Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?
I’ve pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it’s uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”) We’re much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre…
I don’t know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I’d like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.
Thanks!
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Reddit was only ever left of center for Americans. To many/most non Americans, America consists of a far right party and a center to center right party.
What you’re seeing is the result of a platform that wasn’t first created by and for American audiences, and whose initial takeup wasn’t dominated by American perspectives.
Agreed. I got lost at ‘Reddit is left…’
Huh?Until r/TheDonald you wouldn’t really see right wing concepts on the frontpage.
I distinctly remember liberal messages rising to the top on Reddit, stuff like that you should just accept that you have to go out and work for a living. That’s not left!
10s of millions of “left wing” (read, the entire spectrum from center to marx) folks believe that, for better or worse.
That opinion is entirely valid as “left wing” but certainly isn’t very left, on an absolute scale.
I disagree. Having some kind of grievance with capitalism an sich is central to being leftwing.
If left-wing covers all concepts left of center, and many mild left policy still incorporates capitalism, then it can’t be reduced that strictly. I could agree that progressive or far left policy isn’t compatible with capitalism
Edit either way, we disagree on semantics. It’s off topic for the original question now (I’m not sticking that on you, I contributed to this semantic rabbit hole)
To circle it back, I think there’s a way to invite “normies”, maintain left leaning (even very left leaning) positions, and not compromise the platform.
Edit edit and I think that’s possible without purity testing or shotgunning people with theory
I don’t think this is semantics. It reminds me of the Elon Musk nazi salute thing: maybe we are all tired of leftist nitpicking but it’s making people prone to misidentify it.
yes you would. you would see straight up imperialism apologia which is ok to their democrat audience i guess.
fuck i remember a post on r/arab getting nuked from the frontpage without a trace when they posted a video of the us bombings in iraq. a few similar ones but this is the one of the worst i remember.
the us has no significant left wing movement. maybe among the minorities.
Imperialism isn’t unique to right wing
yes it is; by definition, in fact.
No I don’t agree with that at all. You see right-wing Concepts all the time if you know where to look for them. Anytime there’s any discussion of protests? Comment section is militantly right-wing. Reddit gets hard that idea of running over and killing protesters. Anytime there’s anything about criminal justice? Nothing a redditor loves more than the idea of locking people up and torturing them. And don’t get me started on any video game subreddit.
Pre 2016 reddit front page was not as you describe. I’m not saying it was perfect, I’m saying open conservative concepts were not prevalent or popular.
Strong disagree.
Ok
I’m not American.
Lemmy is much farther left than any of our national discourse.
I get that American parties are farther Right than most but the discourse here is much farther Left than almost all political discourse. Edit: I’m happy to be corrected, show me a serious party in a position of power in a Western democracy committed to ending capitalism!
I’m not saying that if you don’t want to destroy capitalism that you’re not left. I’m saying that the perspective that reddit itself was “definitely left of center” is not a widely shared perspective, and if you believe that reddit of all places was left of center, then lemmy, which actually is left of center, is going to feel very left of center.
I’d strongly disagree. I think reddit is generally on the left side of most cultural and political institutions.
To each their own though.
Then honestly you must live in some radically conservative country.
Canada.
No mainstream party suggests UBI as a matter of principle for example.
Our overton window is only a few degrees to the left of the US.
Also the Ontario Liberals conducted a UBI pilot in Hamilton during the 2010s with the goal of proposing some form of it as a policy if results were positive. The OLP lost to the PCs in 2018 and Ford canned the project.
Then there’s been the UBI experiment in Manitoba during the 70s.
There it is.
Your “country” is a collection of mining and timber companies in a trench coat.
Who is much more left wing than Canada?
I don’t think that UBI is the predominant reddit viewpoint either - I think that’s just the subs you’re in.
I’m Canadian too, and I certainly don’t consider reddit as left of center on average. It’s almost like 4chan lite.
But on that note, if you’re looking for Canadian instances, there are a few good ones.
The obvious one is lemmy.ca, but the other (bigger?) one is sh.itjust.works which is bilingual and I think is québécois.
Presumably a Canadian instance would have relatively Canadian political leanings, although as has been said before, instance doesn’t really matter.So basically the same as America but behind by 18 months then politically?
Is hating for profit healthcare a leftist ideology?
I agree that most of Lemmy is rather cynical and very far lest
The world is a hugely diverse place that doesn’t easily fit into a left or right category from the perspective of politics in an individual country. While I agree that the US is a conservative country, this narrative is a bit exaggerated. The median global opinion on various issues would be all over the place from a US perspective, from far right to far left or even defying any categorization. As a result saying that the US is to the right of most of the rest of the world is a huge oversimplification.
