EXACTLY. Downvotes and disagreement are the cornerstone of a functioning human society. It shows that we’re engaging in a discussion where various perspectives are presented. What I’m advocating for is not an echo chamber where everyone bows to some transient and fluctuating ideal of “correctness”, but a platform for the diversity of thoughts and ideas. So, the downvotes don’t bother me, but rather embolden the importance of speaking what I believe to be true and attempting to understand the beliefs of others. If people like me don’t speak up then we will just create echo chambers of intolerance on both sides of the spectrum. Debate me, prove me wrong. Downvotes don’t prove me wrong, they only prove discomfort and anger. Despite engaging in several discussions, I’ve yet to understand the benchmarks being used here for branding someone a ‘nazi’—a very strong term used liberally here and even against me in another thread for sharing views similar to what I’ve expressed here. I shouldn’t be called a nazi for believing in individual autonomy, it discredits a persons entire argument if they can so easily warp a terrible insult like that just to fit their own narrative. The ease with which people advocate for authoritarian censorship, despite having personal control over their content exposure, genuinely worries me. I find it unsettling how readily people will relinquish their intellectual freedom.

This is the approach I support. don’t like certain content? block, downvote, move on. don’t demand that everyone else be prevented from seeing it.

The problem here is what gets defined as bigotry and who gets to define it? I was called a nazi for expressing the same opinion I’m expressing here. Do you think that might be a bit much? How long until the bubble of acceptable thoughts and opinions shrinks so much YOU get defined as a nazi?

Who defines what counts as “bigotry”? I think the guys over at beehaw are extremely bigoted. does that mean that we should prevent everyone from speaking with them simply because I think they’re bigots?

I’m not talking about letting nazis be here, I’m talking about not calling everyone you don’t like nazis.

I don’t want exploding-heads. I would have blocked the instance myself if it hadn’t been blocked already. My issue is I don’t like having content blocked FOR me because I’m a functioning adult that can make my own decisions about what I see and think. You should be careful with how quick you are to cede control of what you’re allowed to see to others. Might make you pretty susceptible to hate and give you a false sense of reality.

Oh, I see. You’re delusional. You honestly think I should be having “polite discourse” with people who either want me dead, or are ok with voting for people who want me dead.

have you… talked with them? I try to speak with everyone and pretty much none of them actually want me dead. If you want to talk about voting criminals into power, look at the democrat party, who legit rigged the 2020 election to vote a known pedophile rapist and warmonger into power. a guy who literally pushed racist and homophobic policy. a guy who literally is fighting to repeal racial equality. a guy who literally openly said he’d deny me healthcare. should we then shut down conversation with every democrat voter? why are you so eager to shut down conversation? do you not realize that creates echochambers, which increases the extremism and polarization?

Because, see, what’s left? What makes a Republican want to claim to be a Republican other than the culture war bullshit?

If you actually spoke to them and tried to understand where they’re coming from, maybe you’d learn that :) instead you choose to shut down conversation, ban them, censor them, any chance you get. So of course you don’t understand why they hold the views and say the things they do! you never listened to what they had to say!

Regardless of how offended you might feel or say you are, the reality is that there are actually decent points to be made by people in both major political parties; as well as the varying 3rd parties. Personally, I found my own view on things that matches neither cleanly, so where’s that put me? should I just be on the side of censoring both democrats and republicans? or are you suggesting that anyone that holds any view other than your specific view should be censored and banned? is anything other than openly accepting and celebrating human sacrifice something that should be silenced, censored, and banned? serious question. is going against that “being hateful and intolerant”? where is your line? how about pedophilia? are people against pedophilia just “hateful bigots who are intolerant and mean for no real reason”? where is your line?

The reality is that there’s a lot of, and growing, opposition to progressive ideology because it is causing harm to real people. Surely, if something is causing harm, we should try to stop that harm? IMO the proper thing to do is to try and base our views on science (not feelings), and to try and heal and help as many people as possible reach their potential, while also avoiding societal setups that would inevitably lead to problems. Is this an unreasonable stance?

