The philosophy behind FOSS is inherently left wing and anarchist; communities working together to provide and produce tools for the common good, without a profit motive. Coupled with the lack of advertising and promotion of the sites, people have to seek them out, leading to a self-selecting user population that skews left :)
I would say that FOSS typically draws a more educated crowd, and right wing rhetoric and propaganda typically target those of lesser education and lower cognitive ability, simply because those people are the most likely hosts for rightoid brain worms. Why do colleges skew heavily left, gee it must be brainwashing /s
Eh, there's plenty of educated right wingers. Not fascists as much, but the kind of fiscally conservative economists who preach austerity are often as not highly educated, just lacking in empathy.
There are definitely plenty of well educated, intelligent fascists as well. It's pretty dangerous to start thinking that what separates two ideological groups is intelligence.
I believe what they were separating was Fascist leaders versus fascist followers.
I was mainly responding to the previous comment which characterized right-wingers as having "lesser cognitive ability". Just saying that that kind of thinking sets up a "we're superior" mentality that can too easily lead to the same kinds of consequences as thinking you're superior based on race or social status. There are so many environmental and experiential factors that go into where a person lands politically and how effective certain forms of propaganda are on them. Blanket statements that characterize entire people groups as less intelligent are not in any way accurate or helpful.
You're speaking of pundits and politicians whose opinions are public and widespread. There is little reason to believe that those folks are sincere in their public statements. They are motivated by greed to lie in an effort to sway the opinions of uneducated people.
Among the general public, those that sincerely hold conservative political views are cognitively impaired. Source: they vote for things that are objectively against their own prosperity.
I think pretty much everyone views their political ideology as "the one that stands for freedom", and it just comes down to what it means to be "free", and the follow up of free from what.
I feel like libertarians would love the concept of FOSS and decentralization, and I don't think anyone would argue they skew left.
So, I disagree that FOSS is inherently left wing. I think it's attractive to the left wing for many good reasons. I think people project their own politics onto whatever they love, and things can be loved by very different groups for different reasons.
I feel like libertarians would love the concept of FOSS and decentralization, and I don't think anyone would argue they skew left.
Yup, there has always been a large libertarian contingent in the OSS community.
As a left winger myself...
.... I'm not sure Foss is inherently left wing. Inherently anti authoritarian for sure, but I can totally see a libertarian type making a pro-FOSS argument from a capitalistic-individualistic and it being rather sensible. (Aaaaas long as we ignore the ways it'd contradict other beliefs right wing liberals tend to hold, but yknow. Compartmentalisation is a human superpower)
I think I'd still argue the free open source part is inherently left wing. Why would I, a right wing libertarian, lend my time to developing a piece of software that I am unable to make a profit from? I have no motive.
Something like bitcoin is the kind of tech project of that mould that i think attracts the right wing libertarian. Just my opinion though.
Why would I, a right wing libertarian, lend my time to developing a piece of software that I am unable to make a profit from? I have no motive.
Because you do stand to gain regardless. "I have my code on the source of " is like. Amazing portfolio material for any job interview. I had a friend get a job in the games industry (though they regret it to this day because the game industry sucks--) with nothing on his resumé except for a smattering of mods for popular games.
Any pro-capitalist person with a functioning brain will acknowledge the role of non-monetary "Profits" in every human relationship, yanno?
Why would I, a right wing libertarian, lend my time to developing a piece of software that I am unable to make a profit from?
You are making a reductionist argument that the only thing that motivates a libertarian is profit. It is certainly a motivator but it's certainly not the only one. Libertarian's have a long history of association with FOSS, for example my own stretches back to the mid-90s. I have no desire to make money from it but I have a strong desire to stay out of the clutches of BigTech as much as possible and so I contribute to FOSS as I can.
Something like bitcoin is the kind of tech project of that mould that i think attracts the right wing libertarian.
A lot of libertarians push on cryptocurrency not because of a profit motive but because of the freedom and privacy aspects. To use myself as an example I don't hold crypto as an investment but rather as a way of holding a currency that isn't subject to the US Federal Reserve system.
Are there some libertarians who fit your descriptions? Absolutely there are, and they are generally referred to as Anarcho-Capitalists, An-Caps for short, but just like every Democrat isn't a Progressive not every libertarian is an An-Cap.
I mean you signed up on lemmy.marxism-leninism. Yeah they tend to lean left, lol.
