Exploding-heads.com is another instance on Lemmy where alt-right MAGA types tend to reside. Some people on this server want us to defederate from them immediately, some people want to save defederation as a last resort. They have 104 active users (more stats below).
It seems that exploding-heads has also experienced a recent botswarm invasion. This is obviously another point in favor of defederating them, assuming you are worried about botswarms, which is currently being discussed here.
My advice to you all is please try to discuss this in a civil manner, we need not allow them to create divisive conflict inside our communities. No matter how the vote turns out, you’re not going to be able to defederate from your fellow sh.itheads so be nice.
I’ve linked many of the previous discussions below so people who are out of the loop can get a general sense of the situation.
https://sh.itjust.works/post/216888 https://sh.itjust.works/post/225714 https://sh.itjust.works/post/281126 https://sh.itjust.works/post/410325
Lemmy.world just recently defederated them.
https://lemmy.world/post/747912
https://lemmy.world/post/577526
Although this could be considered a point in favor of defederation, it actually means even if we vote to remain federated, people have a great alternative in lemmy.world where they can still participate in our communities and simultaneously be protected from exploding-heads.
Ensuring diversity of servers is beneficial to the platform as a whole, but it is also not our responsibility to bear that burden.
TLDR, just wrap up any last points in this thread before we open the vote tomorrow. Please be civil.
EDIT: To clarify, this isn’t the official vote, this is the final discussion. The vote thread will be posted tomorrow and you will only be allowed to make a single comment saying Aye or Nay.
EDIT2: Vote thread is up, this thread is now locked. Very lively discussion thread sh.itheads. Please try to be more respectful next time.
No.
Hate in this context is an attitude that presents an active risk of harm to a group of humans. It typically results in rejecting their basic humanity, leading to mass repression and violence. This isn’t exactly a novel concept.
You can oppose something without acting in hatred, or creating an environment that supports or bolsters hatred. You do this by respecting the basic humanity of the group your concern involves and their attendant right to exist. You want to debate, for example, the age appropriateness of certain topics of sexuality and gender in schools, that’s fine. It is something that requires discussion and reasoning. But any discussion about that needs to be couched in the fact that gay and trans people exist, are fellow humans, and that needs to be addressed.
Unfortunately, for every well intentioned and humanistic MAGA-esque person who does not act with hate, there are many more who do. They stymie productive discourse with a baseline of shared humanity, to the detriment of their fellow humans. As such, it is not only justified, but necessary to exclude them from the table.
“Hate in this context is an attitude that presents an active risk of harm to a group of humans”
No. You’re talking about harm now, not hate. You’ve moved the goalposts and are painting with a very broad brush. Remember, nearly 50% of the US population voted for the orange buffoon.
And it bothers me every single day that someone who entered office with a 44% approval rating and a 42% disapproval rating won 49.9% of the vote. He was over 50% disapproval within 1 month of his term, and under 40% approval by his second month. This was someone that even his political allies called a racist and dangerous demagogue before continuing on to endorse him.
49.9% of the electoral college, which is not the popular vote. The US electoral system is flawed, especially when someone can technically win with less than 23%(!) of the popular vote.
But the flawed system should not be misconstrued to mean near popular support for an extremist candidate.
It is frightening though that 40% continue to support a civilly convicted rapist and someone federally indicted under the Espionage act!
My position is that harm is a consequence of hate, as I’ve already stated. While it is not the only antecedent to harm (harm can occur without hate being involved), it raises the probability of harm occurring to the group who is the target of hate. Hate leads to harm - again, not a novel concept, and something which has been demonstrated ad nauseum over the course of history.
I do not see how this is moving goalposts. As this is a Canadian instance, it might be instructive to read the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as some of the court cases which fleshed out how hate speech is treated in Canadian law. This is one element of the position I’m coming from here.
In terms of my painting with a broad brush, there’s some merit to that, given I was referring to members of a specific American political movement. This is probably still overbroad, but let me restate it: “For every well-intentioned, humanistic person voicing a legitimate concern related to a given group of people who share a minority characteristic, there are many more who use those concerns as a front to promote hate.” I stand by the rest of my statement in the prior post, acknowledging that this does create a problem for those well-intentioned people too - when hateful ass-clowns repeat your talking points to serve their purposes, it tarnishes the legitimacy of your concern.
I’ll close with an example getting a lot of press in my neck of the woods - Drag Storytime. A children’s event where someone in drag reads a storybook to kids. A well-intentioned person may ask if it’s appropriate to introduce young children to the concept of drag so early. They may ask what protections are in place for screening volunteers working with children. They may decide that they do not want their children to participate. This is all well and good. But barring children whose parents have decided they are OK with this event, or creating a threatening environment for those participating - these are actions typically couched in hate, and are not good. And they take away from the guy saying “Yeah, people dress in drag sometimes, but I don’t know that I want my 5 year old introduced to the concept quite yet.”