No Stupid Questions

Unfortunately most of the more “conservative” instances became highly toxic and so most other instances have defederated with them.

The challenge will be finding an actual traditional conservative instance that isn't also a pro-Nazi fascist shithole.

You're already contributing to a balanced discussion. keep at it and be the change you want to see. I feel the whole "belonging to a camp" thing in terms of opinions and politics is too simplistic thinking. Some people like myself happen to have opinions that will range across the political spectrum. Let's say a very political person starts a conversation, but is swapped out for someone else from their "camp"; Isn't it boring to know all of their talking points and opinions before they even start talking? Imo that's detrimental to free thinking and learning to accept other viewpoints. The thought in politics is that we must all agree on all of our camps points or be chastised for not complying, also we must make the other side see that our side was correct all along otherwise our side will loose. Nah fuck that, let's just learn to have conversations with a variety of opinions first.

Reality has a well known liberal bias. Stop trying to hide from reality.

I think it'll be tough to find that corner of it... I think I saw a conservative community on lemmy.world but the platforms original purpose was to get away from the big, controlling, capitalist social media platforms the likes of Twitter, Instagram, reddit, etc. Like mastodon, the largest part of the fediverse (I'm pretty sure), grew alot when twitter was brought by Elon, and more moved after he messed up the platform enough, saying they'll create their own platform where hate won't be allowed. It's kinda against it's nature to have much conservative-ness.

Not trying to be rude as based on how this sounds, you seem nice enough and not crazy, but places like mastodon are basically the left's version of "Truth social" where people are pretty ok with saying "I don't want those thoughts spread here" those thoughts they don't want are usually things like homophobia or transphobia, but those are fairly common on the right even if you don't share them.

It's an interesting thought and would probably be alittle healthier, but hey you're still here being able to provide that counter point of view

The Fediverse mostly consists of several different groups. There are the people who built it, the open source enthusiasts who want an internet separate from big tech. Then there are the people fleeing other platforms, like the Reddit API thing. There are also a few curious people, but the Fediverse isn't very inviting unless you have a reason to join it.

Tech enthusiasts have historically been quite highly educated, and a higher education gives you a higher probability of becoming less conservative. That's not an insult at your intelligence or anything, it's just an observation I've made over the years. The tech crowd also has some conservatives who went against the "flow" and got spat out, which formed their own cliques.

The people who got rejected often come together to form an echo chamber. Communists came to Lemmy after Reddit banned their extremist subs. Conservatives came to exploding heads and such after banning their extremist subs. If you wanted to stay in contact with these people, you got pulled into their little echo chambers where everyone egged each other on.

The tech enthusiast space has very similar cliques. There are the trans-positive, LGBT+ supportive groups, and the "tech bros" that don't really care. Both have built and are building Fediverse systems. If you've been around Mastodon when the Harry Potter game came out, you've seen plenty of toxic behaviour from both sides because of JK Rowling being an asshat.

In my experience, most general purpose servers are left-leaning. It helped that Reddit has quite a few left-leaning subs that protested and brought a bunch of people over here to the Lemmyverse.

Another challenge is the fact that most right-leaning people put a lot of value into free speech. Free speech is obviously a good thing, but free speech has its extremists. Instances that promote very free speech quickly attract the terrible "I should be able to call toddlers sexy, it's free speech" and the "banning should be illegal because free speech exists" crowd. Tbose people have been kicked out of every other platform, so they'll find a platform where they can be absolute ass holes to everyone around them again under the guise of free speech. This leads to unmoderated or poorly moderated servers that quickly separate from the rest of the network as more toxic people come in and moderators on other servers take action.

I personally think we need healthy discussions between conservatives and liberals. There's nothing wrong with looking forward, but we should also appreciate what we have. The centrist "I'll just pretend not to take any side" approach is flawed, differences in opinion are what make discussions online interesting.

Sadly, as you can see in the comments here, a significant part of the Lemmyverse will assume you're a terrible person if you don't call yourself liberal. I'm afraid you won't find what you're looking for here until the Fediverse gains more people that don't fall into the perils of extremism and imaginary boogeymen associated with political orientations.

I don't think it's controversial to say that "conservative" in the context of US politics has been bifurcated. On the one hand, there are definitely traditional conservatives out there. On the other hand, the really loud ones tend to be far right edge lords who purposefully speak loudly about topics that are socially unacceptable. It's always based on a misunderstanding of free speech, too: people are generally free to say what they want, but they are not free from the consequences imposed by society based on what they say, especially when supporting harmful activities or straight violence. This is something Elon Musk really should learn about.

I'm all for open discourse with traditional conservatives, but I'm not about to sit idly by while Nazis return to the stage. There was a war and the outcome was pretty darned clear. So, I'd say it's a good example of bad apples ruining the bunch (though from what I have seen, the ~~number~~ ratio of Nazis vs traditional conservatives is sadly pretty high). I think it is an issue that will need to be fixed between conservatives, ultimately. Shutting down Nazis (again) seems quite acceptable to me, however.

Make your own instance. like truth.social. lmfao

Why make it a right vs left thing at all. Can't we just discuss things going on as they are without pigeonholing certain opinions as "right" and "left?"