But yeah your observation indeed is is correct. Not only does lemmy lean left it often leans pretty far left too. It might feel like a breathe of fresh air but it's still a bubble and echo chamber. It's the same as truth social but the exact opposite. Nothing wrong with that per-se but it's a good thing to keep in mind. Factual information is regularly downvoted here not because it's false but because it doesn't fit the narrative.
I don't come here for the far left. I come here for the lack of the far right. The far left are some crazy nutters, too, but I think for the most part they are well meaning and that's a damn sight better than the far right who just wear hatred on their fucking sleeves.
It means I get some shit for not wanting to live in a big city or being happy driving a car, but I take solace in the fact that I'll be long dead before far left ideals take hold in any significant way. Meanwhile... fascism is a far more immediate threat, and that's the one group of fuckers I give myself leave to unabashedly hate.
There's no scarcity of hate on Lemmy either. It simply flies under the radar for most part because it's directed at things we hate too. Exactly as is the case on far-right forums as well. Just read the comments of any thread about Elon, Police, Ai, Facebook, Twitter, Capitalism, Israel and so on. You even admit participating in it yourself.
The far-right thinks of themselves as well meaning just as well. Nobody thinks of themselves as the bad guys. Claiming they intend to be hateful and evil is disingenuine. That's only how you view them. Their view of us is hardly any different. Both views are wrong.
If you think hating on fascists is just more of the same (and to be clear, there is a lot of ambiguity in what you said) then I'm going to have to disagree. There is no nobility in loving your enemy until they exterminate you.
As for the rest, you come at me a bit argumentative, but I don't really disagree. But does it make it an echo chamber if I don't fight everyone I disagree with? I've been arguing on the internet since before the WWW existed and nothing has changed, least of all anyone's minds. I get upvotes when I manage a particularly eloquent turn of phrase that captures the zeitgeist, but as gratifying as that is I enjoy the back and fourth a lot more. I'd rather have someone thoughtfully and respectfully disagree with me.
I think the idea that MLs are a far left ideology is pretty questionable honestly. But that is the conventional wisdom certainly.
The definition most people use for left and right isn’t really consistent or coherent. If you do try to iron out those inconsistencies, you’ll find that MLs don’t really fit with the rest of the left.
It has to do with profit motive. The Fediverse, and the Lemmy sub-protocol, arose when for-profit enterprises (TwitX and Reddit, respectively) began prioritizing their own bottom line over the enrichment of their users.
This has always been the Faustian bargain of social media: you are the product and you receive free content at the cost of advertisements and data mining.
Once the monopolists of the social sphere overstepped their bounds - got too invasive, or tried extracting value directly from the end user - free alternatives formed.
Naturally, the only people self-aware enough to be put off by the exploitation of these monopolists were left-leaning. There’re a lot of people out there who will pay to be cocooned in an echo chamber (viz Truth Social) but leftists like to pretend they’re too good for that shit.
So here we all are, enjoying a methodone drip of social media without all of the optimization and dopamine-tweaking hooks that for-profit socials live by.
It’s not a bad outcome, really, and if someone somehow wants to start a counter-culture right wing node on the fediverse, nothing is stopping him except a total lack of willing participants.
Say what you will about leftists; at least they try new things - and conservatives, as you would expect from the name, do not.
This almost feels like bait, your instance is Lemmy.ml. The ml stands for Marxist-Leninist, your home instance is literally the home for far-left ideology. You'll still see a leftist bant for the reasons commenters have mentioned, but the single biggest reason is that your instance is owned and operated by them.
It's the second largest instance, plus it's the original instance. I can see why one or both of those facts might draw someone. Maybe they thought it was hosted in Mali!
One could argue that as alot of us are exredditors we would be the more progressive or left side of the crowd. Something happened we didn't like so we left it behind for something we hope will be better and put in the effort to make it so as opposed to staying with what we know and really waiting things out before choosing a new direction. It would have been easy to stay with reddit, hell I could go back in an instant and it would be like I never left, but I chose this new path and I'm sticking with it. That is what progress is all about
People seeking to be free from corporate overlords, and desiring a place to speak their minds and who also don't have an issue with spending a little time and effort tend to have a more liberal mindset. Regrettably as primates, we also have a tendency to form tribes and give short shrift to any viewpoints outside of those we ourselves believe in. I personally would prefer a dialogue of equals where we can debate our differences and agree to disagree or even find the places where we do agree and can come together. However, that enlightened state of being escapes most all of us. Instead, I will regress to thumping my chest and hooting at you.
the right loves corporations it doesn't go out of its way to avoid them
There are sections of both the right and the left that have anti-authoritarian tendancies.
