There's plenty of diversity here. Loads and loads. I see it in every single thread.

But it's different than the diversity on other platforms. The diversity on other platforms is like "should we feed the homeless or should we bomb another country?". And the diversity here is more like. "Obviously we need to feed the homeless, that's not a question, but we differ on how we accomplish that goal".

If you're looking for that other sort of diversity, you need to find a site with more sociopaths.

you should probably feel some amount of discomfort with your own views and be willing to adjust them as your exposure to better reasoning and evidence supports a different view

but I also don't think we should have obligatory "both-sides" on everything either, sometimes it's OK to have a consensus, like the Holocaust was wrong - I'm OK that most people on Lemmy agree with that view

You're just used to seeing troll factory inflamed opinions on other platforms. On ad-supported social media moderators don't ban the trolls because "user number go up!". On the fediverse each user is a cost so when we find bad actors we simply eject them promptly.

It's not terribly surprising to find a lack of diversity in opinions here. The Fediverse, in general, is a fringe alternative to the big social media platforms. Using it is, in and of itself, an opinionated decision that we all more or less share.

When people use Reddit, TikTok, or similar platforms, they go there to find their subset of culture. That's the benefit of their scale. When you use Lemmy, the platform itself is your subset of culture.

It's very fair, and smart, to be skeptical of a one-sided consensus of opinions without adequate research. You will often see strawmen and a lack of understanding toward groups that disagree with the prevailing thoughts here. Never use only one source, and never trust a social media platform to give you the full picture.

However, you also want to beware of the False Balance and Golden Mean fallacies. Diversity of opinions has no direct correlation with truth. If a topic is worth forming an opinion on, it's worth doing real research on. Reading internet arguments will only reinforce bias.

No. I'm perfectly secure in my absolute hatred and rejection of bigotry and violence.

I agree with this opinion, lol.

Lemmy is an echo chamber, even a comically specific one. Reddit had that reputation in the early days too, although Lemmy is dealing with the fact it's a technical FOSS thing disproportionately certain people will appreciate, on top of it.

I'm doing my part to get downvoted a lot. In the meanwhile, just keep touching grass and listening to people you disagree with. Especially if they disagree with you in a new and unexpected way. I'll add looking at polling and demographics as well, since it's the only way to identify which bubbles you're in. Even IRL they're impossible to escape totally.

Lol, no. Where else am I going to hear from the proudly atheist, anarchist, socialist, not-mainstream-and-not-interested folks? Even folks on the outer edges from my own position, like hexbear and lemmygrad, educate in their own way: not so much about what they think but about why they believe what they do. That doesn't mean I want to go roll my brain around in that full time, but I am absolutely better for having encountered them.

I love these comments and opinions when I see them in the wild, and while I may completely disagree, when they are presented courteously they are fascinating and informative.

This next bit is long, but relevant: it's about getting yourself to a point where you are able to see and enjoy the diversity that is already here. Just my opinion, skip it if you want.

You don't have to agree with something to be able to read it. And you don't have to possess, or even form, an opinion of your own just because others express theirs strongly. That need comes from innate human evolution, a deep quiet fear that if you stray too far from the pack or disagree too strongly you will be ostracized and not survive, but in the here and now in online spaces it's just a fear. You can, within your own tolerances, choose to set that aside and just read whatever you want.

Or to see it from the opposite direction, ALL people, including you, including me, derive comfort and security from being in agreement with the herd. But these days, in online spaces, and in every open space where public discourse occurs, that is no longer natural discourse, but a mindfuck: something manipulated beyond recognition by hooking into our primal human fears and using that subtly activated fear as a leash to drag people into thinking, and then doing, what they would otherwise not be inclined to think or do on their own.

That's what fucks it up for the rest of us. Propaganda, bad actors, and endless marketing. Remember how it was when the internet was young? That's the difference between then and now: those three things weren't there then, and the internet was a space as great as we could all make it. But they sure are there now. And if you're human, you too are susceptible to it. I know I am.

So you carefully choose your spaces, you make the effort to know and respect your own tolerances, you take the time to look up sources on your own, and you curate your own feed like your sanity depends on it, because it does.

Some young person told me off many moons ago about how "all people [his] age are overwhelmed" and how he could not be held accountable for his own shitty behavior online because of his resultant "anxiety," while at the same time absolutely refusing to curate his own intake. To me, he was drowning in a flood of negative, low-value content he refused to turn off or even slow.

I feel bad for him because while it is absolutely true that everything, coming at all of us all the time, is a tsunami of mental and emotional overwhelm that never stops, he CAN easily take control of what he chooses to see, and choose to cut it off when it's too much. No one's going to do that for him. But I can choose to do that for myself, and I do.

And that's how I can easily read differing opinions without being threatened by them: they are just that. Opinions. Not even necessarily factual. When you get to that place, the world is your oyster, but it takes constant vigilance. Get lazy and you're back to just doomscrolling the propagandized mainstream mental and emotional manipulations again.

