Fediverse

obligatory reminder that us-american domestic politics are so skewed to the right that what appears "moderate" in the usa is right to far-right anywhere else

your "liberals" are right-wing

your "conservatives" are right-wing

both are liberals

There are many posts preaching for the choir, but I wouldn't call it an echo chamber. It's more like a dead sound chamber where the ideas dies in agreement. It doesn't bounce off the walls or resonate. It's already there so no answer is required.

Lemmy would benefit from more users playing the devil's lawyer, but I think it's too small for anyone to use their main profile for that, and alt-accounts would quickly get blocked or banned.

Actual users with opposing views wouldn't be of much help. Politics isn't very nuanced these days. It's not red or blue, left or right or whatever. It's polarized into a new duality: Those that give a shit and those who are proud idiots. Lemmy is on the good side of this and will not benefit from being more accepting of idiots.

I wish lemmy had more niche interest groups, like marvel champions card game. Then there'd be something to talk about that isn't how we should force others to give a percetage of their earnings to the goxernment.

It's important though to not fall into the trap of creating false balance, i.e. giving the same weight to a false or harmful statement than to a truthful or good statement, in the name of "fairness" or "objectivity". Also, conservatives tend to shift to the right currently.

2. There appears to be a lack of “centrist”, non-political, or right-wing voices (and I don’t mean extreme MAGA-type views, but rather more moderate conservative positions).

I see plenty of them. They're just mostly on other instances to me (like your home instance).

Furthermore, while it's tempting to see the so-called 'left' and 'right' as equivalent mirrors needing to be balanced for diversity, the reality is far from it. After seeing Wolfballs in action (that instance died before the reddit API fiasco), I can tell you we don't need to be balanced out by 'white genocide' discussions and more open anti-semitism. I know that's not what you proposed, but it's to illustrate that sometimes there isn't value in arbitrary balancing the 'left' and 'right' on these websites.

is it a natural result of Lemmy’s community-driven nature?

It's also a result of Lemmy's history and appeal. When reddit went on sprees of deleting subreddits, the right-wing hate groups made their own reddit clones, anarchists typically went to Raddle, and when GenZedong and ChapoTrapHouse went down, they went to Lemmygrad.ml (as a result, it became the largest instance) and created Hexbear respectively. So there is a long history of larger communist communities from day one which was the status quo until the reddit API fiasco.

The Fediverse also tends to attract anarchists and other socialists by the appeal of its decentralized nature, along with a few right-libertarians who see it as an anti-censorship tool. So one could say there's a bias there.

How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?

That's tough, because you inherently limit which political perspectives you can encourage.

There's a lot of stuff written on this topic, but I haven't seen this mentioned yet: there are conservative instances on Lemmy, as a platform. Most of them are widely defederated, not necessarily for the views of the majority (though in some cases, yes), but because of asshats deliberately causing trouble.

Unfortunately, this is also a product of a wider shift in discourse by the right (understood in a North American context), which appeals mostly to edgelords rather than the (rapidly shrinking, already shrunk to the point of irrelevance/non-existence one could argue) thinking, at least ostensibly humanistic conservative.

There's self-selection in action here. Which makes sense, even if I also find it troubling (there are people who can be reasoned with drowned out by Nazi assholes, who are willing to hear people out on the not-Nazi stuff, give positive reinforcement and with it a home to get radicalized).

I don't have a good answer, and if I did I'd probably be up for a Nobel Prize given how wide and damaging the problem is. It ain't just here - it's pretty much anywhere anyone expresses any idea. I just happen to like this side of the Threadiverse much more, so it's where I hang out.

Only real hope is meatspace, imo. And even then, not everyone has the privilege to engage this way in meatspace without a direct risk to their personal safety (see POC, our trans brothers and sisters, LGTBQ+ folks, etc.).

Hearing from "both sides" and coming to some compromise/middle ground only works if the following is true:

1. Both parties are acting in good faith.
2. The viewpoints expressed are close enough that they don't require a total departure from one's current viewpoint.
3. The disputed topic doesn't have a obvious or clear correct answer.

The problem is, at least in the US, none of these are true for right wingers and even many "centrists."

You cannot talk to somebody and try to find common ground if they don't believe in statistical studies by government agencies, they don't believe in scientific studies by major universities and research institutions, and don't care about the rights and protections for minority groups.

The older members of my family are almost all conservatives, MAGA supporters, and fundamentalist Christians.

