Absolutely. Most non-fiction books I’ve read averaged about 9 hours for me to complete. 9 hours listening to an expert is such a trivial investment compared to a lifetime of half-baked speculation on a topic one doesn’t really understand. In 9 hours an expert can provide proper context, break down complex topics, and they have the space to fully explain their perspective and the stories that brought them to it.
The only content as informative and concise as a good book is a good lecture.
Real estate investing is not anti-capitalist. The commodification of housing is fundamentally against the tenets of socialism.
I’m pretty sure they’re talking about people engaging in direct action like fighting with / firing on the police in opposition of an oil pipeline, or destroying GMO crops. The wording of the article is bad; I don’t think anyone in their right mind would consider donating to an animal hospital or picking up trash in the park to be extremism.
Can confirm. I have seen leftists proudly display the communo-anarchist Gadsden flag which implies aggression and violence. These are almost always the same leftists who own guns and advocate for violent revolution & punching fascists.
The report says “two thirds [of violent extremists were] from the far right, about a quarter from the far left, and the remainder were driven by religious or ‘ethnonationalist’ causes”. Violent leftists are absolutely real, and no one should pretend they do not exist. Change requires uncertainty, fear, and discomfort, but violence is optional. The ends never justify the means, the ends are the means.
I’m not familiar with the housing situation in Britain, but in the US housing is absolutely a capitalism problem. Affordable housing development has been neglected for decades in the US because there is less profit to be made compared to luxury housing. This is just one way housing has been transformed from a basic necessity into a speculative asset, it has gotten so bad that most Americans who do not currently own a home will never own a home.
As soon as houses are put up for sale corporate Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are bidding like $50,000+ over asking price, much more than any ordinary family or individual can afford. The result is a massive housing shift, previous generations of Americans owned their homes, the younger generations will rent their homes from a merciless corporate landlord forever.
The benefits of a mixed economy including subsidized housing used to be non-controversial, but over the last 50 years conservatism shifted the Overton window far enough right that even suggesting moderate government regulation is a non-starter. It is no surprise to me that young people are galvanized to push past more moderate solutions unwaveringly leftward. The systems that are in place are failing the youth and will regressively continue to fail every generation that follows.
Change needs to happen, I have seen it at every level of our society. The public is crying for peaceful change, but as changes are slowly implemented it feels too little too late. It is no surprise to me that people want change and they want it now. The rise in radical polarization is the public crying for change and the body as a whole unsure what direction it wants to go. The way to resolve these situations peacefully is to have these hard conversations out in the open, to encourage discussion and widespread participation.
I was on Voat when it was a pleasant community like Lemmy, and I tried to nudge for civility as over time every post became hateful and angry. I would still browse Voat occasionally until it shut down because I value diversity of thought, and I was curious to encounter rhetoric which contradicted my own beliefs.
Lemmy is not so different, however, instead of having a far-right bias Lemmy has a far-left bias. For now there are no far-right Lemmy instances to balance far-left instances like Lemmygrad.ml. This creates an atmosphere where right-leaning, and centrist users might take one look around and feel unwelcome.
I think it is important that left-leaning, centrist, and right-leaning users feel welcome while leaving bigotry at the door. We need for someone who is bigoted to feel welcome here by all of their other traits, and to erode their bigoted beliefs over time because bigotry is not tolerated. I think Lemmy and the Fediverse have real potential to foster a space where diverse users can share stories and form communities with users who hold very different beliefs.
Voat showed it is not enough to create an open platform with unmoderated free speech, the platform itself must have structures in place to promote civility, and the users of the platform must work hard to maintain a culture of civility. The fact that QAnon believers are not welcome here means that Lemmy has already siloed itself, and I believe that the current policy of non-federation with disagreeable instances is too strict to be a long-term viable solution.
My vision for fostering civility on Lemmy is for sublemmies to federate with one another across instances. e.g. /c/pixelart@lemmy.ml could federate freely with /c/pixelart@far-right.com and /c/pixelart@far-left.com to promote relationships between users with very different beliefs. However, /c/politics@lemmy.ml might want to federate much more selectively with /c/politics@far-right.com or /c/politics@far-left.com. Perhaps /c/politics@far-right.com and /c/politics@far-left.com could have a weekly debate post which is the only post that federates between them.
The Daily Brief - I have been subscribed to their daily email newsletters for about 2 years. It’s been a helpful way for me to stay vaguely aware of the most major global news events. I appreciate that each news story is condensed to a single factual paragraph without speculation or an imposed narrative:
This is from one of their news briefs that came out yesterday Thursday, June 8, 2023. Notice that what is stated is purely factual and does not impose a narrative. The Daily Brief is a useful tool for getting a quick idea of what happened in the world yesterday, then you can read more about specific news events from other sources.