I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.
Not really meaning for this to sound as arrogant as it’s going to, but… Lemmy is almost entirely populated by nerds so far.
Nerds tend to be open to tech, maybe a little smarter overall. You know? You can tell by the grammar, the spelling. It’s a different group here.
Reality is left leaning, and the stupider someone is, in general, the more likely they are to lean right politically. The rest of the right are the really rich, who tend to be up the psychological spectrum toward sociopathic, so of course they would have no time for caring for others’ needs.
Reality is left leaning…
It really is. So much of conservatism involves pissing into the wind, and trying to argue against objective truth.
Reality is left leaning
I know this was a joke Colbert made, but the truth is the reverse: the left is reality-leaning. It’s truly terrifying to see how divorced from reality the right-wing is, and how gleefully they just keep storming in that direction.
To an extent. But whenever there is a political discussion on Hacker News, the lib right response is very, very loud, and I try to remind myself I appreciate Hacker News for its tech news.
I think the culture is just different. Lemmy was started and run by Tankies. Hacker News was started by Y Combinator, which incubates silicon valley startups. They’re going to attract different audiences, or at least different groups of people who will put up with different politics. I can’t claim to be particularly upset about the .ml domains being pulled and the center mass of Lemmy moving away from those instances.
What’s a tankie? I keep seeing it.
I had to look it up too. Apparently it’s an authoritarian leftist. Thinks state-socialism was a good thing. As while most leftists are more of the democratic, market, and anarchist varieties.
State socialism is a good thing, what tankies promote is something else, they’re fascist that can’t accept that fact because it would mean having something in common with the fascists in the USA, a country that they hate so much that they’re ready to deny reality to have an anti USA opinion.
I’m confused, and you seem to be a lot more familiar with the term. I read the wiki link that explains tankies. I don’t personally know any left leaning people who support Russia/Stalin/China regimes. Maybe because of my America-centric viewpoint and where things are today, but typically people who are economically left are also socially and politically left (equal opportunity is more important than individual freedoms), which is very anti-fascist. I’ve heard people say how great a true communism could be if it were possible, but no one’s ever made it past a dictatorship to get there.
Are tankies people who are economically left but socially and politically right, and think someone has achieved a communist utopia without knowing anything about the corrupt oligarchies in Russia or CCP China?
The problem is not state socialism, it’s the authoritarian side of it. Tankies promote authoritarian views similar to fascists but with a different economics view (not even that different some times), hence they prefer the dictatorships like USSR (in these days even Putin, which is idiotic), North Korea, China; over what they perceive as imperialist, the USA (I agree on calling it imperialistic and disliking it, but not on considering it worse than dictatorships).
I’m a communist which likes state socialism, but what is and was present in those dictatorship (ignoring the authoritarian side which I despise) is state capitalism.
Thank you for taking the time to explain! I appreciate you!
Thanks for explaining for me, that’s exactly what I meant, I just didn’t have the time to reply!
The problem is not state socialism, it’s the authoritarian side of it
The communist utopia needs authoritarianism to work
The confusion comes from so much mass media that equates socialism with communism. They’re orthogonal concepts! Saying socialism is the same as communism is like saying beer-making is exactly the same as cheese-making. Anyone who understands what beer and cheese are would be like, “I’m sorry, what‽”
The best way to think of socialism is that’s it’s a governance strategy that can be used wherever you want. Want everyone to pay taxes in order to fund and deliver government-run firefighting services? That’s socialism. Want to do the same with the military? Socialism. Whenever the government is delivering some good or service by way of taxpayer dollars that’s socialism.
Capitalism and communism are economic systems. You can have socialist government constructs under either capitalism or communism. It’s just that communism doesn’t really have the flexibility to provide goods or services in any other way than via the government.
Then there’s countries like China that claim to be communist (and the Right loves to call them that) but really, they’re more capitalist than communist. What they do have that most communists and fascist governments have is authoritarianism.
That authoritarianism is what fascists and “tankies” have in common: Fascists support an authoritarian, pseudo-capitalist government while “tankies” support an authoritarian, pseudo-communist government.
I appreciate your break down on this, I feel like I get so confused with auth/fasc terms
people who support Russia/Stalin/China regimes.
Congratulations: That, and only that, is a tankie. It is a good practical defintion for the term.