But hit that sweet spot in your own feed and viewing tolerances, and that's when you can see and appreciate the diversity that is already thriving here. Instead of a glance and a discard in a world of one-line comments -- what doomscrolling and social media are made of and count on -- you can actually read, really read and not just skim, and recognize when something is worth more than five seconds or not. The more you actually read and don't just skim, the better and faster you'll become while still enjoying the pleasures that deep reads will bestow.

People are still making ten course meals of real content, but most readers are still hanging out at the food trucks. Only you can find what you're really looking for, but chances are excellent it's already here and you've either trained yourself to look past it, or actively cut it off by blocking it because it was too much trouble to deal with (high noise to signal, bad actors or behaviors, poor moderation, spam, etc). Look again.

I especially tip my hat to dbzer0 forcing new users to write a brief essay on anarchism just to sign up. I don't know if they still do that, but their requirement made me think about something I already knew from the distant past that I had not thought about in years -- Sacco and Vanzetti came to mind, though they are perhaps not the best example of real anarchism, lol -- and given recent world events it has been a VAST personal relief to know that there is a huge, thriving set of alternative philosophies that are NOT just designed to move masses of people through orphan-crushing and value-extraction machines until we all die. (And that's before you get to the scam that is politics in the US.)

So yeah, I've learned more about grassroots populist movements and beliefs just browsing Lemmy in three years than I ever learned in the space of many decades prior, and I can honestly say that while my values have remained the same, my entire worldview has been transformed by quietly hearing and listening to others talk about their own, even when I did not agree.

TL;DR: If you're not seeing diversity, that's a sign to carefully broaden your own scope and tweak your own viewing boundaries.

I live in south currently and it feels like IRL is the echo chamber.

I genuinely did not know there are americans actually opposed to Israel until I came to lemmy. And I especially did not know it was a big group.

I don't know what your talking about. I'm very active on Lemmy, precisely because there is a lot of actual debate.

What I don't get, that Reddit had a LOT of, is trolls, bots, novelty accounts, puns, and especially Russian Propaganda Farmers who are just showing up to argue for the sake of arguing.

I also don't get a lot of MAGA trolls. Debate is one thing, but anybody who is still sticking by MAGA at this point is a truly sick person, and I'd rather not have to engage with psychopaths, thank you. I don't have anything good or polite to say to them, and they can't be moved by logic or morality, so what's the point? They just want to cause problems, because they think that's entertaining.

I see plenty of diversity without adversity. But there are also just some opinions that are indefensible and the majority agrees that the people with those indefensible opinions shouldn't be allowed at the table.

I do see plenty of disagreements, especially in the political sphere. While people seem to generally lean left, there is a decent amount of variation in opinions within that space. Although since they all still generally align with the same goals, the disagreements only get so heated.

For things like media (games, movies, etc) I see less, but for me I just don't really feel the need to rain on anyone's parade. If they like something I don't like, whatever. I wouldn't be shocked if a lot of people felt the same way.

For tech stuff... we're on a decentralized open source platform and a lot of the users came over from corporate social media. Of course most of us are skeptical of big tech developments. Occasionally some nuance gets lost, but I even see some of that show up. There are plenty of threads where the OP posts something based on a misunderstanding and the top comment is someone who (probably) knows more about the topic and can clarify things.

Also like some others have said, a non-trivial amount of the arguing that happens on other sites is likely egged on by astroturfing and prioritized by algorithms designed to keep attention rather than promote healthy discussion.

Also, there are some topics where the disagreements I have at least just don't feel relevant enough to post. For example, with the AI thing. I generally agree with the sentiment of opposing the current AI implementations being pushed by big tech. The environmental impact makes it a non-starter even if the rest of it was good, but then there are issues with privacy, companies using AIs that aren't good enough to accomplish the task to replace workers just to save some money regardless of the consequences, and the involvement these companies have with the MIC, etc.

However, I do have some optimism for uses of AI in the future. I think it's cool tech that has potential to do good things, it's just that a) It's not actually ready yet and b) Some of those things would only work if we lived in a fairer society. But... honestly what's the point of interjecting this into a discussion about what's CURRENTLY going on with AI? What does my hypothetical sci-fi automated luxury gay space communism have have to do with a thread about companies spying on us or switching workers for AI and hurting both the workers and the consumers? Nothing really. It's only really relevant for a discussion about academic research on AI. So I don't bring it up. Not because I feel I need to silence my dissent, but because I recognize that it doesn't really serve any purpose in this context beyond potentially derailing the discussion.

So overall, I'm not worried. While it would be nice to have some more people on the fediverse, I'm fine with the disagreements we do see and I don't need to argue both sides with a Nazi or a bot. As long as mods don't get too heavy handed about unreasonable stuff, it's fine.

