It’s just as much a left-wing echo chamber as Truth Social is a right-wing one - and that’s a problem in both cases. Some might say it’s fine because we’re on the right side of history and they’re not, or something along those lines - but the people on Truth Social think the exact same thing. No one’s views ever change that way.
I’d much, much rather be in an echo chamber where BS is questioned and reality is not ignored than a conservative hellscape where basic facts of reality are ignored, like, “tons of CO2 in the atmosphere is totally fine, actually” or, “trans people are corrupting sports!”.
Yea… fuck those at best extremely stupid people and at worst, vitriolic piles of trash.
Some might say it’s fine because we’re on the right side of history and they’re not, or something along those lines
I say it’s fine because if there’s one thing I’ve learned repeatedly since about 2017, it’s that the single most effective thing I can do to reduce toxicity in my life is to reduce my interactions with conservative family members, coworkers, ‘friends’, and social media accounts.
It’s remarkably effective. I interact with no conservative or known trump voter more than work or family obligations require. Haven’t for years. Best mental health step I’ve taken in my adult life.
Not my fault they have all forgotten that “loudest asshole in the room” isn’t a personality.
I don’t think there is such a thing as a left wing echo chamber. We bicker incessantly. The other day I was making a joke at the expense of the car-brain mentality and someone came at me for ableism.
I’m not mad at them, it’s just illustrative of my point. We don’t take shit from each other, and we take each other to task over jokes. The right will, meanwhile, forgive literal pedophilia, rape, and murder of each other. I’m sure as hell not saying we should, but we will never create an echo chamber as good as they do because of that.
The right wing instances are just defederated from this larger federated group because the people on them were unable to follow the rules of other instances. Repeatedly, they would throw tantrums and create loads of dupe accounts to spam shit when people downvoted their shitty views or their accounts got banned. If they were capable of behaving with civility and following the rules, they’d still be here.
No idea how active that corner of the Lemmyverse is these days, but they have repeatedly chosen to behave in a way that leaves instance administrators with little choice other than defederation.
I think the main problem is that there isn’t much besides politics and memes. Most communities that aren’t politics seem to devolve into meme communities.
It’s probably an issue with vote-based discussions full stop. Post something funny and it’ll get votes because of the laughs; post something everyone in your echo-chamber agrees with and it’ll get votes because it’s right-on.
Forums still exist, but I hard agree with you. I was so excited when the lemmy devs were considering hiding votes counts from the frontend by default. Unfortunately (imo) it got shot down by the community pretty quickly.
I think “likes” as a socials concept are part of a dark engagement pattern we’ve willfully brought over from the mainstream, and we won’t be able to be much better than them until we’re rid of it.
Yeah, I am on… two forums. I think the issue is that it’s not where the people are any more.
I actually think the problem with voting is that the way it’s used to promote threads instead of doing it on a time basis. It’s part of a way of engaging with a site which punishes long-running conversations.
Agree that it’s hard to find really long running conversions (like what you see on forums), unless you happen to be going back and forth with one other person (notifications pull you back in).
There is also a dearth of cannibalistic viewpoints here. And Zoroastrians are woefully underrepresented.
I don’t come here to change my views (though it happens from time to time), and neither do they. I’m not ignorant of their thoughts; I’m inundated with them every day. I don’t need to interact with assholes here. I don’t want to come here and watch people scream back and forth at each other, and I definitely am not interested in participating—there is a reason I’ve left other social media.
You don’t have to subscribe to political communities if you don’t want to see political discussion. But the dearth of genuine political discussion here is a problem for the people who do want it, that can’t be fixed by individual action.
What is genuine political discussion? How do you moderate it? Who is going to come when it’s moderated? How do you deal with both legitimate and legitimate complaints about biased moderation?
I just don’t think it’s a thing on social media. I think it can happen in private conversations, but as soon as it becomes more about winning an argument or posturing for readers, I think any hope of earnest discourse is lost. The more public a conversation, the worse it is. It’s like trying to argue with a bully in front of their friends. You might be able to reach the humanity in them, but not in that moment.
It used to be, in the early days of mass social media (and it was widespread on forums)
Moderation isn’t easy but it also needn’t be fraught - set standards of civility (strict or loose) and basic rules about hate speech, and let people take themselves out of discussions that are within the rules that they nevertheless don’t like.