Are tankies people who are economically left but socially and politically right
As I see it, tankies are just the same as the Trumpers. You can’t really say where they stand socially and politically, because they do not have a coherent opinion or ideology. Everyone who opposes their favorite regime is WRONG, and everything their favorite regime does is RIGHT. Bonus points for every action and opinion that hurts “woke lefties”, because the favorite regimes of tankies are all inevitably incompatible with progressive ideas and ideologies.
without knowing anything about the corrupt oligarchies in Russia or CCP China?
Imagine the answer a Trumper would give when you ask them if they don’t know about Trump’s corruption and character. The tankies answer just the same in response to allegations in regard to corruption and character of their favorite regimes:
First of all, none of that is true, because the woke lefties, the media, and everyone are all corrupt, and lying. And what is true, is all a well played move of brilliant 5D chess which will save us all, because the supposed “corruption” is actually all part of a very smart and deliberate system of ploys and strategems which the woke lefties just don’t understand.
Now, do the tankies and Trumpers truly believe that? Who knows. Doesn’t really matter anyway. What is clear is that both of those “ideologies” are dumb idiots.
They’re authoritarian. Not fascist. There is a difference. Even if both groups are more dedicated to authoritarianism than anything else. I would not be caught dead voluntarily anywhere with a fascist. While I disagree heavily with ML communist I might associate with them a little bit. But just never give them power.
Thanks for not leaving out the anarchists
I don’t think you understand how small of a global majority white European men are.
Most leftists are Chinese.
I’d say most people are Chinese, but that’s not correct - a quarter of the world’s population is East Asian. This is the largest group in the world.
So, I’d say that’s an odd quantifier that doesn’t really seem to have any support or credibility or relevance. Seems based on entirely nothing, actually. Further more, were that true or even possible, what’s your point?
Thinks Stalin was cool and Lenin was correct to break the short lived democracy of the USSR. The rest is details.
Basically authoritarian leftists that are caricaturized as worshipping the Soviet Union
People who cheer when others point out flaws in USA but start screaming when flaws in Russia or China are pointed out.
Let me Google that for you.
Thanks! I thought it was Lemmy specific slang.
Nah it’s been going on for probably more than a decade
Makes sense. I may have heard the term once or twice before, but here, I come across it almost daily.
I gotcha
The super rich are usually highly educated but they live in such a homogenous bubble that they’re opinions on the majority of society should be entirely discounted. They usually have a total lack of empathy for people and vote for politicians with the same attitude. I have met some super rich people who try very hard to go against the grain and not fall into that mindset, but something about the need for protecting your money and lifestyle usually promotes an untrustworthy and skeptical view of everyone in their lives including their own family.
The political vibe on Lemmy isn’t really a new thing. Reddit had it 15 years ago. Good forums and IRC channels had it before that. It’s been part of the “golden age” of every online social medium
Eventually, teenage edgelords find start taking up too much space. Shortly after that, the far-right turn up to prey on them.
The people who made the platform good in the first place leave and the cycle begins anew.
Perfectly summed up.
Your username/instance combo is amazing. 10/10
That instance is epic lol .uk
lol, thanks
I think I might want to jump over to lemmyf.uk myself.
Is there a citizenship requirement? Do I have to prove that I find Daleks irrationally terrifying?
I do actually, because they all have Englishmen inside them. I kid, I’m Canadian. Scottish Canadian. Fuckin’ wanker. Haha. I love you guys.
No requirements. Just don’t be an ass. 🙂
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Theres a difference. While nerds are often book smart, we often have social difficulties.
Just cause I’m a nerd dusnt mean I can spell correctly
“tens”
“You can tell by the grammar, the spelling”
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Lol! I am totally a nerd
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lol when was it apolitical? As far back as 2010 it was getting mentioned on TV by liberal media for starting the Restoring Truthiness movement.
Your memory is awful, or you haven’t been on it that long and are just making up its history to suit yourself. The earlier days of reddit’s politics were mostly liberal. Although liberals were significantly more awful on social issues back then than they are today.
Do you realise how dehumanising and ignorant you’re being? You’re just using stereotypes of your specific country to generalise everyone you disagree with.
