For context: I was a much more ignorant person back in 2014 than I am today. My views then do not reflect my views now (tw: Fatphobia, Sexism, Sinophobia, transphobia, Z-propaganda)
This isn’t my first rodeo dealing with a reddit migration. My first attempt to leave the site happened back in 2014 when several subs got banned, including several shaming subs when Ellen Pao was CEO of reddit.
Back then, there were a lot of unfounded rumors of the site being taken over by the Chinese government (cause Ellen was Chinese American), and being an ignorant person, I fell for it hook line and sinker.
So around that time, a few reddit alternatives started getting passed around, including a site called Voat. It was basically just like reddit, but the bandwidth and UI wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as reddits, thus the site constantly crashed. I spent a bit of time on there before heading back to reddit and never looking back. And the main reason I left was because the overall culture there was mean spirited, unhinged, and basically a reactionary version of reddit (which looking back makes sense considering this reddit migration was basically a reaction from trying to protect people)
Fast forward to now, and I’m starting to get de ja vu from the fediverse. At first I was on kbin, which seemed promising at first until I noticed that any article involving trans issues had a slew of transphobic comments that had a lot of traction. Realizing there was very little moderation being done there, I gave lemmyworld a try, but same issue, plus it seemed any article having to do with Ukraine had a lot of pro-Russian posts. And whenever I bring up this fact, I get a lot of pushback from users and mods. Part of the reason I ended up here is because one user told me “If you need a safe space, you should go over to beehaw with all the other snowflakes.”
At this point, I already have a fairly negative view of the fediverse. I hate what is happening to reddit right now, and yet it feels like the alternatives aren’t much better in providing a safe environment for its users.
Maybe my problem is with redditors, but at the very least reddit was equipped to keep the dumbest of dumbasses out of visibility. Here, even in supposedly more open minded communities and instances, such dumbassery has just as much weight as thoughtful, upvoted posts.
I don’t know. I can’t see myself staying involved with this project for long, if it’s just going to remain as unpleasant as it is now.
Also, sorry if this isn’t the right community to be posting this in. I’ll gladly move this where this needs to go if its the case.
Edit: riveting discussion example: @Cat_of_the_Round fuck philosophy. unless you reeeeelly care that much. your behind a kb for christ sake. Oh no. Someone had an opinion. I’m assuming you can in the very least ignore them. Othewise who the fuck cares?
yeah, I think I’m done here.
Not condoning bigotry, but it kind of sounds like you are saying you prefer echo chambers. It is healthy to see opinions you disagree with, even from bigots. Seeing opinions you disagree with allows for critical thinking about why you disagree. Even though ignorance is bliss, it is still ignorance.
I also think the sample size fallacy may come in to play here. i.e. comparison of billions of users (reddit) to tens of thousands (lemmy - post migration, if I understand correctly, previously lemmy was in the thousands user pre migration from reddit).
Whilst I agree in principal to “healthy to see opinions you disagree with”, I don’t want to see things like “trans people are mutants” (which is disgusting rhetoric).
I don’t think this necessarily brings around “ignorance is bliss”. News articles of Trump blaming “mutants” are enough to remind me why I formed these opinions, without having to debate it with people of dissenting opinion.
Yeah, there is a huge difference between level-headed differentiating of opinions versus those who basically push their opinions as facts.
For example, in the dev world there’s always “language wars” of which programming language is “better” - I’m okay with people advocating for a language and giving their reasons why they believe this to be the case. Sometimes in those instances I learn something new about a language and it motivates me to learn more about it and consider using it in a new project.
What I’m not okay with is if I say “I like to use Java, as its one of the first languages I started with” and am just told “Why would you ever consider such a thing! Java is horrible!” and then provide either no reason why, or its just complete nonsense.
Or, I personally do not like pineapple pizza - but that is just my preference. I don’t go around telling people that pineapple pizza is awful, and I surely do not condemn those who do like it.
Nuance is usually the missing thing when it comes to this sort of thing.
That being said, there are some topics where I do not think there could ever be anyone who can (and its very rare that I see things as absolutes) convince me there will be a genuine opposing opinion for, such as trans rights. There’s not a single force that exists in our universe that would have me believe in anything but the rights of others. If there are bigots who want to believe that I’m evil because of this, oh well, I won’t lose any sleep over that. Those topics are just not up for debate, and never will be.
