It’s actually kind of crazy how like… stupid Reddit got over the past 2 years.
Like don’t get me wrong Lemmy isn’t exactly an intellectual powerhouse either, but especially on the front page of Reddit it truly feels like you’ve gathered a few thousand of the dumbest people ever and made them high five. Browsing the science and dataisbeautiful subs is insane
Hacker news works because it has a specific perspective. You basically just get the capitalist tech crowd and unapologetically so.
It’s not perfect, but I like that it’s roughly apolitical (as in, free of world events, politics, and X slammed for Y articles). I understand that capitalist tech is inherently political, but it’s not where to go to talk politics.
For general purpose discussion? I don’t think so. The internet being so open and accessible means that the only ways to find more educated discussion on various topics is typically through more specialized websites (like Hacker news for computing), and even then it’s kind of a crap shoot.
Ehhh… kind of. Even more “mid range” interests are kind of co-opted and you need to do odd bends and twists to find good discussion. Subs like the chemistry subreddit are very obviously not made up of majority “chemists” (even student chemists), so you have to seek out the “chemistry professionals” subreddit which is more hidden to actually discuss the topic.
That’s an example where there is a “good version”. For many topics, especially pop culture related and such, you might have one “main” sub, but then the “alternative” sub is just the racist one.
Then you have things like dataisbeautiful which doesn’t really have an alternative and it’s all terrible despite the concept being good
dataisbeautiful has certainly fallen. A year or two ago I decided to remove most of the feel-bad subs I’ve subscribed to and replace them with feel-good ones (to prolong my lifespan, obviously >:) ). You can’t really go wrong with feel-good subs much, in my experience. I still occasionally go on Reddit to browse my /sub frontpage, which includes certain niches (actually just two that I consider pretty important), with uBO on, and I have also been subscribing to some new subs. My favorite recent discoveries are r/CalvinAndHobbes and r/cpp.
It’s actually kind of crazy how like… stupid Reddit got over the past 2 years.
Like don’t get me wrong Lemmy isn’t exactly an intellectual powerhouse either, but especially on the front page of Reddit it truly feels like you’ve gathered a few thousand of the dumbest people ever and made them high five. Browsing the science and dataisbeautiful subs is insane
Oh data is beautiful died a very long time ago, during the age of “infographics”, but the death knell was the bar plot races.
My subscriptions actually got better. I’ve had more interaction in my various groups.
All and popular, however, are a dumpster fire.
I am enjoying lemmy, but is there an intellectual powerhouse anymore?
and why is it Hacker news?
https://tildes.net/ is a candidate. Though I like it better here for the memes and the music.
Neither are intellectual powerhouses because collectively speaking … humanity is not an intellectual powerhouse
Case and point.
fAiR pOiNT
Hacker news works because it has a specific perspective. You basically just get the capitalist tech crowd and unapologetically so.
It’s not perfect, but I like that it’s roughly apolitical (as in, free of world events, politics, and X slammed for Y articles). I understand that capitalist tech is inherently political, but it’s not where to go to talk politics.
For general purpose discussion? I don’t think so. The internet being so open and accessible means that the only ways to find more educated discussion on various topics is typically through more specialized websites (like Hacker news for computing), and even then it’s kind of a crap shoot.
that’s only if you subscribe to the most popular subs
Ehhh… kind of. Even more “mid range” interests are kind of co-opted and you need to do odd bends and twists to find good discussion. Subs like the chemistry subreddit are very obviously not made up of majority “chemists” (even student chemists), so you have to seek out the “chemistry professionals” subreddit which is more hidden to actually discuss the topic.
That’s an example where there is a “good version”. For many topics, especially pop culture related and such, you might have one “main” sub, but then the “alternative” sub is just the racist one.
Then you have things like dataisbeautiful which doesn’t really have an alternative and it’s all terrible despite the concept being good
dataisbeautiful has certainly fallen. A year or two ago I decided to remove most of the feel-bad subs I’ve subscribed to and replace them with feel-good ones (to prolong my lifespan, obviously >:) ). You can’t really go wrong with feel-good subs much, in my experience. I still occasionally go on Reddit to browse my /sub frontpage, which includes certain niches (actually just two that I consider pretty important), with uBO on, and I have also been subscribing to some new subs. My favorite recent discoveries are r/CalvinAndHobbes and r/cpp.