• RQG@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      4chan was simply where everyone banned for extreme views everywhere else went because there were no rules or close to none.

      Now as algorithms of social media sites have been chosen to dictate our daily news cycle, discussion topics and visibility of culture by engagement metrics alone, as are dominated by flashy, extremist content that appeals to our lowest instincts. Before humans curated content by trying to use human reasoning instead of relying on instinct alone. I think we have taken a step backwards in evolution culturally.

  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    People with extreme views are also more vocal, so that’s what you see. That’s why social media is bad for you. If gives you a very distorted view of the world. Most people are able to look at politics with nuance.

    • psivchaz@reddthat.com
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      11 months ago

      This, plus everyone is concerned with engagement. If I say a perfectly normal statement on Facebook or X or whatever, no one will care so no one will comment or interact with it. If I say that Jesus wants us to make America white again, even the people who disagree with me will only be boosting my message by commenting.

      • Nelots@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Jesus wants us to make America white again

        I love this. It’s so dumb in so many different ways, but I can easily see people unironically saying it.

    • skeeter_dave@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Centrism is a sign of a healthy, functioning Democracy. People are allowed to hold nuanced beliefs that don’t line up with yours and this “enlightened centrist” bullshit is just pure tribalism from people on the far fringes. You are contributing to creating an “in group” and an “out group” which historically has worked out very well for persons living in Communist and Fascist societies.

      • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        Well, US is not a functioning Democracy, and centrism in US means “pretty right wing but pretends not to be”.

  • schema@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Holy strawman. Ironically, by reducing all those platforms to one extremist opinion he is doing exactly the same thing he is whining about.

      • Jesus_666@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        If there’s one thing the right are good at it’s indoctrination. They co-opt spaces and then use them to infect people with their mindset.

        And damn is it ever effective. Someone close to me is normally a leftist – she proudly supports her union (and unions in general), is strongly in favor of LGBT+ rights and environmental protection, mistrusts most political parties as they’re too much in bed with big business etc.

        However, she also hangs out on 9GAG, which apparently has been pretty much taken over by the right. This has greatly affected her views on immigrants since she’s exposed to unchallenged right-wing drivel every day. It was “fun” when she told me how refugee facilities are hotbeds of violent crime and then it turned out that the unspecified statistics she was basing this on were mostly about violence against refugees.

        (Not that those camps perfectly safe by themselves but not in the way right wingers make it sound like refugees and immigrants (who are conflated) are all violent anarchists who are above the law.)

        Recently she just had to share this “joke” with me. The whole thing consisted of two police officers with Turkish names finding a generic German name exotic. That was it; I couldn’t find any punchline in there, just a “the immigrants are replacing us” message. I’m just writing for the day when I hear the word “Überfremdung” (“overforeigning”, a standard term of the far right) out of her mouth.

        It goes on like that. Politically she’s convinced that the Greens are completely unviable as a party and the worst part of the current government – the FDP (our liberal party for rich people) gets no mention despite being diametrically opposed to most of her core views. Ricarda Lang (a Green politician) being fat is much more important and will never get old.

        I have no idea how to counter this but I’m afraid that she’ll drift off into the hard right with time. She seems unwilling to accept that her main source of funnies is also chock full of right wing propaganda.

  • Ænima@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Discourse evaporated when the rightwing and Faux “News” declared “compromise” as blasphemy. That’s why so many moderate Republicans will still vote along party lines, despite knowing the candidate is batshit crazy. To vote Democrat is to commit suicide to those people.

    Edit: was trying to get this comment done before kid woke up from nap and barely made it. Fixed the faux pa.

    • letsgocrazy@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I’ve only ever heard left wingers claim that compromise is ‘blasphemy’ or that “center politics” is just for people who are too afraid to admit they are right wing.

      Fuck, there’s even memes abotu being centrist is being OK with half the holocaust or the KKK.

      Your comment is exactly the insane shrill partisan hackery that is the problem.

      BAM - just immediately guns blazing accusing the other side of what your side is guilty of.

      • WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The reason people say that is because a lot of the time these centrist people just vote Republican every time. They’re not really independent and as much as they say they don’t fully agree with people like Trump they keep voting for him despite everything he’s done.

        • sweetnumb@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’ve always been curious to when people will realize that voting Republican or Democrat is really the same thing. They both grow government, one side just happens to want to take away a particular set of liberties while the other side wishes to take a different set. In the end nothing changes because we’re too scared to vote for a candidate who actually cares because they have “no chance of winning.”

          This was obvious ten years ago, I thought the internet would have caught on by now. Perhaps not though, because since they’re so similar they HATE one another because they really dislike that they have many of the same views so the ones they differ on are so extremely upgraded in importance.

