admins are standing up for, because they think he’s an anarchist, and they’ve absorbed the general Lemmy dark pattern that it’s okay for a moderator to prune the comments to reflect only the “correct” ideology. But basically aside from that one bad interaction, I really have no problem with slrpnk in general.
Don’t get me wrong, I recognize it’s a solid instance and I am going to continue engaging in their communities.
Just the admin reaction was a bit strange. I think mods/admins need to try and take a neutral position as much as possible (exceptions notwithstanding).
Yeah. Sounds right. Me giving them a hard time is intended in the spirit of tough love. One part “hey, you guys are messing up, if you want people to take you seriously I think you should stop doing this” and one part unapologetic “if you didn’t want me telling stories about you censoring me, you shouldn’t have deleted my comments and banned me when I disagreed with your moderator. In any sane community, you’re allowed to disagree with the moderator, and I would like to be vocal to protect my right to do so.”
I know you’re not the same moderator they were talking about, but I just want to make you aware of this: ponder.cat/comment/1193264
This is not the first time this is discussed and bringing it up out of context is just bad-faith arguing.
I started out aiming to talk about the issue without reference to any past drama, but then someone specifically asked, “censorship from the mods, are you directly experiencing it? If yes, on which instance?” and specifically as related to anarchist points of view. Before today, I’d pretty much forgotten about the whole thing, but it’s a pretty valid and interesting question and so I sent some of the citations about when it happened to me.
I can feel through the screen how much you would like to be able to just order me not to be able to discuss this anymore, since my view is officially “incorrect” according to you. Fortunately, that’s not how it works.
Sorry but these age old troll tactics of baiting me into a response to these completely unfounded accusations will not work 😜
You keep dismissing said person as a troll, yet I feel like they have a point
They are misrepresenting the facts and arguing in bad faith. Very typical concern trolling.
Engage with the points or move on. This whole “i won’t be baited” reeks of so much hubris and but hurt
What are you talking about… This is the experience of most of us that dare slightly disagree on anything. It shouldn’t be this way
They don't hurt, but they still do not feel nice.
Just remember that the first person to say the world went around the sun got downvoted into oblivion… but it is factually accurate and a giant leap towards out current understanding of the physical realm. I’m happy for people to disagree with my views. Fuck, I probably disagreed with half of them, thirty years ago.
You're comparing downvotes with "vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit". The behavior I'm talking about isn't hurtful in the social-rejection way that downvotes are, it goes way way beyond that. Can you see the difference?
I empathize, as a human being you have to realize that it is YOU that has to use politics as a tool & NOT BECOME a tool of Politics (Do you get what I mean) Use both Right & Left policies, I think it was called Moderatism or Communitarianism
It would help if you would be more precise. You are using a "feels like" statement here, which I have to disagree with b/c it is objectively false: all it would take would be to find a singular example wherein it was not true, at which point "every time" is shown to be invalid.
But *often* that does occur, yes. Sometimes our choice of wording can impede rather than aid in understanding?
And I say this as someone who seems to be more often misunderstood than not, go figure :-|.
I'm sure a counter example exists, but I've been around for year and not seen it yet. Though I'll accept that the exception probably exists.
Please… this is a serious display of availability bias.
Let’s face it: the demographic here is just a hyper concentrated version of Reddit, which itself is mostly middle-upper class tweenagers from affluent countries. They get online and get convinced that everyone is just like them.
The average person that hangs out on Reddit-like forums absolutely does not represent the population at large, and any “right-winger who can be present in a discussion without spewing a whole lot of vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit” has learned that there is no way one can have a reasonable exchange of ideas in any forum like this.
There are many right wingers here, not conservatives. Liberals are right wing, and lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works are mainly liberal instances.
What rimu was mainly talking about are conservatives, or even far right users. So he wasn’t criticizing the whole right wing, he just used the term right wing to refer to those.
Case closed.
They are? i’m not sure where you live, but most of the world considers them to be right wing.
Yep. I’m fiscally conservative, mildly sympathetic to people who fear and resist change, and fond of the pragmatic pursuit of libertarian ideals, where that’s possible.
I also feel that how others do sex is none of my damn business, taxes supporting social services are necessary, and equitably applied rule of law is critical for any real economic prosperity.
On the scale of history, I suspect that makes me centrist or even a moderate conservative.
In my country, and today, somehow, astonishingly, this combination makes me what most would call very left leaning.
I feel that the right has gone insane and continues to alienate people who might otherwise have been allies.
Let me guess, the US? The only people i’ve ever heard call liberals something as BS as far-left communists are conservative americans. The overton window in america is so ridiculous it’s hilarious.
No. Liberalism is against most things that the right wing of the political spectrum explicitly stands for. Liberalism exists as a counter argument to conservatism. As I mentioned earlier US political language has twisted and distorted what these words really mean.
I’m assuming you’re talking in a US perspective.
Leftism describes a spectrum of political ideologies that seeks to minimize hierarchies and desires to achieve equality and egalitarianism. Liberalism is a pro-capitalist ideology, and capitalism is hierarchial and is unequal. Thus, liberalism is right wing. Progressivism isn’t related to right or left wing. You can be a communist but socially conservative. You can be fiscally conservative and be progressive. In the US, being left wing or right wing is mainly measured on how progressive, or if you support social programs (a little leftist, but still can be right wing, just center-right). Liberalism is right wing. Conservatism is far right.
No. I’m not talking from a US perspective. I’m talking from a political perspective. Liberalism is a moral and political philosophy - that is available in more than one flavour. Many things liberalism stands for are incompatible with right wing governments. Conservatism is far right? No, fascism is far right and there is an enormous difference between being conservative and being a fascist. Right and left are both part of a spectrum and run the whole gamut from dipping your toe in the water to being fully submerged. It’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
The whole left and right label is very ambiguous and hard for me to define. I agree liberalism is an umbrella term for a variety of political ideologies. I was mainly talking about classic liberalism, while it seems that you are talking about social liberalism. Social liberalism, at most, is center left. So is social democracy. I was mainly thinking about neoliberalism, and such.
Again, no. I was talking about John Locke and David Lloyd George type characters - to suggest that the last Liberal party prime minister of the UK was to the right of the political spectrum was an interesting take I’d never heard before.
Seems that I am not as educated as you on liberalism. I focus more on socialist ideologies rather than liberalism or other ideologies, So I’ll give this one to you.
Have a great weekend :)
I’m no expert - it’s just that the (UK) liberal party merged with a left of centre party, the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and were briefly called the SDLP; before rebranding to the Liberal Democrats. They are still left of centre.
I think a lot of the liberal views towards capitalism can only be seen through the context of trying to humanise the inherent framework of capitalism. I think you’re correct that they never looked beyond existing within capitalism and therefore perhaps ultimately paid a price for that.
Thanks for the weekend wishes, same to you.
I know it’s comfortable to sit and call anything slightly right of ultra socialism as ‘right wing’ but a spectrum exists.
To conflate republican evangelical dominionist Christians with liberals is peak hubris.
There is a saying: ‘when you’re a hammer, every problem is a nail’. When you reduce everything to class warfare you’re not engaging in an effective discourse to reduce harm in the world. You’re just pontificating on the merits of socialism, which yea, we all agree are neat. But so what? You think folding everyone else into a basket gives you credence or helps the discourse in any way?
I wasn’t conflating. Conservatives are not liberals. But they are both right wing. (at least, classical liberals are)
And there is more than just class warfare, i agree.
