I can’t say I’ve been using Lemmy for long, but from the get-go it seems that the communities, memes, opinions that get upvoted seem to reflect left-wing ideas.
I’m certainly not complaining, it honestly feels like a breathe of fresh air compared to other social media sites that seem to shift further and further to the far right, though I am curious to hear why this might be the case? Does FOSS tend to attract more left-wing minded people, or does this just happen to be a broadly left-wing microcosm/bubble?
Hope you all have a great day.
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I mean you signed up on lemmy.marxism-leninism. Yeah they tend to lean left, lol.
But yeah your observation indeed is is correct. Not only does lemmy lean left it often leans pretty far left too. It might feel like a breathe of fresh air but it’s still a bubble and echo chamber. It’s the same as truth social but the exact opposite. Nothing wrong with that per-se but it’s a good thing to keep in mind. Factual information is regularly downvoted here not because it’s false but because it doesn’t fit the narrative.
I think the idea that MLs are a far left ideology is pretty questionable honestly. But that is the conventional wisdom certainly.
The definition most people use for left and right isn’t really consistent or coherent. If you do try to iron out those inconsistencies, you’ll find that MLs don’t really fit with the rest of the left.
Because reality has a left-wing bias.
Damnit this would’ve been my immediate response, too.
Heh. Because lefties are just conservatives who got mugged by reality, and once that happens there’s no going back? ;-)
I don’t know what that has to do with anything. I’m a lefty, life has never mugged me. I’m a leftist because bad things happen to everyone and the solutions isn’t to hurt people until they’re better people. Giving people time and resources just makes people and society better.
In general and on the aggregate, I am with you.
However, as an anecdote, I took in a couple of very conservative Christians who got evicted, gave them time (to pay off bills) and resources (food, water, power, internet, a bed, a roof…now at 4 months), and they’re not lifting a finger to help around the house and expect our kid to do their dishes and take out their trash.
Sometimes people are just selfish greedy assholes and there’s no changing that even with time and resources. And trust me they will be getting evicted from my house quite soon (with proper notification by state law).
I hope this experience doesn’t make me a bitter old fool. I truly do. Because I love the concept of helping others, it just tends to backfire more than I’d like.
One could argue that as alot of us are exredditors we would be the more progressive or left side of the crowd. Something happened we didn’t like so we left it behind for something we hope will be better and put in the effort to make it so as opposed to staying with what we know and really waiting things out before choosing a new direction. It would have been easy to stay with reddit, hell I could go back in an instant and it would be like I never left, but I chose this new path and I’m sticking with it. That is what progress is all about
People seeking to be free from corporate overlords, and desiring a place to speak their minds and who also don’t have an issue with spending a little time and effort tend to have a more liberal mindset. Regrettably as primates, we also have a tendency to form tribes and give short shrift to any viewpoints outside of those we ourselves believe in. I personally would prefer a dialogue of equals where we can debate our differences and agree to disagree or even find the places where we do agree and can come together. However, that enlightened state of being escapes most all of us. Instead, I will regress to thumping my chest and hooting at you.
throws poo
the right loves corporations it doesn’t go out of its way to avoid them
It skews young, and young skews left.
Now if only young voted…
Lemmy users seem older than most social media to me. Why is Star Trek TNG so popular here if not?
My guess is the fat part of the bell curve is 25-40 here, probably similar to Twitter, younger than Facebook, older than tik tok and maybe Instagram.
Facebook is basically a dinosaur. The demographic that were the first users ran away right around the time when their parents got accounts.
Re-runs.
TNG has young fans and you can have enough old farts like me around to populate a TNG forum while the whole is still mostly younger.
People looking for a Reddit alternative don’t tend to be conservatives and liberals. r/worldnews fits their needs perfectly.
Thus the migration is either to a left platform like Lemmy, or truth social etc for super right winger.
Right-wing propaganda would have you believe that most good things are left-wing (and thus bad).
Right-wing propaganda would have you believe that most good things are left-wing
One of the few things I agree with them on!
Education.
No for real, a lot of right-wing thinking comes from just parroting disinformation and being in their own echo chamber circles.
Educated people are more likely to ‘lean left’:
Environment: Higher education institutions often emphasize critical thinking, questioning of traditional norms, and exposure to diverse perspectives. This can lead individuals to adopt more progressive or liberal views.
Diversity: College and university settings are typically more diverse, exposing students to different cultures, ideas, and lifestyles.
Rationalism: Educated individuals may place a higher value on scientific reasoning and empirical evidence, which can align more with policies and positions typically associated with the left, such as support for climate change action and public health initiatives.
Perspective: Higher education can lead to an understanding of economic inequality and systemic issues. Educated individuals might support policies aimed at reducing inequality and improving social welfare.
Career: Many educated individuals work in fields such as academia, healthcare, and social services, where left-leaning values like equity, public good, and social justice are prevalent.
Generational: Younger generations, who are more likely to be college-educated today than in the past, tend to have more progressive views on social issues, such as LGBTQ+ rights and racial equality.
Education is also ‘pushed’ by a lot of adults when I was a kid. I thought it was kinda normal / lame because duh, of course it’s important. I didn’t get grasp deepl WHY until I was older and realized it’s really a root causal issue of today’s problems.
Educated people are more likely to ‘lean left’
I would qualify that as “Educated people with a conscience and a good ethical or moral base”.
There are plenty of very smart, very evil right wingers out there.
Mitch McConnell, Manchin, Shkrelli, Ben Shapiro… I suppose you have a point.
For the most part, the same ethos that powers the Fediverse is the same ethos that powers all open-source. So naturally the people that would be more keen to adopt it are the people who believe in the Open Source model in general.
I can’t think of anything less right-wing than open source; it’s essentially software communism (“from each according to their ability to each according to their need”) Sharing isn’t a right-wing value.
I think it’s more that you don’t get many right-wing extremists and the mods don’t protect the ones that do exist from seeing things they don’t like.
There are still a lot of neoliberal kind of conservatives on lemmy, and then also right-wing types in the form of tankies, but for the most part I think the light touch by most of the moderators means that facts (which favor the “left”) tend to be allowed to persist in a way they don’t on many social media that see profit in extremist content.
I think people here tend to question and fact-check posts and comments a lot, which is a healthy thing. Now some say reality skews left, in which case could it be that the right have left because the left is right?
the right have left because the left is right
Nice. I’m stealing this!
Tech-savvy people tend to trend left. And with the reddit exodus, only those that cared about API access and privacy left.
I don’t like being labeled as a political side. I’m here because there is no ads and it’s free and open source. If that is part of a political ideology, I am not attached to it. Lemmy is very left which is fine but sometimes it goes a little too left in some instances.
