It’s one thing to have differing views, but I’ve seen enough attempted reddit migrations to be relieved that the popular communities in the fediverse so far haven’t been about crazy racist stuff or other extreme right bullshit.
I am also glad that I’m getting away from reddit’s general political shitposting, which was more left leaning. You couldn’t have any proper discourse on there, and even I with my generally more left leaning views recognized that.
Indeed, people tend to forget that the left-right meet isn’t a half circle, but a full circle. You lean far enough one way on either side and you start wandering into the other side.
Nah, horseshoe theory is bullshit. Militant far left, and militant far right are shitty for very different reasons.
I wouldn’t say it’s fully bullshit. The far left and far right, despite having very different ultimate goals, do have one very significant common point in both being opposed to the status quo, and in that opposition, you see some common tactics and ideas develop, such as a tendency towards authoritarianism and an increased tolerance for violence.
Consider that weirdest kind of leftist who’s so far down the “America bad” rabbit hole that they unironically support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite Russia being as close to a Christo-fascist sexist homophobic authoritarian hell hole as currently exists.
When the destination is militant authoritarism and fascists, how you got to that point doesn’t really matter.
Fascists, alt-right, tankies, and other extremists will kill any chance we have of talking normally in this place, so they cannot be allowed to take root in the mainstream instances.
horseshoe theory and the political compass are both kinda silly tho, left and right are more like collections of allied ideologies than a precise value that can be placed on a graph or spectrum.
Indeed, the world is far too complicated a place to be reduced to just one or two dimensions.
I’m somewhat fond of the “8 Values” test, which reduces the world to four dimensions. Still way oversimplified, but at that point people are far more likely to compare themselves and see “we may differ on this axis but we actually agree on this other axis,” which is very helpful for discourse.