But so what? why does it matter that they are right wing? not everyone has to be a communist.
The term left and right are very ambiguous to define in the first place. Some people argue that leftism is anti-capitalism. Some argue that leftism is just belief in equality. They are all right. Same thing with the right wing.
I think my issue is with the usage of the phrase “right wing” because we need something scathing to label liberals. It doesn’t really contribute anything to the discourse except create layers of exclusion.
Liberalism, broadly, is not interested in supporting or enabling hierarchies. The only thing they share in common with right wing conservatism is the ownership of private property -but that’s it. So lumping them all in the same bucket isn’t doing much for anyone except creating more exclusion at the risk of pushing forward socialist policies. The reality is liberals are probably more likely to favor equality, even if it’s just ideological. Shouldn’t we strive to bring more people on board and build bridges rather than continue this bizarre war of artrition?
Wikipedia: Right Wing Politics
My intent was not to cause division, I originally meant to clear things up for the user I was originally replying to, but things quickly descended into arguing about semantics. I agree that we should all work together to eliminate the rising threat of far right, fascist parties worldwide. That is what we should be focusing on.
I’m tired over me bikeshedding, So i’m just going to forfeit out of this argument.
Have a great weekend
We don’t have to have an argument over it. It’s ok to have a conversation. I’m familiar with the ‘liberals are right wing’ talking point.
I’m just trying to understand what exactly it is that defines ‘right wing’ and how we define ‘liberalism’ . You’re right, it IS a semantic discussion, but clearly the implication is that liberalism is on par with being right wing. So, nonetheless, a semantic relabeling which is not devoid of consequences.
So I’m wondering, at what point do those two overlap (liberalism and right wing politics)? Is it the right to private property? Beyond that, what exactly makes liberalism ‘right wing’?
I should have specified, i was talking about classical liberalism. Social liberals are center-left to left wing.
The way i see it, the barebones definition of right wing and left wing is that leftism supports minimization, or abolishment of hierarchy, and equality, both class and social. You don’t have to be 100% of all these points to be left wing, just a degree of it.
The right wing believes that hierarchies are natural, and inevitable, or even desirable. They believe inequality is natural, due to social differences. Most of them believe that authority is good (not exclusive to right wing politics, there are authoritarian leftist ideologies) with libertarians and ancaps being an exception.
Classical liberals believe in free market, and generally have negative views on social services, taxes, and such.
Social liberals believe in a mixed economy, and favour social services, and believe in social justice (also class equality, but not a huge talking point for them). I think this makes them center, and at most, center-left (See social democracy or the nordic model). What makes them different than socialists and communists is that they are not quite radical in comparison to them, socialists desire to minimize wealth inequality (and inequality in general. politically, socially, etc) as much as possible.
Another point that you brought up is private property. I think this is also a defining factor on why I think liberals tend to be more right leaning.
You can still believe in markets, and be far left. Socialism, is when the workers own the means of production. It’s a pretty barebones definition, which makes it possible to have free markets, AND socialism. See Mutualism, Market Socialism, and Titoism
I agree with all of this. However, and I could be wrong, my understanding of classic liberalism is that it was never directly opposed to regulation or social services. My initial understanding is that it’s by necessity tied to free markets and private property.
But if it is then I’m learning something new.
Maybe not, but nowadays, most are. And you are correct, they believe in free markets and private property, with little regulation.
Yea you know what: I stand corrected. Classic liberalism is closely aligned with conservatism in the sense that it is shuttered from regulation. My mind is on the social liberal aspect.
Your points about social bubbles and echo chambers are true, but experiencing the displeasure of having to routinely interact with rightwingers in person verifies that they have fully-fledged conviction in their “vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit”. They can’t have a reasonable exchange of ideas because they bring nothing reasonable or empathetic to the table.
Maybe lemmy will grow over time to include more types of people.
Social unrest may evolve this network faster than expected, in particular ways that are not foreseen. So, in my mind there are two paths for lemmy. A stable growth or chaotic .
Edit : unrest in any country that has a lot of lemmy users if alternative social networks clamp down or are unsafe to use
reddit appears to have started to clean up discussions re current event. Looks like government and media push started yesterday, socials are following today. The Regime is clearly not happy.
Sit at a table with Nazis and you just make more nazis
That’s literally not true.
Even Daryl Davis says that there’s more Nazis every day
newsweek.com/daryl-davis-black-lives-matter-kkk-r…
Honestly, especially recently I feel like this place has been just a big Opinion Bubble/Echo Chamber and as someone who values trying to avoid these types of Bubbles and wanting to see what other opinions may look like this has consistently been one of my Biggest Issues with Lemmy. Not to mention that making it really hard to honestly recommend Lemmy to outsiders
Deposed CEO or health insurance grift?
It's a weakness in the sense that there are times this place turns into a straight-up echo chamber...
But when there is actual debate going on, it tends to be a lot more civil than on other sites (most of the time)
Yeah hasn’t been helpful for getting a sense for the minds of the masses but generally a lot more grounded than reddit
Also though echo chambers are bad most of the time for most people, occasionally they help in challenging our own beliefs but only when engaged critically.
I'm here because I DON'T want to have to read fucked up opinions. People here are mostly nice compared to mainstream platforms.
I'm all for difference of opinion, but not when one of those opinions is "we should oppress LGBT people" for example. 10-15 years ago, I'd have been more receptive to discussing opposing opinions, but shit has changed. A lot of those opposing opinions are now simply unacceptable to even entertain, because they've become a real, actual threat to my well-being. People aren't discussing tax policy anymore, they are discussing imposing states of emergency to do some kind of purge on undesirables.
Some people call it an echo chamber, I just call it chilling and having fun with like-minded people. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what forums have always been.
Try disagreeing with the hive mind. Anyone can be nice to someone who echo’s their own opinion. The real niceness of a person is revealed when they can show civility to people they disagree with (I’m not talking about LGBTQ oppressors or Nazis…there’s a huge spectrum of opinions that aren’t extreme).
I’m on BlueSky on top of IceShrimp because anything better than Twitter is good to use at this point.
Let’s see how downvoted I get.
I’m also on BlueSky as well as Mastodon, because BlueSky has the momentum right now, and critical mass is important.
In that same vein, I wish you’d treat LW as you do any other instance. We’re not hostile to other instances, and I think there’s a healthy balance right now. It doesn’t hurt Lemmy to have a bigger, more mainstream instance. I think defederation solely for the sake of defederation does hurt Lemmy.
I never advocated for defederation of LW, just for more decentralization rather than have 90% of the active communities on LW.
You never answered my latest comment: lemmy.world/comment/13624614
What prevents you from locking !television@lemmy.world, redirect to !showsandmovies@lemm.ee, and get that community more active?
I can even make you or any other LW mod mod of that community too, I’m not attached to being a mod, I just want communities to flourish on other instances as well.
Because besides monthly active users, LW has 4,600 subscribers where lemm.ee has 537. It’s not a clear cut case.
What good is 4600 subscribers when 754 are active?
I just checked the updated numbers, now it’s 2.57k monthly active users for lemm.ee vs 958 on LW.
On !showsandmovies@lemm.ee, we actively build the community, we have a best of 2024 post, we opened the moderation posts to any person willing to help, while you keep that community unmoderated with 2 bots as mods.