The US has a nazi sympathising president, backed by a billionaire who gives nazi salutes in public. So I don’t agree that saying the US is to the right of most of the world is incorrect.
Well, there is a distinction between the the leadership and the populace. The context here was about the populace, since that is who is participating in these online conversations. I agree with you that the current government is an extreme right one. And yes many people did vote for this but I suspect many do not support his full agenda, they were just fooled into thinking this was the least bad option.
A nazi sympathising president was voted in, because the overton window has shifted sufficiently to the right to allow that to happen.
All I will point out is that the overton window in the US has shifted to the point where a double Sieg Heil at your president’s inauguration is within normal discourse .
Anyway, lemmy can be pretty “normie” for you so long as you stay out of political discussions. But if you want to actually discuss politics within the US overton window, lemmy is going to be very hostile. However if you come with an attitude to learn instead of debating/arguing, then I suspect most people wouldn’t flame you. But if one starts doing genocide denial for Israel etc, then they’re going to have a bad time.
shifted to the point where a double Sieg Heil at your president’s inauguration is within normal discourse
Haha thank you. I’m not even American but to me it’s pretty shocking to find out that this place, world of all instances, is too ‘extreme’ for people. Maybe I really am a dirty radical but I think that if people who consider themselves democrats are still fucking clutching their pearls about the left wing being too left wing while Elon Musk does open nazi salutes and trans people get their rights and dignity stripped away, then it’s no wonder the USA is so fucked.
You guys clearly need a new political party because your choices are overt right wingers, or spineless right wingers that like to pretend they represent the left.
Edit: maybe the bad men will see the light if we all hold hands and sing kumbaya. I’m sure that all of the people who are already finding themselves victims to this will thank you for taking the high road and not scaring too many centrists.
Db0 is the best instance with the least friction from mods and admins.
However if you come with an attitude to learn
Translation: if you are willing to swallow the opinion most people have here …
Lemmy is notorious for asking and including sources. It’s part of the culture. I wouldn’t say you’re supposed to swallow anything, but quite the contrary–make your stance.
You’re going to get yelled at by lefties on any instance. That’s how federation works.
Leftists famously hate other leftists
Yep, I got an absolute novel length comment from some far left .ml person as one of my first interactions on Lemmy.
I got told to go back to reddit on my very first comment. 🤣
Ouch.
Is your username a reference to this song by the way? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4LWIP7SAjY
Not really, ‘murmel’ means ‘marmot’ in Swedish but it’s often taken already so I’ve just evolved it into a marmalade-pun
That’s cool!
Well_theres-your-problem.gif
I guess… Well, I have trouble seeing the fediverse expand that far then. Which is fine but there have been a lot of pleas to make this a viable alternative to corpo social media.
I don’t think it helps that politics absolutely dominates Lemmy, where Reddit has enough diverse subreddits that you could probably just avoid politics all together.
It’s much harder to get away from it here. But hopefully, as Lemmy grows then we start to see more and more users in the non political communities and people can have a laugh without people jumping down their throats. People just need to stick to it and give it a good go and help build something great.
It’s a circling the drain problem. Even though Lemmy is (slowly) expanding.
Lemmy doesn’t have the raw numbers userbase to just have anyone come in, and find a niche topic with an active community.
But because any average user can’t come in and just find their niche community, they don’t stay.
Meanwhile politics HAS active communities. So politics grow. And thats where Lemmy is growing.
But I can’t find a community for “How I met your mother”. A tv show that concluded like 10 years ago. But the show takes place in the future, recounting stories from “the past”. Which means, in real life, Tracy, the mother who Ted is talking about, died in 2024. The story is being told in 2036. But the show aired in real time during “the past”. Which means if Ted is talking about April 2008, that episode aired in April 2008. But the whole
98 seasons (real fans don’t count the 9th season that never happened) is being told in one afternoon in 2036. Which means we could be talking about the last ciggerrette of each character as they happen in real time. I think the next one is in 2028.Instead…we talk about trump here…and seemingly nothing else. Ever.
I’d like !clevelandguardians@fanaticus.social and /c/Cleveland to grow so we can talk about eyebrows and how great Jose Rameriez is.
That’s the thing though American politics get discussed here. With their perceptions of left and right.
Last season was great. It was only the finale that sucked…
(and, yes, if you want a HIMYM community, just let me know and I can make it on https://metacritics.zone/)
I mean, yeah, go ahead and make it. But based on my quick look of your instance, none of the communities are active. That’s the part we need to work on for ALL your instance.
