I experience Lemmy as a reflection of many of the problems in the world; there seems to be little effort to understand and respect different viewpoints. Instead of being curious about opinions one disagrees with, the community often feels almost aggressive. People end up in their own trenches. What about trying to be more open and curious about our differences instead?
Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with…
What have you found is not being tolerated?
Mention anything about veganism and watch the comments pile on. The Lemmy group mind is not a fan of anything that challenges their currently held viewpoints.
Veganism in particular is hard for some people, because it pokes holes in their current world view and it effectively says you could be doing more, for people who already view themselves as ethical and caring hearing some of those hard truths can feel like an attack.
And on Lemmy in particular people like to shut down dissenting viewpoints such as those.
And please don’t hit me with responses on why you think veganism is dumb, I’m merely making an observation as to what is not tolerated on this platform.
Vegans who treat it like a religion are difficult to be around. Vegans who treat it like a personal choice, are not.
That’s true of any life choice though. People get offended when other people don’t make the same choices or have the same beliefs, because they feel in attacks of invalidates them as a person.
I mean, I don’t cheat in relationships and I am monogamous. But for many people that’s a controversial statement that I have had a ton of pushback on because it makes them feel attacked if they are cheaters or polyamorous. Usually informing me how ‘ignorant’ I am, or how ‘judgemental’ I am… for simple express my own rules for myself.
Discussion about anything spiritual. Mention the word and people automatically assume that you’re an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian ready to host a sermon about how much God hates homosexuals.
As an atheist and a Bible-reading dude (as well as a few other ‘spirituality’ books, among many other types of books), the hate towards anything spirituality-related and religious around here was one of those things I almost immediately noticed after joining, it’s even worse regarding anything Christian. The worst for me was not that hate, it is the fact that almost all of it rely on nothing but a desire to do like the others. And very rarely on actual knowledge of what is being hated.
It is one of those things that made me question if I should stay, if the Fediverse was a place one could really expect to have enriching discussions, or merely the exact opposite of those corporate-owned social media platforms that are populated by right-winged haters: collectively-owned social media populated by left-winged haters. Hate is a poor choice. It doesn’t matter what one hates.
The one thing that made stay is that, thx to the tools available, it’s also very easy to filter out most of that hatred and to suddenly realize that, hidden under that now gone noise, there are indeed quite a few persons wanting to have civilized conversations and that are able to not hate on anyone they disagree with. Not a large crowd, but enough to make it worthwhile to stay and from time to time have an interesting discussion.
That option to filter out the hate, even if it’s not perfect, makes the Fediverse quite unique, imho.
Yeah. The anti-theism thing here is wild.
I usually just assume they are into healing crystals or yoga, but that’s my own bias.
People here love ot hate on bigotry, but are totally blind to their perpetuation of it themselves. Because when they massively overgeneralize anyone who is remotely religions or spiritual based on a tiny extremist minority… it’s good! It’s fighting injustice and bigotry! But if other people do it, it’s bad and evil, and wrong!
Hehe, the funny thing is that on me, your assumption would actually more correct than the fundie Christian assumption.
Very specific yoga philosophy, and “healing” crystals in the sense that I’m fine with people saying that looking at pretty rocks makes them feel better. Wouldn’t generalize that into a cancer cure though.
Oh no… People disagree with my opinion. I’m being oppressed.
Thanks for proving my point I guess.
Yes. If your point is that you want to have an opinion and not be teased or disagreed with, that is not a thing you can have. At least, I can’t imagine how that’d work.
There’s a world of difference between disagreeing with someone and mocking them. Especially if the mockery is based on a complete misrepresentation of what is being said.
Sure. And boy do I wish humans didn’t do that all the time. But they do. And so to expect otherwise seems silly to me.
Maybe I’m just more jaded than I should be.
Not saying if you should or should not be jaded but I would ask you: please, please don’t give into the jadedness.
