Anon searches for normal politics

Lemmy political pov: the universe should be free and open source

It specifically needs to run Linux.. also there is a literal war about which distro it should use
- Debian. It should run debian. We should genocide arch users.
- War is over. It's Gentoo.
All your comment gives me is “unfathomably based”
I will git clone universe

It’s the algorithms. Except 4chan where that’s just how it do.

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.

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.

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.
- 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.

Redditors are communists? News to me.

They mixed up Lemmy and Reddit, Reddit is full of alt-right bigots
- Lmao this is just as ridiculous as them saying Reddit is communist. Massive exaggeration in both cases
- Can agree. On Lemmy now and I can feel the ghost of Marx over my shoulder whispering about the proletariat.

Enlightened centrist thoughts intensify

People even use centralism as a weapon as well though. They push the idea that the correct position in any debate is slap bang in the middle. Sometimes there is a demonstrably correct answer, and sitting in the middle is a bad thing.
But they'll argue to the death that sitting on the fence is the best thing to do in every situation. I've had people claim that the Ukrainians should just negotiate with Russia (assuming that would be even be possible) because that would be the middle option between fighting them and surrendering.
- I like to break out this when people claim centrist/moderate is neutral. Nazi's: kill all Jews and Aryans. Non-Nazi's: don't kill Jews or non-Aryans. Moderates: let's compromise and just kill Jews instead guys.
  If 9 people sit at a table with 1 nazi and none leave or make the nazi leave, you have 10 Nazi's sitting at a table.
  If you try to compromise between two moral/legal viewpoints, you're still supporting the worst side
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.
- Being center of left and right means being about where the Democractic Party in the US is. Anyone who considers themself a "centrist" between Democrats and Republicans is right-wing because the GOP is so far, far right and the Dems are so center-left.
- Well, US is not a functioning Democracy, and centrism in US means "pretty right wing but pretends not to be".

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

It's an exaggeration about the stereotypical opinions from those platforms

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.

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.
- 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.
- 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.
- It was right wingers and centrists who allowed the holocaust to happen... source: rise and fall of the third reich
- Liar.
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.
- Enlightened centrist moment
- I remember when those crazy Democrats got a bunch of their voters to storm the Cap- oh wait…
- ...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.

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.