An idea would be to allow “plug-in able” content sorting algorithms or content filters.
I hear so many stories of people slapping tons of filters in their clients (block all comments from ml users, block “Elon” and/or “Trump” keywords)… I think tons of people are running almost identical filters. Why not bake right into the Lemmy core the ability to pull filter sets from say, a public got repo?
Same with sorting. I’d love to have a “hot” algorithms that “punishes” posts based on comment sentiment analysis. Again, let me choose my sorting algorithm from a git repo. Let some person or persons develop a “good vibes” algorithm which keeps toxity off the top of my feed.
IMO, this is the way. Sorting by engagement has obvious issues. Introducing other weights to augment a system would make a huge difference in user experience.
You can’t change the people. Look at this comment section. OP said they don’t want to be yelled at and everyone took that cue to give a lecture. Completely no self awareness. Can’t change that.
But you can improve the algorithm. And IMO if you could crowdsource that dev in a way that doesn’t impose on mainline development.
Yeah, I like all these ideas. I wondered about some sort of pooled “ban/ignore” options at the individual level. So, rather than ignoring by an instance, if I trust that Janet has good tastes and filters out children and trump, maybe I can just have an ongoing list that draws from her blocks and vice versa if she feels similar.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I really like the idea of people with likewise sensibilities being able to act as their own cross-community mod team, without impacting other groups with different sensibilities.
I will join an HIMYM community if you create one. I am a big fan.
I don’t think it helps that politics absolutely dominates Lemmy, where Reddit has enough diverse subreddits that you could probably just avoid politics all together.
I think that’s the problem with all “alternative” social media… both ones that I like and stand behind like lemmy… and the opposite end, the Parlors, MeWe’s, Truth Social etc…
The point is… mainstream people talking about shows, video games etc… rarely hit any kind of limitations in the public spaces. I myself still go on reddit to see communities of specific shows, games etc… and… it’s fine for that. If I were to try and make the suggestion for a show or movie subreddit to move to lemmy, it would be a tough case.
The ones who see the flaws and limits of the corporate platform… are the ones either teetering at the edge of socially acceptable, or over it.
Whether that’s say us lefties that believe All Cops are Bastards, or right wing guys that think america was better in Jim Crow era. Bottom line is… people looking for alternatives, are doing so because the existing platforms are likely to censor them… which means the alternatives will be disproportionately more extreme.
Speak for yourself.
There were a lot of people that looked for a Reddit alternative not because of particularly strong feelings politically or towards corporations in general but instead because Reddit broke their main method of interacting with Reddit (third party mobile apps) while simultaneously completely breaking the moderator tools to quell the shitstorm and maintain quality discussion.
I left Reddit because I saw it going further to shit faster than it ever had before, and they communicated loud and clear that they didn’t want users like me that cared about having control and options over how we interacted with the site.
None of my accounts there ever had a single comment removed by a mod, although I had been preemptively banned from multiple subs due to posting in others.
Well yeah I wasn’t saying all of them are. I was saying a disproportionate amount of them. IE say anti-capitalist views that are 1 in 1000 on facebook, are 1 in 50 on reddit, and 2 of 5 on lemmy.
Seriously people here seem to attach politics to a picture of a sandwich if God forbid the company logo is on the paper to the side.
Yeah, please don’t give up. I need more people like you here.
The key is finding the communities you like and blocking the others, and users, that you dont.
There’s an up-front time-cost but it’s easy to adjust and makes for a great experience.
Wait. You want anti-corpo social media, but not anti-corpo discourse??
Please do stay!
Yeah, a lot of the fediverse has an extreme left slant, and that’s coming from someone living in a rather left-leaning country.
As someone who jumped the reddit ship during the blackout protest and has been here ever since, mostly out of principle, it has slowly been getting better as more people filter in.
Sounds to me more like it’s getting worse then, not better.
Some instances have blocked the furtherist-left instances and banned the most abrasive users from those that remain. It’s not at all how jeffw described.
They’re blocked because they’re tankies, not because they’re left (I’m not even sure tankies can be considered left wing, as much as they claim to be).
(And others because of trolling; and others yet haven’t been blocked, they defederated themselves.)
Lemmy is different from Reddit in one important way.
Reddit is a product. You install the app, you look at the ads, the mods and admins curate an endless feed of cartoons and safe ragebait and awwwunexpectedsmiles.
Lemmy is an environment. If you’re passive, then any random thing may happen to you. So you have to be proactive in this environment.