It works a lot better in small communities where you talk to the same people - you can ignore people you don’t like and not have the same conversation over and over.
But the dearth of genuine political discussion here is a problem for the people who do want it
It’s not genuine if we don’t want to constantly have to expose ourselves to toxic bigots or “smooth” manipulators who think it’s not really toxic bigotry if they are “just asking questions?”
It’s not genuine if we don’t want to start every single discussion of something bad Trump did with rebutting a half dozen versions of “but whatabout that time when dems…”?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
I will not be shamed into allowing toxicity into my life, on social media or otherwise, in the name of “avoiding an echo chamber.” NOTHING is stopping a conservative from coming here and making cogent, factual arguments, aside from their own fragility.
The conservatives who “can’t” post to Lemmy are the ones who don’t know how to have an actual conversation and get banned. What fraction of conservatives that represents is an excercise left to the reader. But I’ve got my own opinion on that number for sure.
The fact that you characterise natural ways of engaging in a discussion negatively doesn’t mean it’s not genuine, and it doesn’t mean you’re forced to look at it if it’s available.
NOTHING is stopping a conservative from coming here and making cogent, factual arguments, aside from their own fragility.
The structure of vote-based social media makes it difficult, and the people who, rather than remove themselves from places where arguments happen, shout down the people having the arguments, stops this from happening.
You’d be right to point out that conservative-majority spaces are just as, if not more guilty of this, but that doesn’t make it less true.
The conservatives who “can’t” post to Lemmy are the ones who don’t know how to have an actual conversation and get banned.
That’s true but it’s not the only thing that’s going on.
Edit: And frankly, having to explain that in regard to my comment above is precisely what I love not having to constantly do at Lemmy. (Because people both understand the difference, and don’t pretend not to.)
it doesn’t mean you’re forced to look at it if it’s available.
The case being made here is that this is a left wing echo chamber, and that I am not interested in genuine discussion if I either don’t think it is, or don’t care that it is.
I have provided examples of trolling, toxic behavior.
I do not want trolling, toxic behavior here. It is not welcome by me in the community, whether I’m forced to look at it or not.
I’m also not supporting (and nor am I aware of any such thing existing) some kind of a blanket ban on conservatives. They are the folks always telling people to man up, grab themselves by their bootstraps, have the courage of their convictions, etc etc. Guess they need to take some of their own advice if it’s a little rough sometimes trying to push authoritarianism and bigotry in some spaces. And if they get banned because they have forgotten how to talk to people who don’t already agree with them, I can’t find it in me to care.
I will not be shamed into allowing toxicity into my life, on social media or otherwise, in the name of “avoiding an echo chamber.”
Yeah, but if you go in saying that this is the inevitable result of having conservatives discuss politics here, I am suspicious that your threshold for those terms is waaayy lower than mine.
The person I replied to originally wasn’t talking about trolling or toxic behaviour, they were talking about conservative viewpoints (likening them to cannibalism, I might add) so, if you want to chip in that trolling isn’t welcome then I’ll certainly agree with that, but there’s a reason I’m not really talking about that.
These are two of the the primary things gone from my life now that I’ve cut every conservative I can from it. It’s glorious.
So if you want me to support some kind of outreach for conservatives (who apparently can’t post anywhere they aren’t overtly welcomed and that’s a problem the rest of us need to fix) I need some understanding of what you think the upside is.
I haven’t seen that.
I’ve seen scolding people for not wanting to surround themselves with people who have had years and years to demonstrate what they are like and what they support. The only thing new about modern conservatism is how it no longer bothers trying to pretend it’s not hateful.
As I have said repeatedly, nothing stops a conservative from coming here and communicating like an adult.
Yes, and just like Trump, I’m not speaking of the white nationalists and nazies.
"So you know what, it’s fine. You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists – because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.
“Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets, and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group.”
Note that this is the second statement he made, which he had to make after being called out by the media for seemingly supporting the neonazi protestors. Which, given his history at that point and subsequently, it’s pretty obvious that the media was right and he was just back tracking due to bad publicity.
Yeah, and it specifically ignores that the statement you posted was the second, clarifying statement days later. Snopes is going off what he said he meant, not actually what he said. Check the United the Right wiki page for the actual timeline.
