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this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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I like hearing both sides of every argument even when I don't agree with it. On reddit I could read the top comments first and then sort by controversial to hear the opposing arguements. Here I can't do that. There usually are no opposing arguments or if there is they're made in bad faith. It's almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I'm more of a pick and choose type of person.
There are very few "positions" I hold. When it comes to most subjects I'm not informed enough to form strong opinions so I generally float somewhere in between. For most hot topics I see on Lemmy every day I can usually make good arguments for both ways. I may lean to one side or another but I'm often just a few well written comments away from tipping to the other direction.
The "positions" term is usually a shorthand for the eventual distillation of your values. If you haven't arrived yet at your positions, have you examined on your values? Values are usually far more primitive in the sense they don't conform exactly to specific public policy, but there is usually public policy that encompasses specific values.
While its certainly possible for a person's values to change over time. We usually arrive at what most our values are in our 20s. These are things such as:
I believe it is very important for each of us to examine who we are, what our values are, and then use our intellect to decide/craft which positions can be arrived at with guidance from our values.
This is where your responsibility comes in. If you're not informed enough, become so. Listen critically to arguments, don't simply accept on face value what other proclaim is true. If you're hearing a logical argument that seems to contradict your understanding, yet aligns with your values, challenge yourself to explore it. The phrase "steel sharpens steel" applies here. If you have healthy and strongly defined personal values, the arguments of your positions should be equally strong and stand up to scrutiny. If your positions are found faulty by your own examination, adopt all or elements of the argument that knocked your position down because its is the right one for your values and ability to critically apply logic with all the information you have available.
You made other statements about choosing a side, but realistically it isn't just two sides. Its dozens or hundreds of nuanced views, and every single one could be flawed in some way, or incomplete. Accept that in many situations there isn't a "right" answer. All sides represented could be wrong and the best you can do is admit this choose the least worse. This constant reexamination and frustration is both the beauty and the horror of being human.
This is pretty much the essence of what I was trying to say there. The more you study a subject the more you realize how much nuance there is to everything so it's near impossible to land on any clear conclusion on what to think about it. People often act as if it's all black and white but it almost never is. Even in cases such as the war in Ukraine where it's a pretty clear which side is the good and which is the bad one you should still be allowed to examine the alternative perspective too to better understand the "enemy" as well as realize that the good side isn't wihout a fault either and critizicing them doesn't automatically make you a Russian troll.
Your analysis is far too shallow to determine Good vs Bad, even in something that should be as clear cut as the Ukraine war. Morality is next to impossible to assign unless you pick a very specific basis on which to analyze it.
Your starting assumptions matter a lot in morality, like how much you value human life. There are people in this world that do not value life highly because they believe in afterlife situations that are preferable to life on earth as long as you meet the criteria for entrance. Who's to say they are wrong from a moral perspective?
If Putin actually believes that the people in eastern Ukraine are being persecuted, and Russia is rescuing them, is that immoral? Would it be immoral for a solider to fight under the belief that they are helping people even if they are not?
Morality often comes down to belief because it's not an objective concept.
Me, I think Putin would look better with a few more holes in him. Is that immoral? Would I be willing to sacrifice myself to kill him? No. Would I be willing to let members of my country's armed forces sacrifice themselves to kill him despite us not really being involved in the conflict? Probably. That's some really messy morality right there.
The thing you need to realize at the end of the day, is that morality is completely personal, and yet it's entire purpose is to allow societies to get along. At the same time, you need to realize that you didn't come up with your own ideas of morality, you grew up being indoctrinated (for better or worse) towards a particular type of morality.
If you had been born somewhere else, to a different family, or even just had different events happen to you in life, you would have a different set of morals.
This is the kind of comment I wish I would see here more often.
But why? This has everything to do with philosophy, and nothing to do with most posts on Lemmy.
I believe OP is young and just more into philosophy than politics.. ot maybe a combo of both. I know a time when I was like that, so it's perfectly normal.
But, unfortunately, yes, there are very few individuals out there that communicate on that level.
I wrote more comments here to express my confusion with OP and their goal.
