Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?
I’ve pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it’s uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”) We’re much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre…
I don’t know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I’d like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.
Thanks!
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Lemmy world is probably the most centerist instance that hasn’t been defederated. Lemm.ee are sh.it.just.works are probably good replacements if she thinks it is just to far left wing but it’s probably that she is seeing .ml or one of the other various socialist instances.
She will need to utilize her block list to block tankie users and communities if she doesn’t want to see them. A lot of entrenched users are here because they realized that mainstream platforms were enshittified a lot earlier because they of their anti capitalist views
Unless you’re willing to go with a very closed off instance you’re still going to be interacting with the broader fediverse which is very left.
I don’t think that’s really going to change unless there is another big migration and I don’t necessarily want it to. But I would like if Lemmings would be kinder to one another and realize that not having read 800 pages of leftist theory doesn’t mean you’re an evil imperialist. Everyone is on their own journey to understanding the world and I think a lot of people here are so judgmental that they would be fighting with their own past and future selves if they could meet them. It’s OK to disagree sometimes. Yes, even when people hold harmful views. We all do to some extent.
The fediverse needs a non-political, non-US instance that blocks political communities from other servers. Otherwise people who don’t want politics have to spend time curating their experience and can never actually escape it, because some douche will start spouting “OMG LOOK AT THIS POLITICIAN!” in communities about superb owls or something.
Can an instance block individual communities? I would think if users just don’t subscribe to the political and then set the feed view to subscribed that should sort it out for them.
Yes. I don’t remember which instance did this but I remember I encountered it some time ago.
You can host your own Mbin instance.
Something like that! This seems like a solveable problem…
Lemmy.world is too left?. It always looked normal to me. Although, I do want the total annihilation of capitalism, so…
Normally big instances are the most generalistic and less “politically biased”, but sometimes a more small and focused instance could be better for the things you want.
It’s… Fine for me, I’m learning to just eye roll and move on but it can sometimes be fairly u pleasant and aggressively Left. (I think I got called a fascist for pointing out problems with PR electoral systems with a “how dare you oppose a system that…”
Too bad that’s your experience. Yes it is true that some comrades can get “intense” at times. I think that, more than the ideas, it is how to express them that is at fault by their part.
Lemmy world is basically still Reddit. so that one
press x to doubt
It’s a well known fact that .world admins have wet dreams at night about spez seeing what good boys they’ve been and rewarding them by making them reddit admins and letting them suckle his little pigboy twig.
we gotta mf saying press x to doubt, its reddit
My impression is that Lemmy and the fediverse are a manifestation of the dissatisfaction with the current “normal” and “mainstream” social media platforms which are in decline due to hyper-capitalism. Is it no wonder the majority of its users’ ideology doesn’t align with what is “normal” and “mainstream”?
That being said, this system is designed so that communities can exist independently from one-another. You’re always welcome to create your own. Otherwise, lemmy.world is just about as “normal” as you’re going to get out of Lemmy.
I dunno… I admittedly live in a fairly liberal city in Canada but in casual conversation with all sorts of folks (I play soccer on 4 teams so have a pretty wild cross section of friends) I’ve heard lots of grumbles. Heck, a couple songs ago a random Tidal playlist song was groussing about the algorithms.
Even reddit had a bunch of grumbles and complaints and people looking for alternatives though I admittedly rarely look there anymore.
I wanna say there’s Hilarious Chaos which is right wing and a lil more normie. This instance is pretty good too.
Lemmy.world is the most mainstream instance. You may find small instances that have more political center types, but for all the “issue” is that the fediverse is federated. So lemmy.ml users can comment on your post on lemmy.world as well.
That’s funny because the majority of Lemmy.World are people who left Reddit during the 3rd party app-ocolypse. Though I suppose many of them also saw Reddit becoming more and more pro-Nazi as time went on. The loss of the apps was just the kick in the pants needed to actually leave.
Your friend is confused. Leftism is inherently anti-capitalist so she can’t be a leftist unless she wants to ditch capitalism.
Most people in say America define Left Right on the current political spectrum, with Democrats on the left and Republicans on the Right.
