Submitted 1 year ago by Snowman44@lemmy.world to [deleted]
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?
The challenge will be finding an actual traditional conservative instance that isn't also a pro-Nazi fascist shithole.
Yeah there’s only as much sane conservative content as there are sane conservatives.
/r/conservative used to be moderately sane back before 2015. It’s almost like the entire Republican lost their minds the year after that. I wonder why…
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.
] 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
that doesn’t exist outside the internet.
Never been to any type to city, I see.
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 Conservatives rely on outdated voting principles to make it seem like they are more widely supported than they actually are.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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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"
here is a nice post on !fatehate to emphasize their wonderful community of rational conservatives
"jabba the black"
The f***? What the hell is that racist garbage?
Also a bunch of transphobic shit, because of course.
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.
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.
You’re already contributing to a balanced discussion. keep at it and be the change you want to see. I feel the whole “belonging to a camp” thing in terms of opinions and politics is too simplistic thinking. Some people like myself happen to have opinions that will range across the political spectrum. Let’s say a very political person starts a conversation, but is swapped out for someone else from their “camp”; Isn’t it boring to know all the talking points and opinions are the same? Imo that’s detrimental to free thinking and learning to accept other viewpoints. The thought in politics is that we must all agree on all of our camps points or be chastised for not complying, also we must make the other side see that our side was correct all along otherwise our side will loose. Nah fuck that, let’s just learn to have conversations with a variety of opinions first.
I find it very weird how certain specific issues are assigned to a certain political leaning or more correct correct, how you are expected to believe a certain way in all topics depending on your voting history.
A couple examples are religion and abortion. What do these have to do with any political leaning in the US or any country for that matter? Our maybe the better question to ask is why do people think there is some universal law that dictates what side of the political spectrum you lie on based on certain beliefs that have nothing to do with politics?
That’s the point. This liberal vs conservative isn’t even working for the US. In an international community like Lemmy it’s even worse, as what people from the US define as left and right does not work for western Europe for example. In Germany liberal in a modern sense is seen equal to neoliberal, what is democrats for US is right conservative for us, what is left in Europe is communism for the US and so on, you get it.
It may work for parties on a regional level, but for individuals, forget it.
The connection between conservatism and religion/abortion exists because of a well documented effort by Reagan era republicans to culturally connect them. Imo there is no underlying rationale besides “we will create and maintain moral wedge issues to keep religious voters on the hook”, while they work on their true goals- the consolidation of wealth and power further into the oligarchy.
How can you be so obtuse?
The Republican Party is forcing their religious beliefs on everyone (abortion, gay rights, etc) on everyone, claiming the US is a Christian nation.
This is so important. In essence, politics should be about our view, and critically searching for those who best represent it (or the most important part of it at the current moment), not about a ‘team we root for’ and get our views from. I think too many people forget that.
Make your own instance. like truth.social. lmfao
I’m sure prager would fund it if someone explained it to him
I understand how you feel, let me know if you find anything. I’m more liberal leaning myself, but I’m also not a fan of echo chambers and it gets pretty tiring and frustrating seeing the same stuff over and over again. At the end of the day, I just wanna see an open, fair, and balanced discussion. The Fediverse is definitely pretty left leaning currently, which is surprising to me since you’d think the anti-censorship design on paper would appeal more to people on the right who are against big tech and censorship, but I guess not? It’s interesting.
I think both the left and the right are concerned with restricting rights, they just have different views of which rights it's okay to obstruct.
I mean honestly it’s probably near impossible to discuss conservative politics online these days without the far right loonies invading, taking over and getting the place banned lol.
Also I wonder if conservatives would be put off lemmy given the political stance of its creators - even though that shouldn’t matter being free and open and not controlled by any one person, you know how people are.
Why do you thknk it is, that those “far right loonies” feel welcome and comfortable in those “conservative” spaces?
If someone is “conservative” but not a Trump loving Q nut job, I’d argue that they have about the same in common with the Biden administration than many progressives online do. There is no overlap with the majority republicans party today. The concept of discussion is not compatible.
