I’m a conservative. I don’t mind the liberal stuff here. It’s good to learn the other side, but I don’t want a liberal echo chamber. I’d like to be more politically balanced in the fediverse. Is there any way I can do that?
I think by very nature of the Fediverse having somewhat leftist ideas baked into the design philosophy (decentralized, transparent, FOSS, and communal in design), that it gives the Fediverse an intrinsically left-leaning audience, so it may be harder to find a right-leaning community that isn’t extreme right like some others have mentioned. In general, I’d say that the needle points significantly left-of-center on the Fediverse as a result.
With Threads possibly federating soon, it’s possible that that may attract more conservative users to the Fediverse as a whole, which may foster the development of more conservative corners of the platform for those who want to venture outside of Meta’s bounds. Though that mostly applies to the Mastodon/microblogging side of things, not so much the Lemmy/Kbin stuff. Though technically Mastodon and Lemmy are compatible, as well, so that may still bring more conservative spaces, as well. Time will tell on that.
I am yet to spot a conservative on Mastodon.
There are conservatives on Mastodon, but the rest of the Fediverse defederates the explicitly conservative instances. The big ones are Gab, Parler, and TruthSocial, which don’t seem to federate with anybody at all. (I would advise against looking them up, because they have a rather high concentration of Nazis).
I thought gab pulled the plug on federation because their goal wasn’t to be federated in the first place, it was just a force themselves on others and be accessible from the Play store.
Oh I’m fully aware of Gab. I stumbled upon on one of their instances that was blocked from lemmy.world. Wasn’t sure if it was actually a Gab instance but it sure as shit was.
Personally, I quite enjoy perusing the memes on the myriad of conspiracy theories they like to peddle. The whole website is a guilty pleasure of mine.
One could argue that decentralized, bottom up organization is essentially the structure of the modern evangelical movement… It’s also kinda the playbook for modern terrorism though… ISIS, Timothy McVeigh, etc…
It would be nice to have moderate conservative voices in the mix but unfortunately that world just seems to be filled with mostly batshit crazy ideas that do more harm than good.
decentralized, bottom up organization is essentially the structure of
… life
Wait, I take a week off and threads federating is possible? What the hell?
Thats always been on the cards, on threads side. It was just a lot of instances were calling to preempt it by defederating beforehand.
Its been going on for much longer than a week
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If you want to see where the conservatives moved to, go to scored.co. (formerly thedonald.win). The worst thing about them isn’t limited to the unhinged garbage they spew, but that they are just such bores.
It’s so awful in every way imaginable that it makes me appreciate what we have here even more.
I don’t think Fediverse should be divided according to political compass. Just start a community on any instance and find your people. I don’t think you will face any censorship if the discussion is kept civilized.
I have heard few supposedly right wing instances were defederated, but I don’t agree it happened because of their agenda. The true reason was an overall 4-chan like chaos and hatread.
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I think that’s a very objective view of the landscape here. I hope it comes across as inviting as it is informative, to me at least.
To add, I think people here are a little less reactionary than on platforms like reddit. At least for the time being. I certainly want the whole of the civil society represented here including conservatives. Dialog will get us out of the divisive place we’ve come to. We share a lot more than we differ.
The fediverse is what people make of it.
I think a balance of liberal to conservative discussions can be good for the general consensus. However, it usually ends in a screaming match. Liberals want change. Conservatives don’t want change.
The best option for humanity is to have some change and not change things too quickly, but in order to reach that happy medium, we have to talk through it, apply critical thinking, and be able to listen and reflect when we receive new information.
Conservatives also want to take away peoples rights, ban books, make it harder to vote, and hurt minorities.
Excuse me, but as a black person I’ve heard so many people in the star trek community saying racial slurs against me without a care in the world
It’s why I hate that stupid show now
The USA Republican Party is not representative of all conservatives in the whole world.
True. But it is what most of us are talking about here.
…yet.
It also doesn’t help that the view of what Americans have on what is conservative and what Europe views as conservative is very different. American politics lean right by default, so when people tend to refer to conservatism in the US it is almost always referring to the far-right. If Joe Biden was a politician nearly anywhere in Western Europe, he would likely be seen at the very least as an economic conservative.
Joe Biden would probably be one of the more right wing members in the liberal party here (which is a right wing party). The US definitions of liberal and conservative are totally out of touch with the actual philosophical/ideological underpinnings of those terms.
then it must be specified if we already are aware that people will assume American conservative when they hear the word conservative. though, it’s unlikely OP meant anything other than American conservatism, see buzz-words like “liberal echo chamber”
Normal, klassical conservative or “Republican party crazy level” racism and nazism?
the former is a dead concept in the u.s., the latter has its own propaganda-spewing outlets.
