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There are no recommendation algorithms for content, you are one! Search for communities based on your interests and subscribe to them. The Communities view of your home instance and Lemmy Explorer are good for that. Because Lemmy is decentralized, all discussion isn't centered around one site like on Reddit, which may at first give an impression of emptiness.
I also wrote an extensive guide about Lemmy few weeks ago.
Welcome!
Yeah it felt a little empty here at first, but then I realized I get way more replies on most of my comments here than I did on reddit where most people just scrolled right past it.
You make a great point.
I fire off comments without thinking much at about the same rate as I did on the other website but get replies on about ~50-60% here vs. ~20% on centralized media.
Itβs really nice honestly. /gen
(And people are much nicer about tone tags here!)
Indeed, I quite like it, cause I'm here for discussion not just shouting into the void.
That guide is helpful. Thanks!
You're gonna look around and see a few old accounts and think you missed the early bus. You didn't. We're still pioneering.
If you think "why isn't there a community for this" or "why isn't anyone posting to this community" it's because we're small and we need people like you to fix those issues!
You have to curate your feed yourself. Personally I use the all feed and block what I don't like because I enjoy seeing new communities. I also recommend the jerboa app if you have an android, its free, open-source, made by lemmy devs, and doesn't have ads.
Also many of us are communists or anarchists so prepare for political takes you aren't used to.
Right on lol. Iβm a socialist leaning democratic socialist but I can appreciate that communism gets a bad rapβand the current US administration is radicalizing me more than ever, so Iβm happy to get pulled further to the dark side.
500 word mini-essay on demsoc vs socdem inbound. ETA in 3... 2...
I went over 500 I think...
Since you did ask, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list after the US election in the hopes of helping those increasingly radicalized along their political journeys! I also wrote a post on how to determine if an overall system is Capitalist or Socialist, from a Marxist perspective.
As a side-note, Socialism is generally seen by Marxists as the intermediate stage between Capitalism and Communism, with Communism as a fully publicly owned, global democratic economy with thorough planning, and Socialism as a society where Private ownership has become subservient to the public sector and now Public ownership is the principle aspect, which is the method of getting to Communism. No country has achieved Communism, which must be global, but many have achieved Socialism.
A bit on "Democratic Socialism," and how it differs from Marxism-Leninism:
Democratic Socialism usually can refer to either something like the Nordic Countries, which would technically better fit the term "Social Democracy* as private ownership of Capital is the principle aspect of their economies, or as Socialism achieved through electoral means, ie public ownership as the principle aspect of their economies.
I say "principle" as no system is "pure," every country has a public and private sector, but the public sector in China and Cuba, for example, has far more power than the Private through having firm control of large firms and key industry, while in the Nordics the public sector is in support of the private. The Nordics also rely on international exploitation in order to fund their safety nets, meaning it isn't a system that could be adopted by just anyone with the same results, it requires winners and losers.
As for how it compares to Marxism-Leninism:
Democratic Socialists usually wish to achieve Socialism through elections, while MLs are revolutionary. Just like you can't just ask a billionaire to give you their money, MLs don't believe you can simply ask them to implement a system that dramatically weakens and eventually erases their power when they control the State.
Democratic Socialism is generally a far less defined, while Marxism-Leninism has a rich history of testing theory to practice, and changing over time. This is because Marxism-Leninism is almost always going to be the underlying ideology of any country deemed "Communist," such as the PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, former USSR, and more. This means MLs are usually more in agreement than disagreement with each other.
And that's enough to go off of, I think! Let me know if you habe any questions, though the reading list is my recommendation for a good place to start. It even has audiobooks for most of the listed works as alternatives, as well as links to epubs or pdfs.
I appreciate the breakdown. Iβll crack into the reading material tomorrow and get back to you. Thanks!
No problem, feel free to leave feedback! And don't worry about getting back in any soon time period, take your time with it and get out of it what you want to. This isn't homework, you're not joining a Communist Party by reading anything on the list, haha.
Now, I will have considered it a fantastic success if it leads you more down that path, of course, but even reading the first section or two so you can get a better idea of what Communists here are talking about and why will already be a big benefit for yourself and a point of pride for myself.
It's small now, but growing. You can't scroll infinitely for new content. It's grown a lot in the time I've been here. The smallness can be a positive if you work to have genuine interactions with people. There's no "karma" and some instances have disabled down votes entirely. You have sometimes subscribe to more than one community of the same topic (each on a different instance).
Read the global feed. There's lots of content if you spread the net wide.
Block annoying posters and communities.
Be nice to other lemmites.
take all of the things you hate about Reddit comment culture and do your best to perpetuate them here
This
By default it's mostly politics and linux unless you browse for individual subs
Gonna go against the grain, and recommend browsing the instance list and browse whichever instances look interesting to you locally, and then make that your "home" instance. Lemmy's connectedness is equal in importance to its disconnectedness, niche instances thrive and create interesting experiences, while federation allows crossover and further engagement.
Using Lemmy for its "all" sort is more of a replication of Reddit, while leaning into the strengths of federation can create a more unique experience IMO and usually a more pleasant one.
And finally, welcome!
Karma does not persist and there is no minimum karma or account ages to comment anywhere.
Not entirely true, Solarpunk's Pleasant Politics comm has an automod that bans and unbans based on recent karma ratios. The bot going back and forth on banning and unbanning me is the bulk of my modlog, lmao
No awards, so you have escaped the cringe "thank you, kind stranger!" comments.
In all seriousness, I would curate a bunch of pages that interest you so you have a home page relevant to your interests. There's a lot of competing communities but I just add all the big ones that are relevant.
Welcome in from the cold. We have hot cocoa and blankets.
