Looks promising and better than many alternatives. Design wise still they have some work to do. None of the themes available are better than the original old Reddit. I find Digg theme even better....
Looks promising and better than many alternatives. Design wise still they have some work to do. None of the themes available are better than the original old Reddit. I find Digg theme even better. Tildes has the best themes overall.
Not a fan of Lemmy name, keep Lemmy name as the backend and change the instance name other to Lemmy.
I feel the opposite - I find Lemmy's design to be pretty great and intuitive to follow (especially coming from reddit) and the themes are pretty decent (I'm absolutely loving the i386 theme)....
I feel the opposite - I find Lemmy's design to be pretty great and intuitive to follow (especially coming from reddit) and the themes are pretty decent (I'm absolutely loving the i386 theme). Tildes doesn't really have anything quite that dorky.
I will say there are two things I have issues with Lemmy personally after using it for a day or two:
It's pretty slow. It takes a few seconds to just load content, which is honestly driving me mad. Tildes never had this problem as far as I could tell.
It has downvotes. After using Tildes and the lack of downvotes, I honestly cannot imagine any other way to have discussions online. The downvote is just unnecessary noise and drama in the disguise of "content filtering".
I'm actually liking both. Tildes for the general social stuff, Lemmy for the more nerdy techie stuff.
To each his own i guess, I do not find it even ok to any theme compared to Digg, Reddit or Tildes. I really agree about the speed and the downvotes. Even when it is stipulated the function of...
To each his own i guess, I do not find it even ok to any theme compared to Digg, Reddit or Tildes. I really agree about the speed and the downvotes. Even when it is stipulated the function of downvotes people will always use it in the wrong way.
And there is really no way to prevent that either. At least with comment labels, since their purpose is explicitly spelled out in their names, misuse can be identified easier and abusers punished....
Even when it is stipulated the function of downvotes people will always use it in the wrong way.
And there is really no way to prevent that either. At least with comment labels, since their purpose is explicitly spelled out in their names, misuse can be identified easier and abusers punished. The same cannot be said for downvotes though, which are far more ambiguous by nature, allowing for plausible deniability in their misuse.
I agree, doesn't come close to Tildes in terms of design. Wonder if someone could bolt the Tildes front-end to a Lemmy backend, or perhaps Tildes itself could federate into the Lemmy network,...
I agree, doesn't come close to Tildes in terms of design. Wonder if someone could bolt the Tildes front-end to a Lemmy backend, or perhaps Tildes itself could federate into the Lemmy network, since the datastructures are presumably pretty similar.
Oh, is it now? Well, well, well. If you need me, I'll be sharpening my guillotine. Azathoth above, I should be used to this kind of nuclear takes from HN, but they keep sneaking up on me.
Had potential, but it's extreme far left now. Just as bad IMO.
Oh, is it now? Well, well, well.
If you need me, I'll be sharpening my guillotine.
Azathoth above, I should be used to this kind of nuclear takes from HN, but they keep sneaking up on me.
Trying to preemptively come up with words that you think are bad is an ignorant policy and I am of the opinion that such ignorance belies a fundamental misunderstanding of language and discourse...
Trying to preemptively come up with words that you think are bad is an ignorant policy and I am of the opinion that such ignorance belies a fundamental misunderstanding of language and discourse that it absolutely is cause for concern. Using automated software to help moderators moderate is a good thing, but this kind of language policing is misguided.
I'm not sure it's been validated as a best practice, but I feel like building some language policing into your discussion software is probably correctly guided. Software is never politically...
I'm not sure it's been validated as a best practice, but I feel like building some language policing into your discussion software is probably correctly guided.
Software is never politically neutral, especially when it federates, and programming your software to be more useful for good people than for Nazis and professional racists is a good trick if you can pull it off.
I get the idea, but realistically it just has zero chance of ever doing anything. For anyone that's capable of setting up and administering a Lemmy instance (which is going to be quite complex),...
I get the idea, but realistically it just has zero chance of ever doing anything. For anyone that's capable of setting up and administering a Lemmy instance (which is going to be quite complex), removing that filter is trivial. I know practically nothing about Rust (Lemmy's backend language) and had never looked at their codebase before at all, but it would still only take me about a minute total to find that filter and change the one line of code needed to get rid of it.