The more I read the more I think the problem is from their inability to explain themselves, or perhaps lack of any cohesive want in the first place. Philosophy is fine, controversy is fine, nuance is great, but I get none of the above from OP. It is possible they are young and searching themselves, yet to understand how the world and online discussions work.
Yes, that is what I meant when I said young.
I'm agreeing with this conclusion. When all of us were young, we were told what to believe and how to act. As we enter adulthood we carry that conditioning with us, but for us to grow to we need to explore what we personally believe instead of just accepting monolithic fully formed prepackaged beliefs given to us by others. It looks like OP is learning that.
OP, if this is true and you're looking for where to start, start with examining different ethical systems. Look up Kantianism vs Utilitarianism as they are very different from one another but are both logical systems. As you grasp the concepts it will be slightly uncomfortable, but that is part of growth.
Take this just one step further: Understand that indecision, is a decision. That inaction, is an action.
On every topic, you can't just look at all the arguments and say "none of these are good enough, I select none" forever. By choosing to opt out forever, you allow the voices and actions of those you disagree with to stand in your place. In these situations where there are no good choices, is where you must eventually make a choice (at least for now), and that choice isn't going to be the best because there isn't a best choice. Its going to be the least-worse. This is why its so critical to have explored yourself to decide what values you hold. They are your guideposts to how you evaluate and arrive at what path you choose forward.
Keep looking for better, but don't let that paralyze you to the point of indecision and inaction.
I think OP would be good to watch the first season of the Good Place. There is a character on there that is obsessed with making the correct decision and argues so much with himself and others over every tiny nuance that could shift the balance that he never acts on anything at all unless forced.
As you said, fence sitting is in an of itself an action, almost always to the detriment of the topic at hand.
Very few subjects are the kind of where one absolutely has to pick a side. That's kind of like saying you can't just enjoy football but you have to choose a team to support to. No I don't.
Just because one thing is slighly better than the alternative that doesn't mean I'm all for that one thing then. Israel - Hamas conflict is a good example. I don't support either side and the more I study the subject the more confusing it gets.
First, I said you can't be inactive/indecisive forever, that is, if you want your values reflected in the world. If you're content to having the world be whatever someone else decides for you, then I suppose you can, but that in itself is a choice.
I'm talking about subjects where you have an opinion for a preference. When you're a passive watcher of football, there is no outcome that will be against your values. You have no effort to impart with watching football that will affect its outcome.
Of course not, but to affect change you may need to accept a chunk of negative with your path to get a larger chunk of positive. Again, there's no "best" solution, only least worst.
Its a great example! There are zero good choices here. I'm in a similar position, however what I have concluded is our inaction (yours and mine) is causing the continued deaths of the civilians of Gaza. I value the lives. The most number of lives of the civilians that are the most risk right now are those of Gaza. So I have to ask myself, what can I do to preserve as much of civilians of Gaza? It gets even more complicated in the USA where I can advocate to my representatives for support for civilians of Gaza and try to stop the continued flow of US weapons causing the harm. However, our current politics are tying military support to Taiwan (which I support), Israel (which I do not support anymore), and Ukraine (which I do support) all as one package. To stop Russia from seizing Ukraine (where Russia will eventually use the Ukrainian people for further war against others) do I have to let Israel commit genocide against Gaza's civilians? Again, there are NO good choices here. Only least worst, and the subjective nature of which one is the least worst is guided by your values.
You will have to come to your own conclusion, but make not mistake, without you using your voice others are taking a path one way or the other and your values are not being represented.
You know you're allowed to make comments in threads challenging people if you think their comments are too one sided?
If you suspect there is an unexplored side to something, you can ask about that, and you'll very likely get an answer, at least as far as I've seen. But usually if no one does that then yeah, like you say, you'll only see "one side".
You don't have to be a passive observer, you can get the discussion you want by guiding it.
Saying "I'd like to hear a different perspective" is generally interpreted by others as "Your perspective is wrong" and then the assumptions begin, which lead to accusations and bickering.
I was speaking of something substantial and specific, not just some abstract stuff. For example, idk, "why not halt all arms deliveries to Ukraine? We need the weapons/money ourselves. I.e. some actual question about the topic. Because if you can't form a question like that, then it doesn't even make sense really to "hear a different perspective" as this different perspective will have no meaning for you.