Stop letting other people think for you.
Trump did not respond to the torchlight parade on Friday night or the demonstrations on Saturday morning until 1:19 pm on Saturday, August 12, when he tweeted, “We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!”[284][33]
At the bill-signing ceremony, Trump said that “we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides”.[284][33][288][289] He added that it had been “going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. A long, long time” and that “a swift restoration of law and order” was now vital.[289]
A statement attributed to an unnamed White House spokesperson was released the next day, asserting that "The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred. Of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, Neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together
…
After the backlash for his remarks, Trump read a statement from a teleprompter two days later at the White House.[310][292] He said that “anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s racist violence, you will be held fully accountable.”[287] and that “[r]acism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”[311]
The closest they have is the unattributed statement, again after the fact, trying to clarify what he said wasn’t what he meant. Like they always do.
But it’s this very specific quote that people are misrepresenting. It’s not like he first said “there were fine people on both sides” and then, a few days later, clarified that he wasn’t talking about the Nazis. He said there were fine people on both sides and explicitly added that he was not referring to the Nazis - and it’s that latter part people omit when they spread the “fine people on both sides” quote.
Uh huh, and I’m sure we can take him at his word. It’s not like he’s ever lied. He never gave a nod to nazis ever, like telling the proud boys to stand by. Yup, good old not racist donnie, I’m sure he totally hates white supremacists.
You wanna talk bad faith, believe anything that comes out of his orange piehole.
Misrepresenting what someone says is a textbook example of bad faith so doing that in a discussion about bad faith is ironic to say the least. What he actually thinks is unrelated to this discussion as it’s about what he said. You’d call people out for twisting your words so hold yourself to the same standards.
Not believing lying sociopaths is not bad faith, and I’m having trouble accepting that you’d actually think it is. I’m not sure why you’re so hung up on mango mussolini anyway, as this discussion started when I claimed that the right lied way more than the left. The president wasn’t responsible for all the lies the GOP has told for the past 50 years, although he sure does have more than his fair share.
You’re misquoting him - that’s bad faith. Whether or not you believe him is a separate issue. When you criticize someone for what they said, you should address their actual words - not your interpretation of them.
You are appearing more and more bad faith, or just plain grossly ignorant, and willfully so… If you won’t accept the truth, the truth that is being handed to you, with references, by other people, then prepare to not be part of this “echo chamber” for much longer…
Every last one of them who voted for trump has decided that bigotry (of multiple sorts) and steamrolling our constitution in the name of authoritarianism are somewhere between just what they wanted and not a dealbreaker.
Heh, I’m sure they are much better people than US conservatives, but I’ll quote myself from elsehwere.
The conservatives who “can’t” post to Lemmy are the ones who don’t know how to have an actual conversation and get banned. What fraction of conservatives that represents is an excercise left to the reader. But I’ve got my own opinion on that number for sure.
Maybe you should re-read my original comment? Because unless you think that Lemmy is not a left wing echo chamber then I have no clue what you’re arguing about here exactly.
OK, have crawled up the context tree, and don’t see where you think I’ve misunderstood your point. You think it’s an echo chamber (I do not) and you think that’s bad (I do not) and apparently I’m supposed to feel a little sheepish about not wanting shitty people with shitty behavior here at Lemmy. (I do not.)
Maybe I misread you. I think I’m being told not only that it is an echo chamber, but that I’m supposed to be bothered by it.
Meanwhile I haven’t seen an argument for what we’d gain by having more conservatives here, or what’s stopping those unicorn conservatives who aren’t raging assholes from posting.
The issue with echo chambers is that they reinforce people’s existing beliefs instead of challenging them. That often comes with extreme hostility toward anyone who doesn’t share those beliefs. If the left in the US wants to win elections they need people to vote for them who might have voted right in the past. In order to achieve this, minds needs to be changed, and that doesn’t happen in echo chambers. I’m sure you can see the value in a left-leaning person going to a place like Truth Social and, in a calm and respectful way, arguing against the claims they disagree with. Well, in my view, Lemmy could use something similar.
I also don’t think right-wingers are the only ones to blame when it comes to the breakdown of polite discussion. If you put someone who feels just as strongly about the left as people here feel about the right, it’s no surprise it turns into a mudslinging match. It takes two to tango.
