A serious curiosity derived from something I’ve noticed more and more often lately:
What the hell has happened to nuanced thought? It seems every day- more and more, it’s either this or that, with us or against us, black or white. What happened to the complexity of thought? Why have we come to be so polarized about every single thing that exists? And it seems it doesn’t matter the subject! The moment a topic is brought up. Sides are immediately taken in the War of Being Right.
It used to be that we considered things. We were rational. Logical. Contemplative.
Now? Everyone seems so quick to arrive at hastily constructed arguments that have to be either for or against- where no argument was necessary or even called for to being with!
It seems to me, that we need to relearn what was once so easily understood, and it’s that life exists between the boundaries of one and the other.
It’s a multitude of causes, in my eyes.
Increased individualism, increased vulnerability, increased desire to be seen or heard, increased anxiety around self and being correct or valid, increased consumption over participation, increased distance through comments rather than community and discussion, incentives around voting pushing extremes, platitudes, emotionals, etc and inhibiting and often discouraging diverse views, founded reasoning, effort into these.
/edit: I just now deleted a comment that gave a reasoned answer to a broad question, after seeing it received down votes (which I interpret as not appreciated and deemed a negative contribution to the community). Sadge.
Contrary to other comments I don’t think Lemmy overall is and better than other platforms. It differs my instance and community, but we have the same systematic issues on here.
lemmy is small and tolerant of dissent. people are are more independent and they are forming tribes so much. as it gets bigger people will tolerate it less.
some of the instances however, are full of tribal nutcases who are only interested in being ideological pure. but the mostly keep to themselves, which is nice. though i will say it’s annoying ot have to constnatly block crap from the main page from this instances. when i first joined lemmy 60% of my general content was lgbt furry linux weirdos.