this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?

I've pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it's uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said "I just got yelled at because I can't be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.") We're much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre...

I don't know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I'd like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.

Thanks!

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[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 102 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Reddit was only ever left of center for Americans. To many/most non Americans, America consists of a far right party and a center to center right party.

What you're seeing is the result of a platform that wasn't first created by and for American audiences, and whose initial takeup wasn't dominated by American perspectives.

[–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 47 points 14 hours ago

Agreed. I got lost at 'Reddit is left...'
Huh?

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 19 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

I'm not American.

Lemmy is much farther left than any of our national discourse.

I get that American parties are farther Right than most but the discourse here is much farther Left than almost all political discourse. Edit: I'm happy to be corrected, show me a serious party in a position of power in a Western democracy committed to ending capitalism!

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not saying that if you don't want to destroy capitalism that you're not left. I'm saying that the perspective that reddit itself was "definitely left of center" is not a widely shared perspective, and if you believe that reddit of all places was left of center, then lemmy, which actually is left of center, is going to feel very left of center.

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 0 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I'd strongly disagree. I think reddit is generally on the left side of most cultural and political institutions.

To each their own though.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 12 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Then honestly you must live in some radically conservative country.

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

Canada.

No mainstream party suggests UBI as a matter of principle for example.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 9 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

There it is.

Your "country" is a collection of mining and timber companies in a trench coat.

[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com 2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Who is much more left wing than Canada?

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Canada is just America but 2 election cycles behind. We're very similar politically, most of the left leaning appearance is just lip service, not policy. Look at how we continue to treat indigenous peoples.

[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

How does Europe treat the Romani?

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago

I mean, that probably depends on the country, right? Tbf I don't know much about them.

The point simply is that Canada isn't especially left. We can't be, since we're joined at the hip to the USA.

[–] WhoLooksHere@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Canadian here, most of Europe. We're looking like we're expecting Trump lite this year. Not to mention Harper was, a lot.

[–] Kaboom@reddthat.com 3 points 8 hours ago

Most of Europe is one bad economic year away from voting in Nazis (AfD and Le Pen) and the literal fascists in Italy. Not to mention Central and Eastern Europe.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 6 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Our overton window is only a few degrees to the left of the US.

Also the Ontario Liberals conducted a UBI pilot in Hamilton during the 2010s with the goal of proposing some form of it as a policy if results were positive. The OLP lost to the PCs in 2018 and Ford canned the project.

Then there's been the UBI experiment in Manitoba during the 70s.

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I don't think that UBI is the predominant reddit viewpoint either - I think that's just the subs you're in.

I'm Canadian too, and I certainly don't consider reddit as left of center on average. It's almost like 4chan lite.

But on that note, if you're looking for Canadian instances, there are a few good ones.
The obvious one is lemmy.ca, but the other (bigger?) one is sh.itjust.works which is bilingual and I think is québécois.
Presumably a Canadian instance would have relatively Canadian political leanings, although as has been said before, instance doesn't really matter.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 hours ago

I agree that most of Lemmy is rather cynical and very far lest

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net -1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

The world is a hugely diverse place that doesn’t easily fit into a left or right category from the perspective of politics in an individual country. While I agree that the US is a conservative country, this narrative is a bit exaggerated. The median global opinion on various issues would be all over the place from a US perspective, from far right to far left or even defying any categorization. As a result saying that the US is to the right of most of the rest of the world is a huge oversimplification.

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The US has a nazi sympathising president, backed by a billionaire who gives nazi salutes in public. So I don't agree that saying the US is to the right of most of the world is incorrect.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net -4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Well, there is a distinction between the the leadership and the populace. The context here was about the populace, since that is who is participating in these online conversations. I agree with you that the current government is an extreme right one. And yes many people did vote for this but I suspect many do not support his full agenda, they were just fooled into thinking this was the least bad option.

[–] ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 9 hours ago

A nazi sympathising president was voted in, because the overton window has shifted sufficiently to the right to allow that to happen.