Since Trump, I’m finding the Lemmy.world experience to be increasingly akin to an echo chamber and it’s quite frankly starting to bore me. (Inb4, I’m a left winger and I don’t like Trump, but I’m much more interested in a good spirited debate or novel points of view than I am in Orange man bad Nazi circle jerks)
If I wanted the same repetitive comments to be upvoted and any different opinion at all to be downvoted and even blocked/banned, I’d have just stayed on Reddit.
Are there any instances where different, opposing and novel points of view are celebrated and debated rather than simply derided and downvoted?
If by “diverse” you mean “has western conservatives”, then considering how the entire concept of the fediverse is progressive, you’re not going to find many of them here. On Reddit, there’s r/AskPolitics which overall leans liberal and is US centric but is more open to discussion than other subreddits. There’s some other debate subreddits as well which you might be interested in. They’re helpful for developing political views, but after that hearing the same BS from people who have fundamentally different values gets tiring and people leave so that’s why there aren’t many of those spaces.
If you’re open to different viewpoints that are opposed to both Republican and Democrat, leftist instances like lemmy.ml, Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and dbzer0 have that, and they can have very different stances on other issues as well (i.e. Lemmygrad vs dbzer0). They can still be echo-chambery (which is hard to avoid) but they also tend to have more users that are interested in intellectual debate.
As far as what instance actually has the most diverse points of view, I’d say lemm.ee which federates with basically everybody and I’ve seen users there from all over the political spectrum. However, there’s isn’t much in terms of political discussion there compared to other instances.
Imagine your issue with .world being that it’s too left-wing
I’d be getting bored if it was an echo chamber of any flavour.
As I’ve said in other comments, I’m here to learn and part of that means exposing myself to people that do not think alike to me. I’m not hear to circle jerk about how right we are, maybe that was fun the first few thousand times, it’s just boring now.
Ideally I’d like to get involved with a broad spectrum of people that somewhat represent the society that we live in.
Maybe I should just get offline and go to the pub.
What is it that you’re trying to learn? Like, are you interested in what Communists think? Anarchists? Why? Is the virtue of these POVs being different a fascination of yours, or are you trying to find the correct stance through comparison?
Not OP, but personally I think diverse discussion is some of the more important work a person can participate in.
There is too much potential energy in our networks when we don’t understand each other, and I support a calm controlled release of that energy. I am scared of how people will leverage that energy at the expense of many.
So I want to exist in a place of diverse thoughts so I can help the world calmy understand itself.
That, I think, is only virtuous if misinformation and hateful ideologies like fascism are thoroughly stomped out, rather than platformed. Too many people think themselves knowledgeable enough to speak, yet add to a miasma of misinformation. Moreover, some points of view are friendlier to the ruling class, and therefore get materially boosted via the media and other such mechanisms despite a lack of truth.
A better question is which instances have dominant points of view that actually align with the material reality we inhabit. Difference of opinion is only valuable when the opinion is grounded in factual understanding of the real world. It’s valuable to have different views and interpretation of the facts, but if a view is divorced from reality then it’s just noise.
just like vanguardism
Can you elaborate?
I don’t like the state and like the idea of a vanguard party even less and I belive that user to be vanguardist
thank you for providing an example of dialogue that’s detached from reality
so you are not a vanguardist?
or am I wrong about vanguardism being bad?
please elaborate
It’s detached from reality because you’re just randomly chucking in some political terms you learned on reddit under an unrelated comment thinking it’s some kind of slam-dunk.
no, I know what a vanguard party is and that I don’t support it, now we’re arguing about why I don’t support it
You are wrong about vanguarism being bad because history clear shows that it is the most reliable method for actually combating capitalism. Anarchists refuse to accept this basic reality and continue advocating approaches that have failed time and again for over a century now. It’s quite telling that this ideology exists primarily in the western imperial core.
no, I just think that freedom is more important than defeating capitalism
I’d rather take my hrt, guns and free speech over a vanguard, sorry
also see how it has worked in russia, how the soviet union has defeated capitalism and how capitalist western germany was almost economically stronger than the entire ussr (including eastern germany)
What do you think the “State” is? Marxists and Anarchists generally disagree on what constitutes the state, Marxists see it as a tool of class oppression and Anarchists see it as a tool of hierarchy. Neither Marxists nor Anarchists seek to perpetuate the State.