It’s like when people talk about work, we know they’re not actually talking about Force times Distance as defined by Newtonian physics, we understand they are talking about their job.
with Democrats on the left
Do keep in mind the most left leaning democrat you can think of would be a center-right candidate in my country. It’s unfortunate that indeed you can only work with what you got, but don’t be surprised when others cringe at the thought of calling your democratic party leftist.
In any civilised society American “Democrats” are considered far right (Biden et al) to centre right (Sanders).
Republicans are self admitted fascist lunatics.
Don’t expect American standards when you get out of your fascist echo chamber.
Americans do not get their own definition for philosophies.
It’s the same in most countries. In Canada, we put the NDP on the Left, Liberals generally centre Left, Conservatives on the Right and the Bloc… well, they do Bloc things.
Similar set up in most places. In common conversation, Left Right mean a standard political spectrum.
If I said I went to work, have I redefined Newtonian physics?
False. The Liberals are generally centre-right even within Canada. Your compass is off.
Your Newtonian physics argument is nonsensical and frankly rude.
I don’t think you understand leftism. Economic leftism (Socialism, Marxism, Communism) is inherently anti capitalist. The social spectrum of left and right is pointless. I am not necessarily a Liberal but I would define myself as a leftist. I do not consider liberals to be inherently leftists.
Like I’ve said repeatedly, in the popular context and most common words used by people, Left wing has different definition.
To re-use the example above, if I said I went to work, have I redefined Newtonian physics? Or would you understand that work has different meanings depending on context?
No, it isn’t. Unless you are Eurocentric and ignore most nationsliberalism is where the left starts though liberalism isn’t “leftist”. The right is authoritarianism. This is true all around the world.
Those were definitely words!
Can you give a couple examples of countries where the major left party/parties is/are anti capitalist?
Germany, France
I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.
That’s a terminology issue that you’re going to run into in any sufficiently political community. ‘Left-wing’ in casual use in the US refers to “everyone except the Republicans and some moderates”, but “left-wing” in any serious political talk refers to anti-capitalism.
‘Left-wing’ in casual use in the US refers to “everyone except the Republicans and some moderates”, but “left-wing” in any serious political talk refers to anti-capitalism.
Please list the mainstream “leftist” parties in any G20 nation that are “anti-capitalist”; and by mainstream I mean they have more than two representatives at the federal level.
Mainstream leftist parties aren’t necessarily leftist, especially economically leftist. E.g. the Democratic party in the US.
Socdems are leftist, even if you might disagree with their whole non-revolutionary approach. Definitely more leftist than the billionaire-creating CCP which yes is in the G20. China is part of that club. The whole EU, constitutionally, is not capitalist but a social market economy.
I would say mixed-marked advokates fit into left wing as well, social democray and so forth.
You know left “lite”
are they really anti-capitalism?
or just calling for properly regulated capitalism?
Properly regulated capitalism is my Left but…
Then you are technically left. Although leninists Will loudly denounce anyone who doesn’t follow their authoritarian ideology as being no true Scotsman.
Capitalism as I stated above is regulated by capital. Anything other than capital regulating capitalism is not capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is that Capital regulates itself. If you want something other than Capital regulating capitalism, i e the people or government. Then you are against Capital regulating itself. And therefore anti-capitalist.
The tricky bit is. That wealthy oligarchs have spent centuries at this point conflating markets and capitalism. They are two different things. Markets have existed for centuries, Millennium even. It’s one of man’s oldest inventions. Coming right about the same time as agriculture. Predating capitalism by thousands of years. Capitalism as a concept is barely older than the United States itself.
That’s a very absolutist view of the meaning of Capitalism.
With that view, how could anyone be against Capitalism then?
It’s technically never been tried with that definition.
It’s not absolutist. Mildly reductive perhaps. But not remotely absolutist.
How could anyone be for it? It’s literally rule by the wealthy. It was a response created by wealthy mercantilist. Frustrated that no matter how much money they had there was an echelon of power always denied to them.