They haven’t stood for “fiscal responsibility” or “small government” since W was in office.

I think you’ll find if you talk to a lot of registered republicans that they do actually hold those views, but that many of the establishment career politicians hold different views than the people voting for them. Ironically, people who are against sending obscene amount of money to ukraine are now called “bigots”. so if they push for small gov and fiscal responsibility, they’re a bigot. but if they don’t, they’re a hypocrite? aren’t you being unfair?

You think I owe them a civil conversation?

I don’t think you owe anyone anything. I think that you’re in the wrong, and are an authoritarian tyrant and bigot yourself, if you try to shut down a conversation between two consenting people who are completely unrelated to you and aren’t addressing you. If you don’t wish to speak to someone, that’s on you, feel free to ignore them or block them. But it says a lot about you if the second you run into a disagreement, or if you think someone’s doing something wrong, instead of helping correct their behavior or ideas, you instead shut down the conversation and let them keep doing what they’re doing. Do you have no feeling of obligation to help improve society? if not, I’d say that puts you as worse than them. While they may be misinformed or perhaps hateful due to their ignorance, you are openly admitting that you don’t wish to improve society. I’d much prefer a misinformed and ignorant group who want to do the right thing, than someone who neglects the possibility of improving society.

Every server we allow those people on freely will become exploding heads or 4 chan.

I thought “reality has a liberal bias” and all that? Surely, if we allow people to discuss, to debate, to converse with each other, and to let everyone speak rather than a few, we should arrive at what is true, yeah? if you’re saying people will become conservative after fair uncensored debate and discussion, then surely they are right? No one is asking for 4chan. there’s a difference between fair, uncensored, civil polite discussion, and shitflinging slurs around. exploding-heads themselves have a ban on slurs.

Go look at r/politicalcompassmemes if you need an example.

One of the best subreddits for actual discussion between people of differing ideas? I’d prefer if more places where like that, personally. What issue do you have with them? They’re a meme sub but the civility there is awe inspiring.

Their bad-faith rhetoric, carefully-stated death threats, and direct personal attacks will drive everyone who isn’t one of them away, leaving only Nazis.

I can’t say that’s ever been my experience in right wing spaces. I’ve only ever had that experience in progressive spaces. Perhaps what you’re experiencing isn’t a problem with right wing people, but rather the hostility and polarization between two groups that are constantly at each other’s throats because they refuse to hear each other out?

If the admins allow their speech, but don’t allow us to say “Fuck off, weeb, nobody likes you” without censure, then guess who gets to control the “discourse”?

Why do you feel that their insults shouldn’t be allowed, but yours should? Isn’t that unfair? Either we prevent all insults and have civil discussion (my preference), or we allow all insults from both sides. Surely that’s fair?

You wanna see that shit, you enjoy being called slurs and told to go kys, you are free to seek out the communities who will do that for you. But fuck all the way off with telling me I must put up with it, too.

The opposite is actually happening here. You are trying to push your content preferences onto everyone else. All I’m saying is: let the users decide. If you wanna block them, go ahead. Craft your own echochamber. But why should you being offended at civil discussion mean that no one else can discuss things?

Oh, I can block them? No I fucking can’t. I blocked you days ago, and your shit still shows up in my notifications.

Fair enough. This seems to be a bug then. I agree that should be fixed. blocking should prevent you from seeing the blocked content.

…you… honestly thought… the fediverse… was supposed to be a centralized content aggregator…?

My understanding was that I’d sign up on a single site, and then have access to content from across the federated sites. Not: have to sign up an account on each individual site, and only see that one site’s content. Isn’t that latter way just a centralized platform? where is the “federated” part then?

What… uh, so, what… what do you think the fediverse is?

Sign up on one site -> see content from all the sites. is this not the point of the fediverse? are you really saying the fediverse is: sign up on one site -> see only that site’s content? because that just sounds like a regular centralized platform to me.

You accusing them of being a Nazi was inevitable it seems. You don’t even realize the irony.