Ask HN: Where can I talk and discuss controversial topics?

[findingMeaning]

With internet becoming increasingly homogeneous with their own ideals and thoughts, where can I discuss controversial topics?

Certain topics I am interested in post AGI world (the one where we are living); Mass wealth transfer to the billionaires at unprecedented speed; Lack of assets for middle class; death of middle class?

[sunscream89]

Used to be matrix chat rooms though the cool nerd kids go to more exclusive special use platforms driven away or displaces by waves of bad actors.

It is a fascinating sociological experiment, though frustratingly inconsistent. I have had deep and worthy conversations in the odd hours on breadths of topics.

Everything now is probably dead though a million people share your call for social-political forum.

Good luck finding it!

[smt88]

Everything you mentioned is pretty mainstream and unremarkable on HN, reddit, Twitter, and BlueSky.

[findingMeaning]

Obviously I can't write controversial stuff under these topics.

[smt88]

Like what? Give us a specific example.

[findingMeaning]

I am sorry I really can't say it. It is wildly controversial.

[msgodel]

If it's that bad you'll probably have to go somewhere anonymous like 4chan. Although quite frankly HN is very tolerant. Unless you're worried about employment or something like that you can get away with posting pretty much anything here provided it's respectful.

[NoahZuniga]

Not very controversial

[fuzzfactor]

Probably among people that are so civilized that you may never encounter a whole crowd of them.

Either that or ironically among some kind of . . like . . minded . . . people . . .

[sunscream89]

Libraries and book stores aren’t the cool places they used to be.

[mgraybosch]

If you want to speak freely, don't expect to do it on somebody else's platform. Even if you aren't subject to censorship at the hands of the admins or moderators, you might still run afoul of the prevailing groupthink.

Here's what you should do if you're serious about free speech online: Start your own website. Run it under a pseudonym. Host it on Nearly Free Speech. Ignore all SEO advice, and disallow all crawlers in robots.txt. You might not get any human readers, but you aren't likely to get censored.

Otherwise, posting on 4chan is an option if you don't mind having racial or homophobic slurs hurled at you by poorly socialized adolescents who think too highly of themselves. And there's always Substack; if they can tolerate avowed neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer and white supremacists like Richard Hanania, they can probably tolerate you.

Just remember that if you frequent a Nazi bar like Substack or X, people will assume that you're a Nazi.

[_wire_]

Right here, except that this forum is heavily censored

[findingMeaning]

Anything that is against the norm is easily flagged. So can't talk about it at all. Everyday I am witnessing massive wealth transfer. If I am aware, pretty sure there are lot of others too. Just want to know how others are thinking about it. Because I foresee our life changing massively in 2-3 years from now on.

[msgodel]

I think HN would be fine if flagging weren't abused and/or it didn't automatically hide posts.

[joegibbs]

Nobody would downvote you on Reddit for talking about those topics, unless you’re all in favour of wealth transfer to the billionaires etc

[findingMeaning]

Yeah but even if I go and post there, it will be downvoted because of how ridiculous and controversial it is. People can't digest it.

[mgraybosch]

Being disagreed with is not the same as being censored. Harden your heart, make a virtue of defiance, and speak your truth.