- You could subscribe to communities that are non-politics/news, non-meme, non-tech, and browse these “subscribed” communities.
- You could use blocklists, as described elsewhere in this post.
- You could find an instance that does some of this work for you, by defederating and blocking certain types of opinions and behaviors. This seems to be what you want, and many people have provided suggestions.
These are all ok. But the one defining characteristic of Lemmy is that it is not just another product.
Mods please install an upvote twice button.
I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.
That’s a terminology issue that you’re going to run into in any sufficiently political community. ‘Left-wing’ in casual use in the US refers to “everyone except the Republicans and some moderates”, but “left-wing” in any serious political talk refers to anti-capitalism.
are they really anti-capitalism?
or just calling for properly regulated capitalism?
According to capitalism, capitalism is the only regulation capitalism needs. Capitalism regulated by something other than capitalism is anti-capitalism.
The bigger issue is that so many people misconstrued capitalism and markets. They are two different things. You can have markets, well regulated markets. And not have capitalism. Even under authoritarian leninist governments they have markets. There were markets in Soviet russia, there are markets in-state capitalist China. Even in North korea. But they do not let the wealthy regulate and decide the markets as capitalism does. They have plenty of other issues however.
According to capitalism, capitalism is the only regulation capitalism needs. Capitalism regulated by something other than capitalism is anti-capitalism.
Respectfully, I don’t think this is true.
Even Adam Smith warned about the dangers of monopolies and the fact that businesses would try to crate them, collide againat consumers etc. That’s kind of the foundation of anti trust legislation.
Now, modern republicans have endorsed the view of capitalism that you’ve noted but to say that’s the how Capitalism works is like saying Soviet Russia is how communism works.
Respectfully, Adam Smith did not invent capitalism. He is seen by some as the father of it. But much like marx and Lenin and many others. Put together a popular outline of the thought at the time.
Even then he needs to be understood in the context of the times he lived in. He was very Progressive and educated for his time. But even if he believed that government should have some say in capitalism. Government back then meant wealthy white land owning males. I.E the capital class. I.E Capital controlling capital. Not the workers. Not women. Capitalism has always been about oligarchy. It was literally a response by the mercantilist class against the Royals.
Neither capitalism or socialism works for anyone but the vanguard/oligarchs.
You can’t just define capitalism however you want.
Most people understand that businesses need regulation, that’s the point and basis of so many agencies and bodies that it’s almost comical.
The real argument is how heavily it should be regulated. Yes, some folks, particularly those with a lot of capital don’t want regulations. That no more means capitalism itself doesn’t want or need regulations than say, a soccer player with a strong punch who wishes you could just punch other players means soccer wants players to be able to punch each other in the head.
deleted by creator
Adam Smith, in modern terms, would be a social liberal. Probably some kind of ordoliberal. It’s Marx where the modern definition of capitalism comes from and it’s pretty much “what capitalists do, systemically, to stay in power”: Accumulate their capital, evade regulation, generate monopolies, seek rents, etc.
Properly regulated capitalism is my Left but…
Then you are technically left. Although leninists Will loudly denounce anyone who doesn’t follow their authoritarian ideology as being no true Scotsman.
Capitalism as I stated above is regulated by capital. Anything other than capital regulating capitalism is not capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is that Capital regulates itself. If you want something other than Capital regulating capitalism, i e the people or government. Then you are against Capital regulating itself. And therefore anti-capitalist.
The tricky bit is. That wealthy oligarchs have spent centuries at this point conflating markets and capitalism. They are two different things. Markets have existed for centuries, Millennium even. It’s one of man’s oldest inventions. Coming right about the same time as agriculture. Predating capitalism by thousands of years. Capitalism as a concept is barely older than the United States itself.
That’s a very absolutist view of the meaning of Capitalism.
With that view, how could anyone be against Capitalism then?
It’s technically never been tried with that definition.
It’s not absolutist. Mildly reductive perhaps. But not remotely absolutist.
How could anyone be for it? It’s literally rule by the wealthy. It was a response created by wealthy mercantilist. Frustrated that no matter how much money they had there was an echelon of power always denied to them.
It’s always been tried with that definition. At the founding of the United States, wealthy white land owning males. The capital class with all the capital controlled it. It was oligarchy from it’s establishment. It was more beneficial on average than mercantilism. But still a failure.
Even today in China. The vanguard, their capital controlling class controls and regulates their state capitalism. Capital regulates capitalism. Not the people.
‘Left-wing’ in casual use in the US refers to “everyone except the Republicans and some moderates”, but “left-wing” in any serious political talk refers to anti-capitalism.