Fortunately not everyone lives in the US
You know Carlos too?
Are you saying that there isn’t a single person in the USA whose beliefs align with the former definition of conservatism?
There are a lot of them. We call them democrats/liberals now.
They might be, but they’re considered leftists.
The Overton window moves so fast to the right in the US that it has a visible Doppler effect.
Reality has a well known liberal bias. Stop trying to hide from reality.
No, the Internet as a whole has more liberals than conservatives, due to a variety of reason. In real life you are much more likely to met someone that is neutral or only slightly to either side. What exists here is literal echo chambers of liberal policy to the point the policy becomes unpalatable for most, that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
Never been to any type of city, I see.
As a rural person, I’ve come to realize that we usually have no real concept of just how overwhelmingly large the population is that lives in huge cities.
It’s easy to perceive New York as just “a lot bigger than any town I’ve lived in” rather than “large enough that my entire town could visit on the same day and literally no one would notice”.
Another one that helps me put it in perspective - “If every resident of New York took a day trip to casually slap one member of my town one time, everyone in my town would probably die of our injuries.” It helps me when meditating on “Why should they wield so much political power?” They already do. This shared voting system just let’s us argue in a much chiller way.
A lot of history makes more sense through the context of realizing both how different city and town life is, while also accepting that an almost inconceivable number of people live in cities.
It’s not even the internet. Conservatives are more likely to stick to existing stuff and not experiment much. Liberals do that.
This is why places like YouTube have a big conservative audience. Places like Lemmy will have a huge liberal audience
that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
It sure exists in the podcasts I listen to (real people talking, even if it gets delivered via internet) and books that I read. It exists in the conversations that I have with my social group irl. It existed like crazy at the Bernie campaign speech that I attended in Feb 2020. If you think Leftist / Social Democrats don’t have real numbers, it’s because you don’t look for those groups to surround you.
No. The Internet just seems more liberally slanted because people are more liberally slanted overall. Conservatives rely on outdated voting principles to make it seem like they are more widely supported than they actually are. Things like first past the post, electoral college and gerrymandering. This is why you see republicans fighting to either keep the voting process the way it is, or to restrict voting in various ways.
Also, conservatives feel like the Internet is more slanted to the left because they are usually stuck in their little rural community echo chamber. Then come to the internet where they actually have to interact with people outside their local area, like cities and other countries.
They also rely on the low voter turnout. If more people under 40 voted, it would likely be consistent liberal governance for the foreseeable future.
the Internet as a whole has more liberals than conservatives
Because Conservatives don’t know how to use the internet or change the channel away from fox
I don’t like fox or cnn. They’re both corrupt. I prefer to get my news through youtube. I search for experts on a certain topic explaining the issue. During covid I watched a lot of doctors explaining covid on YouTube.
Saying “I get news from YouTube” is like saying “I get news from the television”. It matters what channel you’re on.
What direction do you think fox is biased towards? What direction do you think cnn is biased towards?
It’s worse than getting news from TV. TV doesn’t have an algorithm feeding you Right wing propaganda like YouTube pushes.
YouTube is not a news source my friend. A lot of the “experts” you’ll find on there have zero credibility.
I know it’s scary to be in the real world outside of your conservative silo, but as you’re seeing the lies your News agencies have been feeding you simply aren’t true.
The Red states flipping blue, Texas going purple and the vast majority of Americans being in favor of roe v wade show that your world view of conservatism is not the majority belief in America.
I share your sentiment. Every now and then I see a conversation like this and it points to exploding heads or similar, but that’s disappointing. I’ve actually checked it out and it’s just 5-6 basement dwellers posting memes to their own communities without any interaction. That’s not political right; that’s just a bunch of losers. It’s also sad that this is what the fediverse thinks right wing is.
It’s also sad that this is what the fediverse thinks right wing is.
Taking the US as an example: if you look at how often conservative/republican politicians oppose hateful people like Trump you’re going to find it… nearly doesn’t happen at all. They stood together and supported him.
The problem actually isn’t that someone like Trump can get into office or some harmful and bigoted policy can appear for consideration. The issue is that it gets supported, it gets tolerated.
At least in the US-y sense of left/right, I think this makes it fair to group those people together. I’ll stop doing that when there’s an apparent distinction.
Right wingers sure are losers tho
It’s not just the fediverse that thinks this of the right.
