Whoaaa how did i never notice that thanks!

Haha there are in fact 8 different NFL shitposting subreddits, one for each of the 8 different divisions. And each one is as active as just about any Lemmy community.

I agree on the other 2 points as well. Not only is it weird to have to pick an instance, the names and descriptions are off putting as well. You scroll through and several of the top ones are openly Marxist/leninist/leftist. 95% of people see that and are immediately put off. It sends a message that Lemmy is fundamentally for leftist agenda-posting, and a lot of users treat it that way. Click on any completely non-political-sounding community (like Movies or something), sort top all time and you will usually be greeted immediately by posts about Israel/Palestine or Donald Trump. Its exhausting honestly.

Edit: also, why does join-lemmy.org not show .world (one of the largest coms if not the largest) anywhere on the popular instances page? What kind of drama is going on there? This is exactly the kind of shit Im talking about.

People need to spend more time on lighthearted issues like Palestine and the evils of capitalism

Eh not that famous, I bet most people dont have any name associations with Lemmy except that it sounds kinda like “lemming”. Which is sort of unfortunate though because lemmings (the de facto name for lemmy users) generally means crowd-following idiots. But as far as factors that inhibit the growth of lemmy go Id put the name way down the list.

Lmao that sounds like a python library

That’s really weird. Is it possible that wasnt a real agent just someone impersonating one?

It ain’t much but its somethin’

I didnt say social media without algorithms, I said social media without corporations. Lemmy for example still has an algorithm, which means its still going to serve you content that is sensational, enraging, and unrealistically beautiful.

Also some fun sci fi memes.

Hot take but the carbon impact from the Iran war is definitely negative. The single most effective way to encourage a transition from oil is to spike oil prices. Not to mention the long term damage to oil and gas facilities and the increasing concerns over energy dependence on the most unstable parts of the world.

*social media

The fediverse is definitely better but there’s no way this shit is good for us haha

Id say Lose Yourself by Eminem. Maybe because I was too young to watch the movie when it came out, but that song was everywhere, and is still popular today

Shut yo mouth

that’s just a number? what objective measures did they use?

Here are the questions they answered and what the scores mean. Here is more information about their methodology if you are curious.

A country that uses the spoiler effect and a two party system to ensure minimal change happens.

I don’t like the two-party system either, but the US doesn’t “use” the 2-party system to do anything, it just happened organically because of the winner-take all election system. The founding fathers did not anticipate the rise of political parties; its worth remembering how old the US constitution is. There was not a lot of information to go off of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China

Elections in China occur under a political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),[1][2][40][41] with all candidate nominations pre-approved by the CCP.[1][10][4][8][42] CCP regulations require members of the People’s Congresses, People’s Governments, and People’s Courts to implement CCP recommendations (including nominations).[43] Elected leaders remain subordinate to the corresponding CCP secretary, and most are appointed by higher-level party organizations.[43]

There are a small number of independent candidates for people’s congress, particularly in neighborhoods of major cities, who sometimes campaign using Weibo.[44] Independent candidates are strongly discouraged and face government intervention in their campaigns.[6] In practice, the power of parties other than the CCP is eliminated.[44] Because none of the minor parties have independent bases of support and rely on CCP approval for appointment to positions of power, none have true political power independent of the CCP.[45][46] Whereas there are CCP committees in people’s congresses at all levels, none of the other parties operate any form of party parliamentary groups.

The performed elections in China do not meet free and fair election criteria such as ballot access and political media access.

What political beliefs are you actually required to hold to join the CCP? I actually don’t know and the answer to that would be enlightening.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_Chinese_Communist_Party#Members

To join the party an applicant must be 18 years of age, and must spend a year as a probationary member.[73] In contrast to the past, when emphasis was placed on the applicants’ ideological criteria, the current CCP stresses technical and educational qualifications.[73] However, applicants and members are expected to be both “red and expert”.

So it seems like, just to be a member of the CPP you need to at the very least put on a good show of being a communist. That absolutely does not meet the standard of a free election to me.