Please list the mainstream “leftist” parties in any G20 nation that are “anti-capitalist”; and by mainstream I mean they have more than two representatives at the federal level.
Socdems are leftist, even if you might disagree with their whole non-revolutionary approach. Definitely more leftist than the billionaire-creating CCP which yes is in the G20. China is part of that club.
Mainstream leftist parties aren’t necessarily leftist, especially economically leftist. E.g. the Democratic party in the US.
I would say mixed-marked advokates fit into left wing as well, social democray and so forth.
You know left “lite”
I dobtwrhinj it’s any serious political talk (otherwise most countries are having unserious talks about their Left and Right wings) but maybe in serious political theory talks?
Like, Germany’s Left parties mostly don’t want to dismantle capitalism but I wouldn’t dismiss all conversation about them and putting people on that Left Right spectrum to be unserious.
Like, Germany’s Left parties mostly don’t want to dismantle capitalism but I wouldn’t dismiss all conversation about them and putting people on that Left Right spectrum to be unserious.
Even the SDP is pro-forma still for the abolition of capitalism.
I always thought they were more traditional socialist democracy?
But I doubt many of their voters believe a vote for them will bring about the end of capitalism…
That’s because for many of them it is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism.
I always thought they were more traditional socialist democracy?
… what do you think socialism is, exactly?
Generally, classically I’ve understood Socialism to still involve central planning of industry/production.
Whereas most modern socialist democracies tend to heavily regulate industry and enact social welfare programs to minimize the effects of different classes etc.
Generally, classically I’ve understood Socialism to still involve central planning of industry/production.
Socialism is worker control of the means of production, which can take many forms. What it is, most distinctively, is incompatible with capitalism, which is investor control of the means of production.
Whereas most modern socialist democracies tend to heavily regulate industry and enact social welfare programs to minimize the effects of different classes etc.
The most successful socialist parties in the West take the view that the harm of capitalism should be reduced while it still exists; they still believe in the eventual abolition of capitalism.
And the harm reduction comes in the form of removing parts of the economy from capitalist control, which is … anti-capitalist.
I don’t disagree but there is a distinct difference between social democracy and a socialist democracy, or democratic socialism.
The former is a capitalist system with some welfare systems in place, the latter is socialism without the one party state.
They very much expect the SPD to defend things like co-determination laws to the death, though. They also expect the SPD to implement referenda that say that landlords with over 1000 apartments should be expropriated, that they’re dragging their feet on that kind of stuff (“but the markets might get uneasy and that would have consequences”) is one of the reasons why they don’t poll well.
Can you imagine a US city the size of Berlin pushing through a referendum to expropriate landowners? That’s how far apart the overton windows are. There’s hardly even overlap.
There is a lot of “Capitalist Realism” but the people in these parties that still consider themselves leftists usually do agree that capitalism should be abolished if pressed on the topic.
Lemmy.world is considered the “normie” instance. Even if you manage to find another instance, it won’t matter that much anyway since most interactions are from federated users. The only way to avoid leftist views on Lemmy is to avoid politics completely (which isn’t viable).
Many people block all political communities and keywords. It’s definitely viable.
If you block political words and Linux this place is a ghost town…
… Except for LotR memes of course.
Linux
Linux isn’t politics. :(
i use arch, btw.
Linux isn’t politics
A wild Richard Stallman has appeared!
I can understand blocking political words, but Linux? You might as well browse 9gag at that point.
Unless you’re willing to go with a very closed off instance you’re still going to be interacting with the broader fediverse which is very left.
I don’t think that’s really going to change unless there is another big migration and I don’t necessarily want it to. But I would like if Lemmings would be kinder to one another and realize that not having read 800 pages of leftist theory doesn’t mean you’re an evil imperialist. Everyone is on their own journey to understanding the world and I think a lot of people here are so judgmental that they would be fighting with their own past and future selves if they could meet them. It’s OK to disagree sometimes. Yes, even when people hold harmful views. We all do to some extent.
"I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism?
Based
Also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between leftist and left wing from someone but this is America dammit it’s the culture
I seriously doubt most normies would enjoy Lemmy. But sh.itjust.works seems pretty middle of the road.
Although I’d agree that lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, and hexbear are far-left, with only one specifically right-wing instance that I can think of, I don’t think that most of the remaining Lemmy users on lemmy.world, lemmy.dbzer0.com, lemm.ee, beehaw.org, or any of the other big Lemmy instances are particularly extreme in their views.