But it seems anyway, after reading OPs responses to this thread, that they don't really care about diverse viewpoints, just about their own viewpoints not being disregarded/dismissed/argued against.
It gets quite tiring after a while that instead of having to defend the point you're trying to make you instead have to defend yourself as a person. Ad-hominem is what a huge portion of active commentors here reach for when ever someone says something that they disagree with.
But then your problem does not seem to be diversity. Why do you act like it is?
Views to the right of centre are almost entirely missing from Lemmy so the problem is lack of diversity. Or perhaps I should say one of the problems. Incivility on social media on the other hand is not an issue unique to Lemmy.
People right of centre usually have no problem at all with companies like Reddit behaving like it is, like going for an IPO etc, so they haven't attempted to switch off it yet. I'd just go back to reddit if you want to see these right-wing viewpoints. You haven't really explained why you don't want to go back, it seems suited to solve your problem.
What 'right of centre' views do you seek?
What does it matter to you?
Because that's what you seek, and I want to understand you and help you if I can, perhaps even provide a nuanced opinion on such view.
This sums up my feelings lately very nicely. I'd say I am generally well aligned with the culture on here, and share most leftist views. However there are certain topics, and even just sub aspects of certain topics, that will net you a lot of downvotes very quick and condescending proselytizing comments if you even slightly differ from the general consensus in your views.
I'm not sure what could be done about this though, I certainly dont want Lemmy to be more welcoming towards alt right bullshit and such. But talking with a bunch of queer leftists about queer leftist things all the time is like that old south park episode where the parents become pretentious wine snobs and start getting high on their own farts. Boring, pointless self aggrandizement.
I'm a queer leftist but get kinda sick of the three topics on lemmy: linux good/america bad/Rust sometimes OK.
I want like...aquarium subreddits that are active. I wanna see mountain bike subs with good advice and live threads. I wanna see local subs that have the hottest details on obcure things like the best nude community gardens or some shit, haha. I wanna see Subaru forums where you can learn how to add a better sound system or replace an intercooler. Hell, even local city subs, where they talk about the best protected bike lanes now that summer is approaching.
The thing about lemmy is if you want to see something you got to make it yourself if it doesn't exist
Lemmy has such a tiny active user space that most niche communities simply wont take off.
Not with that attitude
Guess how reddit started.
We will have all that, soon enough. Reddit has size over Lemmy and with size comes monetization. They've gone full corporate, selling our data and our content to make a profit. We're here to stand against that. Hopefully over time we can support enough basic communities that this place will be able to grow over the years.
Until then, help implement the barebones stuff. Make sure you're subbed to those 4 communities and make a post or two in them. And it's really not that big of a deal if you browse Reddit from time to time, but don't neglect the barebones communities here if you're gonna do that.
I think some mods are a bit too happy to use their mod tools. I've seen opinions get moderated away because they anger people, not because they are wrong.
A mature society is able to discuss things without banning opinions they don't agree with.
I haven't really seen that ... maybe I'm just in a way "biased" because I do have some comments that meet the "your opinion is clearly highly controversial in this room" threshold but I generally keep my composure.
There are definitely a few times where the other person has made it personal and it's been difficult to not retaliate in kind.
lemmy.ml is not as nearly as bad now, lemmy.world on the other hand...
Most users actually wants Lemmy.world to have harch moderation, because they don't want to be exposed to things that upset them.
I think it's always like that. The big popular platforms are always heavily moderated. And most people are happy with it.
There are always smaller alternatives for others who feel comfortable reading things we don't agree with sometimes in exchange for nobody controlling the feed.
I'm a bit in between. There is a Swedish site called Flashback that is really good for finding out what actually happens. The media often gives one view and leaves out many details, and it's very fun to go read what actually happened on flashback afterwards.
I just mind that memes get deleted for no apprent reason... sometimes they give a reson, most of the time, they don't. I mean, come on, it's a joke...
But whatever. If people here are happy with what they get out of stricter moderation, hey, who am I to judge.