The real mystery to me is what value the echo-chamber residents get out of it. Why would someone join a group of people they already agree with, just to be told that their opinions are correct, and to shout down any interloper who contradict them? How is that not a boring waste of time? Is it that most people are insecure in their views and need validation, perhaps? It’s a phenomenon I still don’t understand.
People often accuse me of being a troll because I tend to voice views that are unpopular on this platform. Personally, I just don’t see any point in talking about things we all already agree on. I’d much rather try to change the views of those I disagree with - or have them try to change mine.
I find I don’t agree with a lot of people, though there is at least a higher chance that someone, especially from my instance, will share my values and at least be willing to hear dissenting opinions without going right to insincere strawmaning.
Yes, it’s a matter of gradation. It’s not an echo chamber for me because so many of you have different opinions, but generally we all care about what is true and the future of life on this planet.
So it’s easier to have discussions around the parts we disagree over.
generally we all care about what is true and the future of life on this planet
But (to stay true to the spirit of debate I just defended) is this not itself a straw man? Do you think, say, religious conservatives would say that they don’t “care about what is true and the future of life on this planet”?
Good question, and they might. In which case it would be easier to have a discussion with them.
However, I think much of the time they cleave to a more Kantian morality, where acting correctly / virtuously in accordance with an identifiable authority. They may also believe that the future of life on this planet is trivial when compared to quality of life on some metaphysical plane.
I have this discussion with my neighbour constantly who is nice, but she keeps saying I’ve “got to have faith” and that “they have a plan to fix all this when the time is right” all while real people are suffering and dying, and their suffering is indelible — it can never be made to have not happened — and they will never be coming back.
It’s really hard to have a real discussion about reality with someone like that.
Fair enough about literal religious nuts people of firmly held religious convictions. This side of the pond there are very few of those, fortunately. My basic point is that plenty of people who vote “wrong” (Trump, for example) would actually agree with you on most of your vision of the good society. The questions are mainly over how to get there. This IMO is the tragedy of democratic politics today, and specifically the USA. An almost absolute breakdown in communication.
Yes, I agree with that. I try to inject a little counter culture whenever a wade into the mainstream, but generally avoid it because I find it very saddening.
It’s just as much a left-wing echo chamber as Truth Social is a right-wing one - and that’s a problem in both cases. Some might say it’s fine because we’re on the right side of history and they’re not, or something along those lines - but the people on Truth Social think the exact same thing. No one’s views ever change that way.
I’d much, much rather be in an echo chamber where BS is questioned and reality is not ignored than a conservative hellscape where basic facts of reality are ignored, like, “tons of CO2 in the atmosphere is totally fine, actually” or, “trans people are corrupting sports!”.
Yea… fuck those at best extremely stupid people and at worst, vitriolic piles of trash.
I say it’s fine because if there’s one thing I’ve learned repeatedly since about 2017, it’s that the single most effective thing I can do to reduce toxicity in my life is to reduce my interactions with conservative family members, coworkers, ‘friends’, and social media accounts.
It’s remarkably effective. I interact with no conservative or known trump voter more than work or family obligations require. Haven’t for years. Best mental health step I’ve taken in my adult life.
Not my fault they have all forgotten that “loudest asshole in the room” isn’t a personality.
I don’t think there is such a thing as a left wing echo chamber. We bicker incessantly. The other day I was making a joke at the expense of the car-brain mentality and someone came at me for ableism.
I’m not mad at them, it’s just illustrative of my point. We don’t take shit from each other, and we take each other to task over jokes. The right will, meanwhile, forgive literal pedophilia, rape, and murder of each other. I’m sure as hell not saying we should, but we will never create an echo chamber as good as they do because of that.
The right wing instances are just defederated from this larger federated group because the people on them were unable to follow the rules of other instances. Repeatedly, they would throw tantrums and create loads of dupe accounts to spam shit when people downvoted their shitty views or their accounts got banned. If they were capable of behaving with civility and following the rules, they’d still be here.
No idea how active that corner of the Lemmyverse is these days, but they have repeatedly chosen to behave in a way that leaves instance administrators with little choice other than defederation.
