…huh. I didn’t see that coming.

Honestly better left wing than right wing I think, even if they’re stance on the wing is… questionable, to say the least. Though I say that with the benefit of hindsight.

I’m not proud of it, but long ago I myself fell into some of those spaces actually. And not to get into all of it now but I can absolutely see what leads one to have those perspectives, and I also think to some extent I am uniquely qualified to challenge those perspectives becaus, and ofc this doesn’t go for everyone, but for many I’ve associated with the hardline posturing comes more from a defensive paranoia perspective than any will to opress or subjugate anyone. That was certainly always true for me, I’m trans ffs, I never wanted to opress anyone. But the opinion you’ll run into at the heart of the authoritative left wing is that control is necessary to secure freedoms and prevent the new society from collapsing from outside influence. If you can challenge that core assumption (and also misinfo about Soviet Union etc. but that’s a whole other topic), you can actually make meaningful dialouge.

But by far the thing that kept me in those communities for the longest time was the sense that anyone on the outside would not accept us for our beliefs and could not be trusted, and when all my friends and social connections were in those spaces it was in my interest not to deviate from the line, leading to a kind of spiraling of radical opinions in an echochamber. The thing that brought me out of it was an anarchist extending her hand and us just getting along well on a fundamental level, and not judging me for the beliefs that I’d fallen into or calling me stupid or anything else but just challenging them on an intellectual basis and having evidence to back up her arguments.

I suppose the best takeaway from all of this is that if any time you push someone away, you simultaneously push them closer towards the group that is influencing them. And I get it, sometimes it really isn’t worth the energy to deradicalize people, especially those who are truly fargone. But I think it’d be a mistake to ostracize everyone from the outset.

Sorry for the long response, I got a lot more vulnerable here than I was really planning on 😅

Thanks for listening to my ted talk lmaoo

Oh.

They’re libertarians aren’t they.

Why is lemmy.ml full of assholes? Wasn’t that one of the original lemmy instances? Genuinely asking

I have no advice for you but as someone relatively new to lemmy I’m trying to understand all this drama. It seems like hexbear is leftist which I thought was cool (full disclosure tho I’ve not checked it out at all), but this just seems… really extreme. That joke comment reply probably wasn’t the best thing to say but it’s crazy to me that you didn’t even get any dialouge opened up or anything, just an outright ban? And it seems like the person who reported it had no frame of reference for Stardew. Sorry this happened :< Seems kind of knee-jerk on their behalf. I hope you can open a dialogue, clear things up and get your account back <3

Damn I wanna be her haha, this is so goood

That inability to passively keep “consuming content” is honestly a big strength of Lemmy for me. On Reddit I can sometimes get sucked in for hours on end, and I can get mentally exhausted pretty quickly but just keep scrolling for “the next thing.” The fact that you can’t really do that on Lemmy has made it a much healthier choice for me to spend time here, and I’ve only just started (kinda – it’s complicated).

Interactions here feel so much more personal too, which I like. Even with all the various instances and communities, we’re also all part of the same community. And that can kinda extend to the fediverse as a whole too. What we have in common is that we all want an alternative to the corporate social media landscape that gives more freedom to the users, and enables interchange between platforms to discourage monopolizing walled gardens. It really is fantastic.

I do want to understand, I am no “booster” by any means and I think on the whole AI is being used in some abhorrent ways, but I don’t think the technology is the problem I think the problem is it’s use to steal art and by corporations to cut people out of the picture, and I do think there are some beneficial applications of AI and that it is not unilaterally negative or evil. Just being used in a lot of shitty evil ways right now. Does that mean I am unwelcome here? Genuinely asking.