Hear me out: I am a leftist. Don’t ban me - this is something i’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently.

I mean, at a macro level comparing the far left to the alt-right – we seem to be a lot more focused on egalitarianism (while disagreeing on the means to that end). The alt-right seems to be focused on creating an ethno state, pretty much. Comparing them, the morality clearly skews towards our direction.

However, what concerns me is how we (you and i) are further insulating ourselves into message boards. When I first think about insulation, what comes up to my mind are those idiots who get brainwashed by alt-right facebook propaganda. They interact with it, then that’s all they see on their wall, and all of a sudden they are in an echo chamber. We’ve all heard about these and know how bad they are.

My first thought is: “Oh, well, I’m educated and I read books and theory. I’m not like them. Alt righters are just dumb ass facebook moms who haven’t read a book in years.”

My second thought is: “Oh, shit. I’m insulating myself JUST like them, though.”

I don’t know. I’m just kind of conflicted. Left ideologies aren’t morally bad, unlike alt-righters. But, at the same time we are creating an echo chamber, just like how /r/thedonald did with thedonald.win – after we both got banned by a traditional news outlet.

What are the effects of that? Is this good or bad?

  • Gorn [they/them,he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    4 years ago

    From a sociological perspective, society is being siloed and fractured/polarized by… the internet. It’s a function of being able to choose your own media, all the time. During the Age of Spoken Word, you only heard what there was to hear. For much of the history of empire, this has been stories told by bards, paid by kings. In the modern era, state propaganda and corporate media reigned, and their narratives were the only ones you heard on your radio and in your newspaper.

    Bam. The internet. We choose every little story we see. And we choose them largley through social media agreggators: and we choose those too.

    Suddenly you’re a lot less likely to think like your next door neighbour does. This isn’t inherently good or bad, and neither is participating in online communities. But is does have effects, whether left or ‘right’, and you’re right to point them out.

    It’s harder to disagree now; we’re used to only agreeing, or disagreeing over minute differences. This has real, measurable impacts on social trust and societal cohesion.

    But probably the biggest impact, that scares me the most: we can’t even agree on a basic, shared set of facts right now.

    Talking to 5 random people on the street now is now likely to reveal 5 fundamentally different understandings of reality, and epistemology (how we know what to believe). It’s hard when half the people think that 5g is aliens who invented corona to put on the facemask blah blah blah.

    That’s the scary piece to me: siloing in communities has made us extremely vulnerable to having our worldview divorced from material reality. This has, of course, always been true; hence the materialist focus of Marxism.

    But I think it’s increasing, and I don’t know what’s gonna stop it. One point of optimism: communtiies like this exist that are materialist and rational, which self-correct beliefs and can actually get people more in tune with reality, even if much of the internet is doing the opposite.

    Thanks for the food for thought, comrade, and much love :red-fist:

  • chmos [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    4 years ago

    You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If those five people are all of the neoliberal mindset Americans have by default, you’re in a bad spot. If those 5 people are all on this site, you’re also in a bad spot.
    If you’re concerned you aren’t being exposed to enough chud viewpoints go spend 5 minutes on a YouTube comment section. The difference between us and Donald is that most of us can’t live in an echo chamber in the real world like they can, so this site is a relief from the real world and not a force of intensifying nascent beliefs of capitalism and racism that people grew up with.

    • crispygrasshopper [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      4 years ago

      Honestly this is a really simple but accurate statement. That’s what it comes down to. We’re similar to t_d in that we’re both on the outer edges of “mainstream” acceptability, and we’re not apologetic about it. But like, we want human rights for everyone, and they… don’t?

  • gayhobbes [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    4 years ago

    This is a bad take, chief, and here’s a few thoughts on why.

    TheDonald was a cesspit of hatred, bile, and classism that went unchecked for years. It wasn’t only tolerated, it flourished on reddit and turned the rest of it sour. If not for Chapo providing a counterweight to their incessant raids and subtle gaslighting of local community subreddits, it would have been even worse. You want echo chambers? TheDonald already was one. They could exist unchallenged in their space despite sorely needing it.

    The left has rarely been afforded the same luxury to gather together, to speculate, to debate, to exist, without being broken up violently by the right and their cronies. This is nothing like what TheDonald is doing because they’re creating an escapist echo chamber to jerk each other off and clap each other on the back for being well-off white dipshits.

    We are creating a space to safely interact with each other, a rarity that has not been afforded, especially in such volume, for the left.

    Just read any thread about China, about electoralism, about anything. You’re having higher level discussions because you don’t have to drag down the discourse to 101 level horseshit just to make your point. This is hardly an echo chamber. Your thoughts here do not go unchallenged. Our ideology is not that of fear.

    So stop worrying and post already, Jesus.