I think the main problem is that there isn’t much besides politics and memes. Most communities that aren’t politics seem to devolve into meme communities.
[email protected] has a pinned post for communities that are not politics or memes
I feel like that’s an issue that’s exacerbated by the predominance of image posts over text posts, and text post only communities.
It’s probably an issue with vote-based discussions full stop. Post something funny and it’ll get votes because of the laughs; post something everyone in your echo-chamber agrees with and it’ll get votes because it’s right-on.
Maybe I just want to go back to forums.
Forums still exist, but I hard agree with you. I was so excited when the lemmy devs were considering hiding votes counts from the frontend by default. Unfortunately (imo) it got shot down by the community pretty quickly.
I think “likes” as a socials concept are part of a dark engagement pattern we’ve willfully brought over from the mainstream, and we won’t be able to be much better than them until we’re rid of it.
Yeah, I am on… two forums. I think the issue is that it’s not where the people are any more.
I actually think the problem with voting is that the way it’s used to promote threads instead of doing it on a time basis. It’s part of a way of engaging with a site which punishes long-running conversations.
What do you mean on a time basis?
Agree that it’s hard to find really long running conversions (like what you see on forums), unless you happen to be going back and forth with one other person (notifications pull you back in).
There is also a dearth of cannibalistic viewpoints here. And Zoroastrians are woefully underrepresented.
I don’t come here to change my views (though it happens from time to time), and neither do they. I’m not ignorant of their thoughts; I’m inundated with them every day. I don’t need to interact with assholes here. I don’t want to come here and watch people scream back and forth at each other, and I definitely am not interested in participating—there is a reason I’ve left other social media.
You don’t have to subscribe to political communities if you don’t want to see political discussion. But the dearth of genuine political discussion here is a problem for the people who do want it, that can’t be fixed by individual action.
What is genuine political discussion? How do you moderate it? Who is going to come when it’s moderated? How do you deal with both legitimate and legitimate complaints about biased moderation?
I just don’t think it’s a thing on social media. I think it can happen in private conversations, but as soon as it becomes more about winning an argument or posturing for readers, I think any hope of earnest discourse is lost. The more public a conversation, the worse it is. It’s like trying to argue with a bully in front of their friends. You might be able to reach the humanity in them, but not in that moment.
It used to be, in the early days of mass social media (and it was widespread on forums)
Moderation isn’t easy but it also needn’t be fraught - set standards of civility (strict or loose) and basic rules about hate speech, and let people take themselves out of discussions that are within the rules that they nevertheless don’t like.
It works a lot better in small communities where you talk to the same people - you can ignore people you don’t like and not have the same conversation over and over.
It’s not genuine if we don’t want to constantly have to expose ourselves to toxic bigots or “smooth” manipulators who think it’s not really toxic bigotry if they are “just asking questions?”
It’s not genuine if we don’t want to start every single discussion of something bad Trump did with rebutting a half dozen versions of “but whatabout that time when dems…”?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
I will not be shamed into allowing toxicity into my life, on social media or otherwise, in the name of “avoiding an echo chamber.” NOTHING is stopping a conservative from coming here and making cogent, factual arguments, aside from their own fragility.
The conservatives who “can’t” post to Lemmy are the ones who don’t know how to have an actual conversation and get banned. What fraction of conservatives that represents is an excercise left to the reader. But I’ve got my own opinion on that number for sure.
The fact that you characterise natural ways of engaging in a discussion negatively doesn’t mean it’s not genuine, and it doesn’t mean you’re forced to look at it if it’s available.
The structure of vote-based social media makes it difficult, and the people who, rather than remove themselves from places where arguments happen, shout down the people having the arguments, stops this from happening.
You’d be right to point out that conservative-majority spaces are just as, if not more guilty of this, but that doesn’t make it less true.
That’s true but it’s not the only thing that’s going on.
It’s natural to ask questions. It’s natural to point out hypocrisy.
JAQing off and Whataboutism are not those things.
Edit: And frankly, having to explain that in regard to my comment above is precisely what I love not having to constantly do at Lemmy. (Because people both understand the difference, and don’t pretend not to.)
The case being made here is that this is a left wing echo chamber, and that I am not interested in genuine discussion if I either don’t think it is, or don’t care that it is.
I have provided examples of trolling, toxic behavior.