It’s always been tried with that definition. At the founding of the United States, wealthy white land owning males. The capital class with all the capital controlled it. It was oligarchy from it’s establishment. It was more beneficial on average than mercantilism. But still a failure.
Even today in China. The vanguard, their capital controlling class controls and regulates their state capitalism. Capital regulates capitalism. Not the people.
According to capitalism, capitalism is the only regulation capitalism needs. Capitalism regulated by something other than capitalism is anti-capitalism.
The bigger issue is that so many people misconstrued capitalism and markets. They are two different things. You can have markets, well regulated markets. And not have capitalism. Even under authoritarian leninist governments they have markets. There were markets in Soviet russia, there are markets in-state capitalist China. Even in North korea. But they do not let the wealthy regulate and decide the markets as capitalism does. They have plenty of other issues however.
According to capitalism, capitalism is the only regulation capitalism needs. Capitalism regulated by something other than capitalism is anti-capitalism.
Respectfully, I don’t think this is true.
Even Adam Smith warned about the dangers of monopolies and the fact that businesses would try to crate them, collide againat consumers etc. That’s kind of the foundation of anti trust legislation.
Now, modern republicans have endorsed the view of capitalism that you’ve noted but to say that’s the how Capitalism works is like saying Soviet Russia is how communism works.
Adam Smith, in modern terms, would be a social liberal. Probably some kind of ordoliberal. It’s Marx where the modern definition of capitalism comes from and it’s pretty much “what capitalists do, systemically, to stay in power”: Accumulate their capital, evade regulation, generate monopolies, seek rents, etc.
Respectfully, Adam Smith did not invent capitalism. So why even bother bringing him up? I know it’s what the indoctrinated have often been selectively fed. But he is no final word on capitalism other than the American system.
Even then he needs to be understood in the context of the times he lived in. He was very Progressive and educated for his time. But even if he believed that government should have some say in capitalism. Government back then meant wealthy white land owning males. I.E the capital class. I.E Capital controlling capital. Not the workers. Not women. Capitalism has always been about oligarchy.
Neither capitalism or socialism works for anyone but the vanguard/oligarchs.
You can’t just define capitalism however you want.
Most people understand that businesses need regulation, that’s the point and basis of so many agencies and bodies that it’s almost comical.
The real argument is how heavily it should be regulated. Yes, some folks, particularly those with a lot of capital don’t want regulations. That no more means capitalism itself doesn’t want or need regulations than say, a soccer player with a strong punch who wishes you could just punch other players means soccer wants players to be able to punch each other in the head.
Respectfully, Adam Smith did not invent capitalism…But he is no final word on capitalism other than the American system.
So the Scottish Economist who is often described as the “Father of Capitalism”, the guy who was teaching Capitalism before the United States even existed is somehow irrelevant?
Say w0t?
I dobtwrhinj it’s any serious political talk (otherwise most countries are having unserious talks about their Left and Right wings) but maybe in serious political theory talks?
Like, Germany’s Left parties mostly don’t want to dismantle capitalism but I wouldn’t dismiss all conversation about them and putting people on that Left Right spectrum to be unserious.
There is a lot of “Capitalist Realism” but the people in these parties that still consider themselves leftists usually do agree that capitalism should be abolished if pressed on the topic.
Like, Germany’s Left parties mostly don’t want to dismantle capitalism but I wouldn’t dismiss all conversation about them and putting people on that Left Right spectrum to be unserious.
Even the SDP is pro-forma still for the abolition of capitalism.
I always thought they were more traditional socialist democracy?
But I doubt many of their voters believe a vote for them will bring about the end of capitalism…
They very much expect the SPD to defend things like co-determination laws to the death, though. They also expect the SPD to implement referenda that say that landlords with over 1000 apartments should be expropriated, that they’re dragging their feet on that kind of stuff (“but the markets might get uneasy and that would have consequences”) is one of the reasons why they don’t poll well.
Can you imagine a US city the size of Berlin pushing through a referendum to expropriate landowners? That’s how far apart the overton windows are. There’s hardly even overlap.
I always thought they were more traditional socialist democracy?
… what do you think socialism is, exactly?