I don't think x y z thing is true because I'm "on the left." I think it's true because it's my best understanding of reality, and that understanding of reality is generally described as "left." If you falsify my arguments, point flaws in my understanding, or present me with a set of premises that corroborates reality better, I'll align myself with that in a heartbeat. When you see something you disagree with, don't just think "oh that's leftism I don't agree with that," instead, try to figure out what you think the flaw is with it, and then offer that up in good faith. Worst case scenario, someone learns something.

Being a conservative must be a discombobulating experience in the technological age. The conservative is attempting to prevent the progression of society and conserve what we currently have or even revert to a bygone era.

OP arrives at a brand new platform, a piece of technology that didn't exist a short while ago and requests a space to assemble people who don't like change.

I understand how you feel, let me know if you find anything. I'm more left leaning myself, but I'm also not a fan of echo chambers and it gets pretty tiring and annoying seeing the same stuff over and over again. At the end of the day, I just wanna see an open, fair, and balanced discussion. The Fediverse is undeniably very left leaning currently, which is surprising to me since you'd think the anti-censorship design on paper would appeal more to people on the right who are against big tech and censorship, but I guess not? It's interesting.

I’d like to be more politically balanced in the fediverse.

As shown by votes on abortion rights in states like Kansas, Michigan, etc, your views are in the minority. Media makes it seem like the country is split 50-50, but the only reason that appearance isn't turned on its head is low voter turnout.

I do hope you find a place where you feel comfortable, however. I think that's reasonable to strive for for all people regardless of their views.

Honestly? And I promise I'm not being sarcastic: Reddit and Twitter are still your home. But the same goes for centre-left liberals. It's not that you're conservative, it's that you're moderate.

Many of the recent arrivals to the fediverse (myself included) are here because we're fleeing the corporate internet. We feel strongly enough about it that we've thrown all our toys out of the pram, abandoning huge platforms to try build this new space. This kind of behaviour isn't exactly "centrist".

So this nascent lemmyverse has a wiiiiide breadth of political views but not as much in the middle because those folks are all still on the old platforms. Over here we have Nazis, hexbear and shitposts. And porn. It's still early days.

Just a reminder that it isn't a left vs right conversation. It's working class vs ruling class.

You aren't bitter at leftists, you're bitter at the ideas that media companies use to keep you angry at leftists instead of oligarchs.

If you have to work, you're working class.

If you actually do hate certain types of people, then you need to work on yourself. If you don't believe certain people need health care, then you need to work on yourself. If you believe ultra wealthy (people making over $10mil in income annually) deserve more tax cuts, then you need to work on yourself. If you don't believe that minimum wage should have parity with inflation, then you need to work on yourself.

Have some class solidarity.

EDIT: To all those downvotes... Ask yourself why you are downvoting me. (Now with 100% more sources)

Do you actually hate certain people? Really? But you're downvoting me? Work on yourself.

Do you actually believe you don't deserve health care? That others don't deserve health care? Seriously? Work on yourself.

Are you super wealthy (low percentage chance)? I'm saying uncomfortable things to you. But you can easily afford those taxes so maybe work on yourself.

Do you believe people working for minimum wage shouldn't be able to afford an apartment by themselves anywhere in the USA? Work on yourself.

If you want to see where the conservatives moved to, go to scored.co. (formerly thedonald.win). The worst thing about them isn't limited to the unhinged garbage they spew, but that they are just such bores.

It's so awful in every way imaginable that it makes me appreciate what we have here even more.

you probably have to convince more people with those views to switch away from their other social media.

i suspect moderate conservative people are maybe more likely to stay with status quo/ monolithic / non-distributed services, so there won't be as many moving to a new looser open source thing.

like i bet linux / open source / foss users are a little bit more likely to be liberal or socialist (or DGAFs) - at least insofar as they're choosing on principles of ownership and user rights rather than affordability - its sort of linked-in to those licenses which inherently disempower the individual creator of the IP (vs say a patent) and empower the end users and people who want to reuse the IP in a different ways. That's basically a liberal ownership model vs a capitalist one - to grossly oversimply.

conservatives are maybe more likely to be buying proprietary services from microsoft, oracle, or amazon/google ( pay someone else to run your linux /postgres for you!), if they're happy eating all that shit from them, reddit is probably fine.

Define "conservative"

Normal, klassical conservative or "Republican party crazy level" racism and nazism?

I'll come out and say it: fuck conservatives. Get some goddamn empathy

Not likely that there will be a conservative instance. Lemmys core principles are "left leaning" so that already lowers tolerance for the audience "the right" attracts. Every conservative instance eventually gets deleted and defederated because toxicity is baked into the idea. America's "left" is already right wing to the rest of the modern world, so going further than that is just... not great. You can hope for the "ENLIGHTENED_CENTRISTS" to try to keep a somewhat moderated instance but I wouldn't hold my breath.

It depends on what you mean by conservative. If you're going by the American definition, then good luck as all of those have been mass defederated due to them nearly always turning into far right toxic harassment zones. If you are European though and go by their definition, you'll probably be fine. America leans very right by default. Democrats to a degree are skewed right wing at the very least economically.

Serious question: Wouldn’t you as a conservative who doesn’t want an echo chamber therefore NOT join a conservative community? Wouldn’t THAT put you in an echo chamber?