This makes me worried that I'm in some sort of echo chamber

You are. Just consider how small the amount of people knowing about lemmy is, now take the ones who are interested in it (over using something like reddit) and now pick the ones who are technically capable to register an account. Those are us, those who have gone through this selection process.

Not really. I see diversity in the areas I think are healthy to have variety on. And the things that are missing are the things that made me leave other places where it seemed like I was the unwelcome one so...

Nah. Still plenty of stuff here that challenges me and makes me go learn stuff. That is a low bar however ¯\(ツ)/¯

Yes, this is an echo chamber. Yes, most things are very samey. You don't see alternative opinions because this is a TINY community. Like crazy tiny. Lemmy has what, 60,000 active users? You know a ton of those are bots too. Even after a reddit exodus that site gets what, 2 million daily users*? So you've got a crazy small group but it's also very similar in type of person who is here. It's overwhelmingly educated middle aged men with a tech background or focus. So you've got a limited pool of opinions to draw on, and then EVEN if you do occasionally get a different opinion, even within that narrow band of experience it can get voted down or swarmed.

Look, I only lurk here occasionally, and I see stuff I disagree with constantly. I see stuff in this thread I disagree with. But I don't post about it because it's not worth it. I also don't have time to argue a minority opinion on the internet, and my life is better since I stopped doing that. And I guarantee I'm not alone. But I ASSURE you this is a bubble.

...but if it makes you feel better though, most people live in bubbles. I have been lucky to grow up in a very different place than I live, and I've found that politically, most Americans absolutely talk past one another because they are incapable of understanding "the other side" because they've never truly talked to people on the other side or listened to them, much less lived with them and understood them. This isn't enlightened centrist BS, I have a side I agree with, but I also don't misrepresent the views of people I disagree with based on no actual knowledge. And with non politics it's very similar - small groups beget small opinion spaces based on a small pool of experiences. Whether that's cars or AI or Linux.

We used to get exposed to people with different life experiences and opinions in so-called "third places", and we don't have them anymore. Way fewer people go to chuch and the middle of the road protestant mainline has been subsumed. Social clubs like the elks and masons are far less popular. 12% of the population doesn't serve in the military with a socioeconomic cross-cut. Kids don't even have malls, sports start specializations early, and the Internet, almost worst of all, has made it easier than ever to get a social fix consuming only content from those most like you or what is algorithmically fed to you.

Anyway, things are bad, I do not have a solution, but I have a little bit of time and feel compelled to post when you are practically begging for unpopular opinions. So my unpopular opinion is holy shit is this place an echo chamber, and if you don't feel that deep in your bones you need to immediately drive 2 hours outside of whatever city you live in and go to a pancake breakfast hosted by some local scout troop, go to some small town festival and talk to people, or hell go visit a church of a religion you don't belong to. And don't talk to people your own age, or same familial structure. Talk to someone who thinks voting is dumb. Talk to someone who doesn't care which Linux distro you're on because they don't even HAVE a computer, they just have an iPad.

...and yes, realistically you're probably not gonna make a connection that way without moving somewhere, and I'm obviously being mostly flippant, but at least don't turn on conservative tiktok or watch Fox News and expect that to be "the other side". Experiencing a different bubble is "growth" I guess, but people aren't the bubbles they live in, and actually talking to them is a way better way to understand WHY we disagree, not just how. Again, like I said, I don't have real solutions on how to do that. I just have the answer to your question and yes this place is a bubble.

*Note I'm pulling those numbers out of my ass, but I bet I'm close on orders of magnitude. And yes I know reddit is half bots too.

One reason you're noticing a homogeneity of opinions on here is the fact that Lemmy isn't botted like larger social networks. Larger networks have bots farms pushing all sorts of narratives for various reasons, and the one thing they accel at is finding people to argue with.

You are also certainly in a bubble on Lemmy. You have to know it exists and care enough to use it over other platforms. Most people choose the path of least resistance.

I think a lot of people learned to spot and ignore the obvious propaganda, and the not obvious propaganda is the remaining ragebaiting comments which I've also learned to ignore.

But lack of information is also bad, so use many sources.

I've disagreed with some things here but I haven't felt the need to comment on it. Maybe that's left over from the reddit "don't argue with idiots" mentality I gained though.

hatred is minimal here

Yeah it absolutely would benefit from a wider range of opinions. That's why a large portion of my comments are "against the grain", I don't see the value of reinforcing prevailing opinions in an echo chamber. I hope that as Lemmy grows we will see more diverse opinions, but what I think is more likely is that the hard-core leftist part of Lemmy will sort of secede and defederate so they can preserve their echo chamber while the rest of lemmy gets taken over by "normies"

I expect this will be a controversial take but hear me out. I think it's futile, to an extent, to fight against so-called echo chambers since it's so ingrained in human tribal nature that the alternative ends up being worse for us. Having some key points of consensus is not necessarily all bad, it mirrors how socialising works in the real world, where people tend to connect with like-minded people, groups of people may not agree on everything but usually have some core values in common that tie them together (note, I still think that Lemmy has less of these types of values in common than most real world friendship groups, but it's closer to it).