Underestimating your “rivals” never goes well, as reality is often more complex than “we empathetic genuises they dumb psychos”
If anyone is basing their morals specifically just to go against their “rivals”, I would seriously question that person’s ethics, empathy, and reasoning skills. I’m absolutely serious about that. I would not trust that person in real life.
I would also have little sympathy for anyone who makes their own life worse just to get one in on their “rivals”. You should always think how a new law might expand in 5-10 years, and not just focus on the current emotions.
If someone who you considered to be a truly terrible person got into power next, would you feel comfortable with those groundwork protections being seen as changeable? Would you be ok with that terrible person having that level of say over your life, knowing that they would get away with it?
If you hypothetically start messing with things like your country’s ground-level human rights, it’s likely to only be a matter of time until everyone is effected by it in unpleasant ways. Everyone thinks these changes will magically stop before it hits them, but I would strongly recommend for these people to brush up on history again. How has that gone in the past?
Politics shouldn’t be some lame “gotcha” game because politics effect the real lives of many people. If anyone wants to do “gotcha” games, there are many places for those that won’t possibly end with someone dead. That “someone” may be a stranger today, but it could be your child, spouse, or best friend next time.
Ah, I forgot you’re probably American.
Then forget about what I said, you’re ruled by a party with two colors, two letters and stupid followers
Not even close. Do you project this anger on complete strangers all the time?
I was referring to things like labor law changes. It’s fine when it’s someone else to a lot of people, but those people are silly to think that their jobs would be the one exclusion.
Not even close? Bro Biden is at most a little more center-leaning than Trump
I’m not in the US haha.
I don’t vote based on parties or teams. I vote for the changes that I want to see.
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It’s not the tech nerds funding the right wing; it’s the venture capitalists
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Those are CEOs.
There’s a huge contingent of socialist/leftist techies. How do you think the open source movement happened? The most popular operating system for both servers and smartphones is given away to the world by a .org
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Silicon Valley is notorious for right-wingers
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I’m not saying there are no right-wing tech nerds, I’m saying that your argument that tech nerds are right wing is overly reductive.
You concede my point about FOSS but then try to muddy the waters from there by citing “their platforms started getting cracked down on and [their having] adopted cryptocurrency” to try to make your prior pidgeon-holing still work. Mind citing me a source for either of those claims? Neither of those seem to me to be issues plaguing the wider FOSS community, and as a participant I’m interested to hear about this news I’ve apparently missed.
Silicon Valley is not representative of tech nerds in general. It is, like Hollywood, a small area filled with desperate people trying to turn their talents into fame and fortune. Insinuating that tech nerds in general have the same culture as Silicon Valley is like insinuating that actors in general dress, act, and think like Hollywood actors do. It’s ridiculous on its face.
All this to say it really sounds like you’ve built up a stereotype based on what you read in the news rather than by engaging with the actual community in question.
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overwhelmingly tech dudes with no social competencies.
Ablism, real nice.
I am really not liking what you are throwing down and I am not seeing evidence of your multiple assertions. I am fairly leftwing, been an engineer for 15 years, I don’t enjoy dealing with companies that are run by rightwingers but I am not going to do a purity test.
Stop with the discrimination against the high functioning autistic at least. I am sorry your glowing rectangle provider who let you unlock it but that is hardly our fault.
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I wouldn’t call them nerds because they’re venture capitalists not nerds. Nerds implies some sort of technological or engineering skill or ability. Steve Jobs would qualify; not these two.
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I think you dont know what luck is.
…I am not funding the right wing. I am building a better world one line of code and one circuit at a time.
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Well first off software isn’t just flowing rectangles connected to internet tubes. Many of us work in Industrial/Chemical/Civil control systems. Like me. There is a lot of thought that goes into making sure what you flush doesn’t just pour on the ground. I made a decision early in my career that it was more important to me that we don’t drown in our own waste vs making sure slack integrated well with outlook.
As for how I would go about changing stuff the answer is I do it everyday. Can do it a lot faster if the rest of you people stayed the hell out of my way.
I respect the shit out of your position and movitations. Pun absolutely intended.
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Praise after attacking me means nothing.
Get off the wrong internet spaces and you’ll start meeting the right kinds of nerds.
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If it smells like shit everywhere you go, change your shoes.
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Just very, very rightist.
