Personally I kind of don't want everybody to be like-minded, because that becomes an echo chamber. What I'm after on Lemmy is people willing to explore subjects objectively, without beating the bushes for enemies or competing for upvotes.
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.
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On the other hand, learning to deal with people you dislike is a useful skill. If everyone segregates themselves into opposing factions there will never be any progress.
Of course, I've personally blocked about 600 people...
I have enough people I dislike and disagree with IRL, I will have all my opinions confirmed when I'm browsing online, thankyouverymuch. /s
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The downside of that is the filter bubble or echo chamber effect. Question is whether Lemmy should be a fun experience for you or something to broaden your horizons a little
You can listen to people try to convince you that Russia's war is justified and that Tienamen Square never happened for a while if you want, then make up your mind and block them later ;-).
It was super fun to be gaslit by people while I was actually living in Taiwan but yeah, gets old after a while.
I mean, personally I am not here to discuss politics or get the news. I'm here for memes and nerding out. All that real-world shit doesn't vibe. I wanna laugh.
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Counterpoint: filtering out the furry communities by blocking a single instance
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Bruh. It's not an echo chamber to filter out literal Nazis and other stuff. Ain't nobody changing their mind from "spirited" internet debate and I don't need their garbage in my day.
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I feel like the term echo chamber gets thrown around a lot. Imo an echo chamber has to be highly specific. I wouldn't classify every monolingual person as trapped in an echo chamber for example. I would also argue against to idea of having to be weary of creating your own echo chamber online. Use social media how you like, the solution to echo chambers is going outside and touching grass not forcing yourself to interact with every community on the internet.
It's an echo chamber whether you think that's a bad thing or not, only being exposed to one type of view point is what an echo chamber is. And people probably should be exposed to opinions they disagree with, but it doesn't have to be constantly, and it doesn't have to be when they're already stressed or tired, for the sake of their mental health.
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As if the default Lemmy experience isn't a massive filter bubble in itself. I doubt hardly anyone here would want to federate with Twitter and Truth Social even though that would make your feed, in fact, less of an echo chamber. Hell, a huge number of inctances don't even federate with Hexbear, Lemmygrad or Threads.
I think it's pretty much impossible to fully get out of filter bubbles, but the only way to really get every view on everything is to be part of everything mainstream AND everything more underground. Personally, I don't feel the need to associate with any other social media. I think toxicity differs from being exposed to a different point of view.
Reddit has had the problem for years that if you tried to make a point that slightly differed from the hive mind's opinion, however eloquently you would put it, everyone would just pile on with their 'akshually' mentality and not even be open to any other viewpoint than their own.
And that's toxicity without even mentioning folks that would just say 'no' followed by hateful language.
I feel Lemmy is a far kinder, more balanced community where you can have a polite discussion about stuff. And OP is right, if a certain instance shows its users can't behave or have such different views than your own, you can just make them go away and enjoy the rest of Lemmy.
I just hope those users don't defederate from the rest of us so at some point they will have a more nuanced view of things.
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I'm reminded of a quote that goes something like this:
I've been thinking about the free exchange of ideas recently and come to the conclusion that it isn't an open market - it's a potluck.
Everybody brings something to the table and you're free to pick and choose the things that you want to try, but you're not obligated to try everything. Just because Karen put a piece of shit on the table and calls it a sandwich doesn't mean that you have to take a bite to know that it's shit. Similarly, we are not obligated to take white supremacists and other extremists' ideas and seriously debate their value. They're shit and can and should be treated as such.
The beauty of a self-curated experience is that you're free to engage with the things that you want and can ignore the things that you don't want to deal with. The risk of people isolating themselves is simply a part of having the freedom to choose your own experiences, the same as the real world.
Personally, one of the reasons that I'm here is because I have no choice but to deal with right-wing extremism in my daily life, and I don't want to deal with it online as well. Reading news articles? That's fine, but I don't want to see chuds screaming about DEI or woke or whatever in the comments.
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People talk about filter bubbles, but there's a nuance here: on Lemmy, you're not being served up whatever the platform owners think you should see from an opaque algorithm. You're going to, by default, see cesspool content. You have to choose to block it.
Unfortunately, the owners of your instance can also choose to block something for you.
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I was happy today when I made a post on an obscure community and some guy just passing by on the "new" feed left a comment.
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Doesn't this lead to potential echo chambers though. If I go and block all content I don't like, how can I have ideas that challenge my beliefs?
Not everything has to have an opposing perspective, where's the opposing community for knitting? Tearing?
Rip and tear, until it is done. And you can start knitting again.
c/tearrorists
Probably purling.
I wouldn't pull that thread if I were you.
Who cares? It’s social media, I come here for entertainment. Don’t let it form your opinions and believes. Read credible newspapers and journals from across the spectrum and go touch grass and have a civil conversation with a stranger if you want to hear ideas that challenge your beliefs.
People are downvoting you not because you are wrong, but because it really hurts when you call people out with this kind of precision. It should be common sense that the message boards full of randos shouldn't be the foundation of one's political worldview, but it's also really easy to make message boards full of randos an integral part of one's social life.
Getting your news from credible, non-social sources, is important. Being able to read an article and move on without heading to the comments is important. Having conversations with real people offline is important. But those things don't offer the same steady drip of dopamine that social media provides.
A lot of people here are excessively online, and in desperate need of grass touching, and they don't want to be told that directly, but they do also need to hear it.
Why not both?
Some people don't come to social media to have their beliefs challenged and that's okay.
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It is the opposite. People join an instance which does not agree with their point of view. They get banned. They move to a different instance.
Echo chamber galore.
Underrated benefit of Lemmy is that it isn't infested with bots the way its larger counterpart is. Reddit has really turned to garbage.
Lower quantity of content here, but more authentic
o7 to the brave admins of Hexbear, Lemmy's tankie quarantine instance.
I think a bit the opposite: I'm really worried about the trend to give people only information they care about. I think it's essential to be able to have information about everything. Of course there will always be stuff you don't care about but having it automatically filtered out is dangerous in my opinion. In GAFA-powered social networks, you are only given pieces of information about your own opinion, you never have something that make you question yourself about your opinion. The power of independent and open media like Lemmy is to not rely on such biasing algorithms.
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I think it attracts a certain type of person to Lemmy in the first place; someone who would have probably used the original Reddit back in the day
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There are some instances that lean in specific directions, but there are also several that are kind of just melting pots. For the most part I don't need to use blocks too frequently, but there are definitely some spaces/users that I find are too hostile that it gets in the way of their intended messaging. But then, that line is going to be different for everybody.
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