Really, I just don’t understand. What are you afraid of? I’m pretty sure that !mapporn@lemmy.world had more subs than !map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz when it was locked down, but it was still okay, because the activity was happening on the sopuli instance.
I just checked, !electricvehicles@lemmy.world has more subscribers than !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net , but the slrpnk community was still chosen when the consolidation happened: lemm.ee/post/46935805
If you’re afraid about losing the people, you just pin a post, point to the new community, similar to !casualconversation@lemmy.world, and that’s it.
I did everything fair. “Not happy with the community? Create your own, and become the better one!”. I did, everything, and while we’ve had success, the LW staying open hinders the growth of that topic as a whole.
You ask me to treat LW as any other instance, but no other instance is reacting in that way, preferring to keep some of their communities open when other people actively try to build an active community on a topic that apparently only a few people are interested in anyway.
lemmy.world/post/23079780
Thank you! 🙏
I don’t know. I am still as opinionated and difficult as I ever was on Reddit, but I also turn it around, display civility, and cede points far more often here. Maybe I’m becoming better, but I think it’s just a better situation overall.
The version of someone you invite in the door determines the initial trajectory of how that person will act in the community. You can invite in the leading edge of someone’s developing kindness or invite in the ossifying mass of their nature that is threatening to turn hateful and uncaring. No one instance of invitation to a new person (however that may happen, formally or informally) pushes the needle far either way within any one particular person (though sometimes it can radically do so) but the overall integrated effect is a moderate shift of the an entire community towards the better or worse version of the community members. When this effect is used for good people often describe the resulting community space as a community that accepts them for who they are or more succintly is a genuinely safe space.
Of course, every interaction is in an invitation in some small way, it doesn’t just happen once.
I’ve received way more bitter and raged out responses here than I’ve ever received on Reddit for very lukewarm vanilla takes. I’m not saying Lemmy is full of extremists but there is a user base here that is all or nothing. My guess is it’s age related though.
Overall the people here are nicer.
The extremes are higher though - some people were booted from Reddit for a reason, and they came here.
Yea. I agree. There is a nice median and really strong extremes. But those extremes sometimes hog up the convo.
The presence of the high end of the extreme is what blew me away though. On Reddit I had given up all hope bc it *never* happened (even from myself, as I kept becoming more defensive, more snarky but less kind) while here the fact that it *sometimes*, heck even *often* happens, is just... outstanding!:-) 😍
Also the low end of the extreme is concentrated into specific instances, such that blocking Lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net will improve someone's experience on the Fediverse by ~90%, and then blocking users from lemmy.ml (with the PieFed Lemmy alternative, or either the Sync or Connect Lemmy apps, or lemmy.cafe, dubvee.org, or quokk.au at the instance admin level) improves by a further 90% I found.
So the structure of the curve matters greatly here, to someone's quality of experiences in the Fediverse.:-)
Yeah, I don’t think anyone would ask you “Are you okay with sitting at the bar with nazis?” yet plenty will happily judge you for saying “I’d rather not have to deal with MAGAts and their opinions”
Sorry but if your opinion is “trans people aren’t people” or “blacks need to know their place” then your opinion is shit and no the fuck I don’t have to listen to it
But another question, “are you ok with sitting at the bar with nazis, but they’re wearing red shirts with a hammer and sickle on them and espousing the same propensity for murder?”
Lemmy is fine with murder and genocide so long as you wear the right shirt while doing it.
Source: .ml, grad, hexbear.
🤡
No u
I agree, which is why I recently kicked a MAGA guy out of my D&D group that meets at my house. I had tolerated him up to then because he generally acted decent and was a good player. But after the election I decided I just don’t feel like extending my hospitality to that anymore.
But on the flip side when I hear a phrase like, “uncomfortable with trans people” my first reaction is, “What makes you uncomfortable?” instead of, “Fuck you you fucking bigoted fuck!” For that moral imperfection in my character I’ve received name-calling and at least one ban. Whatever. People have irrational fears and I’m not going to exile them to the desert because their “eww” reflex isn’t pristine.
Honestly the tankie takes justifying atrocities is nearly as bad as the conservative takes justifying the same.
Why nearly? They are just as bad, if not worse.
Nah. Tankies are wrong, but they’re also powerless. Conservatives actually have power though, and are extremely dangerous.
An idea being “bad” is power agnostic. If I want to blow up orphanages, wanting to do so is bad whether I’m the president or a homeless dude, the ability to follow through may change with power, but the ability to follow through isn’t what makes “wanting to blow up orphanages” bad, the idea itself is bad.
I think it’s primarily, but not exclusively, a strength. “We need more right-wing posters” is not something I’ve ever thought of Lemmy.
Preemptively let me say that I agree, although there is an entire spectrum along which people can hold their beliefs, and then on top of that there is the strength with which they hold them that can vary a lot - including some who are apolitical entirely as far as they themselves may be aware.
Also, recalling the phrase "first they came for..." - remember that WE are the "right-wingers", from the perspective of instances such as lemmygrad.ml, lemmy.ml, and hexbear.net. I am not saying that Truth is subjective, but the definitions of those particular terms most definitely are.
So if they exclude us, and then we exclude "centrists", who themselves exclude people to either side of them... ultimately what does that make us - conservatives ourselves, chasing some kind of ideological "purity"?
Let's get back to me agreeing with you now, but clarifying *why*: we MUST be intolerant to those who are intolerant of others. However, to those who ARE tolerant... shouldn't we be as tolerant to them as we can stand to be? As in, interact with them civilly even if we do not fully agree with everything they say?
So leftist vs. right(-ist?), I don't care *what* someone is, so much as I care whether they are tolerant of others. BUT NOT TO THE INTOLERANT (i.e. not the Alt-Right, and also not the Alt-Left that I see hanging out on various Lemmy instances).
The political divesity is less of an issue than the political ferver. Most people don’t want to talk aboit politics. They want to avoid political discussions, and get upset when people do things as basic as pointing out that politics exists in their bubble.
The fediverse turns them off because it’s loaded with politically aware and stubbornly vocal people, not because there aren’t enough people playing apologetics for the ruling class
Yeah, normal people do not care about anything outside the very small bubble of their own life. They have a few interests, a few hobbies, watch a few shows, know a few other people, and that’s… kind of it.
There is a bunch of angry brigading here for any of a multitude of reasons, and that shear wall of vitriol thrown at people doesn’t help lemmy grow.
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I guess it could be counted as a weakness as far as attracting new users go, but I think it's a strength overall.
It would be sort of nice if there was a stronger right-wing presence here, but at this point in our history, the right is overtly toxic. They've completely lost touch with honesty, empathy, integrity and simple human decency. Their entire identity at this point is built on hatred, bigotry and callous disregard for anyone other than themselves. They poison everything they touch, so the fact that they can't gain a foothold here is very much to our benefit.
If we survive this era of Trump/Putin/Netanyahu/Polievre/Le Pen/Modi/Meloni/Hanson/etc., then hopefully the right will reconnect with reality, integrity and simple decency enough that they can take part in a community without turning it into a cesspool of hatred and lies, but unless and until that happens, this place is absolutely better off without them.
Right on, dude. It would be refreshing to see right-wing arguments advocating a serious fact-based (instead of hate-based and/or lie-based) position on any issue. I’d still disagree, but I’d welcome that disagreement.
Until that glorious future when “the right will reconnect with reality, integrity and simple decency,” I am delighted that they’re underrepresented on Lemmy.