That’s not political right; that’s just a bunch of losers
well i mean, same thing
What’s a sensible political right space look like in your opinion? Because, in my view, self-identified conservatives on the internet tend to be the ones espousing hate and/or conspiracy theories while the more moderate ones don’t use the label or stick to centrist if anything. At the very least, there is an image problem with conservatism online.
I got blasted a while back because I said I am a centrist who doesn’t fully side with anybody. Too many people want an echo chamber.
Would you be a centrist in 1930s Germany too?
Yes, because a centrist wouldn’t want the totalitarian regime of Hitler either.
What I meant is that not voting against Nazis/conservatives in a two party system is almost as bad as voting for them.
What does this have to do with the point I’m trying to make here?
That that is why you got blasted.
Ah yes, the good ol’ argument that if I criticize the progressives in any way, that means I’m a Trump supporter. Get out of here with that bullshit.
This binary view of politics is exactly what’s ruining this country.
Maybe those conservative instances are disappointing because conservatism itself is disappointing?
Seems like conservatives mostly consist of denying reality, believing in conspiracy theories or working against human rights.
Define “conservative”
What I’d like it to mean - the belief that government intervention often hurts the people that it’s meant to help, so should only be used in limited circumstances and be carefully designed.
It seems to mean white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia instead.
Conservatives spent two generations actively trying to make the government worse and less effective just so they can turn around and say “look how shitty this is!”
That is because denying welfare to people who need it happens to line up perfectly with the beliefs of those groups you named. Neoliberalism didn’t work out for the people, only people still voting for this shit are bigots and gullible morons.
The idea that government intervention is bad puzzles me every time I encounter it. Government in a democracy should be “the people” and intervention could protect you in so many cases. Assuming you’re from the US, from an outside perspective your job ‘market’ is utterly fucked. Because of cuts to the welfare system (which have been marketed with somewhat racist propaganda, see welfare queens), most people are forced to take highly unregulated, low-paying jobs (yes, plural) while rich people and big companies earn more and more. The government could intervene and make it harder for companies to exploit workers the way they’re doing it right now.
Look at how it was 60 years ago. Single income, blue collar households could afford houses. Now double income academic households can’t. And all that despite the huge technological progress we made. We need so much less manual labor than in the 1960s. Everything should be easier. For everyone.
Even the first part of your comment is some fairy tale rich people tell you so they can make more profit.
I think they’re often wrong, but I’ve known a lot of people who aren’t rich and believe it in good faith.
Of course they believe it. Rich people get idolized like crazy and rich people are constantly saying that programs that benefit the average citizen are bad and are too expensive for the tax payers.
That definition doesn’t seem to fit the verb conserve or adjective conserving. If it’s specifically about government, wouldn’t it be better to use a term for that instead of the very broad conservative? Slim Government?
In terms of economics, liberal and conservative used to mean regarding the role of government. They’ve taken the opposite meanings in American political discourse.
Conserving every status-quo, except for conserving the environment, because fuck the environment.
Also no human or personal rights. Everyone should be a slave except for the rich. And fuck your vacations.
And not really conserving status quo either but actively trying to make it shittier.
Oh, and don’t forget about social safety nets that are part of the status quo but which they also don’t care about.
And social freedoms. Because fuck other’s freedoms.
Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying “I want more lies, ignorance and hate sprinkled in”?
“More politically balanced” lol
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It’s sad that you’re getting down voted for this, because you’re absolutely right. These lemmy communities are already turning out to be a left-leaning echo chamber, this thread is a perfect example. Any opinion that differs from the left is blocked or downvoted or argued against endlessly.
OP asks a completely reasonable question in good faith, and hundreds of people come to attack him for thinking differently than they do.
People straight up mock him for no reason. The left loves to paint the right as being hateful, but I’m only seeing the left being hateful on here.
So anyone who doesn’t subscribe to everything you believe in or agree with are liars, ignorant, and hateful? Discussions and debate can be healthy.
I mean there’s no reason in debating a liar, it’s lose lose.
Ever been on a conservative subreddit? No matter how open minded you are, you can’t overlook how they don’t even care to spread misinformation.
The exact same thing can be said for liberal communities. It becomes a hivemind where dissenting opinions are not allowed.
Take the Hunter Biden laptop story for instance. So many websites and communities outright banned it from being discussed or posted because they didn’t like the optics of it. Facebook banned it, the top subs on reddit banned it.
Only very recently has CNN decided to treat it as news, after lying about it constantly on air for months saying it was fake. That’s censorship of information. The left regularly spread misinformation like “the laptop story is a Russian hoax”.