This is my issue as well. There is nothing inherently wrong with conservative politics, but most arguments I see about politics online are about highly charged topics instead of actual policy discussion. Lots of heated emotions from people whose easiest outlet is anger doesn’t make for good conversations.
It often feels like we represent media interests and are arguing on behalf of whatever source we spend the most time immersed in.
Also I wonder if conservatives would be put off lemmy given the political stance of its creators - even though that shouldn’t matter being free and open and not controlled by any one person, you know how people are.
I’ve already seen it happening with people on Reddit (they don’t seem particularly conservative either) claiming that lemmy is “built and run by Tankies”. Many of these people though are/were also scabs so take that as you will.
I think it’ll be tough to find that corner of it… I think I saw a conservative community on lemmy.world but the platforms original purpose was to get away from the big, controlling, capitalist social media platforms the likes of Twitter, Instagram, reddit, etc. Like mastodon, the largest part of the fediverse (I’m pretty sure), grew alot when twitter was brought by Elon, and more moved after he messed up the platform enough, saying they’ll create their own platform where hate won’t be allowed. It’s kinda against it’s nature to have much conservative-ness.
Not trying to be rude as based on how this sounds, you seem nice enough and not crazy, but places like mastodon are basically the left’s version of “Truth social” where people are pretty ok with saying “I don’t want those thoughts spread here” those thoughts they don’t want are usually things like homophobia or transphobia, but those are fairly common on the right even if you don’t share them.
It’s an interesting thought and would probably be alittle healthier, but hey you’re still here being able to provide that counter point of view
Anyone who votes for a party that supports racism, banning books, and trying to make it harder for people to vote not “nice enough”.
They are an evil piece of shit who is making the country a miserable place to live.
I agree with this but we aren’t talking about castings votes here and I’m assuming OP is voting as if he is a sane person, but what are they supposed to do with the values they hold that don’t align with liberalism?
I only vote republican when they have good views. I’d rather get rid of political parties and make people run on merit alone.
If you have only two choices and both are bad, you have to choose the lesser evil. The OP probably doesn’t like the racism and stuff, but they dislike certain policies of the other party even more.
Also, “trying to make it harder for people to vote” is an interesting way to say “requiring people to bring their citizen ID when voting, like in any civilized country”.
You can be someone that’s not inherently against capitalism and for free communications platforms. I think stuff like this is a good start for polycentric regulation, which I see as important for any type of a voluntary or anarchist future.
Being a conservative must be a discombobulating experience in the technological age. The conservative is attempting to prevent the progression of society and conserve what we currently have or even revert to a bygone era.
OP arrives at a brand new platform, a piece of technology that didn’t exist a short while ago and requests a space to assemble people who don’t like change.
Do you think that progress is a straight line?
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.
The Fediverse mostly consists of several different groups. There are the people who built it, the open source enthusiasts who want an internet separate from big tech. Then there are the people fleeing other platforms, like the Reddit API thing. There are also a few curious people, but the Fediverse isn’t very inviting unless you have a reason to join it.
Tech enthusiasts have historically been quite highly educated, and a higher education gives you a higher probability of becoming less conservative. That’s not an insult at your intelligence or anything, it’s just an observation I’ve made over the years. The tech crowd also has some conservatives who went against the “flow” and got spat out, which formed their own cliques.
The people who got rejected often come together to form an echo chamber. Communists came to Lemmy after Reddit banned their extremist subs. Conservatives came to exploding heads and such after banning their extremist subs. If you wanted to stay in contact with these people, you got pulled into their little echo chambers where everyone egged each other on.
The tech enthusiast space has very similar cliques. There are the trans-positive, LGBT+ supportive groups, and the “tech bros” that don’t really care. Both have built and are building Fediverse systems. If you’ve been around Mastodon when the Harry Potter game came out, you’ve seen plenty of toxic behaviour from both sides because of JK Rowling being an asshat.
In my experience, most general purpose servers are left-leaning. It helped that Reddit has quite a few left-leaning subs that protested and brought a bunch of people over here to the Lemmyverse.