The filter's also not done very well—it literally has the Scunthorpe problem and would change "Scunthorpe" to "S*removed*horpe". I wouldn't even be able to write this explanation on Lemmy because of that.
It also goes quite a bit too far for my taste. Maybe there's not a lot of great uses for words like "pussy" and "bitching", but at least in North America we've decided that we're okay with words like that in media that 13 year olds are allowed to watch. I feel like it's awfully excessive to try to push your site's language down to elementary-school level.
My biggest issue with the word filter approach is that the people who want to use such words are likely to just find creative ways around the filter no matter how well you implement it, so...
My biggest issue with the word filter approach is that the people who want to use such words are likely to just find creative ways around the filter no matter how well you implement it, so essentially all you're doing is starting an arms race by even attempting it, which will likely wind up wasting a ton of dev time. The better approach to this is just to have a good code of conduct, use the ban hammer judiciously, and implement solid moderation tools, IMO.
The notion that you can robustly identify bad and good people by looking at individual words, rather than by how they use words is highly ignorant of how natural language works.
The notion that you can robustly identify bad and good people by looking at individual words, rather than by how they use words is highly ignorant of how natural language works.
Of course it won't be robust. But if there's a significant difference in the frequency of usage of certain words, and the people you think are good use the words almost never, it might be worth...
Of course it won't be robust. But if there's a significant difference in the frequency of usage of certain words, and the people you think are good use the words almost never, it might be worth doing. Even if it doesn't actually end up ever applying the filter, it might scare off people you didn't want to use your software. It might also come at a cost of scaring off some people you wouldn't mind using your software, but that's clearly a risk the authors are willing to take.
I'm in agreement. I also agree with the guy who sent the PR However, if it's an open-source platform they can take a stance which would alienate people who don't want slur blocks, and anybody with...
Writing off a site because it doesn't allow you to use slurs isn't exactly a great argument.
I'm in agreement. I also agree with the guy who sent the PR
Third, maybe there will be an instance run by PoC for PoC that want to use the n-word, whether discussing it historically or even in normal conversation.
However, if it's an open-source platform they can take a stance which would alienate people who don't want slur blocks, and anybody with a debatable imperative to have access to these words could probably enable them. This would also, unfortunately, allow people to use the platform in ways they don't want. Master list or no, the only way forward would be to lock down the code, and create a centralized website, or make the project so ideologically incompatible with undesired groups that they stay away from it.
I probably agree with you on most things politically, but that isn't a good faith argument on your end either. That person has a problem with a site directly encouraging one ideology over another,...
Writing off a site because it doesn't allow you to use slurs isn't exactly a great argument.
I probably agree with you on most things politically, but that isn't a good faith argument on your end either. That person has a problem with a site directly encouraging one ideology over another, not just the slur filter.
There is a value to spaces that only cater towards similar viewpoints (so long as you spend the appropriate time outside of them) but it's completely reasonable for someone looking for an open platform to write off a website because of it.
A sad little fuck keeps making new accounts to post nazi shit all over the place. I do have a plan for solving this via technical means, but it might take everything from a few days to a couple of weeks before this is in place. In the mean time, registration will be on and off periodically.
LOL... spoken like someone who has no idea WTF they are talking about. The only reddit mod I know on Tildes from a "left subreddit" is @dubteedub and his views aren't "extreme" at all IMO, unless...
This was partially driven by mods from extreme left subreddits being very active on the site.
LOL... spoken like someone who has no idea WTF they are talking about. The only reddit mod I know on Tildes from a "left subreddit" is @dubteedub and his views aren't "extreme" at all IMO, unless you consider anyone who doesn't believe in free speech absolutism and disapproves of allowing hate speech to be "extreme left"... which is idiotic considering the majority of the Western world has hate speech laws (including Canada, where Tildes is based).
Only in America (and Russia + certain parts of Eastern Europe) could Tildes be considered "extreme left", due to the Overton window being so far skewed to the right there. And it's also not like anyone here is a tankie, and even the socialists I have seen here are pretty damn moderate, all things considered. Tildes may not have very many right wing users, but that doesn't make it "extreme left", nor does the fact we lack any users from the extreme right.
I really don't have patience for the whole "Tildes is too left" thing anymore because it always feels so incredibly reductive, and I really don't see what the alternative is? As far as I know...