There’s a limit though. It’s dangerous to approach nazis, tankies, fascists, etc in good faith. I don’t think anyone making pro-Russia posts deserves a seat at the table. Personally.
It’s healthy to see good faith opinions you disagree with from reasonable people… It’s not at all healthy to see opinions from bigots and trolls. There is a big difference there
It’s only healthy to hear opinions that you disagree with when those opinions don’t include the dehumanization of others.
Either you are misguided or you know what you want to say would be considered bigotry and expect to have your voice heard by everyone.
Trans people don’t need to “think critically” about why they disagree with anti-trans comments. It’s not “healthy” for trans people to be constantly reminded that there’s a % of the population that want them gone. It’s not ignorance, it’s a done debate. It’s a waste to debate people who’s aim is to open the dialogue up to extremist viewpoints.
I wrote up a long thoughtful response that seems to have not made it through (prob growing pains) and don’t have time to rewrite, so here is a shorter version; as best I can.
Not sure what your first paragraph means. I am not trans so hesitate to speak on the trans experience, but will do my best.
Others pointed out good vs bad faith, which I did not specify, but I was thinking of good faith discourse (even from bigots). “Trans are mutants - full stop” comments are not what I’m thinking. “Trans are mutants because they mutate their body” comments are more what I’m thinking. I do not jump to assume that person is trolling or (intentionally) pushing propaganda, but moreso full of, and operating off of misinformation and don’t understand the difference between “mutant gene” and “body mutation”.
“Piercings, tattoos, and really all surgeries are body mutations. Are you saying you think that women with breast cancer shouldn’t be able to have breast removal surgery, if necessary, just so that trans men can’t have breast removal surgery?” is the thought path I go down for a comment like that. I think it is important to say those things to the person, so they also have a chance to critically think about the topic, rather than have Fox news tell them what to think. Pretty easy to discuss and defend the pro-trans side of that IMO.
It’s a done debate
If the debate was done, we wouldn’t still have anti-trans legislation being shoved down our throat. Debate being done in one community (leftists - which, is it really over in the broad leftist community?), does not mean the debate is over. Acting like the debate is over is ONLY detrimental to the trans community, as this can lead to the trans community not having a spot at the debate table, and you can be guaranteed the bigots WILL BE at the debate table. The trans community should have a spot at the debate table.
I was raised in a cult, your second paragraph is almost exactly what they teach their youth as a means to silence facts about their history and dissenting opinions, keeping the echo chamber what they want.
To be very clear, I am comparing echo chambers, not saying trans community = cult.
Here is your second paragraph slightly edited:
Mormon people don’t need to “think critically” about why they disagree with anti-mormon comments. It’s not “healthy” for mormon people to be constantly reminded that there’s a % of the population that want them gone. It’s not ignorance, it’s a done debate [look at all our official Mormon church resources which say so (echo chamber)]. It’s a waste to debate people who’s aim is to open the dialogue up to extremist viewpoints [like separation of church and state and approval of anti-family communities (this is what they call LGBTQ+ to sound less bigoted)].
Dangerous game.
I am all for safe spaces, as long as the people participating in them don’t act like the content in the safe space is the only content/opinions/facts that exist, as does the Mormon church.
Trolls and propaganda bots should be curtailed, I consider this part of growing pains. However, dissenting opinions (in good faith), belong and deserve proper discourse to give the OP the chance to see facts and context that would NEVER come through Fox news.
I was concerned about entering an echo chamber but then I remembered that I wouldn’t sit and drink in a skin head bar, or hang around a nazi rally. There’s something to be said about looking around the local environment and thinking “this isn’t for me”.
I can’t say that I’ve had many issues on other instances but there’s been a few posts where I’ve wandered in, then promptly noped back to the main feed because it was beyond “dissenting viewpoint” and more akin to walking into a room full of wasps.
If I want dissenting views I can go anywhere on the internet, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to discuss something you care about without being called names and dog-piled on. Kinda like walking out of the religious rally and into a library. It’s just a different environment.