And I want to make one other thing clear - even if there were zero ideological requirements to join the CCP, there is still a huge difference between 1 party and no parties. With 1 party, you are completely at the mercy of party leadership. If I joined the CCP and make comments critical of, say, President Xi, party officials could simply kick me out of the party, no elections necessary. The same thing could happen if I opposed some policy or if they simply didn’t like me.

I’m having trouble finding v-dems actual arguments about this

Not sure what you mean by that. You can select any single value you want, select the country, and then see the scores over time. Or see the by-country scores with different sections broken out here.

I again have to ask how you think elections in china work, do you deny the existence of their elections?

I certainly deny they have free and fair elections, yes. There’s only one party on the ballot - that’s a hell of a lot more than a “preference”. Elections in the People’s Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).[1][2] By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP

“The majority getting what they want” is way too vague of a statement to quantify, but generally speaking I would agree that people in America and most of the Western world are dissatisfied with their governments. That doesn’t make them undemocratic. I get your argument - you’re saying that if people aren’t happy with the decisions their government is making, is their government really representing them at all, and therefore democratic? But politicians making unpopular decisions has always and will always be a thing, and to a certain extent it’s necessary - it doesn’t even mean the politicians are corrupt for doing so. With that said, overall, I’d say that most major government policies are politically popular.

Ok, well I’m slightly encouraged that you don’t think China is democratic, that’s why I thought this discussion was a lost cause.

My definitions for a democracy are pretty straightforward, the people get to either decide the laws of their policies of their government (i.e. ballot initiatives, which are a major part of US government, at least at the state level), or decide who represents them in that government by voting. The elections should be free and fair, and candidates should not be restricted based on their platforms or ideologies. I think that’s a pretty uncontroversial definition.

I strongly disagree with your statements about China being freer than the US on the policies I mentioned. I figured you wouldn’t like whatever expert rankings I provided… I didn’t actually know Freedom House was funded via the state department, but as far as their impartiality goes, consider that per Wikipedia they got their funding through USAID which has since been slashed, and also conservatives in the US don’t like them because they think they’re anti-conservative. But anyways, here’s another few for you:

https://patrickrhamey.com/saturday-research/2025/8/14/2025-state-of-world-liberty-index EDIT: this one at least partially uses Freedom House damnit

https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2025

https://v-dem.net/data_analysis/CountryGraph/

I’m not cherry-picking these, I’m literally just searching for civil liberties rankings. They’re all fairly consistent. If you can find one that shows China above the US with independent authors, I’d be interested to see it.

Aight if you think China is a democracy and the US isnt i think were done here.

Im not dodging anything, I accept the results of the study, but i dont think its useful for comparison to a non-democracy.

Im not sure what you mean by at-will employment, as it relates to civil liberties?

There are certainly some aspects of Chinese society that are freer than in America, but i think its a false equivalency to say “both sides bad”. Look at any rankings and you’ll see that.

https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores

You might say, well those rankings are biased, but if you look at what i would say are the core civil liberties:

-freedom of speech/expression
-freedom of religion
-protection from discrimination
-right to representation

There really isn’t any comparison. And that doesnt even get into the right to bear arms/the right to form a well-regulated militia. You think the US government is too hard on antifa? Try that shit in China haha

Ok sure I agree with all that. So what is it that’s so bad about western democracies again? The combination of democracy and the ability to strike, organize and protest are why western democracies have more civil liberties than anywhere else in the world. Working conditions in, for example, China are markedly worse and the right to protest is nonexistent.

Well, by all means continue to not vote then.

western south Korea taiwan

Calling legitimate democracies any kind of dictatorships is simply disingenuous. Its just not what words mean. If the majority of people vote for something, that thing they voted for is the will of the people. And if the people/parties they voted for are able to take power, the majority of the populace “got what they want”. And if they want a capitalist system with billionaires, well, thats what they are going to get. I feel like a lot of leftists end up stuck saying things like “people in western societies are brainwashed/they dont know what they really want (and I do)” to explain why countries dont want them in power.