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Lemmy fell off (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world
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It used to be interesting before with engaging posts and looked like a burgeoning community. Now it's just stagnant, full of politics and tankieism has become more commonplace.

Idk though, maybe it's just me

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[–] 2 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Good point. I guess the solution is to promote politics that isn't drama/controversy, then. Things most people can agree on, such as getting lobbying out of government and getting rid of mass surveillance and Silicon Valley tech monopolies.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (7 children)

    We can think even more pleasant. This conversation here is politics. Deciding what to have for dinner, that's a group decision, which makes it politics. Fandom discussions are politics. Agreeing that a cat gif is cute, that's politics. And it's nice and fun and sweet.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (6 children)

    That's a pretty broad definition of "politics", at least compared to the common one or the dictionary one - and its one that waters the term down to the point of uselessness.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    Wikipedia: Politics[a] is the activity of settling affairs in an organized society.

    Merriam-Webster: the art or science of government

    Collins: Politics are the actions or activities concerned with achieving and using power in a country or society

    We live in a society where power is concentrated in the hands of the few. In other words, an authoritarian society. This society wants us to believe that the power to govern society can only be wielded by an economic and/or social elite. If we're going to move on to a libertarian society, where everyone has the power to change their circumstances and help govern their community, then we need to accept that politics is something we do every day when we work together to make decisions.

    I believe that the unfairness of our society is maintained by a mind prison. This narrow definition of politics trains us to think of ourselves as powerless. That's one brick making up the walls of our mind prison. Let's smash it.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    Still, "agreeing that a cat gif is cute" is as far from politics as it gets.

    By all means, power to the people. But surely that doesn't mean EVERYTHING is politics?

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    We agreed to make a decision: to collectively call this kitty cute. In so doing, we reaffirmed our social values: The young are to be protected. Cats are to be kept as pets. We contributed towards the maintenance of certain conditions of our present society. If tomorrow everyone instead agreed that kittens are annoying pests, cat ownership would fall. People may perhaps devote themselves more strongly to solving the feral cat problems we have here in Australia. Instead of sterilising stray cats, programs would simply kill them. We would become a harder and less empathetic people. We would make different big decisions.

    Everything you do with others matters. No action is without consequence. You are powerful.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    That's an interesting and in-depth perspective.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Thank you! I got to it through evolutionary psychology. Because it seems like just about every culture thinks small fluffy animals are cute to some degree. Mainstream science tells us it's a side effect of needing to think babies are cute, and I buy that explanation. But what that means is, thinking small animals are cute is so imperative to the survival of the species, it got genetically hardcoded. Anything that ALL humans do seems to be in the genes, seems to bear some relationship to survival. And I know kittens aren't human babies and the reasons aren't the same, but the impact is still visible: our political instincts for young-preservation have a big impact on our world. Our genes gave us these politics because they're important.

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