-Looks out window. Lawn’s engulfed in flames. Closes window shades.-
“All better.”
I mean, if there’s not anything I can do beyond dumping a thimble of water on the fire six months from now I’d rather just die happy.
Two things
- Politics is for Power provides a pretty good model for thinking about this https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Politics-Is-for-Power/Eitan-Hersh/9781982116798
There’s a lot of political hobbyism on social media in general and Lemmy is really bad for it. Take for example the constant Elon Musk rage bait. No one is doing anything productive with that information. They’re just getting mad
- Social media, in general, isn’t a good way to get informed. It makes you feel really in touch but when a lot of the time you’re getting biased and polarizing that is often as enraging as it is unproductive
We treat politics like entertainment and it’s making our politics worse. Personally I try to limit my exposure to politics that I don’t think will be productive. It might feel like the most important thing in the moment but it’s often a huge waste of time
closes blinds
You make some great points. I’ve seen this in action locally - it’s a tiny minority who actually make the effort to change things and they have an amazing success rate, in part because they are often unopposed. The barrier to entry is deceptively low. I think I’m going to read that book.
I whole heartedly agree, and I’ve added that book to my “To Read” list
Thanks
Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.
- Douglas Adams
Great quote, but missing a rather crucial bit at the end:
“And are you?” “No. That’s where it all falls down, of course.” “Pity”, said Arthur. “It sounded like rather a good lifestyle otherwise.”
That is such a hard lesson learned; being happy rather than right. It’s one I’m trying to learn more and more, and it has helped.
RIP Douglas Adams. He was an intergalactic treasure. 👍 🦏
Tbf, Lemmy is a place to unwind for many people, we have enough boring exhausting shit going on irl.
It’s a link aggregator, if you don’t like politics you’re in the wrong format of social media.
Ah right, because those other forms of social media aren’t also infested with politics.
Have you considered the fact that not everybody lives in the US?
Better post about how doomed you are, that’ll fix it.
But for real, some of the communities I’m in have a rule about not posting about negative stories without adding a way to take action, a way to contribute, etc so that it’s not just doom scrolling negativity. Bad news is everywhere and it’s easy to find, anyone can do that.
Taking those bad feelings and channeling them towards something other than wallowing in how bad things are is the important part, not posting and reading. Someone who reads one bad news story a week and calls their representative about it is doing infinitely more than someone who reads every negative story out there to stay “informed”.
I LOVE the idea of including how to take action. As much as Lemmy loves all the guillotine and cranial ventilation comments, they’re not actionable or productive for 99.99% of the user base.
What if they’re not American
There is a global authoritarian campaign to undermine democracies across the globe, the US is not the only country having serious trouble right now.
The picture is specifically about not wanting to hear about US politics
I’ve bad news about the military base next door to them.
America sneezes, and the world catches a cold.
Most of us have depressing shit happening at home, we don’t need to constantly be reminded of the dumpster fire that is US politics. We have even less influence on that shit than people having to live in that failed state.
Now that’s the Doomer mindset!
I post to Lemmy a lot and generally try my best to not contribute to the doom and gloom for this reason. I think there’s a difference between wanting to stay informed and getting addicted to the outrage/doom posts.
I’m mostly here to joke around with people and nerd out in a handful of niche interest communities.
And we love you for it.
<3
Bless you for it. All this place seems to to be is Musk rage bait, jerking off Linux, and Star Trek memes, and only one of those things is acceptable.
Phrased in exactly the way I’d expect from a plain, simple tailor.
Hey now, there’s nothing wrong with star trek.
We need more of you and less of us. I’m getting sucked into it too. Time to start posting cute pictures of my pets.
Niche communities… Sure.
Yeah, the doomposting is intense on Lemmy. I’ve taken up a policy of just downvoting any negative posts I see, even if I like the post otherwise, just to tamp down the negativity a bit around here.
The best and worst thing about Lemmy is how niche we are. It keeps out the “mainstream”, but unfortunately we’re easily inundated by perpetually-online doomers.
Also, I would recommend blocking users moreso than communities. Once you start looking for it, you realize that like 90% of these posts are made by just a few people/bots.
…trying to determine if your post is positive or negative, up or down…
Tell ya what, you up vote it and I’ll down vote it and all should be right in the world.
