Yeah, the doomposting is intense on Lemmy. I’ve taken up a policy of just downvoting any negative posts I see, even if I like the post otherwise, just to tamp down the negativity a bit around here.
The best and worst thing about Lemmy is how niche we are. It keeps out the “mainstream”, but unfortunately we’re easily inundated by perpetually-online doomers.
Also, I would recommend blocking users moreso than communities. Once you start looking for it, you realize that like 90% of these posts are made by just a few people/bots.
Tell ya what, you up vote it and I’ll down vote it and all should be right in the world.
Good question, I suppose I’m being negative about negativity.
Honestly, feel free to downvote, you have my blessing lol.
If you make a decent negative argument, in a perfect world it should be an upvote.
“If”, tho’…
Also, I would recommend blocking users moreso than communities. Once you start looking for it, you realize that like 90% of these posts are made by just a few people/bots.
I wish there was an easy way to block everyone from an instance, like *@shittylemmyinstance.poop or something. Yeah, I do have one instance blocked to avoid the content, but the posters seem fine, but there are a few where blocking users one at a time is like whack-a-mole.
Yeah. I just take a quick peek at their comment history to see if I should just block them. Works great.
I plead with you to check mine just a wee bit longer,
i paid someone a compliment back in the day.
Plus, your writing style is adorable!
Yes.
Downvoting isn’t “negativity”, it’s a method for users to define what does and does not contribute to the content of the platform. By downvoting this content, I’m voicing my opinion that negativity is overrepresented on Lemmy, and encouraging (however slightly) more positive content to be posted.
I find that switching to my ‘subscribed’ feed and sorting by newest weeds out 95% of the doom and outrage. Most single-topic communities are really positive. You very occasionally get a itinerant doomer or naysayer coming out of the woodwork and being rabidly cynical, but in something like a gardening or saxophone community their comment always just looks silly and out of place and is usually easy to ignore.
lemmy is more US-centric than reddit and twitter combined.
If you came to lemmy to escape the anarchy and chaos that is Trump, you best be turning around.
-Looks out window. Lawn’s engulfed in flames. Closes window shades.-
“All better.”
I mean, if there’s not anything I can do beyond dumping a thimble of water on the fire six months from now I’d rather just die happy.
Two things
- Politics is for Power provides a pretty good model for thinking about this https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Politics-Is-for-Power/Eitan-Hersh/9781982116798
There’s a lot of political hobbyism on social media in general and Lemmy is really bad for it. Take for example the constant Elon Musk rage bait. No one is doing anything productive with that information. They’re just getting mad
- Social media, in general, isn’t a good way to get informed. It makes you feel really in touch but when a lot of the time you’re getting biased and polarizing that is often as enraging as it is unproductive
We treat politics like entertainment and it’s making our politics worse. Personally I try to limit my exposure to politics that I don’t think will be productive. It might feel like the most important thing in the moment but it’s often a huge waste of time
You make some great points. I’ve seen this in action locally - it’s a tiny minority who actually make the effort to change things and they have an amazing success rate, in part because they are often unopposed. The barrier to entry is deceptively low. I think I’m going to read that book.
Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.
- Douglas Adams
Tbf, Lemmy is a place to unwind for many people, we have enough boring exhausting shit going on irl.
It’s a link aggregator, if you don’t like politics you’re in the wrong format of social media.
Better post about how doomed you are, that’ll fix it.
But for real, some of the communities I’m in have a rule about not posting about negative stories without adding a way to take action, a way to contribute, etc so that it’s not just doom scrolling negativity. Bad news is everywhere and it’s easy to find, anyone can do that.
Taking those bad feelings and channeling them towards something other than wallowing in how bad things are is the important part, not posting and reading. Someone who reads one bad news story a week and calls their representative about it is doing infinitely more than someone who reads every negative story out there to stay “informed”.
There is a global authoritarian campaign to undermine democracies across the globe, the US is not the only country having serious trouble right now.
I live in an even shittier country with even worse future prospects, so for me they are still positive messages, and i’m in ave that they are on a totally different level on the maslow pyramid
Imagine having a choice in an election.
US vote rules were updated last time in 1965, here rules change before each election, usually 3-4 month prior.
I noticed recently that they stopped publishing 23:59 laws. You know laws which are published on the official website one minute before midnight, and they are valid from the next day. I dont know why they stopped, maybe they did this because it was during a state of emergency?
Migration emergency is still ongoing since 2015, last time they extended until 2024 sept. We had covid emergency and inflation emergency as well. I think the “there is a war in a neighboring country” emergency is still ongoing. I don’t know because the “WAR” billboard ads were replaced with “join the army” and “Orbán is PEACE” ads, I dont know if they are related to this
Lol they have debates there, in television. We had debates, last time it was in 2006.
I’m looking forward to the 2026 elections, its possible that something will change, lol
Before the EU election each opposition party got 10 minutes to speak in the state television. This was an improvement from the 2022 election, they got only 5 minutes each that time. They cannot get any other screentime between elections.
But because of my work I met with guys from Tanzania, and some were coming from some *stan, (maybe kyrgiz? I dont remember) so I know from them that it could be even worse
It’s gotten bad lately – both the posts and the news itself. I feel like I need to take a break myself. Irony of this comment also acknowledged.