Im becoming unsettled. Maybe a few memes total on first two pages. How could things go so bad? Where are the yester beans gone?
Beans? Look here youngin
I haven’t seen any egg pics. Something is wrong, I can feel it.
🥚
I blocked all of the news and political communities on my main account.
I keep an alt to keep track of local and national news of where I live. Improved my mental health substantially.
Edit: I live in Europe
I simply blocked Lemmy (and all my other time waster websites) from my phone.
I subscribed to a newspaper to keep track of news.I wish I could, but personally not knowing would be a greater mental load then having to process this run away train of fascism.
We should really stay on top of the news to know when Trump wants us to wear identifying armbands
If you can’t, it can be enough to say that’s enough for today and control how much you take in I found a YouTube channel belle of the fifth column is just enough to keep informed but it’s short and she put context to the news and just keeps it to the facts no click bait.
I’ll not denigrate your choices. I will just say that I’m reading and listening to a lot less, but that’s because I’m reading/listening/watching across the spectrum. Shutting out others’ voices seems to be what got us here.
I haven’t worked up the wherewithal to brave Breitbart, OANN etc yet. One, my mental health is so valuable to me, two, I want to continue to consume thoughtful pieces; but I think it’s critical to keep an eye on these outlets so we can address legitimate grievances and also be a calm, steady, not-shaming tone to offer a more grounded perspective. It will take time, patience, respect to bring USA back to some semblance of sanity and unity. I think we are on the event horizon of do-or-die together, in that regard ) and I mean globally).
I don’t think i understand your comment what does belle have to do with OANN or Breitbart I wouldn’t touch those with a 10 foot pole.
I’m not sure how to be more plain. People are radicalized because legitimate concerns aren’t heard, let alone addressed. Entertaining ideas doesn’t mean automatically accepting all of them. How are we to address legitimate grievances if we refuse to listen for them?
I understand where you’re coming from, but the legitimate grievances of conservatives are not covered by the far right media. They’re alchemically transmogrified into immigrant hate, queer hate, poor hate.
Their legitimate grievances are largely the same as everyone. Wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living is the most basic. But instead of looking at the top of the hierarchy for answers, these media sources redirect that grievance at the bottom of the hierarchy. And conservatives are obsessed with hierarchy.
It is good to study enemy propaganda, but it’s hard to stomach. I wish more people could understand in the way you have.
And when we’ve tempered ourselves (I’m so not there yet!), we can calmly, rationally refute with truth in non-inflammatory language. We can try to use simpler terms and explain those not understood. I understand it’s not going to be easy, that’s why I’m working on temperance in small bites, first. Our media has inflamed and made reactionary all of us, to varying extents, because that supports the monied interests. It supports everyone’s interests to dial it back, take deep breaths and respond rather than react. Don’t think the Neo Duopoly is going to do that; they will counter it with even more inflammatory rhetoric.
You can’t pretend it isn’t happening.
I’d love to be able to tune it out, but that’s what they want.
Ignorance is compliance.
Initially I did as well - but we are fast approaching a point where simply ignoring this further will be unacceptable.
I feel that sometime soon we may be called to do more than be a voice of reason. Americans are being tested right now. Will you quietly look away because you fear discomfort as your freedoms are stripped away? As your neighbors are assailed?
I’m not fond of the sting of teargas and pepper spray… but it’s probably about time to develop a taste for it again. Find a group, know your community, and stop hiding.
Oh, and if you see a Nazi? Punch it.
All threats. Foreign and domestic.
Blaze lives inside the sopuli.xyz server farm confirmed.
I find that keyword-based filtering seems to work better than blocking. We’re at a point here that if one is blocking all communities where people post news and politics to then there’s nothing left to browse because you’d need to block virtually every even slightly popular community.
