Not really. No more than in the past. The difference is the 24/7 firehose of propaganda and indoctrination. The solution is to step away from the firehouse. Focus on the things that actually impact you. Or that you can influence. If someone is telling you to be afraid of people that you don’t know, have never met, or ever had contact with. Ignore them and tune them out. It’s legitimately that simple.

I never implied that it did. Go ahead and make one. It will always do as much or more damage than it will ever do good. That’s the point. There’s bias in everything. Trusting someone else’s bias to accurately convey the bias of something else, isn’t making you more informed or a better consumer of media. Not in any meaningful way. Not in the way basic critical thinking skills can. It’s just a game of bias telephone. And if you know how the game telephone goes. It should give you an indication to its efficacy.

It’s not hard. There are some basic steps anyone can take to get started. Do not tolerate those who are intolerant of who someone is. Whether it’s ethnicity or sexuality. If accusations are being made against groups. Especially ones that you have very little experience or contact with. Put yourself in that situation. Think about how you would go about things. Because that’s more than likely how they would as well. And for everything else, especially things that are either hard science or factually based. Simply differ to the people who make it their life to study and understand those things. But never give their opinions outside of that field any weight.

Just those few basic things can illuminate a lot of bias and malintent. Leave you far more guarded and protected against misinformation and bias in the future. Which along with basic intellectual curiosity. Something most people have largely never valued. Will serve you far better than any app. Because the Insidious part about misinformation. Is that there’s often some amount of Truth to it. Whether it’s wrong because of malice or because of bias. Critical thinking and intellectual curiosity will always better serve you.

No. And there never should be. And here’s why. Bear with me for a moment but consider this. Part of the problem with this sort of thing is that people want their hands held. They want to be told what to think. Not to think critically for themselves. No matter how well intentioned. Such systems will always be sought to be abused. To manipulate people and their opinions. And at best they will always be subject to bias and blindness. The truly keep them from ever being universally useful.

Basic training and education in critical thinking skills will be far more to help people. Than relying on an app no matter how well intentioned to tell them how to think about something.

Yes there are. Specifically I would be a libertarian-congress or an anarco-communist.

However. Regardless of propaganda. One cannot be authoritarian. Or for a strong centralization of authority and State power. And actually be communist. They are conflicting goals. The workers cannot in any meaningful sense control the means of production. When they are oppressed by a dictatorial Vanguard. That imprisons/beats/slaughters any dissenters. The Vanguard owns the means of production in that scenario. They will still tell you that they are you. Even as they strangle and stomp on you. However it’s just a sick joke.

Conversely, actual libertarianism. Left libertarianism. Especially the kind advocated for by the originator of libertarianism Dejacque, as well as anarchism. Are in near complete and total harmony with communism. The only rub being how absolute the call from Mutual Aid is and how voluntary it is. Both ideologies being heavily predicated on consent and freedom.

Well then please go edit wikipedia. As well as most political science and philosophy books. Because that’s literally how it’s defined. Actually they commonly go further classless stateless moneyless. But I digress. I’m not the one pushing GOP or FSB propaganda here.

They call it Communism. I could name my dog Communism and it would be Communism too. It still wouldn’t be communism.

It’s not rhetorical. ML, Leninism is called that because it literally isn’t communism. Otherwise they’d just call it communism. It’s a cunning master plan to build an economy capable of somehow transitioning to communism. How? Good question. Even the ideologies creators didn’t really explain it properly. It literally fits the 3 step meme.

Step 1: slaughter everyone that disagrees with you.

Step 2: ???

Step 3: communism!

My criticism of Leninism isn’t defense of anyone. As an anarchist I’m anti-authoritarian whether they’re liberal/leninist/maoist. You’re all a danger to yourselves and everyone else. Regardless of how much everyone despising each other or constant whataboutism. Under capitalism oligarchs buy our representation. Turn them against us. Putting the boot at our necks. Under leninism. The Vanguard party consolidates power. Killing or imprisoning anyone who is a threat no matter how small. And rewarding friends and family with wealth and power. All the while the boot at the throat of the proletariat they’re supposed to be serving. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They all need to be torn down.

