Comment on Is it just me or do Lemmy communities tend to skew left wing? Why might this be?

chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Fecundpossum@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I would say that FOSS typically draws a more educated crowd, and right wing rhetoric and propaganda typically target those of lesser education and lower cognitive ability, simply because those people are the most likely hosts for rightoid brain worms. Why do colleges skew heavily left, gee it must be brainwashing /s

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  • chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Eh, there’s plenty of educated right wingers. Not fascists as much, but the kind of fiscally conservative economists who preach austerity are often as not highly educated, just lacking in empathy.

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    • Stiffneckedppl@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There are definitely plenty of well educated, intelligent fascists as well. It’s pretty dangerous to start thinking that what separates two ideological groups is intelligence.

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      • EleventhHour@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I believe what they were separating was Fascist leaders versus fascist followers.

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    • tate@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You’re speaking of pundits and politicians whose opinions are public and widespread. There is little reason to believe that those folks are sincere in their public statements. They are motivated by greed to lie in an effort to sway the opinions of uneducated people.

      Among the general public, those that sincerely hold conservative political views are cognitively impaired. Source: they vote for things that are objectively against their own prosperity.

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    • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The educated and the well-travelled may have a broader set of view points to see how many different ideas and values work (or don’t work) in practice.

      I don’t disagree on some just lacking empathy. But I also think not all education creates exposure to a wide range of ideas and values that stick (or the education is just too narrow), so you’ll still find plenty of people who are educated on paper, but not cognizant of a broad set of world views. I also think we are too quick to label foreign ideas==bad ourselves. Empathy is a two way street. The key in navigating this may be in identifying when an idea comes in good faith or if it is hostile.

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• Windex007@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think pretty much everyone views their political ideology as “the one that stands for freedom”, and it just comes down to what it means to be “free”, and the follow up of free from what.

  I feel like libertarians would love the concept of FOSS and decentralization, and I don’t think anyone would argue they skew left.

  So, I disagree that FOSS is inherently left wing. I think it’s attractive to the left wing for many good reasons. I think people project their own politics onto whatever they love, and things can be loved by very different groups for different reasons.

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• VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  As a left winger myself…

  … I’m not sure Foss is inherently left wing. Inherently anti authoritarian for sure, but I can totally see a libertarian type making a pro-FOSS argument from a capitalistic-individualistic and it being rather sensible. (Aaaaas long as we ignore the ways it’d contradict other beliefs right wing liberals tend to hold, but yknow. Compartmentalisation is a human superpower)

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  • chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I think I’d still argue the free open source part is inherently left wing. Why would I, a right wing libertarian, lend my time to developing a piece of software that I am unable to make a profit from? I have no motive.

    Something like bitcoin is the kind of tech project of that mould that i think attracts the right wing libertarian. Just my opinion though.

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    • VinesNFluff@pawb.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Why would I, a right wing libertarian, lend my time to developing a piece of software that I am unable to make a profit from? I have no motive.

      Because you do stand to gain regardless. “I have my code on the source of <major FOSS project every tech guy has heard of>” is like. Amazing portfolio material for any job interview. I had a friend get a job in the games industry (though they regret it to this day because the game industry sucks–) with nothing on his resumé except for a smattering of mods for popular games.

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      • aleph@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That’s true, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the FOSS ethos runs in direct conflict with the ideals of capitalism and private ownership, and libertarians are nothing if not fans of those things.

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    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Why would I, a right wing libertarian, lend my time to developing a piece of software that I am unable to make a profit from?

      You are making a reductionist argument that the only thing that motivates a libertarian is profit. It is certainly a motivator but it’s certainly not the only one. Libertarian’s have a long history of association with FOSS, for example my own stretches back to the mid-90s. I have no desire to make money from it but I have a strong desire to stay out of the clutches of BigTech as much as possible and so I contribute to FOSS as I can.

      Something like bitcoin is the kind of tech project of that mould that i think attracts the right wing libertarian.