As for a Vanguard, all that means is the most politically advanced of the revolutionary class. Since political knowledge is unequal, there will always be more and less advanced among a class, whether you formalize it into a party or not. The consequences of refusing to formalize this difference means you can’t democratize it or protect against bad actors, a problem elaborated on in The Tyranny of Structurelessness.
Furthermore, there is historical proof of the effectiveness of Vanguard parties in establishing Socialism and improving the lives of the Working classes, from the peasantry to the proletariat. Calling such a strategy “detached from reality” is wrong, there is clear theoretical and historical evidence for the practicality and effectiveness of Vanguard parties.
I actually belive the state in its current form to be a tool of economical, personal and class opression
and I belive no state can exist without at least 2 of the above, but I want none of the above
What’s your proposed solution? You can’t force everyone’s political knowledge to being fully equal, so there will be a vanguard whether you formalize and democratize it or let it form naturally and behind closed doors. Further, you can’t get rid of both class and hierarchy without returning to tribal forms of hunter-gatherer societies, large industry requires administration. A horizontal network of communes retains classes by turning everyone into petite bourgeoisie, so you either want to abolish hierarchy, class, or industry.
if I had to choose I’d rather end all hirarchy
No.
E: okay, it’s not fair to just tell you the answer when you’re already broadcasting a desire to read a bunch of stuff so here goes:
If you want to see analysis and consideration of the right from an outside perspective you ought to be on hexbear or grad. Both instances don’t have near as many sky is falling posts or comments and trend towards figuring out why something is happening within the framework of doctrinaire Marxism Leninism or imperialism or at least what should be done to mitigate the effects rather than having a big ol hissy fit over it.
If, as is implied by your post and comments (“ good spirited debate”, “ opposing and novel”, celebrated and debated“, “ worthy of discussion or debate”), you just wanna see people fight each other online then check out reddit, x (the everything app) and facebook where that happens often.
If you have, and this is a reach, the desire to understand people who you think are on that right wing spectrum around you in real life, go talk to them. People love telling you what they think and when they don’t it’s because they know something you don’t or they’re up to something.
Perhaps surprisingly when it comes to breaking the echo chamber and having diverse political points of view and approaches (on subjects like identity politics, intersectionality, geo politics, organization building, strategy…etc) I’d say even ML circles have a lot more of that than just vaguely leftist safe liberal stances (at the very least they might have novel ideas and no orange man bad meme).
If you want more diversity of opinions you can expand in different directions, but I hardly see what good would be a place that has both fascists and anti-fascists for example and most of us are tired of picking internet fights. I suppose as long as you’re aware of which kind of discussion you’ve more tolerance for you’re good, but whether it’s tolerance for the occasional black crime rate statistic or an esoteric graph of the falling rate of profit, you’re not likely to find a space that has both.
In general I’d go with Cowbee’s recommendations though (for something that’s still obviously fairly leftwing)
No single instance has very “broad” POVs, however some instances are federated more broadly and thus get more points of view. To that end, Lemm.ee and Lemmy.ml are much more diverse than Lemmy.world, which is defederated from the major instances with large populations of Marxists.
Hexbear and Grad tend to have a lot of Marxist (and Anarchist, in the case of Hexbear) perspectives you aren’t really seeing much of on Lemmy.world, which is very “US Democrat Liberal.”
You aren’t going to find anywhere where the virtue of being “different” is worthy of celebration when it comes to POVs, and I think that’s a bit of a lost cause. I don’t see much value in entertaining the opinions of fascists, as an example.
Thanks for this. Will definitely check out those instances.