Thing is you never will see that here. Even if those people are here (more reasonable right wing people are here in fact), they speak up less (typically once, before they learn what this place is) because the second you say “actually I don’t want to murder all landlords, my old landlady is so nice, she baked us brownies and let us put on illegal punk shows in the basement” you’re called a literal nazi that deserves death for having compassion for a nice old woman. So all you see are the ardent conservatives that are here to fight, not the reasonable ones that learn to just roll their eyes and block anyone with an @hexbear uname to save themselves the trouble.
@crimeschneck Personally I've decreased my Lemmy usage a lot due to its echo chambery-ness. I avoided the political subs since day one, both since I'm personally not a big politics junkie and because I'm not in alignment with Lemmy's specific brand of politics, but things also extend to other topics as well.
A lot of the enjoyment of using Lemmy is getting news/articles and seeing what people think, but even in the tech spaces the range of tech news is somewhat limited and the top comments are almost always in line with Lemmy's specific tech thoughts (regardless of my agreement, I'd like to see interesting thoughts/commentary, if I can predict the theme of what's said it becomes less interesting). Sorting by new did help a little, even if a dissenting but well thought out idea was downvoted to oblivion I could still read it - but the value of link aggregators to me is articles + strangers thoughts, and if all the strangers have the same thoughts then I might as well stick with RSS.
My 2c anyways.
Weakness.
Limited range of political views breeds echo chamber. In my experience, you can’t really have meaningful discussion inside an echo chamber. Disagreement, compromise, nuance doesn’t exists inside an echo chamber. Just that same idea repeated over and over again.
Gonna be honest, you can’t have meaningful and nuanced discussion here. Everything is black and white. Capitalism? It’s the worst thing on earth. Religious people? Those people are idiots. Don’t YOU dare use Windows, use Linux instead. ALL cops are bad, no exception.
This kind of things makes me actually scared of recommending people to Lemmy. I’m sure most people are casual people who doesn’t have extreme views on anything. Just some people who wants to shut their brain off and scroll. I feel like the echo chamber I mentioned will put most people off.
Going tangent a bit–In general fediverse is not diverse.
When you scroll, you realize most of the post comes from the same kind of political ideas, same country (USA), same beliefs, etc.
You can’t spell fediverse without spelling diverse, yet I feel like fediverse is anything but diverse.
This needs to change.
Half the people on here working to ensure that it never changes.
They want that echo chambers as if their life depends on maintaining a narrative.
that’s disappointing really
Okay for what it's worth as a Muslim I've found Lemmings to be a lot more civil about the religion thing than redditors. At least I feel that people here are less likely to think being atheist makes them smart.
Oh hey, finally a fellow Muslim
Unfortunately my experience here is different :(
Honestly I’m kinda one of those on linux, but not in a “it’s morally imperative that you do” sort of way, in a “it’s a good idea to eat fruits and vegetables” or “you should leave your abusive partner” sort of way. It’s just better. I’m not going to call anyone a Nazi for using windows, but also if someone is complaining about windows doing windows things, often the solution is “linux doesn’t do that.”
For me, it’s neither strength nor weakness. I’m a boring old fart, I’m not here for politics.
I mostly here not for politics too… yet everywhere I look in Lemmy, it’s all politics, kinda annoying
For attracting new users, the extreme views of the majority of users on this platform are detrimental. I personally very much dislike how one-sided all platforms are now. They lean heavily to one side or the other, which isn’t an accurate representation of the world. Most people are somewhere in the middle, yet online they’re expected to behave according to the platform’s presiding mindset or be shouted down.
Not *everywhere* though - e.g. lemm.ee tries to keep things open, at least on the instance level, and the anarchist servers (chiefly lemmy.dbzer0.com but iirc slrpnk.net as well) very much do not remove things that many people would expect them to if they had been more driven by a more authoritarian mindset.
In our new community !AskUSA@discuss.online for instance, I very much hope that we can remove comments that attempt such a shouting-down as would make people feel unwelcomed to be there - regardless of their political affiliation (so long as the people being shouted down do not DESERVE it for trolling, e.g. "my reason for helping the less fortunate than myself is my belief in the Christian God who guides all my ways" is absolutely fine but "your gawd is shit and u r too, l0s3r" is *not*).
I don’t care so much about the range of political views, just the quantity of them.
Too many people on Lemmy make their political ideology their entire identity, and it’s just freaking exhausting.
Can we not just be people talking to other people about cool stuff? I just get sick of political ideologies masquerading as people.
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It is interesting to me that the people who are PASSIONATELY concerned about the plight of poor people in the third world, spend so much time pushing the solution of not voting for Kamala Harris, and so little time pushing support for charity work, NGOs in the United States, supporting the rare tiny handful of politicians who actually do care about human rights, or similar things. I think the amount of content I saw from them before the election that was dealing exclusively with the importance of not supporting Democrats probably outnumbered the other stuff by about 10:1. I guess as long as we make enough Kamala Harris memes, the Palestinians will be saved. Who knew?
Well, it worked out in the last election, I can’t wait for everything to get better for everyone in Gaza. That’s definitely what’s going to happen now, right?
I’ve run into you a few times. Let me save us both some time with the bullshit lesser of two evils finger wagging, neolib.
Kamala in no way, shape, or form supported any kind of peace in Palestine. So I have no idea what you’re pretending about.
Did you even look at the votes in the election? Not enough people voted third party to make a difference in the results of the election. But sure, try to blame people that oppose the genocide in gaza. Sure…
That’s true. However, I think there was a massive propaganda effort, quite successful, to get people to follow certain antipatterns of logic to help get Trump elected:
And so on. It happens that foolish people on the left who thought that refusing to vote for Democrats was a way to help the Palestinians were one of the target audiences. But in the aggregate, I think the combination of those diverse populations getting suckered in their individual ways absolutely had a big impact on the election.
And please don’t say I am blaming the people that oppose the genocide in Gaza. I oppose the genocide in Gaza. Everyone on Lemmy opposes the genocide in Gaza. Because I oppose the genocide in Gaza, I didn’t want Trump to get elected, because he is about to make things much, much worse. If you have some tactical disagreement with how I want to oppose genocide, because you also oppose it but in some different way, then fine. But pretending that I have an issue with people who oppose genocide is just a dishonest strawman engineered in some think-tank somewhere, to help get Trump elected.
Yeah, there was certainly a lot of propaganda and lies to help elect Donald, but let’s be very real here - leftists not voting or voting third party over Gaza wasn’t a major part of his victory. Kamala Harris had a very weak campaign that didn’t address the concerns of young, white male voters. Personalities like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and others really do appeal to those people, telling them that they’re just fine and pointing their fingers at an endless list of targets to keep these people angry and afraid - and ultimately to vote for people like Donald who claim they’ll fix everything. I wasn’t trying to strawman but I have seen a lot of online comments purely blaming leftists for this election, and it’s frustrating.
What did I say, in my comment, to address exactly what you just repeated?
Specifically I’m interested in this part:
That had a very specific answer in the comment you’re replying to.
[citation needed]
Now listen here whippersnapper I’ve been around too long to not know that it is, in fact, helpful for your praxis to touch grass. Declare it political if you want, but don’t bloody talk about politics while doing it.
Read Clausewitz: Absolute war is impossible because for a people to turn all its efforts to war, it would have to give up the things that it is fighting to defend. War being nothing but the continuation of politics by other means, this also applies to politics.