On average, Lemmy users do seem to be more left-wing than right-wing, probably due to right-wing Redditors being less likely to mind Reddit’s monetization of its userbase, and more likely to mind Lemmy’s far-left instances.
While I don’t think Lemmy should encourage far-right users to join, given that racism and bigotry degrade any platform that allows such speech, I do think that those on the right who are not extreme and are capable of having thoughts independent of the MAGA cult should be welcomed on any instance, given that echo chambers only serve to propagate existing views, rather than foster discussion.
The key part in joining any instance are the instances that either block it or are blocked by it, so perhaps one that blocks lemmygrad, lemmy.ml, and hexbear by default, while minimizing the number of instances that in turn block it, would be optimal to have access to as many communities as possible.
Here’s a list of Lemmy instances by number of instances blocked and blocking, for reference. Seems to not be quite up-to-date, and can’t find the instance I’m on on the list, but it should still be somewhat helpful for comparing. Personally, I prefer being on an instance with as few blocks as possible (implementing those blocks instead on a user level as a means of curating my all feed), since the Lemmy community is already small enough as it is, but new users might not want to have to configure those blocks themselves.
I appreciate the well thought response. I habe quibbles but overall agree with you.
Interesting take.
I think what you‘re talking about is called „anecdotal evidence“. Destroying capitalism is definitely not the „mainstream“ on lemmy, far from it. Although We dont have „normie-lizing“ moderation and bot armies that bury every post thats out of the norm.
Of course we attract a lot of freedom loving people. Freedom, turns out is an extremist left view. Asking to be paid for work done, asking to be able to work from home, etc.
I would ask your friend to show you more than one incident and also ask them to be open to making a new experience.
And although everyone will hate me for it: if you want fediverse lite (or bastardized corpo fediverse) you can always test bluesky and threads. They are more mainstream since they have larger user counts.
Not sure this is the way to share comments but in this post we already have people arguing about liberalism creating fascism etc:
https://fedia.io/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/1703782/-/comment/9075608
I think she deleted accounts but if you really want I can hunt down the last time folks got angry at me for the same thing.
I think the way to do it would be this but you probably can do it a lot more ways.
Lemmy (and the fediverse as a whole) are not supposed to be a drop in replacement for reddit and other corpo media. No central moderation or “direction”, just a ton of servers with very varying user counts, ideas and ways to do things.
When on the fediverse, you will definitely encounter bad stuff. You will learn to use the block button and maybe block whole instances. Thats how you make your own “bubble”.
Since the fediverse is federated, horizontally organized and has freedom of association, it is hugely different from any other social gathering in the outside world. All our Lives we live in hierarchical structures: Families (more or less), Schools, Companies, etc. That can be the reason why it feels alien. But I dare you to try and see if “freedom” cant feel nice to you.
It will never feel like reddit or other places on the corpo web. If you need that, its not the place for you. If you can be open to a new experience and just decide between listening to an opinion or blocking it, you might have a lot of fun. Good luck
I don’t think it’s the non hierarchy, I think it’s the being called a fascist enabler for supporting mainstream Democrat positions etc that is offputting.
I have trouble recommending this place to others because of some of our less than delightful members.
Reddit was big enough that once you got into niche communities, the angry crazies were either banned or hadn’t found community or whatever. Lemmy is still small so we don’t have that. So, was just hoping for an instance or whatnot that was less communism and linux and more friendly to an average person.
Yeah, i cant help if you wont use the block button. The not banning people is part of the horizontal structure. I suggest you open up to the concept. Otherwise youre just out of luck.
Also nobody here gives a shit if you recommend lemmy to anything. Thats reddit thinking. We dont make money, dont have the slightest benefit from someone getting a recommendation coming here. au contraire, we give people refuge who are sick and tired of the way reddit treats its users. If your friends are happy on reddit, please god leave them there. We do not want them here.
There have been a bunch of pleas to grow the fediverse, as stated in the opening.
And the block button isn’t a particularly good recommendation for new people.
Out of curiousity, say there was an instance that allowed all speech and had great content. Would you tell a trans friend “hey it’s great, just block every time you see something hateful.” Or can we see how that would be an unpleasant experience.
Anyway, if you don’t want a larger fediverse, that’s groovy but that seems contrary to the nature of almost every post here.
We‘re talking about different things.
I have trans friends that are fine here. They will absolutely shit on you for not dismantling capitalism though.
See my point?
Everyone has the right to their opinion. You want extras? Either get on an instance that backs your exact flavor or make your own. Freedom of association, baby!