There’s been tons of right-leaning Reddit alternatives before, but they always quickly devolved into Nazi spaces.
Lemmy was the first one that I’m aware of, which told Nazis to fuck off right from the beginning.
They just have their own instance and are defederated by some but not all, which is the best solution as it means they stick to their part of the fediverse instead of hijacking subs that weren’t right leaning in the first place.
Yeah, right-wingers flock to “safe-spaces” as much as the far-left does. Lemmy doesn’t have the tools to make a single community isolated like they could on Reddit, so they have to go to their own instances and end up defederated.
The main differences between left-wing and right-wing communities is that the right-wing ones quickly deteriorate towards a lot of hate related things. This leads them to being isolated from the rest. The left wingers are mostly tolerable and are just over zealous in preaching things like forcing everyone to use pronouns, lmao.
And everybody wins!
Gotta act like we’re in kindergarten for them 🤷
That’s the important bit. The creators of Lemmy needed to be hard leftist to keep it from being taken over by right wingers before it could become popular. Now it’s big enough that the community isn’t as leftist as the creators, but will still reject turning into another voat.
Unfettered echo chamber of right wing ideals will always devolve into fascist authoritarian and nazism
Surprise surprise, echo chambers devolve into more extreme versions of the original views
That’s literally just how echo works
The new Lemmy anthem?
I’m sorry but what is considered to be “Nazi” in this platform? I’ve seen even socialists being called Nazis
I do not speak for this platform, but what I mean with Nazis here, are people who support the exclusion, inhumane treatment or exploitation of arbitrary groups of people, generally for the Nazi’s (perceived) benefit and in spite of basic morals.
And what would exclusion, inhumane treatment and exploitation mean? It’s key to clearly define the concepts before applying the label to someone, as if they stay undefined everyone can have the label applied
Right, so another policy from the early days of Lemmy that I thought was quite vital: No endless discussions on what precisely constitutes Nazi behaviour.
It’s truly not hard to not be a Nazi. And if someone is even roughly in the ballpark of being a Nazi, the community as a whole just doesn’t care to have that person’s input here.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that I do not think, it’s relevant to clearly define these terms.
Then it’s easy to fall to “Nazi is when I don’t like”
If you’re worried people will think you’re a Nazi, maybe it’s not the other people you should be worried about.
What if you just have no idea of what my views are and I hate Nazis probably as much if not more as you do?
I’ve never had a productive conversation that started with “please define what counts as a Nazi for me”.
No argument there. But given that they mostly popup in the context of “I think all nazis…”-circlejerks, that’s kinda to be expected.
progression tends not to be conservative
I’m afraid future will be conservative nevertheless due to the simple fact that they’re the only ones making kids. I’m liberal myself but I don’t have kids and will never have so my traits don’t pass to the next generations. The conservative neighbours with 7 kids on the other hand…
Politics being genetic, of course.
What?
Politics aren’t genetic.
But they ARE communal. Where you grow decides 90% of what you believe in.
It’s actually why I disagree with the top comment chain that smarter means more left leaning. I think it’s more that left leaning communities have better education standards and lead to smarter generations. Cause and effect reversed.
The ability to propagate the politics depends mightily on the success of the community though. It’s sort of the other side of the ‘brain drain’ principle-- if people have to leave the community for educational or economic opportunity, they’re probably not going to be able to reconstruct the same echo chambers.
Even when you see a preserved group within a larger population (think of Chinatowns and Little Italies), they’re inherently getting a lot more cultural exchange than back in the home country.
A lot of the most self-destructive policies (neglecting education, running the environment into the ground, skate-where-the-puck-was-in-1972 economic policy) are just begging for decades of brain drain. The kids are going to leave because there’s simply nothing there but the Gizzard Extraction Plant, and that got automated in 2032.
In some ways yes but it can have the opposite effect too. I know lots of left leaning people who grew up in super religious/conservative families and hate everything about their beliefs.
What top comment chain? They’re all talking about Reddit censoring leftists, not talking about the intelligence of any faction. The most I’ve seen are people making fun of the right, but that’s to be expected.
This is the thread’s first reply chain if you sort by top:
https://lemmy.world/comment/1614009
Federation may make things wonky I guess.