It is you, here, who is trying to make politics an absolute war, you’re the one barging into a bar where people are singing the people’s songs and dancing the people’s dances and say “up, to arms! what are you dancing, what are you singing, you need to fight for your right to sing and dance!”.
In short: Your praxis boils down to party pooping. Don’t be a party pooper. Party with the people, then go back to your politics as others go back to their looms and mills.
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So… you’re banned here? Why then do I see your posts?
Cut that victim complex and actually engage with what I said instead of complaining that noone’s listening when you say shit 99.99% of people here already know, providing not solutions but analysis that is so undercomplex it barely qualifies as soundbites.
You’re not being a revolutionary, here. You’re an angry kid taking their first breath, loudly screaming as to the sudden incursion of the real-world into your sheltered life. Plenty others have been taking breaths for long enough to not be screaming, but scheming. Get to that level instead of having the gall to say “when people ignore me then that must be because they’re billionaires”. Too easy. Suspiciously easy, don’t you think? How many people ignore you, downvote you, how many billionaires are actually on lemmy?
“Allergic to analogies” should be your username. I’m not reading that insipid wall of text when the first sentence misunderstands my very clear analogy. Of course no one mentioned banning me. Try to follow along.
You may want to have a look at the definition of “sarcasm” and “rhetoric”.
I explained, in detail, why you’re getting ignored. You still refuse to engage with the topic. Try to not ignore me, ignore others, maybe then you’ll understand why what you say you simply doesn’t resonate. It takes more than one person to vibe.
Did that non sequitur rebuttal make sense to you in your head? 🤡
lalalalalalalala I can’t hear you so I won’t respond to your argument (if you even made one)
Tsk, tsk. Upvoting yourself from alt accounts is generally a bannable offense. I’ve reported you.
Note: You’re not being silenced for your opinion, here. You’re being silenced, if you do get silenced, for your abuse of Lemmy systems. I realize you’re probably going to conflate the two dishonestly, but that’s what happened.
Do you have any evidence?
kbin.earth/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/…/favourites
Note the upvote from his alt on programming.dev, along with two suspect upvotes from other @infosec.pub accounts at exactly the same time. The one from @lemmy.eco.br seems like it could be real.
Lol, say you are a westerner liberal without saying you are a westerner liberal
Congratulations, you found a very novel thought-terminating cliche. I’m impressed by your creativity.
you know absolutely nothing about us in global south.
Brazilian, eh? You mean the country with higher GDP/capita than no less than nine European countries?
Stop pretending to know, in any shape or form, what it is like to be born in Burundi. And don’t pretend you’re not a colonial state, you’re barely better than the US when it comes to fucking over the indigenous population and that’s not a high standard.
Stop pretending that 7:1 is an everyday occurrence and count those stars on your jersey.
Then please stop by !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
Subbed
Not sure if you’re there, but there’s !casualconversation@lemm.ee too
Yep, I subbed to that one when it moved from .world
There needs to be a lemmy.norm or some shit.
Just photoshop requests, memes, hobbies and dumb “askreddit” shit.
Discuss.Online seems that way.
Perhaps lemmy.today although that barely has any local content.
lemmy.ca? It does have a politicalmemes@lemmy.ca but other stuff too:-).
I find it highly interesting how in the replies to your message people are proving you right:-).
But fwiw, I do want to push back a little on my own irt your phrasing: perhaps it is not so much the intensity of someone's views as the degree of welcomingness extended to people of all walks. Non-intuitively to some: this REQUIRES that we kick out people engaging in bad faith. However, once that's done, shouldn't we extend a welcoming hand to all who come in good faith?
Tbh I may not be expressing myself well there... so I'll try with more extreme language: Nazis are bad, and thereby the Alt-Right that extends a welcoming hand to neo-nazis are bad, but centrists and liberals (both of whom would be called right-wing by many people internationally) should be made to feel welcomed? So breadth of political views - so long as delivered in good faith - not that the breadth is the thing desired, but rather the allowance for PEOPLE to come in and talk, if they want, regardless of their political views. The focus here is on the people - the tolerance is just the means to that good end (and this only works if we are intolerant to specifically those who are themselves intolerant).
Lol, what replies? I guess I’ve already blocked most/all the people I was referring to (or they’re on
.mlwhich I don’t federate with for pretty much this exact reason)When, out of nowhere, people put other people into boxes, ascribe a political label to them, and put words in their mouths without knowing anything about them, it is a HUGE turn off to me as far as interactions go.
e.g. A comment that’s taken out of context and the reply is basically, “Hurr, durr, that’s such an enlightened centrist thing to say. Guess you’re okay with a little fascism, huh, lib?”. That’s pretty fucking cringe and going to make me immediately block the person saying it (and I have and will continue to do so). Like, if that’s how their mind works, taking things out of context, jumping to conclusions, and projecting labels out of nowhere: I got nothing for them.
I’m not here with an agenda, I’m not trying to spread my beliefs, I’m not trying to convert anyone to anything (except maybe Linux lol), etc. I just wanna share and talk about cool shit.
And you know there’s someone reading this thinking (and possibly commenting) that the fact I haven’t announced myself to the room as a raging leftie means I must be a nazi in disguise. (Nope. Just someone who’s not here for political shit). My political beliefs and leanings are my own, and if they’re not apparent from my post/comment history, then whoever’s judging me just hasn’t paid attention.
As for how I treat people, as long as they’re clearly operating in good faith and with a good attitude, I welcome them until such time they’ve veered outside of civility or proven to be a troll, actual Nazi, or otherwise.
Exactly. Judgement is such hard work - best to avoid it when possible, but if necessary, not shy away from it either. Although in the latter case some WORK needs to be put in, if the desire is to do it correctly.
So many people claiming "bUt i WaS BaNNeD foR beInG ToO FrIenDlY, i'M ReaLlY sUcH a nIcE gUy", when it is patently obvious to anyone who looks that that is not the case.
Mixed opinion these days often reads more like outright polarization vs balanced discussions.
I think it’s both. I can avoid having to engage with cruel or shitty perspectives as often, but I also don’t love spending so much social time in an echo chamber, it’s not great for you.
I think echo chambers are really bad for a culture and for people immersed in them, but like not seeing Nazi shit is certainly nice
I think it’s a strength because I don’t want to chat with fascists, thanks
I find the limited political knowledge a far bigger concern. The US has taken perfectly acceptable words and butchered them: liberal, libertarian, conservative, left, fascist, socialist etc mean different things inside the US to what they mean everywhere else. I reckon US political language hasn’t butchered itself - there’s a plan in there somewhere.
Agreed but I want to push you to go further: it's not just politics that has been so influenced.
Even Google searches - once world-renowned for their recall and precision and overall helpfulness, now are shit. Reddit as well. Twitter... well, apparently was always a hellhole? :-P YouTube was not though - until it was bought by Google.
Enshittification destroys *all* that it touches. Even/especially governments. Though the same happened to Rome, so many thousands of years ago. And to Russia too, more recently, despite it ostensibly calling itself "communist"/leftist.
I do think that there was a plan to help move it along, but I also think that it might have been an inevitable consequence of (more or less) entirely unfettered capitalism, and that those two worked together to destroy a nation that once was struggling far less than it seems to be doing lately?
I just wish the top posts on the meme pages were more than just an anti-capitalist caption and a vaguely related image.