On the other hand, throwing everyone together on the same corporate social media platform is something recent and unnatural. People don't have respectful debates and listen to each other there, they argue, get angry, and dig deeper into their beliefs. For example I would never have made a comment on Reddit, like this one, that I think might be slightly against the grain of the thread since you just get shouted down by defensive people who have already made up their minds. Here on Lemmy I don't expect everyone to agree with me all the time but I believe they might at least listen, so I feel freer to express myself, then again I do have some core values in common with most people here which is what enables that.

What levels of diversity are you expecting? I am here exactly to avoid the extreme polar opposite diversity many mainstream platforms offer. I see people agreeing and disagreeing but they are still having some common ground which enables the disagreement to look civil. Considering the mainstream social media this can look like a lack of diversity, but it's actually how it is supposed to be in a civilized world...

Diversity of opinions isn't automatically good for its own sake. I'm sure with a little imagination, you can come up with all sorts of objectively stupid opinions. Are those what you want to sift through? If you have a space where you allow all opinions no matter what, you'll end up overwhelmed by the stupidest ones. If you moderate at all, you will always be accused of bias by someone. If you doubt any of this, just start hosting your own server!

tl;dr: different places have different vibes. That's OK. Not everywhere has to contain all opinions.

Are you familiar with tolerance of intolerance?

Yeah so basically when you give right wing ideology any foothold, they eventually take over.

Just like with the rest of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I used to have the mindset that censorship of right ideologies wasn't really ok because surely people would just see how selfish and cruel they were and not give them any time.

But I sure was wrong about that.

Now I take a stronger stance on the matter. Hate has no place in the world. Tolerating it only allows it to flourish.

Otherwise I don't think other opinions should be censored. Just those promoting bigotry and hate.

And yes there are objective definitions of that. It's actually pretty simple.

Do you hate someone for being part of a group or identity, OR because they are a shit person ?

First one is bigotry and hate. Second one is not.

I don't hate Trump cause he's a Republican. I hate Trump for all the shit he has done.

That said, Criticizing political groups (their politicians) does not fall into being bigoted because I judge based on actions and their intolerance/hate. Like trying to harm trans people. That's a no no.

We have to be intolerant of intolerance.

If we aren't, it just keeps making a comeback. Because scapegoating is an easy play by politicians. Always has been.

Not particularly. I already have a pretty solid understanding of the viewpoints of the right, they never stop screaming them at every opportunity everywhere else on the internet. I find it a lot more interesting to see the differing viewpoints on the left.

There's still a good amount of diversity here, the overton window is just way further left.

There are facts and there are opinions. There are plenty of different opinions here in a lot of topics. But people largely agree on some basic facts, like, you know, vaccines work, the earth is a globe and the Trump administration is incompetent and corrupt. Pretty much all of "conservative" thought these days consists of denying basic, easily verifiable facts and replacing them with phantasms. We get some of that here too but luckily it's not very prevalent.

I think this idea of contradiction for its own sake is misguided and has contributed to copious enshittification, particularly on the www.

Obviously, "incestuous amplification" is similarly undesirable, but I'm personally opposed to the notion that a poorly informed counterpoint warrants the same audience as a well-informed point.

This isn't a fucking poll. It's a website with a bunch of jackasses on it. You want better sampling start poking for your opinions instead of shitting them out on whatever social media site.

I'm concerned in a general way that the federated design of Lemmy / Mastodon etc. is by its nature (arguably even by its intent) likely to lead users to construct isolated media bubbles. But I don't know how to improve it. I'm not going to subscribe to a (hypothetical as far as I know) fascist community just to "broaden my mind," that wouldn't work.

It's hard to know how much of the division we see and feel is meatspace division facilitated by social media, and how much of it is social media reflecting divisions in meatspace. There's no reason to suppose the answer would be simple or easy.

I've read and even participated in many debates here, there is definitely plurality of opinion going on here. So it seems to me that you may be missing some particular opinions - which ones are those?

I'm not too worried at the moment. Lemmy is much newer and smaller than the social networks we're all used to, as well as being an open source social network. It makes a lot of sense that this site attracts a lot of like-minded people to it. Hopefully as more people join, we'll see more open (respectful) discussion.

On the flipside, the more people join Lemmy, the bigger of a target it'll be for bot farms and zone-flooding shenanigans, so maybe its smaller size and appeal to specific kinds of people isn't the worst thing in the world either?

Actually, I sometimes get lots of downvotes in things I think I see pretty clearly. So I understand what you mean but still I see some controversy.

You’re right about the lack of diverse opinion. Still, so much of American media is center-right to far right, I feel like they’ve more than gotten their say. I see Lemmy as an oasis for opinions that are underexposed elsewhere.