Okay. I read that post, nowhere did it come off as patronizing at all, and it holds people accountable foe having basic knowledge which is an expectation of most adults in society, so I don’t see how the anti-intellectualist garbage is in any wa valid here.
politics aren’t genetic, but they are obviously still inheritable
Is that controversial? Look around…
If you take in account that they’re raised in their parents’ household it’s not ridiculous
I don’t know. I think it depends more on where they grow up and who/what they’re exposed to (in person and online). At the high school I work at, we have a bunch of lgbtq+ teens whose conservative parents have no idea they’re queer or go by a different name. But I also don’t live somewhere like Wyoming with a much higher conservative population. I live in a college town in a (barely) blue county surrounded by red counties in an ultimately very blue state.
I hope we find a way to kill the online radical right pipeline and continue to expose more teens to other ideas, other cultures, and other ways of life, and maybe it won’t matter so much who their parents are.
A blue county surrounded by red counties in an ultimately very blue state
Tell me you live in California without telling me you live in California
;)
Speaking of Reddit, here’s an overused response that needs to be left behind with all the other unoriginal crap responses.
Only if we can kill the online radical left pipeline too. Too many tankies
The thing about that is, if they’re ignorant, their kids will be ignorant too. And what that adds up to is just the same thing we’ve got: a large group of people who are subject to whatever momentary persuasion happens to reach them on any given day, and a political/ruling class that can work with that just fine, so they are taking steps to hamper education sufficiently that this can endure for an indeterminate amount of time before we all burn.
What those large populations do react to, is missing a meal or three. And so far, these aristocrats seem to understand that whatever else they try to pull, they must always service the fundamentals: bread and circuses.
See you at the coliseum.
But if that logic held wouldn’t religion tend to increase instead of decrease?
Yeah it probably will. We’ll see in the next few decades. Aging population and low birthrates are much bigger problems that most people realize. Increasingly small amount of workers has to cover the living costs of the increasing numbers of retirees.
Well by definition right?
Progressive outlook means your open to new ideas, exploring new territory, open to concept that challenge what you think and know, and gives you the ability to push boundaries, make new discoveries and try new things.Conservative outlook on the other hand means you are content and safe with the familiar, doing things the way they have always been done because its tried and true, however this means if they feel unconfortable or threatened by ideas which are going to change the way the live and how things work which makes them dig their heels in and get defensive.
The progressive/conservative axis has nothing to do with the economical left/right, it was only forcefully merged in the USA because they have only two parties.
I find it so ironic that the comment above you is literally saying that being progressive means challenging what you [think you] know, but you are being downvoted by (I assume) people who call themselves progressive, without any discussion.
Reality has a well known left leaning bias.
Conservatives and their politics do not have equal status. In this climate, “both sides” is toxic and suggest each is equally supported and viable. They are not. The right is an incredibly hateful minority end should be treated as such.
Broadly speaking, so-called conservative folk are not creative. They resist change, and trying new things is umm trying new things.
Weirdos like me LOVE CHANGE and novelty so you can probably guess which direction I lean.
Trans and queer and furry and weird folk are often programmers and creative folk. ActivityPub is written largely by and for queer and trans and furry folk. So no surprise it’s so strongly supportive of individual expression and rights.
Is anyone surprised that everything the chump crowd touches fails?
It’s in the name really.
And no, I witnessed this with the internet itself post 2000. Get off my lawn 😜
That’s not really true. The right created Gab, and Ruqqus, and Voat. And they managed to hijack the U.S. legal system which the left can barely understand, let alone influence in any appreciable way.
A good chunk of the left (not the Dems, the actual left) understands the US legal system. It’s just that it’s hard to win in a pay-to-play system when everyone who can pay is against you.
Gab is forked mastodon. Dunno ruqqus but it’s shutting down. Never heard of voat.
Try again?
Lemmy is much less US-centric than Reddit.
I wonder if there are demographics by IP already? TBH most of the threads I’ve been in have felt very US Centric. I also came with the great reddit migration too though.
On my feed, at least, I have my frontpage set to whatever the kbin equivalent to “all” is. I see lots of other languages beyond English populating - particularly German. The Lemmy instance I chose when I initially made my way to the fediverse operates out of China. They’re chill over there.
