Lemmy users lack nuace and it stops actual discussion.

Welcome to the Internet? It's not just Lemmy lol

It is quite often that responses seem to come from school age children who just discovered [insert edgy counter-culture ideology], and all of their responses and world views revolve around a rudimentary desire for that ideological utopia, with very little consideration given to sociology or economics. I suppose that is actually who's responding a lot of the time. All real world considerations are discarded, and any issues you identify are perceived as stupid/shill/Trumper/dummy/capitalist drivel with zero consideration given.

I find Lemmy significantly worse than reddit was in this regard. The number of times I've had my different (not unpopular outside of lemmy) opinion met immediately with personal insults is way higher here in the few months I've been here than my years with reddit.

I've just been learning not to engage on any of the lemmy propaganda areas, and that leaves me with a lot less active communities.

Sure, but have you tried using Linux, going vegan and guillotining billionaires?

Like I get it, we all know capitalism is bad, but it feels like every time I or anyone go towards discussing the steps that need to be taken to address current looming problems in the short term, someone has to jump in and shut it down with "capitalism bad >:[ " and tear down any idea presented because its not complete and total destruction of the current economic model.

That is literally why my instance finally defederated from .ml Every 3rd comment from someone there was exactly that regardless of what community you were in. It was exhausting. Lemmygrad and Hexbear were already blocked here, and once the .ml peanut gallery was gone, it was like "wow, this is kind of enjoyable again".

Do I miss a few FOSS communities that were more active there than their counterparts elsewhere? Yeah, a little. But, overall, the experience is just so much better after they were blocked. It's not even that I really disagree with them on everything, it's just....STFU already, stop brigading, and maybe say something constructive for once.

I dunno man, I didn't come here looking to contribute to or find a plan to fix the world. I came here to doom scroll and look at memes.

I feel like many people here are literally unreasonable. Any person with any faith at all is an idiot, all enlightened atheists are superior... FuckCars seems to be leaking and anyone who has to drive for their job is hated on... Linux is the only option, you should never, ever use Windows for anything... etc...

Like, not everything is black and white! The real world is shades of grey and often requires compromise. But the loudest voices here seem to be extremists that slap down any comment that isn't 100% what they believe in. It's exhausting...

capitalism bad >:[

They also have a reddit-scale visceral hatred for religion lmao

I actually appreciate the flow of opinions and information from people with other viewpoints and political opinions. Yeah people can be too intense like you say. I've really enjoyed learning about politics from a communist's perspective. I was sort of blown away by people who disliked liberals but their talking points weren't those of the American right wing. They were leftist communists, and their viewpoints are really fascinating. I've really gone into the rabbit hole learning about class warfare and historical actions of communist countries. If people are trying to spread their viewpoints they should be able to make compelling arguments to support the things they advocate for. I'd be happy to digest more communist information/propaganda/marketing it's really well thought out stuff.

It's not a Lemmy thing, it's an internet thing. People have become lazy and instead of discussing things will just vote and move on.

Makes for a very boring and stale world.

In fact I agree with your "echo chamber" comments, by design the servers and communities foster a group of like-minded individuals and the moderation is enforcing the same kind of thinking and rules.

At the same time, I find it more possible to get nuanced takes, back and forth discussion that isn't just troll bait or shouting matches here on Lemmy than elsewhere. People approach some topics with more curiousity, are a bit more willing to admit they are wrong/corrected about something and listen to each other's perspectives. Productive communication is a two way street. There's still a group of jerks, trolls and bad actors, but it's a monumental effort to moderate them away and they're virtually inevitable in any populated anonymous online space.

I don't really mind if something is downvoted for being unpopular unless it's an obvious troll/flamer. That includes people that talk about capitalism's benefits. I know there are cases of missed references or sarcasm, I am a proponent of /s to avoid misunderstanding for that reason.

What sort of thing would you like to have a nuanced discussion on?

Whenever I have a broad vague discussion of the world that is subject to significant interpretations and assumptions it creates a lot of friction too. Contraversy is one place where Lemmy's high response rates work against it.

To the people doing "capitalism bad" replies I implore you to check out socialist economists. Fleshed out descriptions of socialism and communism usually discuss emulating the successes of industrial capitalism while mitigating the failures. The idea of armed revolutionary communism is largely a mess that only ever worked in rural environments.

Want deeper discussion? I'm reading "being no one" by Thomas Metzinger. In simplistic terms, it's a scientific book about how you aren't a self, but a constantly running process. I'm very down to discuss it.

Of course, people aren't using Lemmy for that level of discussion generally. They're using it to entertain themselves while shitting, or they're urgently trying to push agendas. That's the internet these days. People geeking on specific subjects into granular detail is on life support in tiny communities.

Humans have been trying to make Capitalism "work" for the past 400 years. It. Doesn't. Work. We're now at an extinction level event due to just how atrociously bad Capitalism is for the human species (and all species for that matter) .

If you block unhelpful people you improve the Internet for yourself.

Yup. That's why I started up a new community:

!actual_discussion@lemmy.ca

To quote our pinned thread:

Why did I make this community? Well, mostly in response to the rest of Lemmy and the way many otherwise interesting discussion threads fall apart into downvoting and groupthink.

I don’t like people making baseless accusations and defend people on all sides when people are wrong about their opposition. I hate it when people think they know what others think and project incorrect (and often evil) bullshit on each other. It’s important to maintain solid reasoning and conclusions, not just one or the other.

I hate people being wilfully wrong because their group fetishizes a certain angle of the truth instead of the boring reality of the situation.