I really don't have patience for the whole "Tildes is too left" thing anymore because it always feels so incredibly reductive, and I really don't see what the alternative is? As far as I know there's no site-wide ban on believing in any "right-wing" schools of thought, who exactly has been banned for believing in free-market economics, in government non-intervention in social issues, to name only a few examples.
The only thing I can think of is that people might feel like they receive too much push-back when they express those more "right-wing" opinions but... isn't that sort of the point of freedom of speech?
Yes. That's why I like water so much. OK, I object to the fact that oxygen is being shipped with two hydrogen atoms - that's blatant wish fulfillment by the author - but it's great how it can make...
It's fine to drown your opponents, but don't be surprised if they stop wanting to argue.
Yes. That's why I like water so much. OK, I object to the fact that oxygen is being shipped with two hydrogen atoms - that's blatant wish fulfillment by the author - but it's great how it can make people shut up by just filling up their lungs.
I really admire it for that: I usually have to keep going on for hours, without even getting the satisfaction of seeing life drain out of the corpse of the nth person going "commit 41%".
Ah! What wonders I could weave, if only I had water by my side!
But, in the context of this discussion, the right-wingers @Death is talking about are pretty much the same people who claim to care about free speech, considering theirs stifled not just by the mere presence of rules - there were a few people in the HN thread, adamant that Reddit mods should only remove unambiguously illegal content - but by the fact that people would not put up with their bullshit without pushing back.
That is, saying "free speech is good for me, but not for thee", while also choosing "culture war" topics - BLM, racism, anti-fascism, LGBT+ people - as the hill they want others to die on.
I think we can all agree on that, seeing as how we are on Tildes, but I believe that what they were getting to was their hypocrisy, while I took the opportunity to draw attention to what...
I think we can all agree on that, seeing as how we are on Tildes, but I believe that what they were getting to was their hypocrisy, while I took the opportunity to draw attention to what free-speech-absolutist-types tend to spend their time on.
I don't doubt that people self-censor on online communities to avoid being singled out - I learned the hard way to not touch certain topics on the default subs, unless I have a few hours I want to waste arguing - but it sounded like you were playing devil's advocate for them, and I consider self-censorship very much acceptable in the context of this discussion (people decrying Tildes as extreme far left, implying a conservative/"centrist" stance).
Definitely. There's a fair share of us here, but you'll often see that there's tons of counter-discussion on many posts, often more voted on) from a wide variety of backgrounds.
And saying Tildes is extreme far left is absurd!
Definitely. There's a fair share of us here, but you'll often see that there's tons of counter-discussion on many posts, often more voted on) from a wide variety of backgrounds.
It kind of cuts both ways. I personally would rather have lots of lengthy objections than a few short quips. Hence why I mostly write walls of text (hypomania doesn't help). And if lots of...
it is not a good feeling to have 10 1000 word replies implying (or outright saying) that you're misinformed
It kind of cuts both ways. I personally would rather have lots of lengthy objections than a few short quips. Hence why I mostly write walls of text (hypomania doesn't help).
And if lots of different people write lengthy replies to your stances, perhaps it is worth reconsidering, especially if those objections are varied and sourced. I do question my stances quite frequently, even if it doesn't always come across that way in my replies.
Edit: I think it's also easy to agree with just a vote, and hard to counter with replies. It fosters better discussion IMO, but it also makes a discussion seem one-sided
Hey now, don't take our radical cards away like that! It hurts... :P Also I think there may be a couple Leninists hanging around who might be called "tankies" by some.
and even the socialists I have seen here are pretty damn moderate
Hey now, don't take our radical cards away like that! It hurts... :P
Also I think there may be a couple Leninists hanging around who might be called "tankies" by some.
I have yet to see any real tankies (Stalinists or Maoists) on the site, and Leninists are puppy dogs compared to them. Simply wanting to abolish capitalism isn't extreme enough to be considered...
I have yet to see any real tankies (Stalinists or Maoists) on the site, and Leninists are puppy dogs compared to them. Simply wanting to abolish capitalism isn't extreme enough to be considered "radical" these days... so y'all are gonna have to do better than that if you want that card back. ;)
Tbf, most people you'd label Stalinists would just call themselves Marxist-Leninists... I hear we have this label called "offtopic". I wonder when that would be of use.
Tbf, most people you'd label Stalinists would just call themselves Marxist-Leninists...
I hear we have this label called "offtopic". I wonder when that would be of use.