I do not want trolling, toxic behavior here. It is not welcome by me in the community, whether I’m forced to look at it or not.
I’m also not supporting (and nor am I aware of any such thing existing) some kind of a blanket ban on conservatives. They are the folks always telling people to man up, grab themselves by their bootstraps, have the courage of their convictions, etc etc. Guess they need to take some of their own advice if it’s a little rough sometimes trying to push authoritarianism and bigotry in some spaces. And if they get banned because they have forgotten how to talk to people who don’t already agree with them, I can’t find it in me to care.
Yeah, but if you go in saying that this is the inevitable result of having conservatives discuss politics here, I am suspicious that your threshold for those terms is waaayy lower than mine.
The person I replied to originally wasn’t talking about trolling or toxic behaviour, they were talking about conservative viewpoints (likening them to cannibalism, I might add) so, if you want to chip in that trolling isn’t welcome then I’ll certainly agree with that, but there’s a reason I’m not really talking about that.
These are two of the the primary things gone from my life now that I’ve cut every conservative I can from it. It’s glorious.
So if you want me to support some kind of outreach for conservatives (who apparently can’t post anywhere they aren’t overtly welcomed and that’s a problem the rest of us need to fix) I need some understanding of what you think the upside is.
I haven’t seen that.
I’ve seen scolding people for not wanting to surround themselves with people who have had years and years to demonstrate what they are like and what they support. The only thing new about modern conservatism is how it no longer bothers trying to pretend it’s not hateful.
As I have said repeatedly, nothing stops a conservative from coming here and communicating like an adult.
The problem is the right no longer argue their points in good faith.
“The right” consists of individuals, just like “the left” does - and there’s plenty of bad faith to be found on both sides.
Is this like plenty of fine people on both sides? In aggregate, one side is far more egregious and it’s not even close.
Speaking of bad faith…
Yes, and just like Trump, I’m not speaking of the white nationalists and nazies.
Source
Note that this is the second statement he made, which he had to make after being called out by the media for seemingly supporting the neonazi protestors. Which, given his history at that point and subsequently, it’s pretty obvious that the media was right and he was just back tracking due to bad publicity.
This is where the “fine people on both sides” quote originates from.
Snopes article on the matter.
Yeah, and it specifically ignores that the statement you posted was the second, clarifying statement days later. Snopes is going off what he said he meant, not actually what he said. Check the United the Right wiki page for the actual timeline.
Stop letting other people think for you.
…
The closest they have is the unattributed statement, again after the fact, trying to clarify what he said wasn’t what he meant. Like they always do.
But it’s this very specific quote that people are misrepresenting. It’s not like he first said “there were fine people on both sides” and then, a few days later, clarified that he wasn’t talking about the Nazis. He said there were fine people on both sides and explicitly added that he was not referring to the Nazis - and it’s that latter part people omit when they spread the “fine people on both sides” quote.
Uh huh, and I’m sure we can take him at his word. It’s not like he’s ever lied. He never gave a nod to nazis ever, like telling the proud boys to stand by. Yup, good old not racist donnie, I’m sure he totally hates white supremacists.
You wanna talk bad faith, believe anything that comes out of his orange piehole.
Misrepresenting what someone says is a textbook example of bad faith so doing that in a discussion about bad faith is ironic to say the least. What he actually thinks is unrelated to this discussion as it’s about what he said. You’d call people out for twisting your words so hold yourself to the same standards.
Not believing lying sociopaths is not bad faith, and I’m having trouble accepting that you’d actually think it is. I’m not sure why you’re so hung up on mango mussolini anyway, as this discussion started when I claimed that the right lied way more than the left. The president wasn’t responsible for all the lies the GOP has told for the past 50 years, although he sure does have more than his fair share.
You’re misquoting him - that’s bad faith. Whether or not you believe him is a separate issue. When you criticize someone for what they said, you should address their actual words - not your interpretation of them.
You are appearing more and more bad faith, or just plain grossly ignorant, and willfully so… If you won’t accept the truth, the truth that is being handed to you, with references, by other people, then prepare to not be part of this “echo chamber” for much longer…
I don’t consider anything I’ve heard so far to be the kind of evidence that would indicate what I said is somehow false.