No problem! If you’re looking for right-wing viewpoints, you can already see them from a Lemmy.world account, they usually hang out either on Lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works, it’s more the Leftists that Lemmy.world censors from your view.
never seen an anarchist on hexbear tbh, but I’ve been alwaus banned pretty fast for stating my opinions on the state and the ukraine war
There’s some peeps who claim they’re anarchist on hexbear, but end up parroting the same ML-talking points about AES and often have similar toxic behaviour towards those who disagree with the groupthink. If any are there, they’re basically campists, like the rest. For example of such campist anarchist takes, you can take a look at abolitionmedia. But ultimately these anarchists are pretty isolated from the larger anarchist movement.
The biggest difference is that Anarchists on Hexbear almost always agree with Lenin’s analysis of modern Capitalism in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and further recognize AES states as far better than their Capitalist peers. They often have similar takes as MLs but fundamentally disagree with how to structure revolution, and society post-revolution.
I think it’s a bit of an odd take to say that they are isolated from the larger Anarchist movement. Perhaps in the West, I can concede that, but globally? It’s the opposite, those Anarchists that support AES over Capitalism and accept Imperialism as a special stage of Monopoly Capitalism are in the majority. I think that your statement is, ironically, a campist one that seeks to undermine the legitimacy of their takes while supporting your own.
For what it’s worth, you already know I’m an ML, I can let Anarchists speak for themselves, my being a former Anarchist isn’t the same as a current Anarchist giving their POV.
The biggest difference is that Anarchists on Hexbear almost always agree with Lenin’s analysis of modern Capitalism in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and further recognize AES states as far better than their Capitalist peers. They often have similar takes as MLs but fundamentally disagree with how to structure revolution, and society post-revolution.
Yes, I am aware that this is what you believe. However I would argue one can’t accept “AES” but disagree on “how to structure revolution, and society post-revolution.” because what Anarchists want look nothing like those “AES” states, and therefore the paradox.
It’s the opposite, those Anarchists that support AES over Capitalism and accept Imperialism as a special stage of Monopoly Capitalism are in the majority.
Utter nonsense. Anarchists which accept Leninist analysis are extraordinarily few.
I think that your statement is, ironically, a campist one that seeks to undermine the legitimacy of their takes while supporting your own.
That’s not what campism means.
I think it’s pretty clear that one can accept AES as clear improvements for the conditions of the Working Class as compared to Capitalism, while preferring decentralization and approaches like prefiguration over centralization and public ownership/planning. It isn’t a paradox to say “A is bad, B is much better than A, but I ultimately want C.”
Further, Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism as a special phase in Capitalist development is 100% compatible with Anarchism, as it purely describes Capitalist development and not how to achieve revolution or what a post-revolitionary society should look like. I specifically mentioned analysis of Imperialism and preference of AES over Capitalism, and not Marxist-Leninist analysis of the State, Class, etc, because those aren’t compatible with Anarchism. What Lenin outlines in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is a fact that can’t be denied. Developed Capitalist countries have seen merging of Banks and Industrialists, resulting in Financial Capital dominating industry, with Monopolies of the few governing the economy and exporting Capital to the Global South in order to super-exploit for super-profits. To deny Imperialism is like denying Colonialism.
We see this alignment of Anarchists globally against Imperialism in societies like the EZLN, which takes much inspiration from Marxism-Leninism with their own characteristics. Those in the Global South are intimately familiar with the mechanisms by which they are exploited and oppressed by the US and Western Europe especially, which is why the Anarchists in the Global South tend to align more with Marxists than Capitalists.
As for Campism, my point is more that you group Anarchists that disagree with you up with Marxists if they recognize the impacts of Western Imperialism and reduce it to Campism. I admit, I could have worded it better, but it’s a bad rhetorical trick to deliberately reduce the logical foundations of a position to purely whatever it happens to look like on the outside.
think it’s pretty clear that one can accept AES as clear improvements for the conditions of the Working Class as compared to Capitalism,
That’s the thing. Anarchists don’t see “aes” as separate from Capitalism. They are capitalism. Just with a red coat off paint. I can accept that their style of state Capitalism may be an improvement in some areas while being a problem in others, much like Nordic social democracies are different from the unrestrained Capitalism of the USA. But none of them is something anarchists truly support. And therefore again, a paradox in your argument.
