Hearing from “both sides” and coming to some compromise/middle ground only works if the following is true:

1. Both parties are acting in good faith.
2. The viewpoints expressed are close enough that they don’t require a total departure from one’s current viewpoint.
3. The disputed topic doesn’t have a obvious or clear correct answer.

The problem is, at least in the US, none of these are true for right wingers and even many “centrists.”

You cannot talk to somebody and try to find common ground if they don’t believe in statistical studies by government agencies, they don’t believe in scientific studies by major universities and research institutions, and don’t care about the rights and protections for minority groups.

The older members of my family are almost all conservatives, MAGA supporters, and fundamentalist Christians.

They genuinely believe that Evolution is a myth and the Earth was created 6000 years ago. They believe that illegal immigrants are invading this country and that Democrats are secretly allowing them to. They don’t believe humans have any effect on climate change. They don’t think Covid was anything more than a common cold that the government used as an excuse to try to control people. They don’t believe in vaccines.

I find Lemmy to be very refreshing. I get news from a diverse collection of Leftists sources. Anarchists, statists, weak socialists like the AOC/Bernie types, government studies, independent guerrilla journalists, Communists, Mutualists, Marxists, etc.

But I have no interest in further “diversifying” by adding right wing “sources.”

Cookies can taste good with many different ingredients, but no cookie tastes good with horse poop.

There are plenty of people on the fediverse that are clearly free and independent thinkers - as in not operating from inside a bubble where they get fed opinions and views from others and them regurgitating those views ad nauseam. On Lemmy, I see a lot of curiosity and a lot of people who were probably censored or effectively buried by downvotes on other platforms, despite their good faith and interesting (and sometimes radical) perspectives.

Discussion flows well, there’s less focus on upvotes/downvotes and there is no karma. There doesn’t seem to be a tradition of dog-piling people who wrong-think according to the group consensus (or whatever neoliberal narrative is prevailing) as there is on Reddit. Moderation is much less heavy-handed and there are no shadowbans/comments that don’t show up for others (but only for yourself). There are significantly less bots and almost zero astroturfed content, as well.

Worry less about the labels, I say. If you want mainstream or conservative opinions, it’s very easy to seek them out - the internet is full of those perspectives. If you’re curious, you could play devil’s advocate and discuss current events or other hot topics from a mainstream perspective and ask others why they think differently to better understand the userbase on the fediverse and how things generally go down here. I’m sure plenty of people would be happy to weigh the pros and cons of different viewpoints and perspectives and entertain a discussion about certain issues in good faith.

Not everybody is filtering everything out from a polarized lens and is focused on being an absolutist or purist with their preferred ideology.

like bluesky is rightist , lemmy may be leftist . it also depends on the server , left has blocked right and vice versa . try to find a right one

Seems like lemmy.world already provides plenty of right wing perspectives, we really don’t need me.

I think the problem is in the opposite direction. Society is too ideologically homogeneous in being against socialism. The major narratives are controlled by nation-states and corporations, social media are infested with political advertisement and propaganda.

So, as others say, I believe it is sorta uninformed and middle-of-the-road fallacy to find a corner of the internet where you can speak your mind without being harassed by white supremacist trolls, and say we need more diverse views.

Right wingers have (had) Parlel, Gap, TruthSocial, now they have X, and Facebook, where they were also dominating and harassing in the past. No leftists and/or genderqueer person would survive a day at these platforms.

But Lemmy being primarily/explicitly leftist is the problem, and you suddenly are alarmed for echo chambers. This is not quite fair, now is it.

As for Lemmy per se, I don’t think it is too homogeneous. I debate centrists and liberals every other day. And recent discussions showed that the amount of latent transphobia in the site is shocking, with people knowing next to nothing apart from 4chan/MAGA talking points.

How can this happen after all these years of activism and outreach. It is because of the ecosystem of echo chambers in the broader communications and media landscape. This discourse never reached those people.

Considering it was the position of major medical and professional organizations, it shows that the pathology lies with the existing social media and broader media enterprizes, with a prominently selective messaging.