That may be what they euphemistically call themselves, but the distinction between Stalinists/Maoists and Leninist in my eyes is the totalitarianism and cult of personality aspects that often...
most people you'd label Stalinists would just call themselves Marxist-Leninists
That may be what they euphemistically call themselves, but the distinction between Stalinists/Maoists and Leninist in my eyes is the totalitarianism and cult of personality aspects that often comes with the former... not to mention the whole "purge the unbelievers" thing too. Hence my puppy dog comment regarding Leninism. :P
I ain't got nothing against people who believe in workers owning the means of production, state managed economies, etc. as a political philosophy... it's the execution each distinct group thinks should be applied to achieve and maintain that which makes all the difference.
p.s. Others can label this thread offtopic for us if they want to, so don't worry about it too much. :)
There probably is a "tankie" or 2 here, but AFAIK nobody actually talks "tankie" here, or Marxism, or Anarchism, etc. Basically nobody is here for Far Left discussion, I've only seen one thread...
There probably is a "tankie" or 2 here, but AFAIK nobody actually talks "tankie" here, or Marxism, or Anarchism, etc. Basically nobody is here for Far Left discussion, I've only seen one thread and it was prompted by OP slandering millennials who just wanted affordable healthcare, housing, jobs, etc.
There’s a few of us who pop out when it’s relevant, that just isn’t particularly often. I’ve openly advocated for communism here before and gotten a non-negligible amount of support. Tildes is...
There’s a few of us who pop out when it’s relevant, that just isn’t particularly often. I’ve openly advocated for communism here before and gotten a non-negligible amount of support.
Tildes is overwhelmingly lib, though, that’s for sure.
Unless the average Democrat in the US is "extreme left", it really wouldn't. It'd certainly be considered progressive, but not extremist. And I also wouldn't agree that the US is universally...
Only in America (and maybe Russia) could Tildes be considered "extreme left", due to the Overton window being so far skewed to the right there.
Unless the average Democrat in the US is "extreme left", it really wouldn't. It'd certainly be considered progressive, but not extremist.
And I also wouldn't agree that the US is universally skewed far to the right. On some of our own left/right divides, the rest of the world is skewed waaay to the right (from our own perspective). Compare the responses of Americans vs some Europeans on diversity for example (from Pew Research, a well respected polling firm). 58% of Americans approve of diversity and immigration, and only 7% disapprove. Compare this to the Netherlands, where only 17% of Dutch people approve of diversity, and a full 36% think it's actively making their country worse. If the American conservatives in this survey were their own country, the Trump supporters and religious evangelicals mind you, they'd be the third most liberal country on immigration, second only to the UK in Europe, and only by 4%.
Perhaps Overton window is the wrong term to describe the situation in the US then, since IMO it's less about what views are more generally accepted there than it is about various other things...
Perhaps Overton window is the wrong term to describe the situation in the US then, since IMO it's less about what views are more generally accepted there than it is about various other things which skew the outward perception of many living there, and perception that others on the outside have of it. E.g. The fact that right wing media in the US is allowed to behave as insanely as it does, and that the loudest voices coming from the US are often the most extreme and seemingly allowed to say whatever they want without much consequence (and in some cases are even celebrated for doing so). So I dunno if there is a term for that, but Overton window is about as close as I could think of.
I don't see many, if any, voices on CNN, MSNBC, or articles in NYT about how we should abolish for-profit banks, unionize all workers, or punching Nazis in the face. Those are like...middle-left...
The fact that right wing media in the US is allowed to behave as insanely as it does, and that the loudest voices coming from the US are often the most extreme and seemingly allowed to say whatever they want without much consequence
I don't see many, if any, voices on CNN, MSNBC, or articles in NYT about how we should abolish for-profit banks, unionize all workers, or punching Nazis in the face.
Those are like...middle-left stances. The extreme left is thinking guillotines should start being built.
I don't see much of that left shown in any major media outlet (unless using to mark as terrorists), but I see an awful lot of that extreme-right crap on even so-called centerist/neutral outlets.
I think that's why the Overton Window applies. Because I get a ton more pushback from saying things like 'abolish landlords' than I ever would if I was spouting 'landlords need bailouts too'.
Just for the sake of clarification when I said "the loudest voices coming from the US are often the most extreme" I meant the extreme right specifically. And I absolutely agree that unlike the...