I block most of thé memes community, the only ones remaining being !lotrmemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com and !bikinibottomtwitter@lemmy.world
Omg !tenforward@lemmy.world is also amazing, check it out! Also there's Risa and the Star Wars memes etc. - there are so many fantastic memes communities available:-).
Separately, you may be interested to know that the entire "vibe" of Lemmy has changed in the last two weeks. Very seriously, check out an instance where you are not logged in and just take a peek at what the most popular content is lately. I'm not suggesting that you wallow in it but you should know what's going on lately bc it affects the future of us all.
I’m not familiar with Star Trek, so I usually don’t get those memes
The entire USA vibe has changed in the last two weeks, from what we can see on every social media. What happened is an important historical events, it has repercussions on all aspects of USA society
True, and btw I don't mean that there is not good/great reasons for such even - people are DYING.
I was just pushing that thought since we were initially responding to:
It's creating an environment where people who can't handle the cultural shifts (e.g. not everyone is neurotypical) are having to heavily curate their experiences.
Non Americans already had to curate their experience for weeks before and during the US presidential election
Not everyone wants that, but excellent point about the fact that some do:-).
And there, as now, it would be nice to constrain things.
Though you mentioned the rather powerful counterargument earlier that this was a MAJOR event, and it's understandable that it's leaking.
Weakness, If you’re here for anything other than the narrow view.
Even if you’re here for the the narrow view take a moment and consider if an echo chamber is good for you.
It is a weakness.
It’s a strength because we finally get to interact amongst the left without having to explain how society works to every ignorant conservatwat who thinks they can conservasplain some bullshit. It’s what makes it great.
Okay so yeah for *actual* conservatives totally. The Alt-Right is never going to be convinced no matter how many "facts" you explain to them anyway.
But *you* are considered a right-winger too, as well as I, by the likes of the folks in hexbear and Lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. *We* don't view ourselves that way, but it's the truth: compared to the likes of the Alt-Left, we legit are more "right-wing" than they are. And for good reason: e.g. we may not appreciate them but we've never actually murdered our landlords.
No echo-chamber is stronger for it. It’s a weakness.
Echo chambers are never good, no matter the politics. Just reading this comment thread is proof. Some of these comments are fucking ridiculous.
Half of Lemmy working to ensure that we never get any diversity of opinions or anymore normal people lol
Weird seeing you again, and seeing you say this, after you quickly resorted to name-calling over a disagreement in another thread just 20 minutes ago. Do you really not think that you're a member of the half you refer to? I'm not so sure you actually want "diversity of opinions" or "normal people" if that's been your response so far.
You took a bad position, I clarified why it was unfounded.
That's called a discussion. You are entitled to post your opinion, I am entitled to provide a rebuttal.
That's how discourse works.
Oh no, the poor right whingers aren’t being represented here.
Oh wait, good. Fuck ‘em.
They still have to suffer from shiti health insurance...
But sure let's make sure nobody but a good neo libs "allies" are permitted here champ
In your country sure.
And who the fuck wants neo libs here? Neo libs (and libs) are right wing ideologies.
Totally. Maybe we should invent some kind of... oh I dunno, ideological purity test? Surely that would not eat *our* faces off, hrm? Surely we can exclude only "them", while keeping "us".
Smh, it's always the same. People don't even see it.
It’s certainly a weakness, especially since the Lemmy echo chamber is ever more extremist than the echo chambers you’d find on a place like Reddit or Truth Social. But I don’t think it makes it uniquely bad. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
I don't see it as either. I don't come to social media to engage in political discussions, so for me, the bigger issue is the lack of thriving communities around topics outside of national/world politics and technology. I'd love to see more places like startrek.online.
I view the focus on Lemmy’s political opinions as a weakness for attracting new users.
I think it helps to place labels onto things... and then respect those labels.
Like porn: it can get someone literally fired if they chanced upon such at work - some corpos are just looking for any excuse to cut costs, especially a repeating salary one. But so long as it is labeled, and does not appear outside of bounds... then what is the harm? (more even, studies show that places that ban porn tend to have higher rates of sexualized crime i.e. rape, so the presence of porn literally seems to help society?)
And politics: so many of us here LOVE to discuss it! But what if someone had anxiety, and could not? Could they use something like hashtags, keywords, trigger warnings I dunno, and block out most of it, for the sake of their sanity? If not, then their only recourse would be to opt-out of the Fediverse entirely, thereby taking all of the content that they would have contributed with them...
Full disclosure of my own biases: this is why I am against places such as ChapoTrapHouse from being federated with most Lemmy instances (even as I support e.g. lemm.ee's desire to keep it) - it's not that I want it to "not exist" (I've enjoyed many of my own interactions there... though it is also simultaneously true that many users from hexbear [or their alts] act as toxic bullies, ignoring people's consent outside of those spaces, despite being told explicitly not to by their admins), so much as that I want it to be properly labeled & constrained, so that someone does not walk into it unawares, not realize what it is, and then leave the Fediverse entirely having been turned away from us due to their interactions with them.
Likewise much of the content on lemmy.ml is very much not only anti-capitalist, but anti-Western - the former I sympathize with, though the vehemence with which it is delivered and especially the latter will turn people away, as it definitely has me (especially when it abuses blatantly false tropes).
And that is the identical reason why we cannot federate with conservative spaces either, if we want to survive: it is not that we want them to not exist so much as we cannot host their content here, without making THAT action a part of our own identity. And to be clear, I don't mean content such as "God loves us, each & every one of us" (that's kinda an awesome thought, is it not, regardless of what we each personally believe?), but rather "I know I speak for [my specific version of a god] when I say that he (she? it? them? other?) hates some people, especially YOUR type in particular!"
But even if we took it as a given, purely for the sake of a hypothetical argument mind you, that we actually did want some type of space to not exist, what are we going to do about it - sabotage their servers? And after they spin up new ones, with better protections - then what? No, the real recourse (imho) is to simply leave them be, yet not choose to federate their content here. We all were young & naive once too - they may grow given time, or not, but that's their business, and all we can and should (and actually MUST) control is ours.
In all of the above cases - including the pornography example - it is not *what* the content is (or sometimes not *just* that), so much as the unfriendliness of it appearing outside of bounds, causing legitimate pain and harm when it is exposed to people.
I think the way to maximize utility is to increase diversity by increasing welcomingness. Sorta like how Linux does not push people into any one distro, or window manager, or anything at all - we each are free to pursue our own paths. That's fucking awesome!:-P
Lest anything think that I've refused to answer the question: it is both. Our (future) political diversity can both be a wedge driven between us - if we allow that to happen naturally - or else a source of strength, e.g. to allow a centrist person to post content unrelated to their political beliefs (woodworking? a game community?), so long as they are respectful of other people's beliefs in the process. We don't all have to like one another, just get along. In diversity we find strength... or we *could*, if we did it right, i.e. if only the ones offered in good faith were allowed to stay while all others given the boot, and even then they need to remain within their allotted lanes.
<img alt="img" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQda5iX9_n6qs_kFo_gUcMSfuvcaI6hgoy1rIXwQn7QffufI6EocHL_XO_1wxbasK0CI0s&usqp=CAU">
Preemptively to the people who will scroll to the bottom of this, see me saying that diversity is a strength, and comment or just downvote and move on without bothering to read the rest: fuck you. But to anyone willing to offer a good-faith critique: I am listening.