Generally, classically I’ve understood Socialism to still involve central planning of industry/production.
Whereas most modern socialist democracies tend to heavily regulate industry and enact social welfare programs to minimize the effects of different classes etc.
I don’t disagree but there is a distinct difference between social democracy and a socialist democracy, or democratic socialism.
The former is a capitalist system with some welfare systems in place, the latter is socialism without the one party state.
Generally, classically I’ve understood Socialism to still involve central planning of industry/production.
Socialism is worker control of the means of production, which can take many forms. What it is, most distinctively, is incompatible with capitalism, which is investor control of the means of production.
Whereas most modern socialist democracies tend to heavily regulate industry and enact social welfare programs to minimize the effects of different classes etc.
The most successful socialist parties in the West take the view that the harm of capitalism should be reduced while it still exists; they still believe in the eventual abolition of capitalism.
And the harm reduction comes in the form of removing parts of the economy from capitalist control, which is … anti-capitalist.
That’s because for many of them it is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism.
Interesting take.
I think what you‘re talking about is called „anecdotal evidence“. Destroying capitalism is definitely not the „mainstream“ on lemmy, far from it. Although We dont have „normie-lizing“ moderation and bot armies that bury every post thats out of the norm.
Of course we attract a lot of freedom loving people. Freedom, turns out is an extremist left view. Asking to be paid for work done, asking to be able to work from home, etc.
I would ask your friend to show you more than one incident and also ask them to be open to making a new experience.
And although everyone will hate me for it: if you want fediverse lite (or bastardized corpo fediverse) you can always test bluesky and threads. They are more mainstream since they have larger user counts.
Not sure this is the way to share comments but in this post we already have people arguing about liberalism creating fascism etc:
https://fedia.io/m/fediverse@lemmy.world/t/1703782/-/comment/9075608
I think she deleted accounts but if you really want I can hunt down the last time folks got angry at me for the same thing.
I didn’t delete my account I blocked you. Open up a fucking history book, look at the Weimar Republic, then look what came next.
As a queer woman I’m so fucking sick and tired of liberal bullshit. Liberals create the conditions that allow fascism to flourish. In America, when bush couped in 2000, they rolled over, leading to citizens United, 9/11, the patriot act, the afghanistan and Iraq forever wars. In 2008 they bailed out the bankers. In 2016 they fucked over Bernie and lost to a fascist. In 2020 they fucked over Bernie again and the only reason biden won was because of covid. In 2024 they proudly support a genocide and gaslight the public about the economy - just like the Weimar Republic selling out the Germans in their ww1 concessions.
You liberals just don’t fucking learn. And now my life is on the line. Either fight capitalism or get fascism, your fucking pick liberal.
You should block better or.something?
And the people who failed Bernie were the voters who didn’t show up. Age wise, the youth got their heads kicked in by the seniorsin the primaries by a depressing margin. If you don’t vote, you don’t make differences.
I mean, bailing out the banks as a failure? Shit, there shouls have been regulations (like Canada had) to stop crazy trading but unless you wanted a lot pf people to lose their pensions and life savings, this is an impressively silly point.
Edit: also, the she wasn’t about you it was about the person whom OP had asked about. (Yes, not everything revolves around you, though admittedly that wasn’t super clear from the paragraph construction) I just used you as an example of lemmy’s delightful crazies.
Are you aware that when they use the term liberalism, they likely mean economic liberalism?
I think the way to do it would be this but you probably can do it a lot more ways.
Lemmy (and the fediverse as a whole) are not supposed to be a drop in replacement for reddit and other corpo media. No central moderation or “direction”, just a ton of servers with very varying user counts, ideas and ways to do things.
When on the fediverse, you will definitely encounter bad stuff. You will learn to use the block button and maybe block whole instances. Thats how you make your own “bubble”.
Since the fediverse is federated, horizontally organized and has freedom of association, it is hugely different from any other social gathering in the outside world. All our Lives we live in hierarchical structures: Families (more or less), Schools, Companies, etc. That can be the reason why it feels alien. But I dare you to try and see if “freedom” cant feel nice to you.