Just for the sake of clarification when I said "the loudest voices coming from the US are often the most extreme" I meant the extreme right specifically. And I absolutely agree that unlike the extreme right, there is definitely a distinct lack of truly leftist representation in US media. Jacobin is about the only relatively mainstream US outlet I know of that has some truly leftist leanings, though even they are not really all that extreme IMO.
There's very little that's inherently left-right, including immigration, you're absolutely right. It's a problem of trying to boil down complex politics, especially complex politics between...
There's very little that's inherently left-right, including immigration, you're absolutely right. It's a problem of trying to boil down complex politics, especially complex politics between different countries, on a simple one dimensional spectrum. And it's why I usually don't like using these terms or try to describe one country as more "left or right wing" than another, because often different countries have completely different criteria as to what constitutes what.
That being said, in the US today, immigration and diversity are topics that absolutely fall along a left-right divide, with a very small number of exceptions (mainly union voters for the Democrats and libertarians + large corporations that exploit immigrant workers on the right).
Furthermore, every country in this comparison shows a comparable divide. The self-identified "left" of each country is more open to diversity and immigration than the "right" of that same country, usually by substantial margins of 20+% (the smallest is 10%).
Therefore, I don't have a problem in using in this particular context, since the data clearly backs up this being a general trend, for this specific set of countries. And by this same definition, if we put them all on a scale the way we do each country individually, then it's unmistakable that the US would rank as "far left" by most/all of the other country's standards, given the huge gulf.
There's a reason it always boils down to that, especially in the USA...FPTP voting. If only two parties are viable, then nuance stops mattering and no matter what shades of grey or how dynamic the...
especially complex politics between different countries, on a simple one dimensional spectrum
There's a reason it always boils down to that, especially in the USA...FPTP voting.
If only two parties are viable, then nuance stops mattering and no matter what shades of grey or how dynamic the issue at hand is, the line in the sand gets drawn and it's a binary issue...esp when the most heinous policies come down to party line votes.
FPTP is a factor, but not the only thing that lead to the entrenched duopoly in US politics. We have FPTP at the Federal level here in Canada too, but despite that we still have 4 viable...
FPTP is a factor, but not the only thing that lead to the entrenched duopoly in US politics. We have FPTP at the Federal level here in Canada too, but despite that we still have 4 viable mainstream parties to choose from, and also the Green party which is a slowly growing presence these days as well (see: Parliament #Composition wiki). And I think the reason for that is largely because we have much stricter campaign finance laws, as well as heavily subsidized party funding (see: Federal political financing wiki), not to mention our strict advertising/broadcasting regulations too (see: Broadcasting Act - Policy).
Admittedly, FPTP is still vastly inferior though, which is one of the reasons I am so angry at Justin Trudeau for breaking his campaign promise that the previous Federal election would be our last under that system.
The way you wrote your comment makes it seem like ryder9 said and believes that statement, but they were really just intentionally rewording a quote from the user they replies to who said "Nothing...
The way you wrote your comment makes it seem like ryder9 said and believes that statement, but they were really just intentionally rewording a quote from the user they replies to who said "Nothing wrong with communities like that" to point out how horrible that opinion is.
Looks promising and better than many alternatives. Design wise still they have some work to do. None of the themes available are better than the original old Reddit. I find Digg theme even better. Tildes has the best themes overall.
Not a fan of Lemmy name, keep Lemmy name as the backend and change the instance name other to Lemmy.
I feel the opposite - I find Lemmy's design to be pretty great and intuitive to follow (especially coming from reddit) and the themes are pretty decent (I'm absolutely loving the i386 theme). Tildes doesn't really have anything quite that dorky.
I will say there are two things I have issues with Lemmy personally after using it for a day or two:
I'm actually liking both. Tildes for the general social stuff, Lemmy for the more nerdy techie stuff.
To each his own i guess, I do not find it even ok to any theme compared to Digg, Reddit or Tildes. I really agree about the speed and the downvotes. Even when it is stipulated the function of downvotes people will always use it in the wrong way.
And there is really no way to prevent that either. At least with comment labels, since their purpose is explicitly spelled out in their names, misuse can be identified easier and abusers punished. The same cannot be said for downvotes though, which are far more ambiguous by nature, allowing for plausible deniability in their misuse.
I agree, doesn't come close to Tildes in terms of design. Wonder if someone could bolt the Tildes front-end to a Lemmy backend, or perhaps Tildes itself could federate into the Lemmy network, since the datastructures are presumably pretty similar.
