this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2024
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chapotraphouse
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I get my dissenting opinions simply by existing in the society in which I exist. The hexbear "echo chamber" as you put it is small and powerless. This place is a tiny refuge, a brief respite from all the shitiness I see in my day to day life.
Hexbear isn't an "echo chamber" in the same way the republican media circuit is, because we have to leave it. Republicans never do. They can read articles and watch talking heads and never once be challenged on their beliefs. As a communist, I'm challenged on my beliefs every single day. Most articles I read and most talking heads I watch disagree with me.
We respond to lost libs like you for a few reasons. One is maybe we'll change a mind, not necessarily yours but perhaps a lurker reading the conversation. Another is entertainment. It's really funny when someone wanders in here and is the living embodiment of the memeing we do. Sometimes we want an argument, usually because we're having a shitty day and just want to be an asshole on the Internet. This isn't a good motivation and I wish it didn't happen, but it does. None of us is immune.
You're getting responses not because we're unused to being challenged, but because we want to respond to you for whatever reason. My response here is explaining our inner workings so hopefully you can come away from this thread seeing us as people with ideas that we believe. We haven't been tricked into thinking as we do, most of us go against the grain of our societies to come to our beliefs. I want to change a mind today, ideally yours, and I've chosen a gentle tone full of candor to try to do so. Will it be effective? I have no way of knowing, but I hope so. Please realize we're not bots or russian agents or trapped in a cult or whatever, we're humans with thoughts and experiences that have led us to our beliefs.
Hey, I enjoyed your response and am thankful you took the time to write it out. I agree with your evaluation on hexbear not truly being an echo chamber after you compared it to Republicans.
It's funny you list potential reasons for responding to me because your reasons are just about in line with mine, maybe not in regards to changing your mind because I really don't think anyone could change any of your minds ever haha, but for entertainment and sometimes just to be an ass.
Mainly the reason I interact with hexbear sometimes is because you all fascinate me, our opinions differ so much but in quite a different way vs how mine differ from a maga Republican.
I can be a petty person and come off as a dick when I'm speaking with someone who has a different opinion than me on something I'm passionate about, but I truly don't hold any hostility/hate to y'all. It's just interesting and amusing to see hexbears responses to things I say, and sometimes enlightening like yours!
I'm going to push back on just one thing you've said, which is that you don't think anyone could change any minds here. That's blatantly false. I have my mind changed all the time, and I've seen it happen with other people on here too. We're willing to have our minds changed and we understand that we're fallible and other people know more than we do about various things.
I think maybe what you meant to say is that you understand that hexbears can't be convinced to go back to being libs. And that's true. I'll never again think that the Democrats are anything other than my enemies. I used to think they were my allies, but I've changed my mind and I see now that they never were and never will be. So in that sense I guess you're right, but politics is so much bigger and more complicated than just red vs blue, elephant vs donkey.
Free yourself from the two-party bourgeois democracy you were born into. You're young, you have so much learning to do and so much time in which to do it! Lurk here and actually read the things people post. I've learned so much from my fellow hexbears and I hope you will too.
I completely agree the two party system is a joke, we'd be much better off with many more parties with differing opinions and ranked choice voting.
Ah. My bad, I shouldn't have mentioned "two-party" at all. The issue with our electoral system is that it's a bourgeois electoral system, not that it happens to have two parties.
I learned a new word, this also probably explains our opinion differences quite well. I grew up in the middle class and as an adult continue to reside at that level.
All in all the system has treated me well, which I'm well aware is not how most people experience it.
The system has treated me fairly well as well. But once you see the ugly side of it there's no real going back.
Actually achieving that in the US is impossible via purely peaceful "within the system" means. It would require a social upheaval, maybe not a blood revolution but at least a long period of nasty civil unrest.
you should start lurking the news megathreads. not the shitposting ones tho the bodies of those megathreads are always full of useful, interesting content. there's still shitposting in the news mega but it's very different. the news mega is where people do a lot of geopolitical analysis; there're lots of dense posts in those threads that you might enjoy for one reason or another.
good post