What shall I do with your post?
Should we invoke quantum string theory?
No, we just have to get into a pedantic and derivative argument and we should be all good!
Sounds like 99% of replies to my posts, so we’re good.
No it doesn’t. I can’t believe you’d say such a thing. Those were all well thought out and valid replies.
/s
Good question, I suppose I’m being negative about negativity.
Honestly, feel free to downvote, you have my blessing lol.
If you make a decent negative argument, in a perfect world it should be an upvote.
“If”, tho’…
Normally I would agree 100%. I’m specifically more harsh here just because I find the ratio to be so off.
Dude, you’re almost doing too well to downvote!
Do worse!
Yeah. I just take a quick peek at their comment history to see if I should just block them. Works great.
I plead with you to check mine just a wee bit longer,
i paid someone a compliment back in the day.
Plus, your writing style is adorable!
And this is why the whole check their comments to judge them as an entire person is a terrible idea
You respond to negativity by downvoting everything negative?
Yes.
Downvoting isn’t “negativity”, it’s a method for users to define what does and does not contribute to the content of the platform. By downvoting this content, I’m voicing my opinion that negativity is overrepresented on Lemmy, and encouraging (however slightly) more positive content to be posted.
That’s the ideal. In reality, it is 98% of the time a disagree button and that is how everyone perceives it.
I completely agree that what you’re doing should be how it is, but sadly that’s just not reality.
If only more people would understand this, we would already have world peace.
Also, I would recommend blocking users moreso than communities. Once you start looking for it, you realize that like 90% of these posts are made by just a few people/bots.
I wish there was an easy way to block everyone from an instance, like *@shittylemmyinstance.poop or something. Yeah, I do have one instance blocked to avoid the content, but the posters seem fine, but there are a few where blocking users one at a time is like whack-a-mole.
Agreed. Instance blocking needs to be more granular. Blocking posts from one is great, but it doesn’t keep the peanut gallery there from brigading the comments.
Yes!
Users are consistent!
eg: I’m an arrogant asshole.
got it. banned. /s
I keep going back and forth on blocking them.
So far I haven’t because I’ve been using their success/failure as a barometer of the situation here. It can be exhausting though
I find that switching to my ‘subscribed’ feed and sorting by newest weeds out 95% of the doom and outrage. Most single-topic communities are really positive. You very occasionally get a itinerant doomer or naysayer coming out of the woodwork and being rabidly cynical, but in something like a gardening or saxophone community their comment always just looks silly and out of place and is usually easy to ignore.
Unfortunately I’m cursed with a preference for opt-out (all + block lists) post filtering rather than opt-in (subscriptions). I realize this causes issues that are entirely on me, but especially with Lemmy being so small, I like to cast as wide a net as I can.
You won’t escape US politics, it’s just not possible
It is a cancer that will infect whatever community you attempt to find refuge in
GOOD LUCK FRIEND
It goes deeper than that. Like it or not, US politics have an influence on the rest of the world. And that’s why it’s so important for everyone to follow international news, no matter where you live. Like it or not, this shit affects us all.
I hide posts when I’m done with them and I swear to god these political and news communities are posting the same things over and over again. I’ve seen the same post more than once.
With all these posts that require voting i have only one question, “how can i vote if i am not USA citizen?”
Looks like you’re voting for Trump, then.
Obviously a Russian bot.
What posts require voting???
deleted by creator
You’re obviously not the target of the post
deleted by creator
I don’t know the exact metrics of Lemmy but I’d wager it skews US centric. Just block the people posting them, it works.
deleted by creator
lemmy is more US-centric than reddit and twitter combined.
If you came to lemmy to escape the anarchy and chaos that is Trump, you best be turning around.
/all does seem to be devolving into just a shitty news feed of US bullshit. I try and block as much as possible, but it’s not perfect. Lemmy needs a way to categorise and filter out stuff like blatant news links. I want memes and discussion, not ads and news.
The Political Propaganda machine in the US is now at full steam given how near their Presidential Election is, so we get innundated with “vote X” and “X is great” posts along with “Y is bad” ones.