Ideas are important and I don’t feel we can get out of the current shitty slump we’re in with political discourse unless we are able to clearly articulate ourselves and discuss the world we’re in.

You (and all of you who feel the way you do) are welcome. You won't always agree with everyone there. That's okay. We talk about it. We're grown-ups.

I discovered Lemmy and Hacker news at roughly the same time, and the difference in comment quality is striking. Obviously HN is a lot more mature platform, and more specialised, but still... People over there are lamenting the quality of their comments and saying they're not what they used to be, but the majority are interesting and constructive

I mean you're right, but I found the same on other platforms.

I think being contrarian just feels like engagement. When you're taking a shit beating on some commenter about how bad capitalism is a quick hit.

I think the format of most social media encourages this type of simple pre-thought positions on things.

I think this is a general problem with online discussion. You can have more productive discussion about capitalism/socialism/anarchism in a bar in the deep south than you can online. Online people tend to forget there’s another person with a brain on the other side of the conversation (if they even intended to be having a conversation, which people mostly don’t). We know from every day life that people don’t speak carefully in conversation—you really have to be constantly extending the benefit of the doubt. Online no one extends the benefit of the doubt even though we know most comments are off the cuff on the toilet.

There are some neat online tools for structuring discussions like Kialo that I think make some headway in diminishing the effect, but drinking a beer with someone while discussing still works better as far as having an interlocutor who is actually considering what you’re saying and who might actually be willing to shift their own view.

Internet is better equipped for quippy one liners and getting (bastardized) ideas into the zeitgeist.

I definitely feel like I can get away with posting against group think here on lemmy far more than I did on reddit.

People don't like hearing, "Look, we just gotta suffer under capitalism for a while longer because the rich aren't done having their fun."

I completely agree. However, I also think its better than 'most' internet places.

There is a down-vote brigade around any kind of criticism of a knee jerk reaction people are having to a headline. I think because of the current political climate, nuance around responsibility for the state of things simply isn't suffered, which I do understand the sentiment. However, I've also been pleasantly surprised at the number of 3+ deep comment threads, which seems to be about where the nuance appears.

Its really the knee jerk downvoters and one line commenters who do actually lack critical thinking skills, but this isn't unique to lemmy. Its all over, hackernews has them too, there is simply a larger effort to 'appear smart' on hn than lemmy. Lemmy is more casual, which is fine. This is a space for casual discussion, and hot takes are fine and should be welcome.

I'll use a political example, such as my concern around how much water carrying I see for groups like congressional Democrats. If you push back on something coming from NYT as being a 'Democratic win', you'll be very quickly downvoted below 50%. However, I don't think the lack of nuance is because of lemmy or the demographic here. I think its from a place of real fear around what might happen if the US loses its democracy to fascism that is generally palpable across the internet and offline as well. People are materially very afraid, and reacting without nuance right now, and I think the fear is justified. However, if we want to find solutions, we need to maintain a clear head and keep discussions happening. Its open forums like Lemmy where opinions are made and nuanced developed; there needs to be space for that.

This same point can be extended to issues around global war, climate change, the rise of global fascism, the usurping of generations of potential by the oligarchical class, any of the innumerable ills we are currently staring down the barrel of. Its a stressful time and people are rightfully scared and worried. Scared worried people don't do nuance. They react. Up for things they think they agree with, down for things they don't. No nuance.

Largely I agree with the point, but I don't think its a lemmy thing in the current climate.

why do you expect random people on the internet to be smart enough to be able to have a position and defend it for such a complex thing as the economy?

I think you'll find a lot of nuance for more specific matters, but not for something this complex and abstract. You'll mostly get emotional responses and opinions. If you want to have an intellectual discussion on economics, I don't think this is the right place.

You could also be part of the solution and create a community for that type of content. You could be in charge of moderating it, to keep away the users that you consider are echo-chambering without actual contributions.... I mean, if you really care about actual solutions.

This is a great video for anyone trying to understand why those types of comments happen

Remember most people are teenagers.

I wish there was an option to judge the content independently of form. A 2 types of karma kind of system.

There are times I strongly disagree with the idea behind the post, but it's really nicely written. And then there are other times when I agree with the general gist of a post, but OP is still a dick and deserves a slap.

Just ask them to point to a successful communist country.

Last I heard Vietnam was one and doing good, but that’s it.

Capitalism IS bad. You want solutions? Stop thinking any of them are going to involve capitalism.

If you need a limb removed because it threatens the whole body, we just remove the limb; we don’t try to save the limb at the expense of the body. Capitalism is the limb that needs to be removed.

It's a shame that this discussion so frequently centers around the political discussions, but this has definitely seeped into the broader discourse. Short, low-effort comments with no actual content are nearly always at the top. The only solution I can see is to create some heavily moderated spaces where low-effort comments will not fly, but we've seen time and time again that lemmy users are more anti-moderation than most.

I actually find the conversations on Lemmy to be a lot more educated and in depth than the ones I've seen on Reddit or Twitter over the years. Sure, you still get a couple raving idiots chime in to accuse you of crimes against humanity occasionally, but it's not worth fretting over.

I think this is mostly because it's a smaller community overall so when you're in those politically minded subreddits, it's all the same opinion. I think it'll change as lemmy grows and more people with diverse experiences and outlooks join the discussions.

110% agree.

I could say "you know, I guess I can kinda see why people thought free market capitalism would work"

And someone will come out of the woodwork like "I can't believe you think billionaires profiting off exploitation is actually a good idea"

First of all, no? Lol I'm saying I understand why people might think it would work, but for some reason forget that we as a people are generally selfish. Human nature and corruption and all that, people in power hoard power.