the other guy isn’t really trying to learn anything or even to change your mind. He’s acting for an audience of people who already agree with him.

This is why I argue that votes should be hidden from everyone. Audience capture is one of the biggest issues on platforms like Lemmy. Many users feel like they’ve “won” an argument simply because their broad, nuance-free generalizations get upvoted by the masses.

To add to your point about avoiding engagement with certain types of users, one thing I’ve noticed that really sets some people off is when they take something I’ve said, draw their own extreme conclusions from it, and then start accusing me of something completely untrue. Instead of defending myself against these ridiculous accusations, I now either ignore them or stick firmly to the original point.

What’s fascinating is how often they double down, repeatedly trying to get me to explain why I’m not, for example, a Nazi. When I refuse to entertain their absurd line of reasoning, they seem to lose their minds.

Blocking on Lemmy doesn’t prevent them from seeing your “reasonable” takes. It just hides that user’s messages from you. They wont even know you have blocked them.

Mullvad seems to be consistently good. I’ve been on it for +5 years. Before I used PIA but they got sold to a sketchy company.

I’m sure you’re never wrong about anything. Maybe you should start a podcast.

At times like early covid there wasn’t much facts and evidence available. Back then masks didn’t stop the spread of the virus but vaccines were supposed to. Who decides what the facts are in times like that?

Yeah, but the question was; who decides what is disinformation? If it was some truly competent and unbiased AI system then I perhaps wouldn’t be as concerned about it, though I can see issues with that too, but humans are flawed and I see this as a potenttial slippery slope towards tyranny and censorship.

Who decides what the facts are?

…and? We can’t have people having public conversations online then because some might take it too seriously? I don’t see how this is a criticism towards Joe.

No I don’t. Never mind then. Sorry for trying to reach out for advice.

Very helpful, thanks.

It’s kind of related to the abortion discussion. I don’t think the question is “should they be allowed to” but rather “when are they allowed to” I think that in some situations there’s a case to be made for after-birth-abortion but I don’t quite feel like “not wanting to deal with it” is a sufficient reason.

He has never claimed to be a legitimate journalist. He has said repeatedly that you shouldn’t take him too seriously - he’s a cage fight commentator after all.

To be fair; that was 22 years ago. People change. He’s even different now than he was like 5 years ago when I started listening to the show. Way less confrontational for example. I’ve heard many people talk about him on other podcasts and say that he’s exactly the same person in real life than he’s on the show.

Even something like being anti-abortion is a perfectly logical stance to hold for someone who beliefs that soul enters the body at conception. That belief is based on what I’d argue is a false premise but I can’t exactly prove that either. It’s not logical from my perspective but it is from theirs.

I’m not so much talking about right wing beliefs per-se but about the shift towards the centre which is to the right. Where it crosses to the side of the right, I don’t know and I doubt there even is concensus on that. Something like being against DEI programs, I guess, is considered to be quite “right wing” yet virtually all of the people whose opinions I respect are against it and I’d hardly consider any of them right wing. Freedom of speech would be another - also fitting the context.

I don’t personally have any issue with algorithms - they work quite well for me, though it does require some active management. For example, if I watch one or two 30-second videos on YouTube, it quickly starts recommending more, which quickly floods my feed. However, when I start ignoring those recommendations, despite the temptation to click, the algorithm eventually stops pushing them and shifts back to suggesting accurately tailored, long-form content that genuinely interests me. The same goes for using the “not interested” button. This aligns with my experience on platforms like Twitter and Instagram as well, though the latter I no longer use.

Algorithms obviously don’t care whether the content they show you makes you glad that you saw it. They simply serve what captures your attention. If it’s outrage, then that’s exactly what you’ll get. The algorithm knows plenty of other users engage with that kind of content, so it rationally assumes the same will apply to you.

That’s quite a broad generalization. While this applies to some positions, sure, you seem to be implying it’s true of right-wing views as a whole which simply isn’t true.

Right wing ideologies tend to be simpler and thus appeal to those that tend to dislike nuance.

I don’t agree with this - at least not in the sense that there’s a significant difference between the left and the right here. Both sides tend to oversimplify and misrepresent each other’s views in online discussions. However, when you dig deeper into why someone holds a certain stance, it’s very rare to find it entirely lacking in nuance, regardless of which political side they’re coming from.

You seem to be making lots of assumptions here. You could’ve just asked if you want to know what I think about something.

Like 95% of social media users, regardless of the platform, are mostly lurkers. A tiny fraction of the total user base creates the majority of the content. This is a self-selecting group of people who, by definition, don’t represent the average person - the average person doesn’t comment on message boards.

Reading discussions on Lemmy, for example, can create a skewed perspective of reality. Views like being okay with murdering CEOs are fairly popular here, yet I’ve never met anyone in real life who thinks this way. My work involves going into people’s homes to fix things, and we frequently chat about current events. I find that my average customer is far more reasonable in their views compared to the extreme opinions that often get highly upvoted here.

There’s also the broader observation that the left seems to struggle to win elections globally. We hear a lot about people moving toward the right, but rarely about anyone moving the other way. I’m not claiming this as absolute truth - it’s simply how I see things. Of course, there’s always a chance I could be wrong.

Few days back my SO was annoyed by how she predicted I would have answered if she were to ask me to do something.