It will never feel like reddit or other places on the corpo web. If you need that, its not the place for you. If you can be open to a new experience and just decide between listening to an opinion or blocking it, you might have a lot of fun. Good luck
I don’t think it’s the non hierarchy, I think it’s the being called a fascist enabler for supporting mainstream Democrat positions etc that is offputting.
I have trouble recommending this place to others because of some of our less than delightful members.
Reddit was big enough that once you got into niche communities, the angry crazies were either banned or hadn’t found community or whatever. Lemmy is still small so we don’t have that. So, was just hoping for an instance or whatnot that was less communism and linux and more friendly to an average person.
Yeah, i cant help if you wont use the block button. The not banning people is part of the horizontal structure. I suggest you open up to the concept. Otherwise youre just out of luck.
Also nobody here gives a shit if you recommend lemmy to anything. Thats reddit thinking. We dont make money, dont have the slightest benefit from someone getting a recommendation coming here. au contraire, we give people refuge who are sick and tired of the way reddit treats its users. If your friends are happy on reddit, please god leave them there. We do not want them here.
There have been a bunch of pleas to grow the fediverse, as stated in the opening.
And the block button isn’t a particularly good recommendation for new people.
Out of curiousity, say there was an instance that allowed all speech and had great content. Would you tell a trans friend “hey it’s great, just block every time you see something hateful.” Or can we see how that would be an unpleasant experience.
Anyway, if you don’t want a larger fediverse, that’s groovy but that seems contrary to the nature of almost every post here.
We‘re talking about different things.
I have trans friends that are fine here. They will absolutely shit on you for not dismantling capitalism though.
See my point?
Everyone has the right to their opinion. You want extras? Either get on an instance that backs your exact flavor or make your own. Freedom of association, baby!
Also, you know what I dont like? Smartasses. Yes, there are people here that dont want this place to grow and others do. Neither of them is wrong. The only one who is wrong is the one trying to convince them otherwise repeatedly.
If you have any other questions, I‘ll gladly help. If you want to convince me why I‘m wrong, you‘re getting the block treatment. Your decision.
At a minimum, you’d want to find an instance that blocks lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net. lemmy.world already blocks both of those though. The next instance you’d probably want to block is lemmy.ml, which not many other instances do. beehaw.org does, but also blocks lemmy.world, which cuts out a lot of the threadiverse.
If you felt like it, you could explain how to do instance blocking on your user profile. That might be too much for people that don’t really care either way and just want stuff to work, though.
@Blaze@feddit.org might also have opinions on this, having spent a lot of time over on Reddit convincing people to try out Lemmy
I really don’t get this “if you don’t block XYZ, it means you are in favor of them”.
My instance does not block any of the big tankies, and yet it has not been a problem.
I’m not saying that leaving an instance unblocked means you’re in favor of them, to be clear. My response was only addressing the issue of achieving a “normie” experience.
Much appreciated!
Yeah, I think .world is the biggest and so I’d love that to be the “base” but even responses here go to “if you ain’t against capitalism, I don’t want you here.”
Reddit was only ever left of center for Americans. To many/most non Americans, America consists of a far right party and a center to center right party.
What you’re seeing is the result of a platform that wasn’t first created by and for American audiences, and whose initial takeup wasn’t dominated by American perspectives.
I’m not American.
Lemmy is much farther left than any of our national discourse.
I get that American parties are farther Right than most but the discourse here is much farther Left than almost all political discourse. Edit: I’m happy to be corrected, show me a serious party in a position of power in a Western democracy committed to ending capitalism!
I’m not saying that if you don’t want to destroy capitalism that you’re not left. I’m saying that the perspective that reddit itself was “definitely left of center” is not a widely shared perspective, and if you believe that reddit of all places was left of center, then lemmy, which actually is left of center, is going to feel very left of center.
I’d strongly disagree. I think reddit is generally on the left side of most cultural and political institutions.
To each their own though.
Then honestly you must live in some radically conservative country.
Canada.
No mainstream party suggests UBI as a matter of principle for example.
There it is.
Your “country” is a collection of mining and timber companies in a trench coat.
