No Stupid Questions
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I'm sure this will come if the wrong way but if you're genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you're going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.
I'm all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you're really wanting to be challenged, and you're a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.
But if what you're concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that's just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.
I like hearing both sides of every argument even when I don't agree with it. On reddit I could read the top comments first and then sort by controversial to hear the opposing arguements. Here I can't do that. There usually are no opposing arguments or if there is they're made in bad faith. It's almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I'm more of a pick and choose type of person.
There are very few "positions" I hold. When it comes to most subjects I'm not informed enough to form strong opinions so I generally float somewhere in between. For most hot topics I see on Lemmy every day I can usually make good arguments for both ways. I may lean to one side or another but I'm often just a few well written comments away from tipping to the other direction.
The "positions" term is usually a shorthand for the eventual distillation of your values. If you haven't arrived yet at your positions, have you examined on your values? Values are usually far more primitive in the sense they don't conform exactly to specific public policy, but there is usually public policy that encompasses specific values.
While its certainly possible for a person's values to change over time. We usually arrive at what most our values are in our 20s. These are things such as:
I believe it is very important for each of us to examine who we are, what our values are, and then use our intellect to decide/craft which positions can be arrived at with guidance from our values.
This is where your responsibility comes in. If you're not informed enough, become so. Listen critically to arguments, don't simply accept on face value what other proclaim is true. If you're hearing a logical argument that seems to contradict your understanding, yet aligns with your values, challenge yourself to explore it. The phrase "steel sharpens steel" applies here. If you have healthy and strongly defined personal values, the arguments of your positions should be equally strong and stand up to scrutiny. If your positions are found faulty by your own examination, adopt all or elements of the argument that knocked your position down because its is the right one for your values and ability to critically apply logic with all the information you have available.
You made other statements about choosing a side, but realistically it isn't just two sides. Its dozens or hundreds of nuanced views, and every single one could be flawed in some way, or incomplete. Accept that in many situations there isn't a "right" answer. All sides represented could be wrong and the best you can do is admit this choose the least worse. This constant reexamination and frustration is both the beauty and the horror of being human.
This sums up my feelings lately very nicely. I'd say I am generally well aligned with the culture on here, and share most leftist views. However there are certain topics, and even just sub aspects of certain topics, that will net you a lot of downvotes very quick and condescending proselytizing comments if you even slightly differ from the general consensus in your views.
I'm not sure what could be done about this though, I certainly dont want Lemmy to be more welcoming towards alt right bullshit and such. But talking with a bunch of queer leftists about queer leftist things all the time is like that old south park episode where the parents become pretentious wine snobs and start getting high on their own farts. Boring, pointless self aggrandizement.
I'm a queer leftist but get kinda sick of the three topics on lemmy: linux good/america bad/Rust sometimes OK.
I want like...aquarium subreddits that are active. I wanna see mountain bike subs with good advice and live threads. I wanna see local subs that have the hottest details on obcure things like the best nude community gardens or some shit, haha. I wanna see Subaru forums where you can learn how to add a better sound system or replace an intercooler. Hell, even local city subs, where they talk about the best protected bike lanes now that summer is approaching.
The thing about lemmy is if you want to see something you got to make it yourself if it doesn't exist
Lemmy has such a tiny active user space that most niche communities simply wont take off.
Guess how reddit started.
Not with that attitude
We will have all that, soon enough. Reddit has size over Lemmy and with size comes monetization. They've gone full corporate, selling our data and our content to make a profit. We're here to stand against that. Hopefully over time we can support enough basic communities that this place will be able to grow over the years.
Until then, help implement the barebones stuff. Make sure you're subbed to those 4 communities and make a post or two in them. And it's really not that big of a deal if you browse Reddit from time to time, but don't neglect the barebones communities here if you're gonna do that.
I think some mods are a bit too happy to use their mod tools. I've seen opinions get moderated away because they anger people, not because they are wrong.
A mature society is able to discuss things without banning opinions they don't agree with.
The amount of tankies and idiots with idiotic opinions is way to high on here. And in general I realy get what they are saying. Other platforms with a bigger user base don't have that big of a problem with diversity. It bothered me too, it seems like the whole of lemmy has a very idiotic position on a lot of things and saying anything that is even in the slightest against that gets you down voted. That is something that sadly developed over time. In the early days everyone was way more friendly and less radical people were on here.
Well. No. Say that to yourself, but ideology and belive is a lot more complex than: I am smart, so I am left. Your believes mostly stem from influences in your childhood, like parents, friends, people you trust. It's dangerous to lift yourself above others with different believes.
The problem is that a socialist worker doesn't realy have a place to go to challenge their own opinion. Lemmy sadly has gone the way of an eco chamber. And for political discourse you need other people that have an opinion like yours that support you in your arguments. Currently it's more like "this guy has a bad opinion, downvote him to hell"
It's not enough for me to leave, because in general I realy like it here and with enough comunitys blocked it has become bearable.
I've seen a LOT of strawman attacks. It usually seems to be honest miscommunication, but underneath that... It looks like predisposition to combative and somewhat-dismissive hot takes.
And it works. Certain members have swung entire conversations and down votes by implying a person said something they didn't.
It's not unique to online fora, but the concentration seems off here.
Some of this just looks like people feeling like big fish in this small pond and finding a degree of confidence or even righteousness from the voting patterns.
Can you expand more on those idiotic positions?
“America does bad things, so I should support china/russia instead!”
“Stalin/mao were (anything besides utterly reprehensible dictators)”
“Communism could’ve worked if-“
Honorable mention to thinking this coy “I’m going to act all hyper respectful and yet also like I know more than anyone about anything” bullshit gets you anywhere.
Though to be honest, tankies spouting #1 and #2 get heavily downvoted. I don't even see them anymore, guess my instance defederated them, but they were never strong positions here.
Perhaps it's the defederation, but my experience here does not resemble yours.
They’re mask off on hexbear/lemmygrad, they try to be subversive on lemmy.ml. I have in fact instance blocked the first two, you can usually dodge them on .ml. Lemmy is far less enjoyable if you have not blocked them.
So, you've been listening to lemmy.lm...
First two sound like tankies, but communism definitely could work :P
Commune-ism sounds like a lovely idea on a small scale, you gotta solve a lot of political problems to make it work on anything bigger. Social democracies like the scandinavians seem to be the best way we currently know to run a humanitarian society.
On an internet site?! I'm shocked! Shocked!
I mostly sign jokes and shitposting communities, but the people there are surprisingly calm and diverse. I mean, surprisingly for an internet community; most could pass just as a very weird group in another context.
But if you go signing for politics communities on the internet, you'll get the expected result.
You don't need to know their views to know what a diverse community is. Lemmy is a heavily-~~biasee~~biased echochamber, they want something that's not a heavily-biased echochamber.