I dunno. I think if you’re only finding people discussing the US here, then you’ve probably accidentally pigeonholed yourself based on your own interests. The fediverse is diverse.
I mean yeah. Being only English speaking with gringo Spanish doesn’t let me understand memes in German or any of the other various non-english speaking magazines lol.
English is the defacto lingua franca though. Particularly on the web. The diversity I’ve seen still heavily leans English, and western, which makes plenty of sense.
How do you get more languages?
Lemmy was initially created by communists.
It’s still in the process of being created, and the communism is a bit less in your face now alongside there being other contributors to the code, but that’s how it started.
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Are you arguing that Twitter is right wing because it is US-centric, and not because of Musk’s leveraged buyout?
I would argue that US social media platforms are (now) right wing because of aggressive financial attacks meant to break up open social engagement, as this is bad for business and sociopaths looking to exploit people for profit. Reddit was left wing, until it was bought and sold. Same with Twitter.
However my comment was merely rejecting the idea that Lemmy is left wing because it is not US-centric. Lemmy was started by tankies, who say they’re left wing and have some left wing ideologies, but really they’re more authoritarian fascists, and fascism is in fact right wing. However as Lemmy grew it became apparent that this stance would impede its growth - particularly in western markets - so the main devs have tried to minimise their political views and keep the program neutral; now those views are primarily concentrated at lemmygrad.
Lemmy is not US-centric, but that’s not why it’s left wing. Lemmy is left wing because rational empathetic thought is naturally left wing. Lemmy is full of communism because it was started by communists/tankies.
If you think Marxist-leninists are fascists, or like fascists, then you don’t really understand what either of those words mean man.
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The US is not inherently nor totally right wing, and Twitter was predominantly left wing until fairly recently. It might not have been full left wing socialist, but it was certainly left of centre.
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Both parties in the US government are indeed right wing, but not everyone and everything in the US is right wing.
Communism is unfortunately a dirty word in the US, and socialism isn’t far behind it. It doesn’t help that there have been numerous foreign governments that call themselves communist that the US has labeled as enemies and fought against. As a result, an American labeling themselves communist is often ostracised. However, many people do in fact hold those ideals, albeit quietly and/or without naming it such.
An American politics forum is of course going to mirror American politics.
However Twitter and reddit as a whole were left wing. Not as in reading Marx, but in being for the good of everyone, with the core principle of serving the needs of the many rather than the desires of the few. They were also incredibly liberal. They’ve since been taken over by pseudo right wing authoritarian interests, gradually since around 2016.
Most of comments on popular communities boil down to “capitalism bad communism only solution”. Very in your face and everywhere
Yes, and I would say that’s because of lemmy’s communist/tankie roots. Which is a philosophy based in left wing ideology, however in practice it is more authoritarian fascism, which is right wing.
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Is it? Just look at the comments here - the thought is about political left and right and yet almost everybody is talking about conservatives, that’s a sure sign of Americans.
Plus I bet a good portion of the extreme left here are Americans disillusioned with their government, swinging hard into the other extreme.
Thank fuck for that.
Prove it, because I only see US-centric posts while browsing /all.
And no, America is not the US.
Your ALL is amplifying the highest engagement posts from the largest instances, particularly lemmy.world, which is definitely US-centric due to it being the largest open registration instance during the exodus… Go ahead and switch to your instances LOCAL and see what original content is being posted on sopuli.xyz. Quite a difference. https://sopuli.xyz/?dataType=Post&listingType=Local&page=1&sort=Active
The thing is that I don’t have those issues on Lemmy, because I usually browse by /local, both on this server and on beehaw. But I had to block lemmy.world with my user on Kbin due to that problem you were pointing out. And miraculously, I can see content from Kbin, lemmy.ml, blahaj, beehaw sopuli, and so on, because there is no way to browse only local content on Kbin as it can be done on Lemmy.
Nice!
Really? I’ve only seen US related stuff here
How many of your subscribed communities lie outside of lemmy.world? Very possible you’ve pigeonholed yourself. World almost certainly has a heavy US bias as it was the largest instance with open registration during the exodus.
Lemmy is made up of a ton of instances, many of which have quite limited US-related content. Posts from smaller instances may not rise to the top of World but they do elsewhere. Whereas World posts are going to rise across most instances, due to sheer volume. Where the posts come from is not as indicative of diversity as where the comments and votes come from.