Further, Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism as a special phase in Capitalist development is 100% compatible with Anarchism
Seeing that capitalist nations exploit the poorer ones doesn’t require Lenin anyway. This isn’t what makes one accept “aes” or the campist mindframre
We see this alignment of Anarchists globally against Imperialism in societies like the EZLN, which takes much inspiration from Marxism-Leninism with their own characteristics. Those in the Global South are intimately familiar with the mechanisms by which they are exploited and oppressed by the US and Western Europe especially, which is why the Anarchists in the Global South tend to align more with Marxists than Capitalists.
Anarchists always fall in the anti capitalistic camp but that’s where the alignment is ends. There’s no evidence that those in the “global south” are approaching MLs any different than I do.
As for Campism, my point is more that you group Anarchists that disagree with you up with Marxists if they recognize the impacts of Western Imperialism and reduce it to Campism
No I just point that anarchists who hang out in hexbear or which regurgitate ml talking points about being two sides, are just campist. I don’t know call critics of Capitalism campsits. I only call campist, campists.
To claim that economies where public ownership and planning is primary are Capitalist is silly. That either requires believing that states like Cuba and the USSR don’t/didn’t have public ownership and planning as the dominant factor of political economy, or a belief that Public Ownership and Planning as primary is Capitalist. The former would be a case of historical inaccuracy, the latter is theoretically ridiculous. I believe you are supplanting your own opinions on Socialism onto Anarchists in general, who tend to prefer Anarchism over Marxism due to differences in analysis of the state, not necessarily what is considered Socialist to begin with.
Saying the difference between pubicly owned and planned economies as primary and privately owned and planned economies as primary is simply a “red coat of paint” is a serious analytical failure, you can acknowledge Marxism as Socialist without thinking it better than Anarchism.
Secondly, you’re entirely pivoting your point regarding Lenin’s Imperialism, I think. Are you acknowledging that you misunderstood what I was talking about, or are you saying Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism isn’t accurate? Moreover, it isn’t just about how more developed Capitalist nations exploit countries in the Global South, it’s an analysis that this is the main obstruction of Socialism of any kind, be it Anarchist or Marxist. Further, it’s an analysis of Imperialism as the dying stages of Capitalism, as it directly results in inter-Imperialist wars and total folding of every nation under the thumb of Imperialism until nations begin to break free, weakening Imperialism overall.
Finally, I think you need to talk to more Anarchists globally, and not just in the West. The Zapatistas in EZLN openly cite Marxism-Leninism as one of the founding influences of Zapatismo. Historically as well, Marxists such as the Soviets provided material aid to Anarchist revolutionaries. To only claim Anarchists hostile to Marxism as legitimate, and denouncing Anarchists willing to work with Marxists against Capitalism and Imperialism, is a bit chauvanistic.
Edit: As for the “two sides campism is ML,” that’s just further proving my point, you refuse to look at the internal logic and call things whatever you outwardly see them as, like you did with calling AES “Capitalist.”
I’ve seen many, and Anarchist theory is linked and discussed frequently. Sectarianism is banned, so you haven’t likely seen Anarchists getting into fights with Marxists. As for the Ukranian war, Hexbear overall adopts the viewpoint of Lenin’s analysis of Imperialism as a special stage in Capitalist development, including the Anarchists, so you likely disagreed on those grounds.
I don’t disagree that the us is imperialist, I’m just saying that it’s also imperialist to invade your neighbors to restore the russian empires western border and increase your sphere of influence
You’re describing different phenomena under the same title, which only adds confusion and not clarity. You should read Lenin, Imperialism isn’t that long and it describes the modern form of Capitalism very accurately. Moreover, I don’t really think that’s an accurate outlook on the Russo-Ukranian war as a motive.
oh, yes I belive it is, why else is russia invading ukraine?
