Just blocked lemmy.ml from my Lemmy account, and I swear to god it's one of the best things I've ever done on this platform. My homepage feels actually clean now.

For the past few months I'd been seeing a lot of tankie posting and pretty much far-left propaganda on my feed. It got tiring enough that I finally checked my blocked-user list, and realized pretty much everyone I'd blocked was from lemmy.ml. So I just blocked the whole instance instead.

Saying this as someone who considers themselves a leftist: I used to think Lemmy itself was an echo chamber. Turns out lemmy.ml was the problem the entire time. Probably the reason I tolerated it for so long is that I agreed with a lot of what they posted, but like an oversaturated meme, I'd had enough. Browsing the platform was starting to feel way too tiring instead of fun, which defeats the point of being here in the first place.

The breaking point was seeing some dude post a "meme" implying North Korea and China are basically communist utopias and that the West sucks. I mean, the West does suck, but come on - you're saying North Korea is the ideal the West should strive for? What the hell...

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Meanwhile, the second most popular post right now

Crazy Idea

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 2 points 2 days ago

I would not trust the self-reported "suicide" rates of a communist nation. They notoriously skew data and facts "for the common good", so I would expect that people would be recorded as having died of so-called "other causes" much more often. Like a 80-year-old who shot themselves in the head with a gun might be reported as having died "of old age", which is likely at least partially true - their age being one of many factors in their decision to end their life prematurely, tying in as it would to their quality of life and hope for their remaining future, etc.

So any comparison of self-reported stats like this image is fraught with issues like that, apples to oranges as they say. I cannot for sure say the intention of either the poster or the creator, but at the very least this looks like misinformation, and I will add that there is a well-known pattern of disinformation that this graphic exactly matches, so a claim that it is part of a psyop cannot immediately be debunked.

This is why I no longer tell people irl that I visit the Threadiverse: every single one or them has checked out Lemmy.ml (which notably shows a LOCAL rather than GLOBAL feed to users without an account), and actively chided me about it. I cannot blame them actually.

[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's true though. China and North Korea both have a lower suicide rate than Taiwan and South Korea. Wikipedia

What problem do you have with it?

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Sure it might be partially true (as per your link Taiwan's rate is actually lower), the implication that thus North Korea is a good place to live on however doesn't follow.

As a psychologist, suicide is one of the most complex mental health phenomena. Most often than not, it is completely detached from life quality or living satisfaction. It's multi factor and it says nothing of what the meme implies.

Counterexamples exist. Rusia has a higher suicide rate than all of those countries, Cuba as well. And it doesnt get more capitalist than the UK and they also have a very low rate comparable to north Korea. Suicide has nothing to do with political ideology of the government in power.

[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Excellent points. I do think how the country is run has an effect on suicide rates. A country with a better welfare state can provide better care for it's citizens. I think the meme challenges the belief that quality of life is poor in these countries.

I certainly wouldn't want instances to defederate over content like this.

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

This is just an example. They are usually toxic and combative if anyone even slightly disagrees with the echo chamber. The post I took the image from has half of their comments deleted by mods. I've had a couple of instances of harassment, spam and threats. Always users from .ml

But back to the point. Suicide is complex, and again, it has nothing to do with welfare state either. One of the most baffling things about suicide is that it's rate of incidence is also independent of access to mental health care, suicide is almost independent from most of the typical socioeconomic factors we can think of. Look at Guyana and Uruguay. Exactly the same suicide rate. One is a country with development challenges, widespread poverty, troubled government, impoverished health care infrastructure and difficulty with access to mental health. The other is a wealthy country, with a long history of development, strong welfare state with great upward class mobility and mental health pioneers on the region. Both exact same suicide rate.

[–] mildseason@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wow yeah you're right! How interesting. Do you think there's a stigma around suicide which prevents people from seeking help when it is actually available?

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world -2 points 3 days ago

Interestingly, social stigma is one of the somewhat associated factors. But not the way one would think of: high stigma equals high suicide rate. Instead social stigma skews statistical data available. Somewhat under or over reporting. Essentially the more stigma around suicide, and also mental health, the less reliable the data. It is similar to how social attitudes about sexual violence distort the reliability of statistics about rape.