Another challenge is the fact that most right-leaning people put a lot of value into free speech. Free speech is obviously a good thing, but free speech has its extremists. Instances that promote very free speech quickly attract the terrible “I should be able to call toddlers sexy, it’s free speech” and the “banning should be illegal because free speech exists” crowd. Tbose people have been kicked out of every other platform, so they’ll find a platform where they can be absolute ass holes to everyone around them again under the guise of free speech. This leads to unmoderated or poorly moderated servers that quickly separate from the rest of the network as more toxic people come in and moderators on other servers take action.
I personally think we need healthy discussions between conservatives and liberals. There’s nothing wrong with looking forward, but we should also appreciate what we have. The centrist “I’ll just pretend not to take any side” approach is flawed, differences in opinion are what make discussions online interesting.
Sadly, as you can see in the comments here, a significant part of the Lemmyverse will assume you’re a terrible person if you don’t call yourself liberal. I’m afraid you won’t find what you’re looking for here until the Fediverse gains more people that don’t fall into the perils of extremism and imaginary boogeymen associated with political orientations.
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.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say that “conservative” in the context of US politics has been bifurcated. On the one hand, there are definitely traditional conservatives out there. On the other hand, the really loud ones tend to be far right edge lords who purposefully speak loudly about topics that are socially unacceptable. It’s always based on a misunderstanding of free speech, too: people are generally free to say what they want, but they are not free from the consequences imposed by society based on what they say, especially when supporting harmful activities or straight violence. This is something Elon Musk really should learn about.
I’m all for open discourse with traditional conservatives, but I’m not about to sit idly by while Nazis return to the stage. There was a war and the outcome was pretty darned clear. So, I’d say it’s a good example of bad apples ruining the bunch (though from what I have seen, the number of Nazis vs traditional conservatives is sadly pretty high). I think it is an issue that will need to be fixed between conservatives, ultimately. Shutting down Nazis (again) seems quite acceptable to me, however.
the number of Nazis vs traditional conservatives is sadly pretty high
I think you mean ratio, not number.
Yes, and just edited. Thanks.
I mean Im not conservative, but I hope you see the irony in the complete lack of empathy in your message
Define “conservative”
Conserving every status-quo, except for conserving the environment, because fuck the environment.
And social freedoms. Because fuck other’s freedoms.
Oh, and don’t forget about social safety nets that are part of the status quo but which they also don’t care about.
Also no human or personal rights. Everyone should be a slave except for the rich. And fuck your vacations.
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.
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.
you probably have to convince more people with those views to switch away from their other social media.
i suspect moderate conservative people are maybe more likely to stay with status quo/ monolithic / non-distributed services, so there won't be as many moving to a new looser open source thing.
like i bet linux / open source / foss users are a little bit more likely to be liberal or socialist (or DGAFs) - at least insofar as they're choosing on principles of ownership and user rights rather than affordability - its sort of linked-in to those licenses which inherently disempower the individual creator of the IP (vs say a patent) and empower the end users and people who want to reuse the IP in a different ways. That's basically a liberal ownership model vs a capitalist one - to grossly oversimply.
conservatives are maybe more likely to be buying proprietary services from microsoft, oracle, or amazon/google ( pay someone else to run your linux /postgres for you!), if they're happy eating all that shit from them, reddit is probably fine.
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.
It depends on what you mean by conservative. If you’re going by the American definition, then good luck as all of those have been mass defederated due to them nearly always turning into far right toxic harassment zones. If you are European though and go by their definition, you’ll probably be fine. America leans very right by default. Democrats to a degree are skewed right wing at the very least economically.
Not likely that there will be a conservative instance. Lemmys core principles are "left leaning" so that already lowers tolerance for the audience "the right" attracts. Every conservative instance eventually gets deleted and defederated because toxicity is baked into the idea. America's "left" is already right wing to the rest of the modern world, so going further than that is just... not great. You can hope for the "ENLIGHTENED_CENTRISTS" to try to keep a somewhat moderated instance but I wouldn't hold my breath.
I don’t think that lemmy’s principles are left leaning at all… Sure they’re anti-authoritarian but being anti-authoritarian doesn’t mean you’re a leftist - George Orwell characterises this really well
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.