Who is much more left wing than Canada?
So basically the same as America but behind by 18 months then politically?
I don’t think that UBI is the predominant reddit viewpoint either - I think that’s just the subs you’re in.
I’m Canadian too, and I certainly don’t consider reddit as left of center on average. It’s almost like 4chan lite.
But on that note, if you’re looking for Canadian instances, there are a few good ones.
The obvious one is lemmy.ca, but the other (bigger?) one is sh.itjust.works which is bilingual and I think is québécois.
Presumably a Canadian instance would have relatively Canadian political leanings, although as has been said before, instance doesn’t really matter.Our overton window is only a few degrees to the left of the US.
Also the Ontario Liberals conducted a UBI pilot in Hamilton during the 2010s with the goal of proposing some form of it as a policy if results were positive.
Then there’s been the UBI experiment in Manitoba during the 70s.
Is hating for profit healthcare a leftist ideology?
I agree that most of Lemmy is rather cynical and very far lest
The world is a hugely diverse place that doesn’t easily fit into a left or right category from the perspective of politics in an individual country. While I agree that the US is a conservative country, this narrative is a bit exaggerated. The median global opinion on various issues would be all over the place from a US perspective, from far right to far left or even defying any categorization. As a result saying that the US is to the right of most of the rest of the world is a huge oversimplification.
The US has a nazi sympathising president, backed by a billionaire who gives nazi salutes in public. So I don’t agree that saying the US is to the right of most of the world is incorrect.
Well, there is a distinction between the the leadership and the populace. The context here was about the populace, since that is who is participating in these online conversations. I agree with you that the current government is an extreme right one. And yes many people did vote for this but I suspect many do not support his full agenda, they were just fooled into thinking this was the least bad option.
A nazi sympathising president was voted in, because the overton window has shifted sufficiently to the right to allow that to happen.
Agreed. I got lost at ‘Reddit is left…’
Huh?Until r/TheDonald you wouldn’t really see right wing concepts on the frontpage.
yes you would. you would see straight up imperialism apologia which is ok to their democrat audience i guess.
fuck i remember a post on r/arab getting nuked from the frontpage without a trace when they posted a video of the us bombings in iraq. a few similar ones but this is the one of the worst i remember.
the us has no significant left wing movement. maybe among the minorities.
Imperialism isn’t unique to right wing
No I don’t agree with that at all. You see right-wing Concepts all the time if you know where to look for them. Anytime there’s any discussion of protests? Comment section is militantly right-wing. Reddit gets hard that idea of running over and killing protesters. Anytime there’s anything about criminal justice? Nothing a redditor loves more than the idea of locking people up and torturing them. And don’t get me started on any video game subreddit.
Pre 2016 reddit front page was not as you describe. I’m not saying it was perfect, I’m saying open conservative concepts were not prevalent or popular.
Strong disagree.
Ok
I distinctly remember liberal messages rising to the top on Reddit, stuff like that you should just accept that you have to go out and work for a living. That’s not left!
10s of millions of “left wing” (read, the entire spectrum from center to marx) folks believe that, for better or worse.
That opinion is entirely valid as “left wing” but certainly isn’t very left, on an absolute scale.
I disagree. Having some kind of grievance with capitalism an sich is central to being leftwing.
If left-wing covers all concepts left of center, and many mild left policy still incorporates capitalism, then it can’t be reduced that strictly. I could agree that progressive or far left policy isn’t compatible with capitalism
Edit either way, we disagree on semantics. It’s off topic for the original question now (I’m not sticking that on you, I contributed to this semantic rabbit hole)
To circle it back, I think there’s a way to invite “normies”, maintain left leaning (even very left leaning) positions, and not compromise the platform.
Edit edit and I think that’s possible without purity testing or shotgunning people with theory
i think the content and the ‘home base instance’ can be completely separate. its all about what they would choose to subscribe to.
theoretically you could be on lemmy.world and not subscribe to or access any of its local content. conversely, an ‘onramp’ instance might not have much of any local content but have access to hundreds of remote instances. (mine for example)
it can be kind of confusing for new users.