I said this on reddit a long time ago and I’ll say it here:
We need a political tag like the NSFW tag
That would be so great
It would compromise what we are to allow nazis and their ilk in here
Nazis and their ilk can be here, they just have to contend with a lot of disagreement when they broadcast their opinions.
I’m not a fan of this becoming a nazi bar
I’m not either, but that’s like saying “I don’t want my TV full of gays!” because a sitcom has a gay character.
Gay people and nazis are two very different groups, so it’s not like saying that at all actually.
I agree, and the point of my comment wasn’t to suggest gay people and nazis are the same (or even similar), it was that the mere presence of something disagreeable doesn’t mean the place is full of it.
Are you familiar with the nazi bar quote? I was referencing that phenomenon:
No, I wasn’t familiar with that quote. Sokath, his eyes open. But nazis would not receive a friendly welcome here like in the bartender’s hypothetical story, so the same outcome is so extraordinarily unlikely, the reference seems like the same level of overreaction I said it was.
It’s not about voicing your disagreement, it’s about removing nazis entirely. Their very presence degrades the quality of the platform. Twitter had plenty of people arguing with nazis, and it still sucked, because the nazis were still there.
It’s not too far off already, considering .ml, grad, and hexbear’s propensity to advocate for violence against others for being “liberals.”
Basically it’s already a nazi bar with some red paint and a star on the door. The people who I told about lemmy all left pretty quick because of it and I’ve stopped recommending it to people entirely.
This post could interest you: lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/32469271
Long story short, discuss.online defederated hexbear recently, making it a potential recommendation for new joiners (they also block lemmygrad)
lemmy.cafe blocks ml too, but they have the 0.19.7 pictures bug. Once they fix that, they could become another go-to recommendation for new joiners.
That’s good to know, I’ll keep an eye on it, thanks! But tbh the reality is that .ml is still too integral to defed yet, until your decentralization efforts take hold (and btw I try to sub to the other communities whenever I see you post one I’m interested in and will sometimes unfollow the .ml one if I can, thanks for all the recommendations!)
I think at this moment people can live without .ml if they’re not into tech. Sure, !privacy@lemmy.ml and !firefox@lemmy.ml are the most active in their fields, but the non-tech user probably doesn’t care. And alternatives like !linux@programming.dev are getting more and more active
Glad that you like that effort!
That may be true tbh, I’m more techy so I can’t yet but maybe for someone who isn’t they could.
Keep at it for sure! If this place really ends up thriving and getting bigger for niche interests and stuff it’s in no small part because of your efforts to do so! I genuinely appreciate it, even for stuff I’m not personally interested in.
PieFed allows you to block all users from an instance of your choice without needing admin approval. The Lemmy apps Sync and Connect do also. So I've already managed to defederate from Lemmy.ml personally, aside from lemmy.cafe, dubvee.org, or quokk.au that have all done that at the admin level.
Although it sounds like you meant more that so many communities are still on that instance - which is fine - and don't have alternatives yet elsewhere, which is not fine. If you can, perhaps consider making just one and modding it to help it grow. It won't fix everything but it will help, and if 9 other people did likewise then that's 10 communities that people would not have had access to without those group efforts:-).
Little by little, I think that we don't have to consider places such as hexbear.net as part of "us" anymore. Perhaps it will take the further development of Mbin, PieFed, and Sublinks to accomplish that for Lemmy.ml. Otherwise we simply will progressively give up while the place dies slowly around us, as people leave and new ones refuse to join.
Huge strength.
The alternative is Reddit or 4Chan if you want centrist or right wing takes. I know which of the 3 platforms I want.
Seeing this place run by individuals with a commitment to creating a better social environment is also a huge plus. You wouldn’t get that under a non-leftist platform.
“Left” or “Right” grouping is Western centric tho.
From my perspective as Indonesian, it’s weird that Westerner lump politics into separate group instead working together for a solution that caters to everyone.
Maybe this will help: the left are the only ones that want to help everyone. The right wants to help themselves.
I still don’t get actual “left” and “right” definition by Westerner.
For example, people that support native people to be protected from encrouchment of their forest, as well as unmitigated immigration that will drive out them will considered both “left” and “right” side from Westerner.
Some Westerner also often assume their solution of problem is “the best” while all I can see is further division of society.
Please elaborate.
Indonesian here too. Same I am as confused too. It makes political discourse here looks good
The vast majority of Westerners don’t even really know what “left” or “right” mean. It’s going to be really confusing to rely on Westerners to self-identify their political beliefs, because every liberal seems to think they’re a leftist.
It helps if we frame this in a context of imperialism and colonialism.
A refugee from Syria moving into Greece isn’t encroaching on anyone’s forests. That stands in stark contrast with a multinational corporation coming to DRC, clear cutting the forest, strip mining the mountains, poisoning the water, and paying pennies for labor.
Absolutely. Any leftist in the West needs to spend their whole life unlearning their chauvinism.
The thing is, sometimes the immigrant are not corporate. They’re just groups of average people that cut all the protected forest to make a new home and uncontrolled killing of animals.
They don’t respect local rules at all.
This don’t really happen in the West, but it can happen in several parts of Asia or Africa.
That’s why ethnocentrism ended prevalent in these area.
The global South has a right to protect its sovereignty from rich Western assholes coming in to scoop up cheap land to build their summer villas. Tourism is a factor of imperialist exploitation too.
So you would say PDIP and Gerindra both represent the same thing?
And I know for a fact you’se spent most of the mid 20th century killing “communists” in your borders. So there certainly was a left in Indonesia.
Both are just corrupt parties that doesn’t want to help people.
“For example, in terms of attracting new users” - meaning that’s the whole point of the question, so I’ll address that.
Lemmy isn’t a corporation and doesn’t have to think like one. Market share means nothing. The goal is a high-quality app that does what its users want. If a majority of those users have a similar range of political views, that’s just how it works out. There’s nothing stopping ultra-conservatives from spinning up Lemmy instances if they want, blocking communities whose overall personality they don’t like, and banning users they don’t like. If this balkanizes the lemmy userverse, I don’t see that as an issue.
Conversely though: *you* are considered a right-winger by some (Lemmy.World = neoliberal bastion of not extreme enough Leftists). (And to be extra clear: me as well:-)
I agree that we must exclude trolling behaviors and those who refuse to not do them, but not bc of their *beliefs* and rather bc of their intolerance to anyone who disagrees. But by the same token, we must not become them in the process.
This would exclude both the Alt-Right, as well as the Alt-Left, leaving us centrists in the middle. And a week ago I would have added: "who *don't* want to violently overthrow all of society", although now I'm not so sure that a goodly fraction of Lemmy agrees with that anymore.
I’ve always voted liberal up and down the ticket, and in my daily interactions you would be hard-pressed to find me acting like anybody’s idea of a right-winger. But I don’t look at every detail of liberal doctrine as the sacred word of the gods. In many liberal forums you have to parrot all the correct doctrine and wear a pristine pure white hat, or people (apparently including yourself) will put a black hat on you. But really anyone who puts themself on a high pedestal of moral perfection is delusional.
Exactly what I'm saying. One mark of an extremist is often a kind of moral purity test of their ideology. I too was shocked to find out that I am considered "right-wing", by the extremist left on places such as Lemmygrad.ml, hexbear.net, and lemmy.ml. The latter is federated with by almost everyone, and they will call you and me as "right-wing".