Do I need to say that this led to widespread science-denialism for which mainstream platforms are clearly to blame?

If your inquiry is honest, then the only explanation is that the propaganda apparatus works so well, that the (relative) absence of the dominating narratives makes you anxious that you entered an echo chamber, when in fact you probably have been in an echo chamber so far.

Yeah, it’s not necessarily bad but it affects my point of view

Some might deny it, some might agree but decide it’s for the best and apparently, others will just denote the least left of the leftists as conservative scum

The thing about the right wing is that it always boils down to the cruelty being the point. People play it up -just- being a difference of opinion like we’re talking about whether or not pineapple is good on pizza; when the opinions in question are that brown people are inferior, trans people people don’t deserve rights, a woman’s life is worth less than a fetus, etc: there’s no valuable dialogue to be had. Ban the fucker and don’t look back.

The closest thing to valuable dialogue you’re going to get with that garbage is the bullshit veneer they slap onto their vitriol to make it easier to sell - the whole white knight bit about protecting babies or bathrooms or some other nonsense that conveniently lands the same outgroups into a bind every single time. If you think any of that shit is in good faith, you’ve fallen for a trap before the conversation even starts.

Diversity of thought is great, up until we start turning to hatred/bigotry for a fresh perspective. Those are not welcome here, nor should they be anywhere else.

The size of my block list tells me there are plenty of right-wing voices on the platform. No everyone on that list is right-wing, but I’m fairly certain a majority of them are.

Liberals are not leftists.

I find circles around .world to be more liberal and not leftist. (Not that there aren’t any on .world… Just leans that way)

There’s not much in terms of right wing spaces but tbh I’m uh, completely fine with that.

Using Lemmy requires some modicum of understanding in technology. Most conservatives I’ve encountered tend to be technology-ignorant at best, and technophobic at worst. You don’t see as many differing political views on Lemmy cause some/most conservatives are too inept at technology or can’t be bothered to figure it out.

Reddit was just easier to get into, and as much as I personally like Lemmy, it’s a hard sell to some from the outset. If the signup could be simplified (which I understand federation and why it can’t be that easy), we could see an influx of more outdated viewpoints on the platform.

I also agree with others who have stated that most “conservative” philosophy involves denying rights to those who have only recently (last 50 years or so) been afforded rights equal to their own. I’m also growing increasingly suspicious of how much lead was actually used in the products consumed by boomers and some Gen-x before its use was known and most of it banned or removed from products. It seems too many in their late 40+ are going from normal human being with empathy towards others to RAGING MAGA CONSPIRACIST, seemingly overnight.

1. Yes I noticed this too
2. It already is, which is a shame
3. Yes it’s a problem because even if you try to get a balanced amount of all the views in your Lemmy subscriptions it’s not possible, at the same time bubbles radicalize people.
4. Let discussions happen, don’t delete and ban because you’re against the view (as long as it’s not continuously spamming)
5. Benefit: You see people as humans even if they are wrong, Drawback: you need to sometimes change your mind in face of new evidence showing up, which it wouldn’t if you stay in your bubble.

The thing which I really dislike with a bubble is that people inside of it get more and more radical and ban even their allies because they’re not radical enough.

@Teknevra
I’m not a part of Lemmy, but I will say this: There are some people with whom reasonable dialog is just not possible. Speaking only for myself, I choose not to engage. That does not mean I’m not aware of what they are saying or thinking. It means that I am drawing a healthy boundary for myself.

Your feelings about it are valid. You should absolutely seek out more mixed spaces, if that is what you want to do.

Cheers!

Reading this thread, i think lemmy has a real problem. There sre a few comments that appear centrist or left-leaning, but the majority of comments are extremely left.

I’m not asking for neo-nazis or far right, just more centrist opinions like in this thread

Lemmy has always had the Communists and Anarchists, from what I understand. Liberals largely came during the Reddit fiascos. Overall, I’d say instances are becoming more homogenous, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing necessarily. I’d rather have more leftists and fewer liberals seeing liberals convert to leftists, IMO.