The libertarian right tends to view things purely in terms of government over reach, whilst the left tends to view things in terms of the power of capital.
Leftists saw Facebook pushing propaganda for the highest bidder, Reddit trying to be safe to sell to investors and twitter basically becoming a project to reflect Elon Musk's personal opinions.
Out of that came a bunch of attempts at creating new social networks. The right wing attempts were not cognisant that the aforementioned were the natural result of trying to get rich off it, while the left attempted to make it impossible to get into that position.
I think all the right wingers who were dissatisfied with reddit migrated to voat?
Exploding heads, too, but everyone defederated from that.
Truth Social and whatever Jack Dorsey and Thiel are up to
I wouldn't say FOSS is inherently leftist, but it's certainly not a capitalist approach.
And Lemmy has been developed by two outspoken Marxists, so the earliest adopters before the larger waves of reddit exilees had a similar mindset.
Add to the fact that most of the oldest and therefore largest communities are hosted on lemmy.ml, which is run by the original devs, and features moderators who by and large also share a similar mindset (and suppress critical comments quite a bit), and you've got a lefty echo chamber going, that's spilling into the newer communities on neutral instances, giving the whole platform a left touch.
I once wrote a comment on a lemmy.ml page about China being authoritarian and my comment was removed, with a note saying "China isn't authoritarian, stop spreading misinformation" LMAO. Delusional people
Education.
No for real, a lot of right-wing thinking comes from just parroting disinformation and being in their own echo chamber circles.
Educated people are more likely to 'lean left':
Environment: Higher education institutions often emphasize critical thinking, questioning of traditional norms, and exposure to diverse perspectives. This can lead individuals to adopt more progressive or liberal views.
Diversity: College and university settings are typically more diverse, exposing students to different cultures, ideas, and lifestyles.
Rationalism: Educated individuals may place a higher value on scientific reasoning and empirical evidence, which can align more with policies and positions typically associated with the left, such as support for climate change action and public health initiatives.
Perspective: Higher education can lead to an understanding of economic inequality and systemic issues. Educated individuals might support policies aimed at reducing inequality and improving social welfare.
Career: Many educated individuals work in fields such as academia, healthcare, and social services, where left-leaning values like equity, public good, and social justice are prevalent.
Generational: Younger generations, who are more likely to be college-educated today than in the past, tend to have more progressive views on social issues, such as LGBTQ+ rights and racial equality.
Education is also 'pushed' by a lot of adults when I was a kid. I thought it was kinda normal / lame because duh, of course it's important. I didn't get grasp deepl WHY until I was older and realized it's really a root causal issue of today's problems.
Educated people are more likely to ‘lean left’
I would qualify that as "Educated people with a conscience and a good ethical or moral base".
There are plenty of very smart, very evil right wingers out there.
Right-wing propaganda would have you believe that most good things are left-wing (and thus bad).
Right-wing propaganda would have you believe that most good things are left-wing
One of the few things I agree with them on!
People looking for a Reddit alternative don't tend to be conservatives and liberals. r/worldnews fits their needs perfectly.
Thus the migration is either to a left platform like Lemmy, or truth social etc for super right winger.
It skews young, and young skews left.
Now if only young voted…
Lemmy users seem older than most social media to me. Why is Star Trek TNG so popular here if not?
For the most part, the same ethos that powers the Fediverse is the same ethos that powers all open-source. So naturally the people that would be more keen to adopt it are the people who believe in the Open Source model in general.
I can't think of anything less right-wing than open source; it's essentially software communism ("from each according to their ability to each according to their need") Sharing isn't a right-wing value.
I think it's more that you don't get many right-wing extremists and the mods don't protect the ones that do exist from seeing things they don't like.
There are still a lot of neoliberal kind of conservatives on lemmy, and then also right-wing types in the form of tankies, but for the most part I think the light touch by most of the moderators means that facts (which favor the "left") tend to be allowed to persist in a way they don't on many social media that see profit in extremist content.
Maybe because it was originally developed as a platform to discuss Marxism and Leninism?
I think people here tend to question and fact-check posts and comments a lot, which is a healthy thing. Now some say reality skews left, in which case could it be that the right have left because the left is right?
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