I don’t think it makes any real sense to say that it’s about returning to restore a Russian Empire’s borders. From what we know, there has long been an antagonistic relationship between NATO and Russia, and this continued even after Socialism fell, because Russia eventually kicked out the Western Capitalists that bought up and privatized the former state industry. This was accelerated when Ukraine suffered from the Euromaidan coup, and the Russian-speaking areas of Donetsk and Luhansk broke away.
You were almost correct when you said it was to increase their sphere of influence, the goal of Russia is to either assure Ukraine’s neutrality or demilitarize it completely, as NATO has been intentionally encircling Russia and threatening them into opening up and letting the Western Capitalists back in.
and Anarchist, in the case of Hexbear
more like right wing trolls
Why would a supposed group of right-wingers host Mutual Aid communities to help those in need, reading groups for Leftist theory from Marx to Lenin to Goldman and even feminist thinkers like Bell Hooks and trans activists like Leslie Feinberg, maintain millitantly defensive moderation principles to protect their large and active trans userbase, and do so for years without ever federating, and only remaining selectively federated with other instances?
Nobody has ever managed to answer that question any time they make that claim. Do you legitimately think it’s all an ironic bit purely for each other?
db0 is federated with world hexbear beehaw ml and many others.
Not with Lemmygrad, though, so if their goal is to be as broad as possible dbzer0 doesn’t cut it.
The only important thing, really, is that the instance you choose doesn’t defederate with other instances for political reasons (except being literal Nazi instances). I find that lemm.ee users have a good mix of political expression ranging from Marxists to Moderate Conservatives. An account there, on lemmy.zip, or lemmy.ml is probably your best bet.
Yep, as long as you don’t visit “local” and no instances are defederated, you simply get the whole fediverse, there isn’t any other experience available at that point.
Well, one other thing is that instances will only fetch content from communities that at least one instance member is subscribed to. Every instance will have a slightly different selection of content because of what communities the existing members have subscribed to (and larger instances will typically have a broader selection of content, because they have more users).
Register and account on another instance that passes the litmus test of federation with .ml and hexbear. Block .world on that new account. Don’t block all those instances .world told you to blindly hate.
This.
The leftist instances have a good mix of leftists and liberals that are brave enough to do what they’re told not to do.
I’m about to say the same thing differently.
Eliminating .world filters the majority of the propaganda and bad faith users. What remains is leftist because once we pierce through the propaganda and bad faith, we all agree that left is human.
We’ve three core groups: social democrats, authoritarian socialists & communists, and libertarian socialists & communists. Each focuses on a different part of our timeline. Respectively: the present, the means to overcome the human paradigm, and the ideal solution as we understand it.
Edit: I left out anarchists, whom are often my favorite group. They never get the respect they deserve. I apologize for contributing to that.
There’s communities I like on .world, so I just ban the most insufferable users and comms.
Voyager allows blocking of the instance whole while allowing specific communities.
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You might be better off looking for a community where the moderation optimizes for that kind of discussion (ex. Removing low effort comments, requiring citations, academic oriented, etc). It’s harder to find an entire instance that matches those points, but there should be a few communities like that
Then you can use the subscribed feed only, or block the communities you don’t like
Closest I can think of is Hexbear’s News Megathread, but it isn’t really for debate, just analysis of current events. Is there a comm like that elsewhere?
Gotta second this, it’s a little hard to find from a separate instance- you need to go to /c/news@hexbear.net and pick it from the pinned threads
The mega access was one of the biggest factors in making a Hexbear account for me, to be honest. A lot of great info in them (plus I like the casual chatting format of the general mega when I don’t want to make a full post).
That’s a good idea!
i agree with this
i started a free speech community and theres no downvoting allowed which encourages healthy arguing instead of comments just getting buried in downvotes or removed
i started a free speech community
Which one is it?
not telling
Do people do good, spirited debates anymore? Most of what I see would be more akin to wrestling a pig.