If I want to read some tech bro rambling about how less privacy is good for us, or an “ordinary persons” opinion on how school shootings are the price we must pay for freedom, I can go virtually anywhere else.

Yes. Lemmy is a huuuge echo chamber.

think a lot of comments also think "Other opinions = MAGA crazy shit"

Still think hiding the score would go a long way.
Even if it is just a slight bias you get, it does skew your opinion to the "correct side" i think.
I like that the fediverse does not have any sort of karma system, that does already help.

Maybe Photon can have that as a feature? Love your client so much btw. big fan.

The opposing views amount to we should keep the orphan grinding machine for the sake of the orphans we grinded down before hand.

Simple and short, anything that doesn't emancipate people to truly live freely without the oppressive boot of a select few is not an opinion worth arguing much less validating with said arguments. MAGAts are modern day Nazis. Neo-liberals coddle up with them to prevent progress against capitalism. Progressives have the right idea but typically aren't as loud or angry about it as they ought to be. Fuck tankies.

It doesn’t help that one of the main instances will outright delete comments for being pro capitalism and the users of said instance will downvote any comment that doesn’t get removed but isn’t anti capitalist enough.

But the so called tankie triad is reviled enough that I would say it is actually proof of diversity of thought. There are conservative communities and instances but for the most part they don’t get much engagement because the content is usually pretty low quality even if it gets seen at all as many people will block or instances will defederate from those types of hosts.

I would consider myself more right wing than most users on the fediverse but even I don’t have much desire to engage with MAGA/fascist right wing content.

It's not very diverse at the surface level, but go deeper into the Fediverse and you'll find some real crazy shit.

We saw what happened when Internet platforms tried to be inclusive of differing viewpoints:

Nazis

Is it any surprise, then, that people started doubling-down on their echo chambers?

Great point, I agree with you!

I don’t "worry" about it. I accept that it is. It's just the nature of humans and social groups. Can't do much about it. What you can do is increase your number of sources to gain the other perspectives.

I disagree with most people saying it's not a problem. It's funny, because in the responses most people are saying the same thing. It's a bit of an echo chamber in general here. I do agree with most of the echos, but I also recognize it's an echo chamber. When I do disagree with an opinion, it is not often well recieved. It's also not as likely to be taken seriously since I am one of the few oppsoing it. This can cause more confirmation bias, and even fear mongering to some extent. Which I always find sensationalized headlines here absurd because the truth is absurd enough. We dont need to exaggerate details to make it worse, but unfortunately those headlines get more clicks.

People are quick to comment on a headline without reading the article, as long as it supports something they already believe in. And even if something ends up not matching the headline, you get a response of "well I wouldn't be surprised if it really did happen" without any evidence. This is human nature, but I still think it's important to recognize.

Nope, not concerned.

Opinions are like assholes, as they say. I don't care for diversity of opinions. I care more about diversity of experiences, viewpoints, personhoods, modalities of existence. People just saying what they think about something doesn't mean anything to me, coming from strangers. There is so much to celebrate in diversity, but opinions aren't on that list for me.

Why don’t you provide some examples of the sort of diversity of opinion you would like to see here.

What topics do you think we would benefit from by being exposed to “diverse”/right wing views on?

I certainly can’t think of any, and it would help your argument if you could be less vague as it is to what you want to see.

visit any Linux community here for diverse opinions :) fuck Arch BTW ;)

I am here for cat pictures, cocktails, sourdough, lifestyle stuff and the political leaning is a welcome break from our media here so no it doesn't really bother me personally.

Do I think echo chambers are problematic in general? Yes. So in a more general sense I do agree - it's important to be able to handle nuance and talk to people out in the world, and yes, online. But in the current media climate I just experience it more as a breath of fresh air.

Why do we have to endlessly debate stupid opinions on social media in the first place? What possible good will come out of being exposed to more scam artists, bots, bigots, and pro-genocide accounts? All it's done as far as I can see is make things worse in the real world and grown political movements that cause mass harm to others.

Most social media websites are putrid dumpsters full of Karens arguing about how many homeless and immigrants it's moral to kill. Can't we have one place that isn't fascist trash?

If you feel like if you're missing the trash just join X, Reddit, Facebook, nextdoor, Instagram, truth social, a news article / YouTube comment section, or turn on most cable news networks.

That shit is everywhere, and it's spaces like this one and mastodon that are the exception purely for showing that not everyone is a bigoted, lifeless asshole who wishes harm upon others because they're rotten inside, want to turn a quick buck, have no hobbies nor talents, and/or are anhedonic.

I wish more people would leave the main platforms, but the reason I'm here is bc the main platforms had been taken over by bots pushing the narrative of paid sponsors and corporations.

I'm just not sure how any opinions on an open source platform could possibly be any less diverse than billions of advertisements talking to each other designed to kill human conversation?