Now whether that's "true" or not... well actually, it *is* though - if you do not approve of actually irl really *murdering* your landlord, then you are "right-wing", *in comparison to* them. Then again, they also say that they love North Korea - but how many of them have actually picked up and moved there, hrm? 🤣
So I think we are "centrists", on the global scale. To the left of the Alt-Right, and to the right of the Alt-Left. My language may be odd though.
To people whose purview pertains to the set of "alternative facts", whether left or right wing, I simply cannot converse - no matter how hard I've tried. However to centrists I seem to have little to no trouble making myself understood, with only the slightest efforts? i.e., anyone at all acting in good faith I can outright *enjoy* discourse with, while anyone acting in bad faith I cannot.
So that is my criteria: it has nothing whatsoever to do with "beliefs", political or religious or cultural or otherwise, and everything to do with attitude, particularly the willingness to converse with compassion or at the very minimum tolerance to others' POV.
Does that make sense?
Makes sense immensely, and tbh good to read such a thoughtful post. Superficial or “meme-level” thinking has become deeply ingrained out our culture. I attribute it largely to the firehose of content available, like an always-full inbox. It conflicts with our natural desire to finish something - you can’t finish the Internet. One way to deal with it is to process each item in the feed as quickly as possible - take in minimal information, make a quick value judgement, and scroll onward. It makes people more susceptible to misleading headlines and images that are well-crafted to squeak through their narrow attention spans. I think this superficiality plays a large part in leading people to plunk a black or white hat on everybody. Considering shades of gray takes too bandwidth. Drawing zero-tolerance lines in the sand is far simpler. But I’ve got to accept it as part of the environment, because complaining about it just gets me called a nazi lol.
This essay describes the transition as we can readily observe it happening not just in social media on the internet but also in movies & TV & every other aspect of modern life as well. We see sitting members of Congress use the same principles: if you can do something in 5 seconds, and then move on to the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and so on, then spending 5 hours let alone 5 days, weeks, months, or *years* on a project becomes downright "bad". The latter obviously not meaning in an objective sense but rather a return-on-investment (ROI) calculation, if maximizing profits (or upvote karma or whatever) is one's goal - and for a Congressperson, that very much *is* their job, to maximize votes or at least pass the threshold to ensure safe re-elections, then switch to expending that political capital to enrich one's own pockets (oh uh... and
help peopleno, enrich one's own pockets exclusively, apparently, more's the pity).Aside from that, the paradox of intolerance really is a fundamental principle of the universe: imagine that you had a pen full of a thousand sheep, and you let in one wolf - let's even say to be kind, b/c he'll die if you do not? The next day you somehow only have 999 sheep... and you let in 2 more wolves. The next day you have 996 sheep, and you let in 3 more wolves, and so on. It won't be long before you have no sheep and only wolves left. B-b-but, they PROMISED me that they'd behave!? They PROMISED me that they wouldn't eat MY
face offsheep!?!? We ignore this at our peril. You can do the experiment for yourself: go to Lemmy.ml without being logged into an account and just going through the first couple of pages, count the number of posts that make fun of the Western world - especially the EU and even more especially in particular the USA - or perhaps it's easier to count those that *don't*? (granted, there's a bunch of purely-Linux ones that do not, and sometimes you'd need to visit the post to read the comments rather than see it instantly from the title) Like here's an example that I saw just prior to the recent USA elections:<img alt="img" src="https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/c64eae4d-6c7b-48d8-8523-969f04e6c2ad.jpeg?format=webp">
B-b-bUt BoTh SiDeS eQuAl ThO?! Except... they are not though? So many Muslim leaders in America told their followers to vote for Harris - b/c while what Biden did was not great, it will be as nothing compared to what Trump will do - although many waited until sth like 3 days before the election, hoping to wrangle every last ounce of possible concession out of the deal, though it may have been too late, b/c people simply don't follow the news all that quickly (it would seem). In fairness, there were many issues irt that election, and this was only one of them. It does not change how the Alt-Left tries to put a "spin" that is hyperbolic, false, and most relevant: misleading to the point of being actually disinformation rather than merely misinformation. It is so easy to prop up such a strawman: "none such exist" as want to stop the chaos? Bitch, we ALL want to stop it though?! Well, liberals do, the conservatives want to fucking JOIN in making it happen FASTER! Also, it's not like Russia actively doing genocide in Ukraine, or China to the Uyghurs, etc. (oh wait...), so I guess somehow it's "better" to just put Trump in where he will do as he already said: write a blank check for Israel to do whatever they want from now on, including *even more genocide*. You know, b/c BoTh SiDeS eQuAl, and b/c if someone says it on the internet, then it MUST be true I guess?!
So yeah, according to these people, we are "right-wingers". B/c people in the USA voting for Kamala Harris rather than voting for Donald Trump and then violently overthrowing all of society is... "right-wing"... somehow?
I will take every last ounce of diversity, from someone arguing in good faith. But I will take none from someone arguing in bad faith. Even if they call me a Nazi, or a coward, or whatever they want to call me - those manipulation tactics don't matter, what matters is what I choose to do in response.
I think its one of the reasons reddit will never reach the mainstream like reddit. For one people find it confusing to find a community which I disagree with, you just need to take a slight effort to understand that you have a choice of community and in return you get great freedom. Since its mostly for more techies I and its overwhelmingly like left, people with moderate right views will feel like they’re completely out of place.
Im also sad that many of the bigger communities like ml have unhinged mods that ban for anyone disagreeing with them. For example some calls for violence being overwhelmingly onesided on here made me feel sick at times. But I don’t feel like sparking that debate over here.
For people interested on that topic, !meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works is a dedicated community
Pro-Tip: do *NOT* tell people irl that you use Lemmy. 100% of the times I've done this, I get the most horrible looks from them. It took me a long time to figure out why, but the short explanation is that the Alt-Left is here, so it's equivalent to saying that you use Truth Social, just on the other side.
I’ve told people I use Lemmy several times, I only got neutral or positive reactions.
Lemmy is quite obscure, so most of the people have no idea what it is.
The top Google hit to an instance isn't "here" but rather Lemmy.ml (DuckDuckGo chooses Lemmy.World, but as long as we are talking normies here...). Lemmy.ml's default method of showing posts is Local, rather than All. Combined, this means that a mainstream normal person will see first primarily the Alt-Left propaganda machine pushing for the violent overthrow of capitalism and Western society, and then will NOT see so much of all the cute cartoons and Star Trek memes and such. Especially prior to the USA election, there was very much an obvious bias promoting the idea that BoTh SiDeS sAmE.
Your approach used on Reddit of pointing to a highly specific instance recommendation, especially one that has defederated from Lemmy.ml, is carefully crafted to avoid the scenario I outlined above from happening. And irl it's helpful to do the same: don't say that you use "Lemmy", bc that has a very pronounced reputation.
People really don’t know about it. Maybe it’s my environment, but at this point I would almost be happy if people could talk to me negatively about Lemmy rather than just no know what it is
Not me, I'm salty about it:-) 😔 😭
Lemmy is always going to lean more radical than other platforms. Not only is the lead dev a Communist, but to pick Lemmy over Reddit is an ideological choice to begin with. There is an ideological barrier to entry, and this won’t change until Reddit goes under.
For me picking lemmy over reddit is a matter of liking the software a lot better. As a dev myself I think lemmy is much more elegant and usable, and IDGAF about the lead dev’s ideologies, as a dev they kick ass.