Why not both? Tildes by itself is a really good alternative if it is federated.
I noticed immediately that it's an SPA. Pretty cool otherwise, e.g. it's written in Rust.
Oh, is it now? Well, well, well.
If you need me, I'll be sharpening my guillotine.
Azathoth above, I should be used to this kind of nuclear takes from HN, but they keep sneaking up on me.
Trying to preemptively come up with words that you think are bad is an ignorant policy and I am of the opinion that such ignorance belies a fundamental misunderstanding of language and discourse that it absolutely is cause for concern. Using automated software to help moderators moderate is a good thing, but this kind of language policing is misguided.
I'm not sure it's been validated as a best practice, but I feel like building some language policing into your discussion software is probably correctly guided.
Software is never politically neutral, especially when it federates, and programming your software to be more useful for good people than for Nazis and professional racists is a good trick if you can pull it off.
I get the idea, but realistically it just has zero chance of ever doing anything. For anyone that's capable of setting up and administering a Lemmy instance (which is going to be quite complex), removing that filter is trivial. I know practically nothing about Rust (Lemmy's backend language) and had never looked at their codebase before at all, but it would still only take me about a minute total to find that filter and change the one line of code needed to get rid of it.
The filter's also not done very well—it literally has the Scunthorpe problem and would change "Scunthorpe" to "S*removed*horpe". I wouldn't even be able to write this explanation on Lemmy because of that.
It also goes quite a bit too far for my taste. Maybe there's not a lot of great uses for words like "pussy" and "bitching", but at least in North America we've decided that we're okay with words like that in media that 13 year olds are allowed to watch. I feel like it's awfully excessive to try to push your site's language down to elementary-school level.
My biggest issue with the word filter approach is that the people who want to use such words are likely to just find creative ways around the filter no matter how well you implement it, so essentially all you're doing is starting an arms race by even attempting it, which will likely wind up wasting a ton of dev time. The better approach to this is just to have a good code of conduct, use the ban hammer judiciously, and implement solid moderation tools, IMO.
This would be a waayyy more effective approach. Lots more effort though.
The notion that you can robustly identify bad and good people by looking at individual words, rather than by how they use words is highly ignorant of how natural language works.
Of course it won't be robust. But if there's a significant difference in the frequency of usage of certain words, and the people you think are good use the words almost never, it might be worth doing. Even if it doesn't actually end up ever applying the filter, it might scare off people you didn't want to use your software. It might also come at a cost of scaring off some people you wouldn't mind using your software, but that's clearly a risk the authors are willing to take.
These days "Far Left" and "Marxism" tend to just mean "Not openly racist" and "Stop murdering me please" and "I just want affordable healthcare".
I'm in agreement. I also agree with the guy who sent the PR
However, if it's an open-source platform they can take a stance which would alienate people who don't want slur blocks, and anybody with a debatable imperative to have access to these words could probably enable them. This would also, unfortunately, allow people to use the platform in ways they don't want. Master list or no, the only way forward would be to lock down the code, and create a centralized website, or make the project so ideologically incompatible with undesired groups that they stay away from it.
I probably agree with you on most things politically, but that isn't a good faith argument on your end either. That person has a problem with a site directly encouraging one ideology over another, not just the slur filter.
There is a value to spaces that only cater towards similar viewpoints (so long as you spend the appropriate time outside of them) but it's completely reasonable for someone looking for an open platform to write off a website because of it.
Damn, new sign-ups to Raddle have been disabled. Any idea why?
https://raddle.me/f/meta/110619
Cheers
LOL... spoken like someone who has no idea WTF they are talking about. The only reddit mod I know on Tildes from a "left subreddit" is @dubteedub and his views aren't "extreme" at all IMO, unless you consider anyone who doesn't believe in free speech absolutism and disapproves of allowing hate speech to be "extreme left"... which is idiotic considering the majority of the Western world has hate speech laws (including Canada, where Tildes is based).
Only in America (and Russia + certain parts of Eastern Europe) could Tildes be considered "extreme left", due to the Overton window being so far skewed to the right there. And it's also not like anyone here is a tankie, and even the socialists I have seen here are pretty damn moderate, all things considered. Tildes may not have very many right wing users, but that doesn't make it "extreme left", nor does the fact we lack any users from the extreme right.