If you truly have energy for this, focus it on growing the platform overall. That naturally adds more and more diversity of opinion. I don't think the problem you mention is real, I think it's more a commentary on how you process what you see generally.

First up, you are probably the most rational Person in the Internet, by not wanting to be in an ech chamber, and therefore also a nightmare for algorythms. Secondly, if you are seeing no alternative opinions, just go to hexbears, they dogpile in you for the tiniest shit you could imagine. Meow

Since I left Reddit, ive seen tons of diverse opinions. I’ve seen debate. I can’t understand why this wouldn’t be the case unless you’re looking to see thoughts right of center, in which case, I’m perfectly happy to never see that type of thought. It’s pervasive everywhere else.

This has uh, not been my experience.

I think the answers to OP's question kind of prove the point. I highly doubt OP means questioning facts like the efficacy of vaccines. I think he means actual disagreements on without having a different factual basis. And Lemmy is fairly leftist (and I'm not saying being on the left is wrong, I skew to the left myself - but even mentioning that Lemmy is fairly leftist can get you the answer of "but the left is correct,"), not to mention the tankie triad, which is just... Holy shit WTF.

I worry about that sometimes as well. Whenever it happens I try to look at the facts that back the opinion. Are there facts? Sometimes the reason there isn't a dissenting opinion is that there isn't a factual basis to have a dissenting opinion. We can see in our society that many current discussion problems exist because people want their fantasy/feelings/traditions/politics to be equal to facts. Facts can be distorted so it is important to try to figure out where an opinion comes from and the basis actively supports it or just wishes it did. Often people claiming censorship, are complaining that their opinion isn't accepted and that their fantasy/belief should make their opinion equal to an opinion based on fact.

Well, conservative opinion is worthless...so, no.

You can always bring “the opposition” with you into Lemmy. Make sure that the community doesn’t have rules against it though, like trying to argue for a simplified tax return in a “taxes are theft” community.

A lot of the reason there is much similarity is due to the fact that many of us who left Reddit are very like minded in a lot of things.

Yeah. It's boring. But some of us like boring.

It would be helpful for fediverse growth to be more welcoming to newbies on-boarding from monopoly social media sites. When Twitter fell there was an initial opportunity to grow off the users Twitter was shedding. Instead, the Mastodon community was rude and demanding of newbies and drove them away to Bluesky and some even back to Elon's hellscape. This was a shoot yourself in the foot moment for FOSS alternatives that the community still can't wrap its head around.

There are 2 opposing emotional-motivations to understand..

1. the default assumption-river/prejudice/religion/ideology homogenousness is comforting
2. Science's competitive-diversity-of-opinion-for-sake-of-FINDING-Truth culture.

The default, comfort-seeking, results in filter-bubbles.

The latter can win, but it takes a WEIRD population, who really buys-in to it, to make it work well.

Any population who does make that work, can out-think & out-innovate the comfort/inertia cultivating cultures.

Especially in times of chaos, where autopilot reacts on one's behalf.

---

Contributions consistently downvoted, are shown at the bottom of the page, so you may need to intentionally-scroll-down to see the diversity-of-opinion required for robust-knowing.

( & some of us, like me, remove our auto-upvote, because I want to see the ACTUAL reaction of others, & not the distorted-by-self-esteem-candy pseudo-view )

_ /\ _

On a lot of subjects I keep my opinion to myself.

I've found most people don't want to hear it.

As an example on reddit when Notre Dame burned I made a statement that it wouldn't be long before a GoFundMe would be created and it would be rebuilt. I ended up with hundreds of downvotes and comments that I was wrong and stupid and stuff about the catholic church's ownership among other things.

There is a certain orthodoxy that is generally accepted. If you go against it you’ll get downvoted into oblivion. On the other hand, there are certain viewpoints that I find appalling and I also downvote.

I also hold some opinions the consensus of Lemmy doesn’t like and I don’t let Lemmy discourage me from sharing them when I feel it is the truth, my understanding of the truth. I accept the downvotes. You gotta be willing to stand up to the mob if you’re going to change minds. And, accept that you won’t change minds. But, you have to be there telling people what you think.

Yes, these are very valid concerns. Maybe start first with some controversial opinion?

Sometimes, but I do still see some good discussions. I pretty much expect echo chamber in the political communities.

Might also be that fewer are posting about strong disagreements here and mostly have minor ones. Not unlikely when there's already strong selection effects in who chooses to come here.

I have never understood this idea that you need to see some sort of opposition to know that you're of the right opinion, rather than value insightful opinions that may, for example, take on root causes or offer more nuanced takes, or whatever other mechanism that pushes our views in a meaningful direction. This is where Lemmy excels. Pure opposition for the sake of it only results in meaningless arguments and turning the same wheel of discussion that has been turned for ages in online spaces where someone gets attacked, and nobody changes their mind, imo.

Well... I'm not sure that anything is stopping people from having diverse opinions, right?

