I’m not referring to r/politics (or equivalents). Rather a group that identifies potential problems (i.e widespread obesity) ; why it may be happening (i.e too much sugar in food) ; and potential ways society can fix this problem?
Theres several collapse communities
I think what you’re looking for is a “rationalist” approach? On Reddit slatestarcodex is kinda that (the name is from a popular blog on the subject), but I can’t think of anything on Lemmy.
This is a great suggestion and really scratches a lot I was looking for. I also stumbled across archives of the original blog - which were excellent.
The only issue is the perspective things are told from. People come there with solutions but it’s more of a “talking at you” than “building a solution together”. If I had to make an analogy, it’s like shareware versus open-source - both great, but distinct.
It’s not quite what I’m looking for, but I still highly recommend.
A community doesn’t immediately come to mind, but you could start out in these ones and then spin off a separate community once you find a structure that works well
Thanks for the suggestions, I checked them out
nostupidquestions has the spirit of what I’m looking for, but isn’t quite there (lack of scrutiny).
I sorta get what you’re asking for, but I think you’re going to get a response like, “Read a book”. There’s just not much to be gained by discussing issues like this on the internet, lol. edit: I think your example is maybe confusing too… not sure if you’re looking for political debates, or just educational discussions, or what. Maybe you could clarify and it’d help get some more constructive answers!
Yeah, it is quite discouraging. I feel this is what the internet was made for, but I have yet to find anything like it anywhere. I will also admit that upkeep of this type of community would be challenging considering bad-faith actors, bots, and ragebait being so effective.
What I am looking for does not seem to fit neatly into any one category, so I’ll try to use a POV. I am a person, and see something in my community that is a reoccurring problem. I do not know how this can be fixed or what steps I can take to try to fix it, so I go to _____ on lemmy to ask.
My example was not the best. I thought it was straightforward, but can now see that it can be interpreted in many ways - I’ll probably update it.
Here’s the thing: politics pervades all societal issues. You can’t solve them without politics at some level.
To rephrase what the other commenter is saying in a nicer way: you are asking for the impossible.
You are correct, but I am not attempting to avoid poltics. I just wanted to make clear that r/politics is not what I am looking for
Fair enough.
I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for. It looks like you are looking for perceived issues (ie. Widespread obesity), picking a hypothesis (ie. Too much sugar in food), trying to solve your hypothesis, but never proving the hypothesis (ie. Is too much sugar the issue or is it a symptom of another issue (high fructose corn syrup? Sugar cane?) and to see if there are root causes that can be systematically fixed
Your approach seems to qualify for a job in DOGE. Perceived issue? Too much governmental spending. Hypothesis? Fraud. Fix? Fire a bunch of people and cancel a bunch of obligations. Evidence? None. Time spent really analyzing the situation? Zero.
I am going to assume you are disgruntled, and answering in good faith.
Perceived issues are the point. People do not necessarily have to comment on said issues if they are not affected or interested. This is not to say things cannot get off the rails, but this is what community culture and mods are for. Do not forget science only exists because practical people perceived issues.
Picking a hypothesis is the point. People will be discussing why the problem is occurring. There ideally would be scientific evidence or real strong correlating factors on why a problem is occurring. It is the communities job to downvote abysmal hypothesis. I would like to point out this is exactly how academia of all types function.
Once there is a hypothesis (or hypotheses) that people agree on (filtered by upvotes/downvotes) the community will discuss potential solutions to the problem.
This type of community requires some maintenance to work, but that’s why I am asking if it exists.
I think it’s much more hyper focused communities here, health, mental health, etc. You can make a magazine for it.
A magazine is a really interesting concept, I will keep that in mind.
The problem with hyper-focused communities is that they tend to not focus on the general problems people face. This is not to say that it isn’t important, but it is harder to “connect the dots” or “get the big picture”.
“magazine” is just a Lemmy community.
TIL, thanks for the heads up.
I am still interested in the concept of cataloguing threads from really intelligent people - like Wikipedia for Lemmy. Have you ever seen an insanely helpful thread and been like “this needs to be archived”? I have at least a dozen times.
You’re welcome, and yes I have. They reside as bookmarks because that’s the best I could do!
You missed the point. Here’s the same point without the sarcasm:
You need to prove your hypothesis before finding a solution.
Why?
Let’s say my goal is to guide objects into a hole.
I choose a red ball. I drop it into the system. It does not make it into the hole.
I pick up an identical red ball and drop it into the system again. It also does not make it into the hole. We have an issue: objects are not making it into the hole.
What hypotheses can we make?
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Red objects are not making it into the hole.
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Round objects are not making it into the hole.
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No objects are making it into the hole.
The next step isn’t to pick one and fix the perceived issue. All of these hypotheses are supported by the evidence thus observed. If you spend time and effort building a red item detector that guides things onto the ramp but the issue isn’t that it’s red, you haven’t fixed the root cause. You need to find out if your hypothesis is right or wrong.
Drop a red cube into the system. Drop a green ball into the system. Drop a bigger item into the system. Drop a smaller item into the system. Drop many different balls at the same time into the system.
Improve your hypothesis. If red cube makes it into the system, hypotheses 1 and 3 are wrong… etc etc
Correlation does not imply causation. Fix the cause not the symptom.
We actually agree here. I am not sure what to reply since there’s nothing to talk about. I will concede that my example wasn’t the best.
As I said prior, people should come with a well thought out hypothesis - those that do not will be filtered by downvotes. And if anything, having so many different perspectives (because its the internet) would eliminate edge-case hypotheses.
Obviously this is assuming everyone is acting in good faith (which is extremely unlikely) but, as I said prior, this is what mods are for.
I’m on the 411 because I was curious if anyone figured this out and had a functioning community around it. I think Lemmy, and the internet as a whole, would really benefit from a community like this existing.
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