I do understand the impulse and I used to be that way myself. But it’s something that eats at you more than it helps you. Online you can always step away from the strife and in the offline world you can find truly good and caring people who do listen to reason. I realize it might be easy for me to say but I really don’t want to see any more people turn to hopelessness and cynicism. It only helps people who would add more misery to the world.
I’m not the best person to say this and it’ll sound weird on this platform but I do mean it with all my heart. I hope you can find enough good in your life to protect it without despair.
Their post history includes anti-immigration views and comments in favor of AI copy-paste posts. I guess that answers it…
I didn’t even bother scrolling past that.
To the downvoters:
What makes you disagree? Did OP make some sort of clear point in a different post in their history, or what did I miss? Because right now by downvoting you’re just proving OP right. Downvoting without clear cause and interaction. The reply to this comment is a nothing burger.
there you go. we don’t tolerate fascism.
I actually did scroll past that.
You are the problem, and so are the people who upvoted you without at looking for themselves at all.
It’s always a persecution complex with them.
How dare you persecute me for encouraging the persecution of immigrants!!!
op: lemmy is so intolerant against my views!
insert untitled goose with a knife chasing op: what views, fucker?
it’s not always like this, but it happens so often i’m not surprised
This accurately represents every time someone posted something like this and I saw it lol
Speaking up for people wanting to cut back on their personal porn use.
I mean… it’s fine to have a community for that. But don’t expect the rest of the site to not disagree with you.
But go start a community for that. Ban people who come into your community and are jerks.
Disagreement is perfectly fine as long as it’s civil and actually about what’s being said. That’s not what’s happening here - you instantly get accused of having malicious secret motives, as is demonstrated below. It’s just a way to shut down discussion instead of actually engaging with it.
why do you assume they want to engage with it?
they are shutting it down because they want to shut it down. they want to ridicule and belittle and harass.
Pattern matching does that. And it’s unfortunate. But so many people in that community do have those motives. And as a member of that community, it’d be great if you could help shout them down (and if you already do, thanks!)
Not everyone struggling with compulsive porn use is part of the NoFap community.
I’m not, and I shouldn’t have to answer for the “crimes” of anyone else just because they’re dealing with a similar issue as I am. They don’t represent me, and I don’t represent them. It makes zero sense to take the views of the loud extremist minority and slap them onto the entire group. Most people who self-diagnose with the “porn addiction” label just want help sorting out their own life - they couldn’t care less what anyone else does with theirs.
I call into question your claim that most aren’t like that. But even if most aren’t, it’s what the community is known for.
If you don’t like what the community is known for, you have options. You can try and fix the reputation, you can deal with being stereotyped, or you could just be a person who doesn’t masturbate, and not part of a specific community.
I don’t think there’s a fourth option where you get to be part of the community, which is known for being horrible, but everyone just magically knows you’re not one of those ones.
Personally, I’ve chosen option 3 for most of my proclivities. I don’t drink, but I’m not part of AA because of their religious craziness. I don’t eat meat, but I’m not out here supporting PETA.
I explicitly stated in my previous response that I’m not part of that community. I’m just an individual dealing with an issue, and I have compassion for all the other individuals facing the same thing - people who are too ashamed or afraid to seek help or even tell anyone about it. Seeing the response it gets here, even from folks who probably pride themselves on being empathetic and compassionate - yeah, I don’t blame those people for staying silent.
This isn’t about supporting a community or pushing some ideology. It’s about raising awareness that real people struggle with this stuff. It’s not sexual shaming or defying God - it’s about taking back control of their own lives. As with anything, the dose makes the poison. Nobody I’ve talked to about this thinks porn or masturbation is inherently bad - they’re just the kind of person who takes it too far, to the point it starts causing real harm in their life. They don’t have an agenda. They need help, and I feel for them.
If even a single person feels seen by my comment - the one that gets downvoted into oblivion by the haters - and gets even the tiniest sliver of help or hope from it, then it was 100% worth it.
Gooning is a god-given right
And I don’t want to take that away from anyone. I just wish it didn’t affect my own life to the extent that it has for the past 20+ years.