Ask Lemmy

I avoid it as much as I can. I'm not a fan of the outrage addiction, and I'm highly suspicious of gaining any reliable information about events from an echo-chamber, even if it's on "my side" of the political spectrum.

In my eyes, there is no avoiding politics. Ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power, and choosing ignorance means choosing to ignore something that directly affects you. I feel I need to know what's happening in politics, so I can know when and how I can be most effective with direct action. Part of understanding what I see in the news also requires an in-depth understanding of history and other seemingly innocuous news stories, so I have the appropriate historical knowledge to understand how and why it affects politics. Staying informed also protects me from being manipulated by politicians and the specific news I consume.

Like the fucking plague.

1. 99% of it is American and I'm not. So what the fuck could I even do about it if I wanted to?

2. There's nothing I can do to change someone's mind on ANY subject on here.

I'm just here to find interesting stuff, make a funny comment or 2 or find answers to some questions I may have. That's about it.

Specifically on lemmy, I tend to keep it to a minimum. Lemmy seems to have an issue with one-sided discussion and lack of nuance, even ourside of the blatant propaganda.

Outside of Lemmy, I follow it, but try to keep it to a low rumble seeing as I can't really have any effect on it in my country.

Try to, comments tend to ruin it

Define avoid? Actively repelled by any political discussion?

Or

Will lerk in a political community and not commenting due to not wanting to dip a toe into the toxic gas lighting pool?

Or something normalized in between?

You can try to avoid politics all you want, it won't avoid you.

I only avoid discussions with the hardcore leftist anarchist/communist groups because there is a big overlap between those communities and absolutely brain dead moderation policies.

Comments that have been removed/gotten me temp banned from Lemmygrad and .Ml include:

“millions of people died under Stalins rule”(banned, “misinfo”)

Someone commented “nuke Texas” I said something to the effect of “yes blow up the 49% of Democratic voters” -comment removed, comment calling to nuke Texas left up

Having comments edited by bots and mods so you don’t hurt anyone’s fee fees

There are other examples if I go through the mod log. Lemmy.Ml in particular takes an absolutely wild amount of mod/admin actions compared to any instance.

Tl;Dr: yes but not because of politics, because Lemmy leftists are the fucking worst

I filter out a few keywords so I don't get inundated with politics but can still get a little news in my feed. Just enough articles slip past the keywords to keep a good balance.

I never comment in political threads.

Is that even possible?

No, I don't avoid it. I love to discuss with my fellow impassioned Lemmy users be it politics or any other topic and I don't mind being heavily downvoted once in a while.

I hate politics because it's always the same argument; one side believes that humans are people and deserve to have rights, and the other doesn't. The fact there is even an argument over this shit at all makes me want to just blow this entire planet to fucking pieces.

oh 100% i avoid it completely. i advocate for things in my own space and my own community. I'm not wasting my time talking about this shit online with any of you. i already know what im doing in november and i know what i gotta do in my local community and i dont give a flying fuck what anyone on here has to say about any of it. aint trying to change a bunch of random stranger's minds (especially when i know we already pretty much agree on all the shit im already going to be doing)

and instead of policing my communities to attempt to help create a politically tasteful environment for myself, id rather just ... fucking avoid completely any political environment. problem solved, life easy

PS if you block ads, you should block most news

I try sometimes but as you can tell by my history, I often fail. I need people to populate the other communities more, though, so I can avoid politics lol. Find other communities and comment or post, try different sorts, like scaled or new, instead of just Top or Active.

It makes sense to temporarily avoid politics to stay sane, compartmentalization. To completely avoid politics I don't see how one is not either very low intelligence to not realize their apathy harms people, or is smarter and aware their apathy harms others and is ok with it. Either dumb or bad.

No

I try to (except from here I guess). I feel like a lot of political discussions here lack any nuance, and are often very US-centric. I'm moderately left wing myself, but I still often feel like I have little in common with the sometimes extremely left viewpoints here. They are usually also seem to be defended in a very black and white way. If you don't agree you're quickly deemed a fascist or nazi.

Honestly, I feel like online discussions often don't really achieve anything. Differing opinions are downvoted and often met with name-calling or accusations. I'd rather discuss in-person with friends and colleagues across the political spectrum, that tends to actually lead to a friendly sharing of thoughts rather than the unsatisfactory hate spewing you get online.

I generally avoid discussing it. I don't really hide my views in any way, but the threshold for me to partake in a political discussion is pretty high, as those tend to devolve into partisan shitflinging pretty quickly.

Do you mean politics as in the details of elections and minutia of governance?

Or do you mean the discussion for how we ought to live together?

The answer is not really to both.

I do try to avoid authoritarian idiots spouting fruitless nonsense, but they seem to be a tragedy of the commons for public discourse.

Most political stuff on Lemmy is either hardcore communist or US centric, neither of which I know much about so avoid.

I only pay attention to the UK centric stuff as that's what I understand being that I live here.

Feel like here is one of a few places one can have some nice discussions, while for sure there is a general bias in opinions but people seem to at least sometimes read and answer on topic.

The modern political climate in my country is bad enough to make me suicidal, so I avoid as much of it as I can.

Most of the time, yes. It always make me feel angry or sad.

Mostly, yeah.

My politics don't conform to most parties or ideologies so I will almost always piss someone off. I look at most issues on their own and decide what makes the most sense to me. So I'm left on this and right on that but not part of any party.

Nope. Politics to me is what everything ultimately comes down to. People have thoughts, and those thoughts are sometimes ideas, those ideas can then form philosophies, which when explored in the context of the world forms ideologies - logically reasoned systems of ideas that can be broken down into decisions and modifications that allow it to be implemented, which is politics.

To truly know what goes in the world we have created is to know politics, therefore to be uncurious about it is to be uncurious about the world itself.

I know people who are like that, and it seems they just consume products instead and get excited for the next product, I try not to think less of them, but if I'm completely honest it seems very childish to me, it's one thing to be ignorant of politics and history when you're 14 because all you care about is xbox, but when you're in your mid to late 20s struggling to parse basic allegories or recall what was in the news that year, its not great.

Kinda? I decided to avoid political-discussion communities, but if politics comes up in anither community I might offer an opinion.

I do. I hate politics.

I do not.

I avoid politics everywhere. I'm happier now than I was when I didn't avoid politics.

I don't avoid it, but also don't comment my thoughts and opinions on everything because of narrative rules. I don't want to be harassed for a difference of opinion.

Also, I used to filter out trump, but stopped because of the upcoming presidential election. I'll probably filter him out again after the election. I also filter out elon musk.

No. Being politically active is of the upmost importance to me right now. I'm exhausted, but this election year is a matter of survival for queer people.

Avoiding politics is fucking gay, amirite bois?

No, I just try to. My blocklist is like forty miles at this point

Edit: always entertaining to read rationalizations of "exposing myself to the constant depressing drudgery of political news coverage is like a moral imperative or some shit" btw

By the time I've blocked all the posts about sports ball, the politics can't fit through the filters. It's pretty relaxing. If I ever learn how any sport works, I'm gonna have to learn a new approach.

Everything is political. It doesn’t have to be partisan but even saying, “A plague on both your houses” is political.

I sway back and forth. I'll get into a heavy debate about something. It just burns me right up. I need to chill afterwards for a week or so.