Like, there are definitely diverse opinions about AI on here. I know because I've had a lot of debates and discussions with people about it. I'm staunchly against it, and I believe it is built on the for-profit exploitation of human culture and labor. But I've seen plenty of people who seem to (naively, in my opinion) think it is going to usher in a post-capitalist utopia.

I think a part of the problem is that a lot of people prefer to stay in silos. Take the so-called "conservative" MAGA crowd, for example, they only want to engage in discussions in echo chambers like Truth social or subreddits where they control moderation and ban people for wrong think. So are they gonna come to the fediverse to engage in an actual contest of ideas? Probably not. I would love to debate with them because I think their ideology is incredibly fragile and weak, but it seems they're either not capable or interested in a good faith discussion anymore.

Regardless, I still think you can find a range of ideas and beliefs here.

I'm pretty much a democratic socialist, and someone who believes in a healthy mix of private and public ownership, favoring cooperatives, and a society backed by a strong bill of rights and a strong social safety net. This puts me at odds with the "tankies" and Leninists who believe in the establishment of a authoritarian dictatorship to somehow bring about "true communism"(tm), but probably not... It also puts me at odds with the diehard libertarians and anarchists who see very little role for government being necessary. That's alright, we can all agree to disagree.

In the end of the day, I don't think that people are being coerced into groupthink here. I do think that people here often l lean towards the left, anti-corporate, anti-establishment, etc., but I personally find the fediverse much more open to disagreement than reddit, where you will eventually get banned from subreddits or the site at large for making to many waves.

It's true, but as long as you're aware of it I guess it's fine since it's definitely the minority echo chamber.

What worries me is that even here among the "civilized" it's very rare to see people with different views actually have a proper conversation about it. Most are just shallow and reactionary, they only downvote and resort to name calling.

Yep.

Cool niche content gets sparser and sparser as attention of more popular opinions snowball, and the “hero” posters holding single communities afloat burn out.

Mark my words, Lemmy (and Piefed) will meet Voat's fate (amongst other Reddit clones) unless something changes. It’s happened over and over again, and creative filtering like Piefed is doing or “open” Federation as is Lemmy's focus isn’t going to fix it. Neither will posters. They need more fundamental structural attention/UI changes, in the code.

Yes. Was just thinking about this earlier. I don't like AI, and clearly most people on here don't either, but I'm worried I'm in an echo chamber.

The amount of tankies is also bothersome. You can be against capitalism without being a communist, and I don't really see anyone like that here.

a lack of diversity and opinion is fine but people will talk without knowing what the fuck they're saying and parrot useless football team politics catchphrases and it's very anti-intellectualist and annoying and I kind of hate liberals and also the internet

Express yourself. Fuck everyone else's opinions and correctness, value yours until it's defeated. It's not rare that what is generally perceived as correct, is still wrong. Turn off the voting system and express yourself without worrying about numbers, focus in the arguments.

not really, this place basically is reddit only with a smaller user base and even more of a sanctimonious-liberal-PMC kind of vibe. If this became a place that cared about and defended free speech it would destroy the hugbox and alienate their core users, who themselves are reddit refugees. This isn't really a good place for difficult discussions which deviate too strongly from accepted mainstream talking points. It's more a place of comfort for people who are exhausted by the relentless nightmare that is modern life.

What would we even argue about? which products are better to purchase? which form of labor pleases oir employers and landlords the most?

For me, yes.

It is especially amusing to see my meat-eating comments getting downvoted by a bunch of vegans.

Another example that is positive would be how much the folks here are into Linux, and are readily helping the ones trying it out.

Overall tho, I feel like a lot of folks here have never met anyone with contrasting view, or are actively labeling such as evil.

I think there are plenty of diverse opinions but far less bots and also in order to be drawn to the fediverse you have to be smart enough to figure out how to sign up and use it and also smart enough to see the value in decentralized social media, 90% of people just don't get it and because that is the bar to get you get the opinions from a community composed of smarter, more informed, more open minded people. That doesn't mean we disagree, I got banned from the stable fusion AI image generation instance cause some of the art made it into the top posts and I started talking trash about AI and it's ethical usage. I stopped using my lemmy.word account cause they defederated a piracy instance and I rather pirate content than give fascists or billionaires my money, an issue many people would disagree with me on here.

I've been apart of nerd herd for a while, I've gone from Slashdot, to RSS feeds, to Digg, to Reddit which reigned the longest but I'm mostly out of that hell hole aside from trouble shooting help, I was even on facebook when you had to have a college email to sign up (also out of that hell hole), and now I'm full sending Fediverse. All of these things have been best at the beginning, these communities were all made beautiful because they were not the masses, they were the people that hungered for something more. I think the fediverse is very promising, though I do worry what will happen when it becomes more mainstream, I think we got a long while till that happens and I'm also interested to see how it will go down but at the end of the day, if it enshitifies like everything else, people like me and this ones on here will find something different, maybe it's a completely different internet like lora communities, who knows but to answer your question no I'm not worried.

no. because I have seen opposing opinions although depending on the community the slatns tend to be different. These tend to be severe so maybe I would like to see more nuanced or less extreme views but I do see these. Relative to the other parts of the internet this area is pretty decent to me.

