What are some of your favorite communities that feature topics like literature, science, ecology, aerospace, technology, politics, history, arts, culture, theory, and debate?

Where do responsible, respectful adults go for discussions and for substantive, high quality posts and comments by decent human beings?

(Not just limited to academic/intellectual topics, could be anything from hobbies to defense contracts to careers to skills. Just looking for respectful, reasonably intelligent, informed, relatively engaged communities.)

Also, are forum aggregators like Lemmy and Reddit even the best places to find such communities outside of listservers, universities, and academic conferences?

  • breadsmasher@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    6 months ago

    Where do responsible, respectful adults go for discussions and for substantive, high quality posts and comments by decent human beings?

    I don’t think you will find this Utopia online

    • Jordan117@lemmy.worldEnglish
      101·
      6 months ago

      I thoroughly enjoy MetaFilter (one of the last surviving community blogs from the 90s) and Tildes (a more recent attempt at capturing the same feel). Text-heavy discourse, minimalist design, human-scale moderation, and moderately gatekept (MeFi has a $5 fee, Tildes is invite-only). PM me if you’re interested.

    • bedwyr@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      6 months ago

      There used to be a website called WiserEarth (and then later Wiser.org). This was an internet utopia for intellectual, empathetic discussion about sociopolitical, environmental, ecological, and economic discussion. Really miss that community. But yeah, few. And far between.

  • ℕ𝕖𝕞𝕠@midwest.social
    201·
    6 months ago

    So, check out communities on mander.xyz for science topics and slrpnk.net for ecology.

    I don’t know yet of any good munis on lemmy for theology, philosophy, or wild theorycrafting, but I’m interested if anyone has recommendations.

    • bedwyr@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      6 months ago

      Myself being very new to Lemmy, would you possibly be able to explain how to search by instance? Is it about finding the right app, or is it simpler to just sign up via different instances?

    • littleblue✨@lemmy.world
      314·
      6 months ago

      looking for… reasonably intelligent…

      Fair question, sure, but then you reply with?

      …theology…

      You’re why we can’t have nice things. 🤌🏼

  • oxjox@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    6 months ago

    Where do responsible, respectful adults go for discussions and for substantive, high quality posts and comments by decent human beings?

    In my experience, these are specific communities / websites with their own forums.

  • g0d0fm15ch13f@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    6 months ago

    plugging !cfb@fanaticus.social. I know that college football probably isn’t the most popular activity for those of us in the fedi, but honestly we’ve got a decent community going, even if a little small.