Thank god you can point to ONE SINGLE instance where Trump isn’t actively supporting white nationalist christofascism.
Every last one of them who voted for trump has decided that bigotry (of multiple sorts) and steamrolling our constitution in the name of authoritarianism are somewhere between just what they wanted and not a dealbreaker.
What else do I need to know about them?
https://www.project2025.observer/
That people identify on the political right outside of US as well?
Heh, I’m sure they are much better people than US conservatives, but I’ll quote myself from elsehwere.
Maybe you should re-read my original comment? Because unless you think that Lemmy is not a left wing echo chamber then I have no clue what you’re arguing about here exactly.
OK, have crawled up the context tree, and don’t see where you think I’ve misunderstood your point. You think it’s an echo chamber (I do not) and you think that’s bad (I do not) and apparently I’m supposed to feel a little sheepish about not wanting shitty people with shitty behavior here at Lemmy. (I do not.)
Maybe I misread you. I think I’m being told not only that it is an echo chamber, but that I’m supposed to be bothered by it.
Meanwhile I haven’t seen an argument for what we’d gain by having more conservatives here, or what’s stopping those unicorn conservatives who aren’t raging assholes from posting.
The issue with echo chambers is that they reinforce people’s existing beliefs instead of challenging them. That often comes with extreme hostility toward anyone who doesn’t share those beliefs. If the left in the US wants to win elections they need people to vote for them who might have voted right in the past. In order to achieve this, minds needs to be changed, and that doesn’t happen in echo chambers. I’m sure you can see the value in a left-leaning person going to a place like Truth Social and, in a calm and respectful way, arguing against the claims they disagree with. Well, in my view, Lemmy could use something similar.
I also don’t think right-wingers are the only ones to blame when it comes to the breakdown of polite discussion. If you put someone who feels just as strongly about the left as people here feel about the right, it’s no surprise it turns into a mudslinging match. It takes two to tango.
would you like to tell me which political side is currently putting people in concentration camps and starting a war
Agreed on all counts.
The real mystery to me is what value the echo-chamber residents get out of it. Why would someone join a group of people they already agree with, just to be told that their opinions are correct, and to shout down any interloper who contradict them? How is that not a boring waste of time? Is it that most people are insecure in their views and need validation, perhaps? It’s a phenomenon I still don’t understand.
People often accuse me of being a troll because I tend to voice views that are unpopular on this platform. Personally, I just don’t see any point in talking about things we all already agree on. I’d much rather try to change the views of those I disagree with - or have them try to change mine.
This exactly where I am on all counts. Stick with it!
I find I don’t agree with a lot of people, though there is at least a higher chance that someone, especially from my instance, will share my values and at least be willing to hear dissenting opinions without going right to insincere strawmaning.
To be clear, you join the echo chamber because you won’t be judged there and also because you want to dissent from its party line?
Yes, it’s a matter of gradation. It’s not an echo chamber for me because so many of you have different opinions, but generally we all care about what is true and the future of life on this planet.
So it’s easier to have discussions around the parts we disagree over.
But (to stay true to the spirit of debate I just defended) is this not itself a straw man? Do you think, say, religious conservatives would say that they don’t “care about what is true and the future of life on this planet”?
Good question, and they might. In which case it would be easier to have a discussion with them.
However, I think much of the time they cleave to a more Kantian morality, where acting correctly / virtuously in accordance with an identifiable authority. They may also believe that the future of life on this planet is trivial when compared to quality of life on some metaphysical plane.
I have this discussion with my neighbour constantly who is nice, but she keeps saying I’ve “got to have faith” and that “they have a plan to fix all this when the time is right” all while real people are suffering and dying, and their suffering is indelible — it can never be made to have not happened — and they will never be coming back.
It’s really hard to have a real discussion about reality with someone like that.
Fair enough about
literal religious nutspeople of firmly held religious convictions. This side of the pond there are very few of those, fortunately. My basic point is that plenty of people who vote “wrong” (Trump, for example) would actually agree with you on most of your vision of the good society. The questions are mainly over how to get there. This IMO is the tragedy of democratic politics today, and specifically the USA. An almost absolute breakdown in communication.Yes, I agree with that. I try to inject a little counter culture whenever a wade into the mainstream, but generally avoid it because I find it very saddening.