Also, you know what I dont like? Smartasses. Yes, there are people here that dont want this place to grow and others do. Neither of them is wrong. The only one who is wrong is the one trying to convince them otherwise repeatedly.
If you have any other questions, I‘ll gladly help. If you want to convince me why I‘m wrong, you‘re getting the block treatment. Your decision.
Are you aware that when they use the term liberalism, they likely mean economic liberalism?
I didn’t delete my account I blocked you. Open up a fucking history book, look at the Weimar Republic, then look what came next.
As a queer woman I’m so fucking sick and tired of liberal bullshit. Liberals create the conditions that allow fascism to flourish. In America, when bush couped in 2000, they rolled over, leading to citizens United, 9/11, the patriot act, the afghanistan and Iraq forever wars. In 2008 they bailed out the bankers. In 2016 they fucked over Bernie and lost to a fascist. In 2020 they fucked over Bernie again and the only reason biden won was because of covid. In 2024 they proudly support a genocide and gaslight the public about the economy - just like the Weimar Republic selling out the Germans in their ww1 concessions.
You liberals just don’t fucking learn. And now my life is on the line. Either fight capitalism or get fascism, your fucking pick liberal.
You should block better or.something?
And the people who failed Bernie were the voters who didn’t show up. Age wise, the youth got their heads kicked in by the seniorsin the primaries by a depressing margin. If you don’t vote, you don’t make differences.
I mean, bailing out the banks as a failure? Shit, there shouls have been regulations (like Canada had) to stop crazy trading but unless you wanted a lot pf people to lose their pensions and life savings, this is an impressively silly point.
Edit: also, the she wasn’t about you it was about the person whom OP had asked about. (Yes, not everything revolves around you, though admittedly that wasn’t super clear from the paragraph construction) I just used you as an example of lemmy’s delightful crazies.
Roughly speaking, Lemm.ee is more libertarian some libright. Slrpnk is libleft but is home to pleasant politics community. Dbzer0 is anarchy leftist. World is closest to US centrist. Lemmy.ca is kind of Reddit’s onguardforthee vibe, Left/NDP wing.
Thing is that influences from other more ideological instances will make it onto All threads. “Lib-shaming” is something some folks at lemmy.ml, hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml like to do frequently, which is where those experiences might have come from.
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(as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”)
I get why folks do it, but I’m not sure if they’re going to get people to embrace their philosophy, if they keep jeering at other people like this. There are more cordial ways that one can acknowledge the benefits while showing why the drawbacks outweigh them.
Can vouch for this. I learned a thing or two from people who had the patience to explain. Including some ML people. @Cowbee@lemmy.ml for example has nerves of steel. Permanent snark isn’t useful but it’s understandable, especially coming from people who are being actively harmed. Repeating the same things over and over without frustration isn’t something everyone can do.
Appreciate the kind words! You’re 100% correct in saying that snark isn’t useful but is understandable. Many good people are being actively harmed and are out of patience in explaining how and why said harm exists, and how we can move beyond it. That isn’t even mentioning the outright hostility many Leftists face in general, on a daily basis. Ultimately, what I’ve found is that most people aren’t going to be convinced of something that seriously challenges their worldview in a single conversation, but through compatible life experiences make themselves more open to new ideas. Those are the ones that end up listening to others genuinely and taking to heart what the other person has to say.
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Then maybe don’t waste energy being shitty online and instead build the local community and personal resources to protect your ass.
If I was in your situation looking at the changes Trump did in just the executive orders his first day, I can tell you one thing that would be at the absolute fucking bottom of my todo list: argue on the fucking internet.
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While I do think some ways of communicating are certainly more effective than others, social change also requires some amount of tension to be effective. Cordial methods are often the first to be tried, and are also most often summarily ignored.
Moderates often find tension emotionally distressing because it pierces their perception of themselves as a morally just person. They sometimes perceive what is often valid criticism as being yelled at. This tension is required in order to enact social change, though.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of that tension before, I can attest it’s an unpleasant experience, but it passes, and hopefully leaves room for some amount of contemplation in its place.
I’d highly recommend reading MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, as he bridges the concept much more eloquently than I could ever hope to.
I have to say it again:
- Fascists promise to do fascist things
- Americans elect fascists
- Fascists do fascist things
- HOW COULD DEMOCRATS DO THIS???
It’s a bit more like:
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Capitalism creates the material conditions that promote fashism
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Democrates aren’t fashists, but they keep capitalism
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The material conditions that promote fashism end up happening and fashism props up
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Fashists end up getting elected
The point isn’t that the Democrats are fashists, but that they would rather continue support the thing that litterally empowers fashism rather than doing anything else. Kinda like a person who refuses to get vaccinated and spreads a disease to everyone else.