          Note: I know I’m not the first or only one to figure this out, plenty of people realize this, so no offense to you. I’m just surprised the truth is such a niche category online, in-person, in the media, etc…

          • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            This “truth” hasn’t caught on because it’s complete bullshit. What set of liberties does left want to take?

            • sweetnumb@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              If this isn’t a joke, and you’re on the left. Then learn the values of your own party.

      • GardeningSadhu@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        It was right wingers and centrists who allowed the holocaust to happen… source: rise and fall of the third reich

        • letsgocrazy@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          True. But it was left wingers who killed millions of Russians in gulags, who committed the Cambodian genocides, the long marches and purges of Maoist communism.

          So maybe there’s something to be said for moderation eh?

      • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I was raised in a particularly right wing environment, grew up with those values, and have shifted dramatically leftward in my adulthood, and I can say with absolute certainty that you’re either lying or willfully ignorant. Are parts of the online left prone to litmus tests? Yes, but most often in the sense of “hey, I’d appreciate it if people who claim to be in my corner don’t join hands and sing Kumbaya with people who want to eradicate my particular minority from the face of the Earth, please.” They’re a reaction to intolerant right wing fanaticism, rather than a statement of intolerance themselves. You have to go all the way around to the extreme fringe of tankies way out on the left arm of the political-alignment horseshoe to find a level of ideological fervor equivalent to what is now mainstream in right wing politics. The right pioneered single issue voters with the Moral Majority way back in the Eighties, and have led the charge on (sometimes literally) demonizing their opponents since the early days of talk radio. I know, because I was there.

        If the modern left doesn’t really want to try and find common ground with a right wing that views them as something between subhuman scum and actual literal hell spawn, I’d argue that’s entirely the right wing’s fault.

        • letsgocrazy@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          It doesn’t even matter. Hard right and hard left are all just fucking nut job low IQ idiots with different flavours of asshole populism.

          Horseshoe theory is as clear as day to anyone not on the extremes.

          • Facebones@reddthat.com
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            11 months ago

            One side wants to kill black people and ban non binary and trans folk from the public square

            One wants people to see doctors and not starve.

            BuT bOtH sIdEs

              • Facebones@reddthat.com
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                11 months ago

                One side is cartoonishly evil, openly calling for eradication of their enemies and those they dislike with language drawn directly from Hitler. One side is the relic of a busted status quo. ObViOuSlY tHeYrE tHe SaMe.

                Nobody cares, dude. The quiet part is out loud, you don’t have to vote or like dems, but running this purposefully disengenuous BoTh SiDeS defense for the right just shows you’re batting for the fascists.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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      11 months ago

      Yes, I agree! It’s the OTHER guys who are to blame this!

      Like, share and retweet BTW if you want them prosecuted for their crimes.

          • aberrate_junior_beatnik@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            All of those things did happen, but they are worlds apart from Jan 6.

            Your first link is clearly a peaceful demonstration; they didn’t even damage any property as far as I can tell. The article calls it “civil disobedience,” and apparently the vast majority were arrested for “demonstrating in the Capitol”. I shouldn’t have to remind you that the Jan 6 insurrectionists destroyed property and murdered people with the express intent of taking over government.

            Your second link is again a peaceful demonstration. People were again arrested for “unlawfully demonstrating”. There is no mention of any destruction of property or injury. And again, they were not trying to seize the government.

            Your third link is closest. There was obviously destruction of property and while no one got hurt, someone absolutely might have[1]. But even then, this was not an insurrection by and for the Democrats; it was from a fringe left group. Democrats immediately and to this day condemn the attack. Jan 6 was orchestrated by the leadership of the Republican party, and still receives support from said leadership.

            Anyway, this is you:

            [1]: The bombers did make an effort to not hurt people: they gave 30 minutes notice, and the explosion happened in the early hours of the morning. But something could still have gone wrong.

            • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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              11 months ago

              Ah, yes, but the point is that we went from “Democrats would never…” to “Democrats actually did (but it’s different)”.

              As for January 6th, none of the protestors had actually planned to enter the Capitol, and neither did Trump tell them to. He only told them to march towards the Capitol building to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.

              The deaths that occurred that day have all been ruled as accidents, i.e. nobody was deliberately murdered.

              The damage, which was initially reported as likely exceeding $30 million was later quietly corrected down to only about $1.5 million.

              Basically, almost every single thing you likely believe about that event has been blown wildly out of proportion, but you probably never heard about any of this because outrage is what sells clicks and ad impressions, the truth doesn’t.

              Well, anyways… I guess this means I’m not quite as enlightened and morally superior as the guy in your meme.