I really don't have patience for the whole "Tildes is too left" thing anymore because it always feels so incredibly reductive, and I really don't see what the alternative is? As far as I know there's no site-wide ban on believing in any "right-wing" schools of thought, who exactly has been banned for believing in free-market economics, in government non-intervention in social issues, to name only a few examples.
The only thing I can think of is that people might feel like they receive too much push-back when they express those more "right-wing" opinions but... isn't that sort of the point of freedom of speech?
Yes. That's why I like water so much. OK, I object to the fact that oxygen is being shipped with two hydrogen atoms - that's blatant wish fulfillment by the author - but it's great how it can make people shut up by just filling up their lungs.
I really admire it for that: I usually have to keep going on for hours, without even getting the satisfaction of seeing life drain out of the corpse of the nth person going "commit 41%".
Ah! What wonders I could weave, if only I had water by my side!
But, in the context of this discussion, the right-wingers @Death is talking about are pretty much the same people who claim to care about free speech, considering theirs stifled not just by the mere presence of rules - there were a few people in the HN thread, adamant that Reddit mods should only remove unambiguously illegal content - but by the fact that people would not put up with their bullshit without pushing back.
That is, saying "free speech is good for me, but not for thee", while also choosing "culture war" topics - BLM, racism, anti-fascism, LGBT+ people - as the hill they want others to die on.
I think we can all agree on that, seeing as how we are on Tildes, but I believe that what they were getting to was their hypocrisy, while I took the opportunity to draw attention to what free-speech-absolutist-types tend to spend their time on.
I don't doubt that people self-censor on online communities to avoid being singled out - I learned the hard way to not touch certain topics on the default subs, unless I have a few hours I want to waste arguing - but it sounded like you were playing devil's advocate for them, and I consider self-censorship very much acceptable in the context of this discussion (people decrying Tildes as extreme far left, implying a conservative/"centrist" stance).
Definitely. There's a fair share of us here, but you'll often see that there's tons of counter-discussion on many posts, often more voted on) from a wide variety of backgrounds.
It kind of cuts both ways. I personally would rather have lots of lengthy objections than a few short quips. Hence why I mostly write walls of text (hypomania doesn't help).
And if lots of different people write lengthy replies to your stances, perhaps it is worth reconsidering, especially if those objections are varied and sourced. I do question my stances quite frequently, even if it doesn't always come across that way in my replies.
Edit: I think it's also easy to agree with just a vote, and hard to counter with replies. It fosters better discussion IMO, but it also makes a discussion seem one-sided
Hey now, don't take our radical cards away like that! It hurts... :P
Also I think there may be a couple Leninists hanging around who might be called "tankies" by some.
I have yet to see any real tankies (Stalinists or Maoists) on the site, and Leninists are puppy dogs compared to them. Simply wanting to abolish capitalism isn't extreme enough to be considered "radical" these days... so y'all are gonna have to do better than that if you want that card back. ;)
Tbf, most people you'd label Stalinists would just call themselves Marxist-Leninists...
I hear we have this label called "offtopic". I wonder when that would be of use.
That may be what they euphemistically call themselves, but the distinction between Stalinists/Maoists and Leninist in my eyes is the totalitarianism and cult of personality aspects that often comes with the former... not to mention the whole "purge the unbelievers" thing too. Hence my puppy dog comment regarding Leninism. :P
I ain't got nothing against people who believe in workers owning the means of production, state managed economies, etc. as a political philosophy... it's the execution each distinct group thinks should be applied to achieve and maintain that which makes all the difference.
p.s. Others can label this thread offtopic for us if they want to, so don't worry about it too much. :)
There probably is a "tankie" or 2 here, but AFAIK nobody actually talks "tankie" here, or Marxism, or Anarchism, etc. Basically nobody is here for Far Left discussion, I've only seen one thread and it was prompted by OP slandering millennials who just wanted affordable healthcare, housing, jobs, etc.
There’s a few of us who pop out when it’s relevant, that just isn’t particularly often. I’ve openly advocated for communism here before and gotten a non-negligible amount of support.
Tildes is overwhelmingly lib, though, that’s for sure.
Unless the average Democrat in the US is "extreme left", it really wouldn't. It'd certainly be considered progressive, but not extremist.