Debating online is largely useless for convincing the other party. Sometimes onlookers learn, but if it’s a debate neither party usually concedes. Education works, ie someone asking for more information, but that’s about it.
I think you are going to have a hard time finding a place to talk with a group that overall deals in bad faith arguments and hate speech. They also tend to silo themselves off to their own platforms over concerns that their hate speech gets them moderated (because Free Speech != does not mean speech without consequences or needs to be tolerated by everyone).
If you really want to see the MAGA “point of view” you are probably better off going to them on Truth Social, Gab, 4chan, The_Donald, etc.
This is kind of the derision that I’m talking about. (I am assuming that you are talking about the right wing). Whilst there is some truth to it, you disagreeing with them or their arguments doesn’t mean that it isn’t interesting, or worthy of discussion or debate.
I do agree that hate speech should be banned and that isn’t what I’m interested in.
I’m not interested in the MAGA point of view per se, I’m interested in a diverse spectrum of ideas and opinions that reflect a real cross section of society, where undoubtedly some of them will be MAGA people. Whereas there is a very strong left leaning bias here.
.world is very liberal, it isn’t really accurate to call it “left leaning.” You aren’t going to find many MAGA people on the fediverse.
In the UK there is some similarity between liberal and left wing ideas, despite them being distinct political groups. Liberalism was originally seen as very left wing, a lot of people are now arguing that there is more in common with right wing politics, small state and such.
I’d say my experience here has been much more left wing than liberal though, just my opinion.
Liberalism was only “left” when Capitalism was progressive, which was only true in comparison to Monarchism and Feudalism. Liberalism is a firmly Capitalist ideology, while Socialism is leftist.
It seems like you don’t realize that the world is extremely polarized. It’s not just Lemmy.
The issue is that you can’t have discussion or debate with:
- statements in bad faith
- statements not based on reality (conspiracy theories/misinformation/“alternative facts”
So the issue is once you have removed those, you aren’t left with many people holding a very broad spectrum of viewpoints outside of niche topics (Vi vs Emacs).
It’s extremely big headed to think that only the people who agree with you are arguing honestly and have not based their arguments on any incorrect information.
I’m here to learn and grow, not to circle jerk with my friends about how right we are.
I don’t think it’s always a difficult task to tell if someone is arguing in bad faith or not, and someone basing their argument on incorrect information is not that (and I assume you know that). So trying to say that I see a mere disagreement on a topic the same as one made in bad faith sounds like you’re trying to conflate the two, making it a bad faith argument.
But if pretending a ‘difference of opinion = bad faith argument’ is what you’re looking for I guess good luck. That is what I would call a “circle jerk”, but to each their own. Not sure how that type of discussion with no basis in reality can help anyone to “learn and grow” though.
Your best bet is to be in a lot of instances. My experiences so far is that basically any singular instance has its bias’, and while some unapologetically ban users for disagreeing with them, the ones that don’t still down vote for disagreeing with them.
While one of these forms of censorship is worse than the other, it’s all censorship, and the only way to see a variety of views is to stay in the varying instances.
The point of the fediverse is to give people the option to create communities by themselves and not be subject to the ruling of one central allmighty entity. If someone does not like one community they have the chance to create their own with their own rules. This means people can decide for themselves what content they want in their community. However people coming from traditional social media seem to mistake this kind of freedom with not needing to follow any rules but that’s not how it works.
Same goes for countries. Big ones cause problems IMO
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if you’re looking for an instance that won’t ban you based on your political belives check out lemmy.blahaj.zone
EDIT: not entirely true, you actually have to belive in basic human rights to be part of this community
Blahaj zone will ban you at the drop of a hat based on political belief.
and for what belive have you been banned there?
For being opposed to western chauvinism.
Blahaj takes an openly anti-Marxist stance, at minimum.
don’t really think so, I’ve seen pretty much any form of leftists over there, tho they will disagree with you regarding genocide acusations in china
Usually blahaj has liberals and US Empire-friendly Anarchists. There aren’t really any Marxists I’ve seen in any significant numbers, and 196 maintains anti-Marxist rules.
