I think my beliefs would be similar but far less mainstream

Simply because I wouldn’t have met my wife, I suppose I wouldn’t have. Also, being on the more “conversational” parts of the chans as a late teen made me (perhaps surprisingly) very empathetic and more merciful with my judgement and actions, and helped create a bigger “barrier” of human understanding between the words I hear/read and my reaction to them (very helpful as a hyperactive, sensitive guy!). But most of my ideology’s “building blocks” come from very old and popular books, so maybe I would’ve developed into it/found my way to it, just a bit later. How could I know? 😅

If the internet didn’t exist we wouldn’t be in the same political situation we find ourselves. So it’s hard to say.

That being said, I’m old enough that the internet wasn’t quite a household, in-your-face thing until I was already legally an adult, and I was already leaning left by then thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh who made me realize how selfish, racist, and uneducated conservatives are and I didn’t want anything to do with that. Life’s too short to waste time being a self-serving piece of ignorant shit.

As far as religion I knew that was all bullshit well before I reached adulthood. Internet wouldn’t have affected that at all for me.

In middle school, before my family has access to the internet, I was taught about how other nations agreed to use the American dollar as a standard and the benefits of leaving the good standard for a fiat currency. I asked if they wasn’t a bad idea because it means if that one country had economic problems everyone would and was promptly told that that’s a dumb question because America can’t have economic problems.

I was raised agnostic and abused through school for not being Christian by people who worship a man that condemned that exact action.

I think I was always destined to feel the way I do.

I’d say i’d have the same political/philosophical beliefs, cuz they make sense with who i was before i had access to the internet, and the social context i grew up in. I rejected religion since i can remember interacting with it. On the other hand, i might not have the same cultural knowledge (especially in music, which i discovered on youtube and forums).

I certainly wouldn’t be voting for Trump since i have the rare human ability of noticing when someone has lied to my face thousands of times in the most absurd, lazy, and inconsistent manner possible.

My dad was a Republican and a military man who i respected immensely, so I could’ve seen myself going that route, but that route in my mind was “fiscally conservative” and not “socially conservative”, but I haven’t seen any fiscal responsibility from that party outside of implementing cuts to offset massive tax break handouts for billionaires, and there’s instead an extremely unhealthy emphasis on the latter.

Come to think of it i don’t think i even came across politics much during my childhood years with Internet, it was still web forums mainly and political web forums sounds as boring now as it did then. (though It’s kinda weird that i feel that way and still spend most of my time on lemmy discussing politics rather than any other topics)

No. I’d probably fancy myself a centrist or even be a little conservative

I think I’d need to be born before 1755 to have a significant change to my religious or some political beliefs.

Yes. My worldview, morals, and ethics were pretty much fully formed before I even started using the internet.

Maybe I would’ve been slightly less cynical and nihilist and depressed, but the world outside the internet has let me down a lot more than the internet, even accounting for enshittification, so probably not.

I would definitely have less interesting fetishes, though.

No, I think I probably would have the same. All the internet did was make it easier to be exposed to more ideas, but I had been doing that in libraries from the time I was a teenager anyway.

Difficult to say. I feel like I’ve always leaned left, but without my exposure to leftist discussion online, I may not be as far left as I am today. I’d like to think that I would have ended up with the same political beliefs that I currently have.

I certainly would not have come out as trans until it became a very public thing. In the past I had always thought that I had some sort of fetish with dressing up in women’s clothing. It wasn’t until I was exposed to what being trans was, online, that I finally connected all of the dots. I’d still have come out as trans eventually, but it would have taken longer. I’m grateful for the trans spaces I discovered online, and the community I found within. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Im an Anarcho-Syndicalist but without the internet I would probrally be a hardcore ML/Stalinist. Additionally IRL I have seen nothing but hate and the worst of humanity, without the internet I would not even know that humanity is capable of good and I would not have any regard for human life. So I would probrally join a radical ML militia group and shoot up some government building.

Yes, I graduated high school before the web was widely available.

Core beliefs, yes, because I developed those for the most part before the internet existed by learning critical thinking skills from great teachers, books, and other sources. Public broadcasting exposed me to things that I had no personal experience with.

The internet has further impacted the way I see the world by increasing the ease of finding out more about topics from around the world that help me refine that worldview.

Religion: yes. I gave up on religions at age 13-ish. Not before internet but well before internet became the opinion shaper that it is.

Politics came later. However I naturally gravitated towards reading blogs who’s opinions resonated with me. I also found myself agreeing with some points and disagreeing with others points made by the same person.

I’m mostly voting for someone who has ideas that is most likely to improve my top 2-3 issues (and don’t see me as the problem in society).