Both sides do this.
Yes, and I find them indistinguishable from liberal subreddits. The echo chambers are pretty easy to find…
Yeah. I have. Echo chambers. Hated them.
But the OP seems to be open-minded based on this post. If he is (or at least tries to be), then I don’t see a reason why we should just criticize his politics without just cause. If he eventually proves to be a troll or breaks rules then maybe the admins can ban him.
It’s hard to generalize. There are assholes from all political spectrums, even though there may be more in others.
Edit: if I’m not mistaken, I think it was Voat I checked out last? I really can’t remember but this isn’t the first time I tried leaving reddit. This is the most successful attempt yet, though. I also inadvertently joined a Q group/channel on Telegram. Lmao.
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I’m sure prager would fund it if someone explained it to him
Just a reminder that it isn’t a left vs right conversation. It’s working class vs ruling class.
You aren’t bitter at leftists, you’re bitter at the ideas that media companies use to keep you angry at leftists instead of oligarchs.
If you have to work, you’re working class.
If you actually do hate certain types of people, then you need to work on yourself.
If you don’t believe certain people need health care, then you need to work on yourself.
If you believe ultra wealthy (people making over $10mil in income annually) deserve more tax cuts, then you need to work on yourself.
If you don’t believe that minimum wage should have parity with inflation, then you need to work on yourself.
Have some class solidarity.
EDIT: To all those downvotes… Ask yourself why you are downvoting me. (Now with 100% more sources)
Do you actually hate certain people? Really? But you’re downvoting me? Work on yourself.
Do you actually believe you don’t deserve health care? That others don’t deserve health care? Seriously? Work on yourself.
Are you super wealthy (low percentage chance)? I’m saying uncomfortable things to you. But you can easily afford those taxes so maybe work on yourself.
Do you believe people working for minimum wage shouldn’t be able to afford an apartment by themselves anywhere in the USA? Work on yourself.
Also, to add to this: Leftist ideologies does not have to be authoritarian or have to involve genocides like some regimes have did some in the past. Leftist ideologies is compatible with democracy, and some might argue that Leftist ideologies require a democratic system.
Example: North Korea currently is called “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” but I doubt most people would actually consider that democratic.
Now imagine someone just started shouting “Democracy is bad because North Korea is a Democracy. This is why Monarchy is better!”
See how idiotic that sounds. Same thing with claiming all Leftist ideologies are bad because of a few failed “Marxist-Leninist” societal experiments. Some socialist policies have been successfully implemented. In Norway, although it’s still a capitalist country, has implemented some socialist policies under the “Nordic Model”. This is sometimes referred to as Social Democracy. See how democracy still exists in Norway?
Well said. I’m saving this.
I’d like to be more politically balanced in the fediverse.
As shown by votes on abortion rights in states like Kansas, Michigan, etc, your views are in the minority. Media makes it seem like the country is split 50-50, but the only reason that appearance isn’t turned on its head is low voter turnout.
I do hope you find a place where you feel comfortable, however. I think that’s reasonable to strive for for all people regardless of their views.
Also gerrymandering
Nah, man. If your views involve forcing the birth of a baby with spina-bifida or my wife carrying a dead fetus for three months or more, you can get fucked.
Serious question: Wouldn’t you as a conservative who doesn’t want an echo chamber therefore NOT join a conservative community? Wouldn’t THAT put you in an echo chamber?
I want both liberal and conservative views. I’m not planning on leaving lemmy.
If you find that, let me know. My entire experience on platform after platform is that the internet is 80% messy, open conversational marketplace that tends to lean left, 19% conservative echo chamber, and 1% tight, closed door communities where “reasonable” conservatives live in denial of the world around them.
If you feel like you’re in a liberal echo chamber because you see trans people being talked about as real without anyone coming to shout it all down, then what you’re really looking for is the 19% and I’m sure you’ll find it.
It’s sad that respect, empathy and basic human rights are “leftist” ideals.
Yes. And it’s imperative for us to recognize that’s where it’s come to.
Yes, here: exploding-heads.com
Enjoy learning about the secret illuminati jewish space laser and the deep state trying to establish a new world order!
The f***? What the hell is that racist garbage?
aaaand another, i could go on
holy shit, the jokes write themselves. it really is like 3 losers posting weird ass shit
“If A Leftist Guy Was With His Girlfriend And Called You A Toxic Male, What Would You Do?”
“I downvote every post that says 'climate change”Also a bunch of transphobic shit, because of course.
and another