              • aberrate_junior_beatnik@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Yes, Trump and the GOP party leadership spent months plotting to overthrow a legitimate election, but when it came time to do so, one line in a speech sounded nice. Then the protest started getting violent and destructive. To be clear, they were doing this for him (in the sense that they wanted him to continue to be president). He could have shown up and told them to stop and they would have. But he didn’t. He made no meaningful attempt to stop it at all. He did, however, say something nice earlier in the day. That’s true.

                Yes, I said murdered when I should have said manslaughtered. Sorry. The protest was still violent. I’ve seen the footage; they managed to make me feel sorry for a cop.

                I did never make a claim as to the level of damage. I’ve never really thought about the dollar amount; it’s more about the fact that they broke in. If someone broke into my house, I wouldn’t be worried about the dollar amount of the damage. I’d be worried about what that means about their intent.

                You are being obtuse. None of the differences you’ve pointed out are salient. None of the similarities you have implied are. The post you replied to never said “Democrats would never…”, nor did I. And I disagree that Democrats actually did. The examples you gave are nothing like January 6th, except in facile similarities like the location of the events. I will say though, I agree that you aren’t enlightened or morally superior.

                • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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                  11 months ago

                  The examples you gave are nothing like January 6th

                  My point was mainly proving that the idea that “Democrats would never storm the capitol” was wrong. Yes, January 6th was perhaps still more violent than Democrats’ previous attempts to do so, but if it’s about the amount of violence each party is guilty of, all we have to do is look at riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death that happened a mere 6 months later in many cities across the US, and continued for a very long time. Those protests caused far more death, injury, and property damage than January 6th, and while you could claim that they weren’t political in nature, it is a fact that it was overwhelmingly Democrat politicians who supported them, and Democrat voters who attended them.

                  I’m not really keen to get into an argument about which party is responsible for more violence, since counting up dead bodies seems rather sordid and probably won’t help much anyways to convince either of us to change our opinion on anything, so I propose we call this one a draw and simply say “both parties are perfectly willing to use violence in pursuit of their political goals and have clearly demonstrated this in the past”.

      • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        …prosecuted for their crimes.

        It’d be nice but unfortunately there’s too many batshit republicans in office to pass any laws for that to happen.

        • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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          11 months ago

          Like I said, it’s the OTHER guys who are at fault for this.

          Therefore, we need more prosecutions and also guillotines. There can be no peace on earth until the other guys are all dead.

          • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Can’t wait for you to start using them. Or are you going to keep posting sarcasm to hide the fact that right wingers are terrible people?

            • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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              11 months ago

              Yes, the OTHER guys are terrible people. If WE did something terrible, it’s only because THEY forced our hands by being terrible people first. But they started it!

              Seriously dude, there are 5-year-olds out there who are more mature than you.

  • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Social media politics is confirmation bias by design.

    A few of my opinions that are less popular here:

    • Unions are not a perfect solution.
    • landlords are not inherantly bad and it’s not a “sit back and cash in” type of job.
    • Bridled Capitalism is a better system than the comunism we’ve tried so far.

    I have no desire to debate any of those here. I talk politics with friends and in person and I try to remain skeptical especially of facts that happen to go my way.

    • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      While that is true. Everyone seems to let perfection be the enemy of improvement. If the portrayal of anything different isn’t a utopia, people will scoff at it and say that it isn’t worth it, even if it is lightyears ahead of the current shit system.

      • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        This is the frustration I had with so many people back when the ACA was the issue of the day.

        Like, sure, there are issues with the ACA, single payer, universal healthcare, etc. but at the same time, look at privatized healthcare, where the wealthy have no issues and get the best care and want to maintain the status quo, the middle class are forced into lower classes by medical expenses, lower classes are just sort of expected to quietly poor themselves to death, and the actual poor get underfunded state provided care…that the upper classes loudly complain about having to fund with “their” taxes. It’s a system that’s been corrupted into a socio-economic instrument of control by ownership classes to maintain their grip on both the money of the country and the lives and upward mobility of everyone beneath them.

        But yeah let’s not try anything different because your wait time for your sore throat might be a few extra minutes.

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
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          11 months ago

          I live in belgium where it is 4€ to see a doctor and maybe 50€ to see a specialist.

          Wait times are 1 day max. Wait times for a specialist are usually a month.

          When I was employed by a big hospital living in the US, my wait times were triple that even with “great health insurance” and I would pay $350 for a checkup with something routine like shot updates or an STD screen.

          • ParsnipWitch@feddit.de
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            11 months ago

            That’s because there aren’t so many people in Belgium (yet). In Germany there are specialists you come on a waiting list and tell you that you perhaps get a seat in 2 years. Some don’t even have a waiting list anymore. For rheumatologist I wait for 3 months minimum, as a regular patient there.