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 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.

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

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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.

@Snowman44

My politics lean very far to the left, but I don’t want to be an echo chamber and it saddens me to see how little room for political dialogue there is on lemmy. The echo chamber is a big problem with reddit, and is even worse on Lemmy.

Exploding-heads is the only instance I’m aware of with a more right leaning/conservative base. It is more troll content than any real discussion of politics though.

Could you define “conservative” in terms of politics (presumably US)? For example, low taxes and small government? And/or anti abortion and pro religion? Anti gun safety legislation? Anti regulation?

Perhaps you’re looking for the more contemporary definition of “conservative” that’s come about since the Tea Party or MAGA movements started? Mostly focused on being against whatever liberals/progressive are for?

As others have mentioned I think there are a lot of spaces out there for the latter group. I’m not sure many exist for the former group.

I’m confused. You are here and engaging, but you think it is an echo chamber? Echo chambers aren’t really conducive to outside opinions. I’m here and definitely not a liberal, I’m a humanitarian.

As long as you don’t see any person to the left of you as a Liberal, you’ll find a decently diverse pool here!

Stick around, smell the flowers.

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.

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.

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.

I’m just going to say try making an account on the unilem.org instance, from there you’ll be able to access all instances from the fediverse. It’s about as politically balanced as they get since they almost never defederate, it doesn’t have very many communities though so you’ll have to find those on other instances, by the way if a community from another instance doesn’t appear in the one that you’re in, go to the search bar in the communities tab and type ![community name]@[instance domain] and assuming that you typed it correctly it’ll usually sync it and then you can subscribe to it.

Since unilem hasn’t defederated any of the big instances you’ll very likely have access to all communities on Lemmy.

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.

Yes, here: exploding-heads.com

Enjoy learning about the secret illuminati jewish space laser and the deep state trying to establish a new world order!

Let me know if you do find a more moderate space, because yeah, it’s very much an echo chamber on most Lemmy communities.

I might recommend checking out certain communities that tailor more to your hobbies rather than politics on here.