My first post on the Fediverse got a really warm response, but it also came with some weird political arguments, which is bound to happen anywhere.
I’ve believed for a long time that there’s no practical point in that, especially on platforms that sometimes bring together people from opposite sides against a common ENEMY. I just call it the Big Interest. We all have the same big Big Interest we disagree with, which is why we went looking for an alternative. The comments laid out the idea pretty clearly. People come to the Fediverse because they’re mostly or totally anti-corporate, they believe in a different path for technology, and they just can’t stand tracking and attention-driven social media.
I know I might sound naive, even dumb, but please hear me out.
- Say you’re politically intolerant toward someone with the opposite views. But you live at about the same standard of living, eat the same food, go to school in about the same places, hang out in the same spots, and doomscroll the same garbage. Don’t you share the same problems? The only difference is how you try to solve them. That’s it.
It’s more interesting to take the best from one side, then another, then a third, and build some kind of consensus. Listen to how the other side handles it. Interesting, right? Take their ideas and offer yours.
I like to boil reality down to something really basic: the left (liberal, whatever) pushes us toward progress, which is good, but bad if it’s blind. The right (conservative) tests whether that progress can hold up. So both sides balance the world, at least in my naive little worldview. Obviously there are way, way more forces in real life, but I don’t think shrinking or wiping out any of them is a great idea.
- Even if you’re sure you’re right and everyone else is an oppressor, a troll, or a virgin, doesn’t that make you exactly like your opponent?
I think it’s much more interesting when you smash your worldview into someone else’s and you exchange solutions. Otherwise, any political argument turns into an attempt to make your opponent into you. Do you want an army of clones? You don’t know where their beliefs came from, what they’re built on, how they changed over time, or why they ended up different from yours.
Personally, I’d much rather watch a debate based on mutual respect than a fight based on emotions, one where people try to cancel someone, corner them, change their mind, or make them look like a caveman, a bigot, or an idiot. Using those methods already shows that the so-called “right” side isn’t actually right.
- We’re kinda cooked, bro. The world we live in has gotten heavier, gone nuts, and is rolling downhill with no one knowing where it ends up. On our own, we don’t have the resources or the moral strength to face what’s coming.
Personally, I’m always for what brings different people together, not what splits them apart. I don’t think there’s any point in playing the atomization game anymore. It’s a waste of time that leads nowhere and gives us nothing.
The Big Interest, the one we’re all running away from to the Fediverse and places like it, has a moral flag built on grabbing total profit. And it’s totally shortsighted, too, because it doesn’t even care about the world its own kids will inherit. It has the money, and it has the tools to divide us. And those resources are insane!
I’m not calling for anything here, and who am I to call for anything anyway. But the imbalance is more than obvious to me. Everyone has their own way of cutting down that influence or getting rid of it. But one thing I’m sure of: we’re in such a deep mess that we have no real effect on anything, and the further we go, the worse it gets, because we’re so atomized. In my whole life I’ve never seen a force that pushes back and has to be taken seriously. I hope I’ll see one someday. I’d like to be part of it, or at least cheer for it.
What bugs me most is that there’s basically no such force in the world. Its shadow just fades out online here and there, and I’ve lost any interest in figuring out the truth in those arguments. Even if you find it, it won’t change anything.
Name-dropping never convinces me either: Putin, Zelensky, Trump, Biden, Kim Jong Un, whoever, pick one to blame for the system and all the sins of the world. The names change, but the idea stays the same. It just reshuffles the names. What do I care about any of these leaders? I’d rather dig into what idea they stand for and whose interests they serve. Where exactly do we even dig to fix things? I really doubt that after Dictator A, dictatorship will magically disappear.
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Of course, none of this applies to political trolling, provocations and calls for violence.
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My best friend and I, by the way, are almost total opposites in our beliefs, politics included. That doesn’t stop us from bumping them together, finding common ground, and having a great time.
Being politically intolerant in 2026 makes zero sense, especially when you’re all in the same boat.
Behold, the paradox of tolerance made manifest!
- Say you’re politically intolerant toward someone with the opposite views. But you live at about the same standard of living, eat the same food, go to school in about the same places, hang out in the same spots, and doomscroll the same garbage. Don’t you share the same problems?
Not at all.
First: It’s unlikely you’ll doomscroll the same garbage. Social feeds are highly customized and curated. You’ll likely have entirely different ideas in your feeds. Second: Being in the same place doesn’t mean you have the same goals and desires. Our problems are very much defined by what we want.- Even if you’re sure you’re right and everyone else is an oppressor, a troll, or a virgin, doesn’t that make you exactly like your opponent?
When someone thinks “everyone” is something, it’s frequently because they themselves are that thing. But in political fights it’s frequently between someone who thinks everyone is (or should be) something, and someone who thinks people are all different, and society should allow for those differences.
So no, arguing against oppression doesn’t make you an oppressor.
- We’re kinda cooked, bro. The world we live in has gotten heavier, gone nuts, and is rolling downhill with no one knowing where it ends up. On our own, we don’t have the resources or the moral strength to face what’s coming.
It’s not going to “end up”. It’ll always keep rolling. (Relative to human scale measures of time, anyway) But many know where it’s going. The rolling is targeted. It’s being deliberately guided downhill by people who’ll benefit from that. There are others trying to change its course tward someplace better for most of us. But neither group is blind of the landscape, or course of the boulder.
I like to boil reality down to something really basic: the left (liberal, whatever) pushes us toward progress, which is good, but bad if it’s blind. The right (conservative) tests whether that progress can hold up. So both sides balance the world, at least in my naive little worldview.
You CANNOT boil things down to that basic of a narrative.
The right ACTIVELY SABOTAGES the left and advocates for violence and oppression of leftist movements all over the world.
Your axiomatic assertion here is naive and worse it involves you projecting something you desperately want to be true onto a reality that doesn’t fit.
What do you mean by “balance” anyways? Deadlock? Performative division masking lockstep conformity?
The main point of my post is that the echo chamber is also a common enemy, even though I don’t really like using this word.
Fair point, it’s a simplification. I said so in the post, and I know reality is a lot messier.
By “balance” I just mean each side keeping the other’s extremes in check, not a deadlock. Maybe it doesn’t always work that way, but that’s the idea.
But “the right” is just as broad a label as mine. Conservatives, libertarians, and authoritarian regimes aren’t the same thing. If you mean specific groups, name them and let’s talk about those.
Performative division masking lockstep conformity?
Yes. that’s right. I don’t get why you’d fight someone who’s dealing with the same oppression firsthand, even if they see the world differently. (And that’s something we have in common: I’m against violence and oppression too. It’s an extreme, no matter which side it comes from)