They genuinely believe that Evolution is a myth and the Earth was created 6000 years ago. They believe that illegal immigrants are invading this country and that Democrats are secretly allowing them to. They don't believe humans have any effect on climate change. They don't think Covid was anything more than a common cold that the government used as an excuse to try to control people. They don't believe in vaccines.

I find Lemmy to be very refreshing. I get news from a diverse collection of Leftists sources. Anarchists, statists, weak socialists like the AOC/Bernie types, government studies, independent guerrilla journalists, Communists, Mutualists, Marxists, etc.

But I have no interest in further "diversifying" by adding right wing "sources."

Cookies can taste good with many different ingredients, but no cookie tastes good with horse poop.

As a leftist myself (communist)

Very, how do you do fellow kids energy from this comment.

I don't think I've ever interacted with a communist who would be upset about a lack of reactionaries in their spaces, they'd be relieved to have a place free of them and their ignorance and hate.

And the fact you think that "centrists" and "right-wing" are somehow not extremists (but this made up special category of MAGA which by the way is most conservatives in the US and in a lot of the world somehow is) tells me you are politely not really politically literate.

Liberals are reactionary enough in their excuse for genocide, you think for some reason we need space for not only them but the people who want to take away rights from trans people, who want to kill trans kids, who want to make women second class citizens, who are incredibly racist, war-mongering, anti-science, etc?

As much as I align with many of the views expressed here, I wonder if we’re missing out on valuable dialogue and perspective by not having a more diverse range of political opinions represented.

You can get that literally anywhere else offline or online, especially your home instance. You're not from a leftist instance but from the most reddit-brained, centrist neo-lib instance.

This is false equivalence, the idea that the left is too extreme and needs balancing with the right. Please just accurately identify your politics or don't bother mentioning them as we can easily guess them from a post like this.

I don't understand this thought process. If the far left is preaching facts and kindness, and the other side is literally Nazies we need more left homogeneous thinking. We need to get educated and organized about the issues facing humanity. When the far left starts to be anti science and facts then you can begin to worry.

I’ve seen right wing liberals, left wing liberals, marxists, stalinists and anarchists just to name a few. If anything there is more diversity here than other platforms as it isn’t just various shades of liberal.

There appears to be a lack of “centrist”

“Progressive” liberals in fact the centrists—they're center-left at best—and there are plenty of them here.

right-wing voices (and I don’t mean extreme MAGA-type views, but rather more moderate conservative positions)

These people are liberals as well, but because they usually break Lemmy’s code of conduct regarding various bigotries, they get usually quickly the boot.

non-political

Everything social is political, and the fediverse is social media.

Everywhere else in my life is centrist or rightwing. I enjoy having somewhere to escape it.

We already have people praising Liz Cheney.

You could say "I am noticing a distinct lack of Neo Nazis on Lemmy".

To which I say why change that.

Lemmy.worldi is full of right wing neolibs, who rule it with an iron fist. A pride flag doesn't make a Cheney dem "left."

Given how likely right wing conservatives tends to spread misinformation and cite low quality sources, I honestly don't mind the lack of right wingers.

Conservatism is generally a worthless ideology that makes the world worse, so I don't feel a desire to spend more time with it. We don't need to debate "what if women don't have rights", "what if gay stuff is illegal?", "what if you had to pay for health care so if you were poor you'd just die?" or whatever.

As a non-American the issue as I see it is that too much of Lemmy is dominated by Americans and therefore American politics. I scroll through and read a ton of comments about how monstrous and vile the right wing is, and that's just simply not true where I live. The popular American right is incredibly authoritarian and seeks to control all aspects of ones life. The right wing in my country is purely economic. You can debate capitalism vs communism I guess but no part of my countries right wants to remove the rights of women or the lgbt. Its all just a matter of where you live. And most people here live in the States.

Lemmy has always had the Communists and Anarchists, from what I understand. Liberals largely came during the Reddit fiascos. Overall, I'd say instances are becoming more homogenous, but I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. I'd rather have more leftists and fewer liberals seeing liberals convert to leftists, IMO.

There is no such thing as a "moderate conservative" any more. IMO the difference has always been mainly, how mask off they were prepared to go. Trump has shown them that you can go fully mask off without any negative consequences.

Conservative and/or right wing, authoritarian, reactionary (feel free to pick your favorite analogous label) views are ethically wrong and lack evidence to add a worthy perspective to discussions. Capitalism is a belief and should be discussed as other religions.

Participating in this thread had left me feeling like lemmy is much more of an echo chamber than what I thought before.

I like being disagreed with on occasion, but don't feel like anyone really listened here. That is very internet but also pretty concerning.