this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Politics... Any politics. I like news to be informed. But those subreddits became echo chambers and spewed hate one direction or another.
I understand what you're saying. However, echo chambers aside, I found reddit very useful for political discourse. Even for subjects that had a hive mind response, there were often a few comments that presented the other side in a very well thought out way, with details and citations which would give some folks a reason to rethink their knee-jerk response.
In addition, one of the biggest problems in the US is that lack of political engagement by younger folks. So having those news articles and discussions on a popular forum gives them that visibility into the world of governance and allows them to both develop a desire to vote for change as well as having better knowledge of the issues and how different political figures have acted and what they really stand for.
So I welcome that discourse and having political subs.
This is a great point and a great thought. Having political discourses is important and accepting opinions from all angles without getting agitated.
What I saw in the all of the political subreddits were largely conformation to one side of an argument or another without real exchange, and if there ever was a contrary opinion, most of which were hateful themselves, and if they weren't, they were downvoted or banned.
Tin foil hat on for a second, I think this is due to how society is, as was mentioned above, and I think it's also somewhat led by various political groups to get to a hateful conclusion to galvanize supporters on such a big platform.
Politics in general has devolved into one-dimensional hate-slinging and I guess, I miss when Reddit was first starting out and there were more of those conversations, without the anger behind them. If we can't have civil discourse in our communities, and opinions are only presented as wholly-good or wholly evil, is there benefit to having those conversations?
These are tough questions. Like I said, you make excellent points, and maybe the answer isn't cut it all off. But I can't think of a way to foster the type of community you describe in our society without heavy moderation against anger and hate.
You're absolutely right that a good politics sub (I don't think I'll ever get used to the term "magazine", but "sub" is nicely generic) requires good moderation.
But if kbin largely consists of reddit's most active users and moderators - the ones who care about the community as well as principles and values, then I think we have an excellent start.
I hear you, but politics are literally unavoidable. Also, for some of us, especially members of minority groups conservatives have it out for right now, literally just existing openly in a space will sometimes have folks crying politics.
I understand the freedom and acceptance that you're wanting. And I think having those communities to help causes are important. So like was mentioned above, maybe the answer is not cutting it off, but fostering civil discourse to keep the hatred out for one side or another?
I guess the root of the problem is demonizing. For instance, I would caution against what you consider "conservative" and who is really coming after your rights. That mentality again, is supporting the belief that each side is morally monochromatic. If you want to substitute that with the Republican Party, I dont think that's inaccurate. But there are many who hold "conservative" views fiscally or in other areas that have no issue with supporting minority rights and actively champion those causes.
In my opinion, the greatest lie that the powers-that-be have performed this century, is that one side has all the right answers and you have to be on one side of the fence or the other. I dont think either political party are working for the benefit of their constituents and I think we as a people need to come together to find real solutions, instead of being fed our opinions by those political machines and blindly joining their ranks. There aren't 2 sides to any issue, nor are there only 2 options for solutions. There are always more to be considered.
I think replying to every single point you made would be way off topic, so I'm not going to.
What I will respond to is your very first comment. The far right, worldwide (not just republicans) is practically frothing at the mouth about trans people lately. Their rhetoric is borderline genocidal, with open calls to "exterminate transgenderism". No civil discussion can be had when one of the sides is literally out for blood.
There are many issues that you can take many perfectly reasonable differing opinions on, and have a civil discussion over, but this isn't one of them.
There was a definite change in the way discourse was had in r/politics, r/news, among others over the years. But I would say that’s just a societal thing as of late.
Unfortunately, I do believe it’ll happen here eventually.
There was a huge astroturfing campaign carried out by CTR/ShareBlue during the 2016 US election cycle. Someone even exposed this and was permabanned like 2 days later.