Yep, it's pretty cringe.

I think this is a problem inherent to this style of communication, whether massive social media or individual niche forums. People used to talk a lot about groupthink, though I don't hear that term as often today. It seems to be a fundamental thing for human beings to come to a consensus as a group, and then for some individuals to react to that negatively. When positive this looks like science, accepting consensus as truth to have a foundation to work off of, and individuals rejecting the consensus to build stronger foundations.

Outside of the Internet we have much less ability to change our environments, so there'll naturally be more diversity within groups of neighbors, coworkers, students, etc. But here, there is so much less friction to movement, similar people tend to group up more quickly.

The solution is probably not to expect opposition within a group, but to be a member of many separate groups. You are definitely in an echo chamber, but at the end of the day what you choose to accept as true is your responsibility.

That's why I'm still on Reddit half the time. Too many people here are vicious and condescending on every topic. At least it's funny on Reddit but over here it's usually annoying.

if you want conservative /tankie opinions too, you can unblock or search out those instances? the users here are most distilled from other major platforms that were ousted by them due to insane TOS rules. im not against the opinions that are tech, stem because its specific niche and questions related simply because it is easy to dispute /debunk those that contradict it with evidence.

No. I see idiots arguing about the tiniest possible things on here. Actually no clue what you are on about.

I get argued with on here fairly often. The fact that the people arguing with me are usually morons reinforces my belief that I'm on the right side of things.

Is this the right room for an argument?

There are some scientists here, so occasionally there are disagreements on the intersection of science and consumer products. People may think only the right deny science, but on the left there are strong feelings that corporations are bad, natural things are good, etc. I've been surprised to see rational voices pop up on some threads where glyphosate is being eviscerated or there's some report of microplastics being found on Mars.

Say anything against the grain and you're banned from the instance. A problem with individuals having complete control of their instances, and there's really no way to do it otherwise. Obviously that's not all instances, but a lot of people who set one up also have their own personal narratives they want to push.

Not very capitalism/business friendly for sure

Dogpiles are worse here than Reddit for going against the hive mind. People love downvoting.

Unfortunately for them downvotes can’t stop me here 🖕🖕

if I only used the fediverse for social media, would likely be weaker in defending my own since their arguments would be “new” to me

That is a very important point: even if you find a rationale irrational, you may still have to interact with it and without knowing that it exists, you are highly unlikely to be able to counter its illogic.

When one side starts calling lies, "alternative facts," there really is no point in debating it. As the logician says, out of a contradiction anything follows.

But you really need to know the alternative facts or you'll lose every debate in which you can't pinpoint where they are wrong.

yeah, I was very pleased to spot some libertarians the other day, dunno if they felt the same :)

I believe that AI including chatgpt and genAI are a good thing and they bring us one step closer to where humanity should be going.

I also think that feminism was instigated by the CIA, that Israel is losing the Iran war on purpose, and what else can i tell you? Lots of diverging opinions.

I just rarely bother to formulate them because all it will cause is lots of people categorically saying "no you're wrong" and i don't really get anything from that.

It makes me hesitant to believe I'm on the "correct side" ...

full stop.

you seem to have a misconception here. there isn't a right and wrong side. there's opinions and positions you agree and disagree with. from there, you can have factually correct opinions and opinions based entirely on fantasy.

only you can decide what is right vs wrong from your own positions. if you think an opinion is wrong on here, point it out. argue your position. ignore the upvotes and downvotes because they're gamed anyway.

I may not agree with you on any of your opinions, but that doesn't mean you don't have a right to express them (no matter how dumb they are).

just don't be afraid to have your opinions and preconceptions challenged.

This makes me worried that I'm in some sort of echo chamber. In real life, I do see much more diverse opinions and, if I only used the fediverse for social media, would likely be weaker in defending my own since their arguments would be "new" to me.

You are in an echo chamber. Lemmy has a very small Overton window. There are lots of excuses and reasons, but it isn't a good thing.

I've seen a handful of (small c) conservatives here bounce off. It isn't good - we on the left aren't always right, and even when we are, our policies don't always do as intended.

I wish there were more people here, and we could disagree productively.

No. I came to lemmy/fediverse specifically because I was tired of "alternative opinions", which usually just means varying degrees of dogshit status quo opinions.

I never see any arguments from opposition.

Most people block the three best instances 🤷‍♀️

You say something less negative about Israel and get immediately banned from several popular communities. It is a problem, there's less hate speech than on Reddit for sure, but the hate speech that you see is perfectly tolerated and standard, like hating Israel.

Consensus isn't a bad thing. It means we are reasonably informed and have arrived at similar conclusions.