Just putting that out there. While we might have struggle sessions over bullshit, the larger internet zeitgeist is putrid and rancid.

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[–] 71 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

The thing that makes all 3 of those places good is that the userbase is talking to each other authentically instead of writing comments to secure votes.

On the wider internet most people are writing their comments not for the person they're actually replying to, but for the audience that will be voting on the comment. Social media has now trained people into this mindset and it has produced a rancid style of inauthentic interaction.

Even with people I fucking hate and disagree with I prefer an authentic interaction where they're actually responding to me and having a real conversation compared to where they're responding for a perceived audience of voters. This is now almost impossible to find online.

I will say however, the times where that hasn't been the case here on Hexbear have been some of the most toxic experiences I've ever had online. When a hexbear turns bad-faith it gets really nasty.

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  • [–] 39 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    It has been really nice to not have a platform filled with one-uppers and combative ppl trying to drive engagement and "go viral" with every comment. It also really helps to have mods that have our backs, and aren't going to allow stormfront/reddit-tier bigotry.

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  • [–] 25 points 11 months ago (8 children)

    I think people are pretty combative here, viciously so sometimes. But it's still authentic, they have an exchange that is still very direct and not targeted at who is voting.

    This is very different to anywhere else. I've actually attempted to recreate it in other spaces I moderate and I've failed so far, I don't exactly understand the criteria involved with getting people to act this way. It's very difficult to marshall people into it, particularly on reddit where the platform is designed specifically to cause people to soapbox for voters. I have no idea how it happened on CTH or TrueAnon. I suspect the culture of the space was primarily caused by the podcasts and not by the modteams or reddit.

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  • [–] 60 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    just popping in to say fuck discord.

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    [+] 58 points 11 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 32 points 11 months ago* (5 children)

    I feel like eventually we'll see an "evolution" of LLMs where the big innovation will be cutting 90% of the Internet out of the training data without breaking the whole thing. Imagine if LLM output was as dry, neutral, and reliable as the average encyclopedia (yes I know those aren't perfect either but it's an improvement over reddit threads at least).

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I don’t know if it’ll be framed as an innovation, per se, but that’s going to be the main utility for this technology. Small, focused models that can help you turn a large amount of pre-qualified data into something usable. That would be pretty cool. Wasn’t ever going to be anything more than that, but we’ll have to watch a trillion dollar market bubble pop before people start to narrow their ambitions and actually make something useful out of these things.

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  • [–] 20 points 11 months ago

    reddit was actually good for a bunch of how-to kinda shit that would never be in an encyclopedia. the trick is sifting the "hey you might have a carbon monoxide leak" from the "it's cool to throw car batteries into the sea"

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  • [–] 53 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Pirating shit is becoming harder and harder and google is basically unusable now

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  • [–] 50 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Hexbear reminds me of the old internet. People being their authentic selves. Doesn't mean there's no nastiness but the ratio of performative or inflammatory bullshit to people talking is much lower than the average internet.

    I also maintain that an extremely low tolerance for bad faith or cruel behaviour is necessary online. Since the regulatory mechanisms that govern social interaction elsewhere are not available.

    Whenever I look at lemmy outside, or worse reddit, it's just performative grandstanding, normalised bigotry, garbled repetition, and in "jokes".

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  • [–] 36 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah I'm sure glad we don't have incomprehensible repetitive in jokes. I'm gonna post a picture of a bean now.

    beanis

    Jokes aside, this is one of the few places on the Internet where you don't have to be a power user to feel like part of a community

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    [+] 50 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (10 children)
  • [–] 40 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I think what you're describing is not just political opinions, but shared values. Especially when it comes to upholding human rights, and dismantling systems of oppression that threaten human rights.

    Right wingers don't really have any shared values, except obtain and hold power by any means necessary, so right wing forums are outrageously toxic to each other even when they technically hold the same political position.

    That's why we have a "loneliness epidemic", as it turns out, being a genocide-supporting chud who doesn't know empathy also robs you of genuine human intimacy.

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  • [–] 27 points 11 months ago

    That's why we have a "loneliness epidemic", as it turns out, being a genocide-supporting chud who doesn't know empathy also robs you of genuine human intimacy.

    i don't think that's sufficient to explain the loneliness epidemic. too many of us with humanity are also completely isolated and have no avenue to make friends or love someone

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  • [–] 27 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    hexbear is the only place on the internet ive joined where i had to tell them my political views and be approved first.

    Buh? Do we have a new policy of account creation

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  • [–] 33 points 11 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 27 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Dang I really need to make a new alt I just think this handle is really funny

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    [–] 48 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I’m trans and it’s depressing how hurtful every other social media is, can’t follow any trans creators because the comments are just hate speech that is totally okay and allowed by the site, apparently. And those same people being hateful will turn around and pretend the world caters to trans people and “you can’t say anything anymore!!1!1” Reddit is maybe okay when I stick to the subreddits I follow.

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    [–] 47 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I used to visit reddit regularly in the past, and the ridiculous and monstrous stuff they always said had become normalized to me; I hated it, but I got used to it; but then I discovered chapo and LSC and now every time I go back for a visit, I'm reminded of how unacceptably awful and childish the people there are.

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  • [–] 27 points 11 months ago

    The final straw for me with Reddit, and looking back I’m embarrassed it took so long, was a thread where people defended using the n-word and were getting upvoted. I decided I needed to delete the app to prevent hypertension after that one.

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  • [–] 42 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    I used to have a bunch of cosy little forums to check out daily. They're all dead now and probably moved to Discord, and I hate Discord. Everything else is on Reddit or Twitter or any of the other massive social media platforms which are full of fascists.

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  • [–] 32 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    I miss that about the old internet. I'd get home from school and read through a daily rotation of sites' articles, forums, and blogs. Most of them don't exist anymore or have completely gone to shit. Ones that are functional are overrun by terminally online chuds whining about minorities and women. Decades ago, they'd get banned for the things they say today or chased off by normalish people. Now, they're the majority of site users, so they get a pass.

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  • [–] 34 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    /r/trueanon is pretty good but why do they insist on using the r-word all the time?

    visible-disgust

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  • [–] 20 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    that place is in the general sphere of the 'dirtbag left' and the roots of that shit sunk deep into the ethos of how some people conduct themselves very early on because you get to eat your cake and have it too. its a reactionary caramel center youll find in pretty much anyone who tries to convince you nick mullen could totally be the next dane cook if he tried lol

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    [–] 33 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    r/trueanon has the closest energy to the original cth but I really don't like how they started adopting the cumtown "I'm gay and my dick is small" bit it just feels tired

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  • [–] 33 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    America is cooked bro

    I went today to a fall festival and they had literal ass children in police vests helping people park

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    [+] 31 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)
    [–] 25 points 11 months ago

    Certain Fediverse instances didn't last long, including two Kitsu instances. I just wanted a good instance that lasts forever with good support.

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good

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  • [–] 21 points 11 months ago
    [–] 18 points 11 months ago

    i agree but man i wish some of the smaller comms on here were more active. don't get me wrong seeing the same people in most comment sections is nice because it feels more a community that way, but it bums me out whenever i go to a comm about an interest of mine and the last post was made a month ago with 3 upvotes and no comments.

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  • [–] 18 points 11 months ago

    yeah screw reddit

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