The creators say they don't want people not of their ilk joining so this idea that open debate is welcome is disingenuous. They don't allow anyone to federate with the main instance either if they don't also toe the political line.

Can you explain what "don't allow anyone to federate with the main instance" means in this case? Is it like you can host your own server, but the "index" of servers at lenny.ml won't list you unless you meet their standards?

Seems acceptable to me (anyone else can host their own index right?) just trying to understand.

Yes it’s like that. Mastodon has the same thing going on, where the main index from their official site and the biggest instances won’t peer with you (let your users and theirs interact in each other’s instances) unless you implement their rules and moderation requirements in your instance. For mastodon what that means is that instances that aren’t progressive/far left aren’t welcome and are essentially not viable because they have no user base or network effects to seed their community with.

What does this look like to the average user?

I'm imagining - finding a topic or person or something that you want to follow, and then, your 'instance' / host pops up with "the thing you are trying to get data from is banned from this host".

Seems like an excellent opportunity to upsell someone to starting their own host / own rules system.. Star your own droplet for $10 a month maybe?

Mastodon provides you with a 'federated timeline'. Basically your feed is a list of all posts the instance your account is on knows about, based on what the instance owners have configured. So you see all the posts directly from users in your instance, made on your instance, and also posts from other users in your subset of the fediverse, determined by what other instances your instance peers with. You can interact with users from other instances by referencing their handle and instance. So instead of @bob it would be more like @bob@xyz where xyz is the instance. You can follow a user from a different instance. Oddly, even though you can filter your federated timeline to your local instance, you cannot filter it to any other specific instance - for that you would need to create an account on that instance and view its local timeline. So basically it gives you a broader audience and user community than just your specific instance.

Some useful links that explain it further:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/7/15183128/mastodon-open-sou...

https://kevq.uk/how-does-mastodon-work/

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/network/

Fascinating. Well that clearly doesn't work. It's almost like having an index at all forces a ranking or framing. And so perhaps the index itself is what needs to go.

I did not say it was welcome. Learning how to talk with others and understand one another better is real work.

I did say it was worth doing, more or less.

> I did say it was worth doing

it is not worth anyone's time

Generally speaking, that is true until it isn't.

People experiencing hard times is one catalyst.

Another is loneliness.

There are others.

> I do not mean ideologically. Just in conversation. More of us learning to talk with one another better is a really good thing.

The vast majority of people do not want to have that conversation (hence the flagged post of the grandparent).

Why?

I find the answer in most cases is worries over personal judgement.

More of us quit doing that and more people will have that conversation.

I usually lead with, "ignore the talking heads on TV."

Worked wonders for me. I enjoy politics and culture again as do others I talk to.

The other basic worry is inability to manage a conversation coupled with the idea of ideology being the means to better ends rather than the reasoning tool it really is. A person who maintains one ideology, sans a working understanding of others, will feel threatened when its merit is challenged.

Fact is we have many solutions to the problems we face with no requirement they all conform to a single ideological frame.

I tried to do this on a few different sites, but in my experience, there simply aren't enough good-faith actors. The dirtbag left[0] reigns over the nice fellows in leftist circles on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook. They don't want to engage capitalists in debate... they don't even want anyone in their own ranks playing devil's advocate. They want to call you a chud and take a screenshot of it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirtbag_left

There are more ways than devil's advocate to have conversations.

Secondly, it does not have to be leftists vs capitalists.

There are parts of society well served by markets and other parts that really aren't. Same goes for applying socialist ideas to problems.

Recognizing just that fact is a basis for conversation that can lead somewhere meaningful for all involved.

How do you get leftists to have a conversation on that basis?

For what it's worth, the same query applies left, right, whatever.

I like to lead with how is it all for you and how did you arrive where you are politically?

Common struggles, life stories, other things help start a conversation.

Then it's give and take.

The idea of any side, particular ideology being right, best fit, one size fits all is crazy! That isn't reality.

Talk about it from there.

Many would agree money in politics is bad, for example. I sure do. Another interesting chat is the for profit motive.

Compare and contrast public utilities. The one where I live is straight up government, runs at cost plus. A few miles down the road it's private. Runs at cost plus margin, plus...

All other variables are the same, and what's the impact?

Power is very reliable where I live. It's not so much down the road. Why?

There are many things to discuss like this and get a sense of where the ideologies apply well and where they don't, and after a time, people begin to realize "their team" is playing them for profit due to corruption.

And they are! Make no mistake!

Gets better from there.

I am having these every chance I get. Every time I get someone out of the ideology as means to better ends trap, that's someone who will consider policy, features, benefits, costs, risks and that's all we can ask for, and all we need.

It's also someone willing to talk about money in politics, legal corruption here and what that all really means in terms of ordinary people getting reputable, meaningful representation.

All of that is a foundation for action later on when this stuff bubbles up into something we can actually act on.

If you want leftists to engage with you in good faith, you simply need to ask the right questions. Questions that demonstrate a baseline of familiarity with the history and theory being interrogated.

The Left isn't averse to debate. The Left is averse to repeating the same tired arguments about iPhones and authority and "human nature" until the heat death of the universe. Things that have been addressed in great detail for over a century.

There is actually a lively debate taking place. It just typically doesn't take the form of Zizek vs. Peterson SuperBowl style spectacles. It takes place in literature, and in meetings among organizers trying to actually accomplish their goals. People like that don't give a flying fuck what John Stossel or Ben Shapiro have to say. This mainstream "debate culture" is so far detached from the actual struggles taking place.

I assume you didn’t mean this irrelevant ironically, but it reads as irony.

For what it’s worth if your leftists will only talk to people who already accept their worldview and assume everyone else is like Ben Shapiro, it validates the point that they are not available for the kinds of discussion we are talking about.

I agree with all of that, but I think you’re making the case that leftists are in fact averse to debate. If an outsider can’t interact with a couple people on social media without having already read all the important literature and knowing the “established” answers to pesky questions like “why do attempts at establishing communism so often result in authoritarian conditions,” then the community is not open to being prodded. Many of these communities are intentionally insular. Why would they be open to people questioning their philosophy when most of society does that already?