My current record so far is refreshing the front page and seeing 4 posts with all the others being filtered out. That’s how bad the politics and news spam has gotten. And people wonder why normies aren’t coming here…
i don’t wonder that. let the normies have their Destiny 2 and PublicFreakout and fantasy sports communities elsewhere. seeing comment section after section on Reddit filled to the brim with “I’m so funny!” unserious one liners was obnoxious. people talking about GoThrones fandom and RC cars while inequality skyrockets or the rich dismantle every federal govt program that benefit 99% of the population is not a good thing to yearn for. the founders-effect dominance from a handful of narrow ideologically centrists is not something we need more of.
I combine it with blocking users. Political communities are blocked entirely, and then users who post irrelevant political crap in non-political communities are blocked individually.
Just the one alt?
Trump is using a technique called ‘The Gish Gallop.’
Obama wanted to pass the ACA and the GOP managed to block it for almost two years because Obama kept talking about that one thing.
Trump is breaking rules left and right; plus screaming about crazy ideas like buying Greenland.
There is so much stuff going on that normal minds just want to shut down to get some peace and quiet.
I believe they call it “flooding the zone (with shit)” when it’s this particular orange flavour
I like using firehose of bullshit, but using their words is probably better.
Elonald Trusk: “Supplies!”
How dare you put Kuni’s lines in Elon’s mouth!
We thought things were bad before the experimental DoD teleporter accident that destroyed the bodies of Trump and Musk. Elonald Trusk and Donlon Mump rose from the ashes. Their greed multiplied. Their lust for power became insatiable, but nothing could trump their carnal, sensual desire for each other’s bodies. [Ok, stopping here, I don’t like where this is going.]
Me to the dingleberries once they finally realize: “STUPID! YOU SO STUPID!”
Damn, what a great movie.
Aka shock doctrine
Remember, ignorance is compliance.
Yes, and silence is complicity.
Obama increased mass surveillance and US undercover operations significantly. Bush ultimately started it but Obama has a opportunity to stand on the side of freedom but didn’t take it. Like all recent presidents he was focused on extending the power of the executive branch. The real answer is checks and balances.
LOL!
Obama couldn’t get Gitmo closed. How many of those programs did he originate, and how many were passed by the Congress and he didn’t veto them?
He was hamstrung by the GOP and conservative Dems.
The answer is a veto proof progressive Dem majority, not more ‘checks and balances.’
Feels like it’s been that way since the election to be honest
Lemmy has always been a political outlet, but post election has been out of hands.
I mean, it makes sense. We’re witnessing the US becoming a fascist dictatorship in realtime. It’s a huge upset to the way the world has been for everyone living’s lifetimes.
Yeah, it’s like not being able to look away from a train wreck, but it’s a humongous fiery train wreck that has been advertised and teased in every form of online media for the past two years.
Fascist America warnings be like:
Beautiful. Thank you for reminding me of this.
It’s because political discussion (and in general most commentary) on Reddit / Meta / Xitter has become overtly censored, and there’s a real concern that it’s tracked - a bad thing in an authoritarian regime barreling towards facism. Those who wish to have real political discourse having been moving away, and lemmy is receiving a lot of that traffic.
As an example, referring to a list of CEO’s on Reddit as “Luigi’s List” will get you a ban warning for inciting violence.
This increase in sensitivity to the potential implications of real political speech, coupled with increasingly stringent rules on the parts of the mods and accelerated by the auto-mod bots and AI chat bots, has led to a very restrictive discussion environment on the big social media networks. Even Bluesky, which is left-leaning and possesses the architecture for multiple servers to avoid centralization, is following this pattern.
Lemmy / Mastodon are attractive because they’re not as restrictive, when you’re posting you’re interacting with real people, and because the mods and admins are humans dealing with a manageable population. And if someone censors you on the server you’re on, you just move to another. More and more folks are realizing this as the enshitification of the big 3 continues.
Fear not, the memes will live on, but I think that in a very real way, Lemmy’s (and the Fediverse’s) time is upon us, and this is the result. People are using it for real shit because the real shit is upon us, and we need a place where we can freely discuss how to get clear of the incoming shitstorm.
Read up on the Cronkite Era and the Fairness Doctrine.
Companies could only own one TV/radio [AM and FM] station in each town, plus you had a couple of newspapers in even small places. When Reagan came in he started the trend to ‘deregulate’ the media.