Isn't that just a fancy way of saying "I want more lies, ignorance and hate sprinkled in"?
"More politically balanced" lol
So anyone who doesn’t subscribe to everything you believe in or agree with are liars, ignorant, and hateful?
Normal, klassical conservative or “Republican party crazy level” racism and nazism?
My politics lean very far to the left, but I don't want to be an echo chamber and it saddens me to see how little room for political dialogue there is on lemmy. The echo chamber is a big problem with reddit, and is even worse on Lemmy.
Exploding-heads is the only instance I'm aware of with a more right leaning/conservative base. It is more troll content than any real discussion of politics though.
I’m confused. You are here and engaging, but you think it is an echo chamber? Echo chambers aren’t really conducive to outside opinions. I’m here and definitely not a liberal, I’m a humanitarian.
As long as you don’t see any person to the left of you as a Liberal, you’ll find a decently diverse pool here!
Stick around, smell the flowers.
Could you define “conservative” in terms of politics (presumably US)? For example, low taxes and small government? And/or anti abortion and pro religion? Anti gun safety legislation? Anti regulation?
Perhaps you’re looking for the more contemporary definition of “conservative” that’s come about since the Tea Party or MAGA movements started? Mostly focused on being against whatever liberals/progressive are for?
As others have mentioned I think there are a lot of spaces out there for the latter group. I’m not sure many exist for the former group.
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.
Thank you for asking this question. I’ve wanted to do the same, but didn’t want to get dogpiled.
I don’t even need something strictly conservative, just something not sooooo extremely aligned with Marx and nihilism.
I think political communities in general tend to get quite heated if a debate gets going and because it's unlikely people are going to change their mind it gets personal.
In some ways the left wing ones are worse for this - I have been accused in my time of being too left wing and too right wing, there's a lot of different splinter groups and factions.
Tbh I just avoid politics on Reddit, Lemmy and similar, unless it's just to share or comment on a news story maybe. I don't think it's the right format for reasonable conversation
Only the loudest voices tend to rise to the top of unmoderated social media. That doesn’t lend itself to being a good forum for moderate discussion. You’ll have to look elsewhere
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.
duckington@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Unfortunately most of the more “conservative” instances became highly toxic and so most other instances have defederated with them.
euphoria@kbin.social 1 year ago
funny how every time conservatives group up, their communities become so toxic, full of hate and conspiracies, that people have no choice but to cut ties lol
mayo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s because their political leader at the moment is a populist. They can’t help but be a bunch of cunts. Monkey see money do kind of thing.
randomname01@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Instantly became toxic? I’m shocked, shocked I say!
rist097@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I think they would be more moderate if more moderate people would have opportunity to participate. Right now all of the non left instances or communities get too quickly defederated and deleted, so moderate people who would normally participate dont want to create na account on a completely defederated instance. The only thing you are left of there are some crazies.
Jimbo@yiffit.net 1 year ago
Well, the conservatives in those communities could try being less horrible pieces of shit and not bring hate to minority spaces, but that’s probably too much to ask
euphoria@kbin.social 1 year ago
conservative spaces shouldn't need moderates to balance out their toxicity and crazy when left on their own, they simply shouldn't be toxic and crazy. why do they need their hand held? it gets defederated quickly because THEY always quickly turn their spaces into pure hate, and they choose to spread that. that's on them, not us.
FelipeFelop@discuss.online 1 year ago
I get what you’re saying. There’s a mindset in the fediverse that everyone on an instance is responsible for it. Even if the bad actors join later. The instance gets defederated but as a user it can be really hard to know if your instance is defederated.
It’s a deeply unpopular opinion and anyone who suggests that federation is simultaneously a huge advance and a big problem seems to get downvoted.
You’re right, ultimately instead of being exposed to a range of views some of which are challenging we’ll end up in little echo chambers.
We need more moderation and less defederation.
PsychedSy@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m socially pretty left but a voluntarist and it feels pretty hostile. Even socially moderate or liberal cons will feel pretty bad. I’m just used to chillin’ in left spaces so it’s whatever.
qevlarr@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Unsurprisingly