Wait there are others apart from world?
Hundreds. Here’s just a few places you can use for discovery.
I think you’ll find a lot more leftists interested in platforms that are not powered solely by money and profit. Lemmy, much like Mastodon and other federated platforms, only need instances to run to be usable. It doesn’t require millions of dollars to keep it afloat.
Generally speaking centrist and right wingers, especially in Western countries, tend to be very capitalist. They only understand the value in terms of money.
This actually makes a lot of sense. A lot of people are using Lemmy either because they prefer federated web platforms to centralized, which makes it antithetical to corporate interests, or because they’re opposed to Reddit’s API policy, which was a blatant move to squeeze more money out of their users. Either way, Lemmy’s appeal is very anti-capitalist, and since opposition to capitalism is a generally left-wing philosophy, I can totally see why most Lemmy users would be left-wing.
This is my thought as well. Lemmy isn’t what everyone is looking for. It’s a free open source software project for creating a decentralized federated network of content aggregators. For most people that sentence doesn’t make any sense nor do they really care. They just want a site they can doom scroll for hours.
The people who choose to use Lemmy are people who care about open source projects, care about decentralization of online platforms, or both. These types of people by their very nature support groups of people coming together collectively to do something big.
A collection of people working together towards a common goal without a strict hierarchy. You could say these people are community focused. Maybe we could call that communityism or something. Where people make rules as a group, or a union you could say. So yeah, no idea where the left lean is coming from.
“communityism” was somewhat the goal of reddit by having subreddits but still site owners has all the control over you. Lemmy is a free software and many free software projects interact with the userbase with such a community. Before this reddit thing, Free software enthusiasts used lemmy. Same goes with mastodon users before twitter was bought by elon. Now i can see when whatsapp does something shit(maybe) and people porting over to federated and decentralised E2EE matrix for instant messaging.(or maybe they just switch to telegram)
Honestly I came here just a few days ago, right after Reddit admins removed that r/place guillotine. I wouldn’t say that I am very far to the left, but I do enjoy living in something close to a social democracy. I wouldn’t be happy in a place like the United States for example.
Perfectly understandable
Maybe Lemmy was like this at the very start and is what helped Lemmy kick off, but I think a lot of people are looking for an alternative to Reddit. I think you’re going to see a lot more people coming here for the content, not the politics of it all.
Hey, I’m on TV!
This has been my running theory as well. Wonderful to read all of the input on this thread.
Well, I don’t oppose capitalism and here I am, trying to evade echo chambers and reading everyone’s points
To be sure, you don’t have to be anti-capitalist to want to use Lemmy. I’m just saying that it’s very appealing to anti-capitalists.
"I’ve noticed that lemmy as a whole has much more moral, empathetic individuals than reddit (outside of political servers of course)
Maybe because on reddit you have an absolute fuck ton of right wing propaganda bots.
Anti-corporate platforms don’t generally appeal to people that built and uphold the existing corporate status quo.
The first wave here were anticapitalists, anarchists or communists. The second wave are the most anti-corporate “liberals”.
Probably because this migration may be related to the anti-corpo sentiment, which is more common in leftist circles
reddit had given into the “work the refs” strategy of the American right wing. That artificially elevated the voices of the right and suppressed the voices of the left. It’s actually the case when you look at surveys and voting behaviors that right wing ideas are abysmally unpopular.
So when we’re on an actually free platform that doesn’t have an “engagement” based algorithm driving anger and division, with no one putting their thumb on the scale (or people who try getting defederated), “leftist” ideas come up.
The confusion reflected in the OP is the obvious outcome of the post Fairness Doctrine “both sides” media landscape. There really aren’t as many right wing people as left wing. We are legion.
Lemmy is exactly as left leaning as Reddit was before the wave of propaganda and bots emboldened the right wing crazies to think they were the majority or welcome. I remember the falsely inflated upvotes that made those morons think they were the “silent majority”.
Isn’t it obvious? Most of the recent wave of users to federated sites was caused by the enshittification, which means:
when an online platform becomes more monetized and less user-oriented the longer it lasts.
This is a problem caused by capitalism. Therefore many of us will be anti-capitalists. Many of us will value creating things that put people over profits.
