I freaking hate politics right now. There is no place for views that aren't hard-left or hard-right. There is no desire for dialog. Most people in reality are not perfect ideological stereotypes. But in spite of that, I see more and more of my online acquaintances falling into line with these sterotypes. Being part of the left leaning FOSS community, usually this means presenting as far left revolutionaries. It is resulting in the split of communities and ejection of good faith participants.
@soller Total agree. I've been worried for some time that rust would implode over some (likely political) moderation issue but was surprised and sad to see nix tell them to "hold my beer" this week. I get plenty of politics elsewhere and FOSS is my escape from that -- would be great to have it contaminated as little as possible instead of canonizing it.
@soller The majority of people do not have hard-left or hard-right views. Political dialogue has just been monopolized by those crowds because no one has the patience to deal with their bullshit.
Extreme polarization is the natural result of the two party system. No matter your political beliefs, I think that finding ways to destroy the two party system should be everyone's top priority.
@soller Become a filthy neoliberal! We've got policies backed by data, we're pro-labor and pro-union, we want to fight climate change, we think reproductive rights are paramount, as are the rights protecting LGBTQIA+ people, we're against war while acknowledging that democracy must be able to defend itself, we're for open borders and free movement of people, we want to end the housing crisis by building more housing (and by taxing land), and finally, we demand a taco truck on every corner!
@soller as I always say, there should not be left or right. Creating our opinions from this or limiting all of our ideas to this it oversimplifying politics and creates a friend / enemy relationship which only leads to more extremism, more "anti-" and less concrete opinions
@Rathmox It also makes it nearly impossible to push reforms through, it creates an all or nothing mindset where a "side" needs full authoritarian control to implement their whole sweeping set of idiotic policies all at once to "own" the other side
I ask, "How left is left enough?" If your answer is something similar to "As left as I am, or more" there will always be a group of further left people who want to remove you for your "fascist" beliefs.
I could replace left with right and fascist with communist and that is exactly what is happening in other spaces (often filled with MAGAts) right now.
We can create inclusive communities that support the needs of all people without establishing thoughtcrime as a moderatable offense.
@soller@squeakypancakes depends on your definition of left/right. For me the definition is sth like "There are natural differences between people so the better/stronger people should have a better live and power over the weak" (right) and "the natural differences between people should be compensated by the society and all should have the same rights/happyness/power/..." (left). So for my definition a dictator can never be left no matter what they fight for.
@DrRac27@squeakypancakes If you define yourself to be the good side and anything else to be bad then I don't see that you make any discussions possible.
@soller@squeakypancakes I think the right side identifies with my definition too and also thinks they are the good side so I wouldn't say I defined it that way. Also thats not sth I made up, its what I found after searching for a definition for a while. There is no clear definition as thats something that evolved from the french parliament in the revolution. Also left and right changed quite a bit over time and I would say this is what was true at all times. I would love to hear your definition
@soller@squeakypancakes also the political opinion can not be expressed correctly by one dimension. I often see the political spectrum with 2 dimensions: left/right and anti-/autoritarian. This makes far more sense and still is probably way too simple for most discussions
@soller@DrRac27@squeakypancakes I don't think you can talk much about conservatism without acknowledging its core belief in natural social hierarchies. I don't think authoritarianism is inherently an expression of ideology as much as a means of social control. It's not necessarily right wing, but authoritarianism is a convenient way to police racial/gender/etc hierarchy rules and suppress access to knowledge and community support.
@soller I'm a gender minority in tech and a racial minority in my community, but the people who claim to "advocate" on my behalf are hurting me.
I now feel less able to safely identify and discuss sexism and racism.
If they really cared, they would listen. But they won't. Because we all know they're not entirely driven by a desire to make things better - their motivations are more complex and self-centred than that.
@soller The entire idea of "left" or "right" seems mind boggling to me. It causes so much tribalism without reason. Drama about seemingly pointless things just because person x is apparently connected group y.
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