Communism is stateless and classless. How are STATES with authoritarian unanswerable leaders/classes in any way communist?

You’re the only one insulting yourself. The toxicity is heavily attached to you. A lot of the rest of us are having a fine conversation.

It’s not my concern if you decide to continue self-sabotaging. That’s on you. You’re definitely not helping yourself and not fostering any actual discussion that’s for sure. You must be an Anarchist ironically. Just out for chaos. And not for Mutual Aid and understanding.

Freedom of speech is an “alt-right” talking point?!?!?!

They’ve literally been banging the freeze-peach button constantly. Every single time there’s consequences for their actions for a decade or two now. Where have you been?

The irony right?

It’s not absolutist. Mildly reductive perhaps. But not remotely absolutist.

How could anyone be for it? It’s literally rule by the wealthy. It was a response created by wealthy mercantilist. Frustrated that no matter how much money they had there was an echelon of power always denied to them.

It’s always been tried with that definition. At the founding of the United States, wealthy white land owning males. The capital class with all the capital controlled it. It was oligarchy from it’s establishment. It was more beneficial on average than mercantilism. But still a failure.

Even today in China. The vanguard, their capital controlling class controls and regulates their state capitalism. Capital regulates capitalism. Not the people.

Respectfully, Adam Smith did not invent capitalism. He is seen by some as the father of it. But much like marx and Lenin and many others. Put together a popular outline of the thought at the time.

Even then he needs to be understood in the context of the times he lived in. He was very Progressive and educated for his time. But even if he believed that government should have some say in capitalism. Government back then meant wealthy white land owning males. I.E the capital class. I.E Capital controlling capital. Not the workers. Not women. Capitalism has always been about oligarchy. It was literally a response by the mercantilist class against the Royals.

Neither capitalism or socialism works for anyone but the vanguard/oligarchs.

Then you are technically left. Although leninists Will loudly denounce anyone who doesn’t follow their authoritarian ideology as being no true Scotsman.

Capitalism as I stated above is regulated by capital. Anything other than capital regulating capitalism is not capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is that Capital regulates itself. If you want something other than Capital regulating capitalism, i e the people or government. Then you are against Capital regulating itself. And therefore anti-capitalist.

The tricky bit is. That wealthy oligarchs have spent centuries at this point conflating markets and capitalism. They are two different things. Markets have existed for centuries, Millennium even. It’s one of man’s oldest inventions. Coming right about the same time as agriculture. Predating capitalism by thousands of years. Capitalism as a concept is barely older than the United States itself.

According to capitalism, capitalism is the only regulation capitalism needs. Capitalism regulated by something other than capitalism is anti-capitalism.

The bigger issue is that so many people misconstrued capitalism and markets. They are two different things. You can have markets, well regulated markets. And not have capitalism. Even under authoritarian leninist governments they have markets. There were markets in Soviet russia, there are markets in-state capitalist China. Even in North korea. But they do not let the wealthy regulate and decide the markets as capitalism does. They have plenty of other issues however.

The main thing keeping people from using Mastodon is the lack of an algorithm. The very feature they should be using it for. The problem is your normal average person needs to be told by someone or an algorithm who to talk to or what to do. To go out and look for people to connect with on their own. We share interest. Or simply have work that interests them is too much effort. You need to show up in a little box on their interface otherwise they’ll never find you.

It’s a start. And still a doorway into the fediverse. The average person doesn’t care about reddit Lemmy or mbin. They care about Instagram pixelfed and twitter mastodon bluesky.

They will quickly find bluesky enshitifying out of necessity. And the fediverse will be there to catch them.

Oh definitely. But those of us that multi-messenger were definitely the exception not the rule.

Do they need to? How did people decide on MSN vs AIM vs ICQ? Google vs Yahoo? Ventrillo or Team speak? Skype vs Zoom vs Discord. They will go where their friends are primarily. And what suits their needs generally. Federation isn’t anything truly new. The massive centralized servers were. The fediverse is a return to form. Only better. Be on the service and server that suit you. No missing out.