And I also wouldn't agree that the US is universally skewed far to the right. On some of our own left/right divides, the rest of the world is skewed waaay to the right (from our own perspective). Compare the responses of Americans vs some Europeans on diversity for example (from Pew Research, a well respected polling firm). 58% of Americans approve of diversity and immigration, and only 7% disapprove. Compare this to the Netherlands, where only 17% of Dutch people approve of diversity, and a full 36% think it's actively making their country worse. If the American conservatives in this survey were their own country, the Trump supporters and religious evangelicals mind you, they'd be the third most liberal country on immigration, second only to the UK in Europe, and only by 4%.
Perhaps Overton window is the wrong term to describe the situation in the US then, since IMO it's less about what views are more generally accepted there than it is about various other things which skew the outward perception of many living there, and perception that others on the outside have of it. E.g. The fact that right wing media in the US is allowed to behave as insanely as it does, and that the loudest voices coming from the US are often the most extreme and seemingly allowed to say whatever they want without much consequence (and in some cases are even celebrated for doing so). So I dunno if there is a term for that, but Overton window is about as close as I could think of.
I don't see many, if any, voices on CNN, MSNBC, or articles in NYT about how we should abolish for-profit banks, unionize all workers, or punching Nazis in the face.
Those are like...middle-left stances. The extreme left is thinking guillotines should start being built.
I don't see much of that left shown in any major media outlet (unless using to mark as terrorists), but I see an awful lot of that extreme-right crap on even so-called centerist/neutral outlets.
I think that's why the Overton Window applies. Because I get a ton more pushback from saying things like 'abolish landlords' than I ever would if I was spouting 'landlords need bailouts too'.
Just for the sake of clarification when I said "the loudest voices coming from the US are often the most extreme" I meant the extreme right specifically. And I absolutely agree that unlike the extreme right, there is definitely a distinct lack of truly leftist representation in US media. Jacobin is about the only relatively mainstream US outlet I know of that has some truly leftist leanings, though even they are not really all that extreme IMO.
There's very little that's inherently left-right, including immigration, you're absolutely right. It's a problem of trying to boil down complex politics, especially complex politics between different countries, on a simple one dimensional spectrum. And it's why I usually don't like using these terms or try to describe one country as more "left or right wing" than another, because often different countries have completely different criteria as to what constitutes what.
That being said, in the US today, immigration and diversity are topics that absolutely fall along a left-right divide, with a very small number of exceptions (mainly union voters for the Democrats and libertarians + large corporations that exploit immigrant workers on the right).
Furthermore, every country in this comparison shows a comparable divide. The self-identified "left" of each country is more open to diversity and immigration than the "right" of that same country, usually by substantial margins of 20+% (the smallest is 10%).
Therefore, I don't have a problem in using in this particular context, since the data clearly backs up this being a general trend, for this specific set of countries. And by this same definition, if we put them all on a scale the way we do each country individually, then it's unmistakable that the US would rank as "far left" by most/all of the other country's standards, given the huge gulf.
There's a reason it always boils down to that, especially in the USA...FPTP voting.
If only two parties are viable, then nuance stops mattering and no matter what shades of grey or how dynamic the issue at hand is, the line in the sand gets drawn and it's a binary issue...esp when the most heinous policies come down to party line votes.
FPTP is a factor, but not the only thing that lead to the entrenched duopoly in US politics. We have FPTP at the Federal level here in Canada too, but despite that we still have 4 viable mainstream parties to choose from, and also the Green party which is a slowly growing presence these days as well (see: Parliament #Composition wiki). And I think the reason for that is largely because we have much stricter campaign finance laws, as well as heavily subsidized party funding (see: Federal political financing wiki), not to mention our strict advertising/broadcasting regulations too (see: Broadcasting Act - Policy).
Admittedly, FPTP is still vastly inferior though, which is one of the reasons I am so angry at Justin Trudeau for breaking his campaign promise that the previous Federal election would be our last under that system.
Maybe they talking about me? Do I even post often enough to meet this description? Maybe this user was just trying to gaslight or something.
Edit: Misinterpreted a comment. Cleared up by @cfabbro. (Thanks by the way).
The way you wrote your comment makes it seem like ryder9 said and believes that statement, but they were really just intentionally rewording a quote from the user they replies to who said "Nothing wrong with communities like that" to point out how horrible that opinion is.
That's probably the right interpretation. It was a kneejerk reaction I had while flipping around the threads.
I'll edit my previous comment.