      A lot of libertarians push on cryptocurrency not because of a profit motive but because of the freedom and privacy aspects. To use myself as an example I don’t hold crypto as an investment but rather as a way of holding a currency that isn’t subject to the US Federal Reserve system.

      Are there some libertarians who fit your descriptions? Absolutely there are, and they are generally referred to as Anarcho-Capitalists, An-Caps for short, but just like every Democrat isn’t a Progressive not every libertarian is an An-Cap.

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      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        What’s your issue with big tech?

        I know a lot of libertarians oppose corporatism because they say the corporations market power and monopolies derive from government, but for big tech they mostly come from economies of scale and network effects, neither of which I think right wing libertarians oppose.

        If you oppose it because corporate power, even if gained through fair free market principles, is a barrier to liberty than I think your on the left for a libertarian. The recognition that corporate power can be just as tyrannical and coercive as state power is not an idea held by most libertarians in the u.s. who tend to focus solely on state power. Recognizing both puts you to the left of most of them, and on the far left you have Chomsky who identifies as a socialist libertarian and thinks corporate/capitalist power is so much more of a threat than state power that we should give the state more power to be able to reign in corporations.

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    • meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah. It’s long been said Libertarians are just Republicans that want to smoke weed and distance themselves from the outwardly racist rhetoric. They are inherently selfish just like Republicans. They don’t want to help the poor, but they would balk at the notion of actively hurting the poor.

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      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Libertarian here. According to you I don’t want to help the poor so can you please explain to me why I’m spending hours every month doing volunteer work that has positive impacts for the disadvantaged?

        It’s long been said Libertarians are just Republicans that want to smoke weed and distance themselves from the outwardly racist rhetoric.

        Some are but not all. The people who repeat that line really don’t like to be confronted with the reality that there’s a lot more to a libertarian than weed. As an example the party platform started pushing LGBTQ rights clear back in the late '70s, long before anyone else was.

        There certainly are selfish bastard libertarians but undesirables exist in every party and I maintain that we shouldn’t define a group by its worst members.

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      • otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        and distance themselves from the outwardly racist rhetoric.

        The ones I met were even more racist. They were just afraid of saying it in public because they thought the feds were watching them, and wished they didn’t have to live with that fear.

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    • jonne@infosec.pub ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Bitcoin is open source too. And I guess there’s a history of libertarians getting involved in projects like Linux as well (ESR comes to mind).

      Still, I’d wager most are attracted to FOSS are left wing. A lot of capitalists can’t comprehend giving something for free to the community.

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    • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah. I don’t know what the % breakdown is, but I get the sense that while the general community is inherently anti-corporate/anti-commodification, there are some that view this in the left wing sense of communities supporting each other and some who view this more of as a consumption/voting with your wallet individualized choice. They recognize that some or even all corporations are bad, but think opting out of those structures without directly challenging them is all that they need.

      But like I said, idk what the actual distribution of these views are. It’s just the sense I get from seeing some of the comments.

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    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Profit isn’t the only individual motivator. Power is another big one, even if it is power over a very small fiefdom. At a certain point that’s all money is: a way to keep track of how much power you have. That’s why they keep going for the high score.

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• Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  FOSS isn’t inherently left wing. It is often charitable work but that’s far from unique to the left wing. That can also just stem from “I wanted this program to exist and it didn’t, but I don’t want to put even more effort in to monetize it.” Plenty of FOSS projects start as someone wanting to learn something early on in their career as well (which is both a pro and a con because … if you’re learning you might be making some bigger mistakes).

  Anarchism … I just don’t really agree with that at all. Lots of larger FOSS projects do very much have governing bodies that decide what to do and how it shall be done. In many cases FOSS authors are a one person governing body making all the big decisions.

  Organized charitable work is far from anarchy even though anarchism dreams of everything being organized charitable work.

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• BackOnMyBS@lemmy.autism.place ⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  @haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com, I thought you mike like this comment 🏴🙂

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