Advertising has become so abusive that you can’t browse anymore without and AdBlocker, and Political Propaganda is just a more manipulative form of advertising, often pushed by people deeply emotional bound to “their club” (funnilly enough, I also avoid Sports stuff, as it suffers from exactly the same problem) hence far more insiduous and aggressive.
Then to make it even worse, this electoral cycle in the US is all about doom-mongering with not a single message of hope or a bright vision for the Future: in other words, everybody is selling Fear, which at least in traditional Advertising is uncommon.
Telling people to vote is not propaganda it’s a call to action, the one that is a duty to all citizens regardless of country.
You keep using that word far too generally which takes away from your message.
Lastly, it’s not just annual doom mongering. I’m so sorry you have to see it but it’s a big fucking deal and completely unprecedented for us as an entire goddamn country. Our political plights do NOT just boil down to more advertising.
We are fighting for our rights and those of us less fortunate. We’re talking not just freedoms but lives. This is not hyperbole, people are dying and more will die and suffer if we do not shout and scream about it.
I’m sorry our election isn’t easier for you to ignore goddamn. Your final line of how there isn’t a single iota of hope just shows how full of complete shit you are. Shame on you for lying like this.
Bullshit!
If it was about “just vote” you wouldn’t care who for.
That post of yours is such a perfect example of that very sleazy political propaganda I was talking about that the very first paragraph is already deceitful misrepresentation.
Then follows the customary use of political slogans from the Book Of Vote Lesser Evil: it’s “unprecedented” vote - again - “fighting for our rights” and, most hilarious of all for the “less fortunate” (trully beyond belief in a country with a grand total of 4 national politicians who are leftwing, and the rest being overwhelmingly hard-right ultra-neolibs or far-right fascists).
The whole thing reads like somebody who has swallowed the Cool Aid and is giving themselves an excuse to pester everybody else, all very similar to religious nutters proselytizing.
From the outside it’s like watching the Russian Elections but for a country with a Power Duopoly instead of a Power Monopoly, complete with people in their minds boosting way out of proportion the small differences between those two cheeks of the same arse that pass for Political Parties, to convince themselves they actually have a choice (lest they realize having the country governed for the many, not for the fatcats, is never going to happen in that electoral system and they have to do something about it) in some kind of country-sized Stockholm Syndrome.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.
The worst part is that the articles they post aren’t even good. They’re bias almost to the point of being bullshit.
You’re gonna end up with an empty feed real quick 😭
I live in an even shittier country with even worse future prospects, so for me they are still positive messages, and i’m in ave that they are on a totally different level on the maslow pyramid
How is it going in suicide central, elvtárs?
Imagine having a choice in an election.
US vote rules were updated last time in 1965, here rules change before each election, usually 3-4 month prior.
I noticed recently that they stopped publishing 23:59 laws. You know laws which are published on the official website one minute before midnight, and they are valid from the next day. I dont know why they stopped, maybe they did this because it was during a state of emergency?
Migration emergency is still ongoing since 2015, last time they extended until 2024 sept. We had covid emergency and inflation emergency as well. I think the “there is a war in a neighboring country” emergency is still ongoing. I don’t know because the “WAR” billboard ads were replaced with “join the army” and “Orbán is PEACE” ads, I dont know if they are related to this
Lol they have debates there, in television. We had debates, last time it was in 2006.
I’m looking forward to the 2026 elections, its possible that something will change, lol
Before the EU election each opposition party got 10 minutes to speak in the state television. This was an improvement from the 2022 election, they got only 5 minutes each that time. They cannot get any other screentime between elections.
But because of my work I met with guys from Tanzania, and some were coming from some *stan, (maybe kyrgiz? I dont remember) so I know from them that it could be even worse
all of the posts are doom scrolling
That’s not what doom scrolling is dummy
It’s kind of unavoidable honestly, and no one should be shocked. Tons of people are finally learning that democracy in the US died years ago. I usually just scroll past or engage in a limited manner. I already have other communities to discuss that stuff and Lemmy is mostly an escape.
All with the blaring self-righteousness of - “I lifted a finger once. Nothing happened overnight. Never again.”
Cheered on by those actively participating in concern trolling divide-and-conquer political campaign tactics, both from within the country and from halfway across the world in China and goddamned russia.
