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Where's all the intelligent discussion at?

I’m not interested in talking about people, and for the most part, I’m not interested in talking about events either. I want to talk about ideas—big and small. I’m trying to grow as a person and figure things out about the world. I don’t shy away from controversy, taboo topics, or debate as long as it’s done in good faith. I just feel so damn lost. I really, really struggle to find like-minded people to talk with.

Back in my Reddit days, there were at least a couple of subs where I could sometimes spend days debating the nuances of some niche philosophical topics. Even when discussing recent events, the quality of the discussions, due to the self-selected user base, was often unreasonably reasonable.

Even right now, on my highly curated Lemmy feed, the most interesting discussion on my front page is about how much oil is too much in a car engine. I’m not saying the discussions here are bad per-se, but for a large part they just don’t seem to be for me. Honestly, sometimes I feel rather similar about my friend groups as well. Is this what autism feels like?

bionicjoey ,

Have you tried starting those discussions yourself? Reddit has the “advantage” of massive amounts of bots spamming subreddits with reposts of content from a few weeks ago to create the illusion that it’s always fresh. Here, nobody will post the question you want to ask for you. You need to be the change.

Azzu ,

Also, if you want to discuss the nuances of some niche philosophical topic, I’m absolutely sure you can do that here. You just have to start the discussion and not wait for something to come your way.

pavnilschanda ,
@pavnilschanda@lemmy.world avatar

Try connecting with academics. Just met an artist who’s a professor at a university and even though I’m not of the same educational level as her, we had a very nice chat.

souperk ,
@souperk@reddthat.com avatar

Lemmy’s user base is pretty interesting, you will find interesting discussions in pretty much most communities. However, if don’t find something interesting, don’t be afraid to start a discussion on your own. Coming from Reddit I used to be afraid of the harassment, but Lemmy is a safer space ❤️

Some general pointers:

  1. Beehaw is a good place to look for interesting discussions
  2. If you find an interesting comment, take a look at the author’s profile, chance is they have more interesting stuff for you to find
  3. Filter by subscribed and hot/active
  4. Look for opinion articles

Is this what autism feels like?

Sometimes yes, a lot of us feel isolated, struggle with socialization and connecting with others. Othen it helps to find other ND people, they are just as interested in whatever niche topic you are thinking about.

PS Yesterday, I started a post on AskLemmy after pondering about how technology and science is changing at a faster pace than people (mostly professionals) can adapt.

MaximilianKohler ,

I have the exact same frustration. Reddit has been a complete mess for years. Unfortunately, Lemmy is only slightly better, and still seems to be astroturfed and filled with overconfident, unintelligent people who spread misinformation. I shared the link above on one of the /c/reddit lemmy communities and it was heavily astroturfed and then deleted by a mod for a ridiculous reason.

I posted in various other communities about a completely different topic and the only intelligent response I received was a PM.

I’ve blocked close to a hundred “fluff” (low-quality) communities on Lemmy, so my feed is highly curated. But the fluff/low-quality communities vastly outnumber the high-quality ones. One of the problems may simply be that intelligent people are rare, and are not spending their time on sites like Lemmy.

People keep making threads about this, and speculating that Lemmy might be astroturfed by people who don’t want to see it succeed. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a viable solution. You would need extremely competent and active moderators, or we have to wait until AI becomes advanced enough to neutrally and accurately moderate.

This is one reason I opted to move my Reddit communities to a forum instead of Lemmy. The problem with that is small forums don’t show up on search engines. Some forum software teams are joining the fediverse though, so that should help. But not all forums have intelligent people either, so it’s definitely a struggle to find these days.

HobbitFoot ,

Try Ask Lemmy posts?

Azzu ,

I’m trying to grow as a person and figure things out about the world.

I’m not interested in talking about people, and for the most part, I’m not interested in talking about events either.

You do know the world mostly consists of people and events? And that you yourself are mostly affected by people and events?

Growing as a person as well as figure things out about the world is basically exactly what’s happening when you talk about people or events.

Philosophy is actually barely useful for both (in a direct sense, of course it’s really useful to find the best reasons for doing it in the first place). More for growing as a person than figuring out the world.

lurch ,

acshually the world mostly consists of iron and nickel 🤓😆

Karyoplasma ,

The smart thing to do when you suspect you might have autism is to get a diagnosis by a professional, not to postulate your inkling on the internet.

FuglyDuck ,
@FuglyDuck@lemmy.world avatar

I could offer a diagnosis.

<shakes magic ball> “says ‘maybe’”

Hey! You get what you pay for (that’ll be three cookies and a glass of pasteurized milk.)

MaximilianKohler ,

Exact kind of troll, low-quality comment that poisons most of this website. As is the reply by FuglyDuck.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

What’s the diagnosis for?

minibyte ,

Mastodon maybe? I don’t know, never tried it

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