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So you’re mad at Democrats for not being fascist enough?
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Whatever you need to think to excuse fascists for being fascists, I guess.
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This is some incel logic.
“Women won’t date me so I’ll call them bitches and sluts!”
“People don’t vote for my side so I’ll say they’re enabling fascism!”
“People don’t vote for my side so I’ll say they’re enabling fascism!”
iconic, I’ve been repeatedly told by liberals that because I voted third party that I’m essentially a trump voter.
that wasn’t what was said though.
they said that liberals created the material conditions for fascism. i.e. by suppressing the left and only offering up warmongering and genocide they created a situation where someone like trump could get elected. again.
a fair number of the people who are on this platform are here specifically because oligarch-owned media sites heavily censor all left wing speech, and have done so for many years.
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I got banned from every platform, and my account on lemmy.world was also banned.
Gee, from your comments on this post I could never imagine how that could happen.
If everywhere you go people smell like shit, maybe you should check your shoes.
I’d strongly suggest that the issue isn’t your beliefs, but that you’re about as abrasive as kissing the pavement at 75mph.
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Everything I don’t like is Liberal: A Guide to Modern Lemmy Discourse
More seriously, lives are not at stake in this particular comment section.
Edit: and I never told you to stop, just that it’s abrasive as shit and likely why you’re being banned so damn much. Do with it what you will. I’m not your parents, the police, or your boss.
Lib shaming is for good reason as the US and most of the western world falls to fascism thanks to libs creating the material conditions for it.
Presumably, there was an alternative group to vote for in primaries or however else this delightful person thinks change should happen. People did not do whatever they think should have happened and thus I will name call them.
There was a primary this time around and it was even more of a farce than usual. The party just straight up ignored all the people voting uncommitted, to all of our detriment.
People did not do whatever they think should have happened and thus I will name call them.
I don’t actually understand what this is saying.
Either way this isn’t the place for a back and forth on this kind of thing, so I won’t be discussing the election further.
To steer back to your original topic though, you seem accustomed to the type of censorship of the left that’s typical on Reddit. Many of the people that are here are specifically here because the left wing communities they were participating in were systematically removed from reddit.
The reality is in a place like this sometimes you’re going to hear dissenting opinions, unless you’re very selective in your instance and only browse local.
Typical lemmy.world user right there.
I’m a queer woman.
And the logic you’re using is very similar to an incel.
That’s literally how analogies work, you compare similarities in unlike things, e.g., my cat snores like a chainsaw. She is not a chainsaw but has a comical similarity in one aspect, even if she can’t cut down a tree and does not use gas or electricity.
Please, Slrpnk may by attractive for different kind of people due to aesthetic and design buy its core philosophy is not Lib, is Anarchy.
Honestly liberals probably fit into lemmy fine. I’ve seen my fair share.
But your view of “normie” is heavily american centric. Your normies are probably far right in much of the world.
Unless “much of the world” is just the West please remember many nations are still under authoritarian rule.
Authoritarian is up on the poltical compass, not right, although its often left since it often requires a powerful state.
I think it’s unfair to just assume they are far right cause they are American. Right wing? Sure. More likely to be far right? Also sure. This doesn’t mean we should not welcome them and then try to show them that their specific view points are unfounded (or maybe ours are, there’s the point of discussion). Not just assume they are Nazis when they just ask why people here seem different to them
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
— @IamRageSparkle, 2020, on the microblogging site that later let the fascists in.
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
— Karl Popper, 1945
A good anime weeby analogy is that nazis are like the demons from Frieren.
They only learnt to speak the polite words so they can easily lie to us and kill us.
No tolerance however ends up at the same point.
It’s not like we know this person has Nazi tattoos or even what their views are. Maybe they literally just asked a question. If they do have Nazi tattoos, they can fuck off. If they think anyone who doesn’t identify as strait is a bad person, they can fuck off. If they believe the q-anon conspiracys without question, they can fuck off.
But untill we talk to someone (assuming they are not visibly showing their extreme views like in your bar tender example) it literally doesn’t make sense to judge people based on the information OP has provided. If more information comes out, I am open to changing my opinion, but for now I think you are being intolerant of people joining this platform simply because they ask for something that is not as left wing.
Fediverse is anticapitalism at its core, it’s a way to escape ads and money influencing algorithims and what can be said. If you don’t like power to the people, join truth.social or some other unfederated instance.
i tought that was lemmy.world
it resembles early reddit a lot.