May Ronald Reagan rest in piss
Along with his many other great accomplishments, he created homelessness in America.
Before he became California Governor, the state had a great mental health system. Plenty of beds for those who were unable to self care. Ronnie cut those beds and suddenly there were undomiciled folks wandering the streets. That meant the cops and prisons had to get more money to deal with the problem.
It worked so well that as soon as he was President he did it again.
Posting a kill list seems pretty questionable to me. I get how there can be some dark humor in that but I can totally see how that’s calling for violence.
Real political discourse is too heavily censored in corporate spaces
What annoys me is when people gibe attention to people who have either done questionable things or don’t deserve to be publicized.
Bad press is often better than no press. When you start putting the light on a CEO you are often turning them into a celebrity. Better to not focus on specific people unless they have done serious wrong on there own.
Bad press would work if there were consequences like forcing the CEO to step down
Unfortunately in today’s world corporations and their ceos can get away with almost everything
I think we should instead blame companies not CEOs. If the companies get enough bad PR the board will act.
We should blame the long sequence of court decisions that allowed corporations to accumulate so much unchecked power.
https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
Edit: why the downvote? I have no idea what the objection is.
I think we should instead blame consumers and voters. It is our job to hold CEOs and other bad public figures accountable, but we never do
Just remember, this is the worst things have been so far. The Trump admin still has shovels in hand, it can get much, much, worse.
Yes I always think of that Simpsons line, this is the worse day so far. It doesn’t help any anxiety about the geopolitical situation even backdropped by an amusing sitcom. I do hope people learn better, but maybe we’ll see the way of nuking ourselves and wonder what happened while still being intolerant (as a whole, I know many individuals are cool but those are never in position of power it seems).
I limit my political stories these days after Trump’s first term I can’t handle the same input, not American but that doesn’t matter to the world’s outcome.
…what situation? When?
OP is onto something.
maybe people are getting sad out there. maybe news is coming at us fast… because change (unprecedented bad bad change) is happening faster than ever before?
it’s a sign of the times. people blaming news junkies or whining about blocking comms don’t get it. we’re no longer living in a time when we can afford to ignore what’s happening around us.
ps, I’m not arguing against memes. in fact go check !conservative@lemmy.world it’s been turned into a satire comm under new mods and it’s wonderful!
Yeah that’s unfortunate. I joined that community to listen to concerns of my compatriots.
The amount of polarization right now is pretty concerning. People can’t imagine how someone could possibly have a different view. Conservatives and progressives both see the other as dumb and extreme. I don’t need to agree with someone to understand where there beliefs come from.
Whoop! There it is. I’ve definitely been guilty, up until very recently. It’s time to wake up, now. I’d wager we’ve all been asleep at the wheel, for decades, now.
Go create another on another instance
No, I will stay and hope our conservative brothers and sisters return and we can welcome them with healthy dialogue. It’s a multilane two-way information superhighway. We can visit each others ’ spaces and stay in our lanes, unless we use turn signals, like responsible, respectable drivers.
With the mod team driving the current environment you’re very likely better off building somewhere new. It’s the main benefit of the fediverse after all
Easier isn’t necessity better. Let’s wait and see if “left” can stop behaving like ultraright*.
Can’t ignore it.
Can’t change it.
Only heartburn.
Don’t ever think you can’t change it.
Audrey Hepburn was a teenager when the Nazis invaded.
She could only dance, but that’s what she did.
There’s always a way to fight.
I think we can change it. We just have to say, “Mountain, be thou removed” and get busy with our shovels to help remove it. It won’t be easy, but it is doable.
If you want to do something do something. Others have shown how easy actually is if you are really willing to.
If not, saturating everyone head with bad news is not healthy for anyone.
It’s not just Lemmy either. Every platform is looking like this. At least people have woken the fuck up.
i was just thinking this… it used to be 80% memes and now its just the downfall of western society. depressing.
(But yeah, things will never quite go back to the way they were, nor would we want them to exactly.)
I actually saw some news bleed into shitpost the other day. It’s that bad.
