I don’t have an issue with lemmy.ml users but that’s because I don’t use sweeping generalizations. I’ve had perfectly acceptable conversations with people across all kinds of instances.
I’m not a tankie but am a fan of parts of communism and I like socialism.
I like socialism too. But I hate bootlicking authoritarian simps who pretend like they know shit about socialism because they read that one Lenin essay on Marxist.org
The problem is that folks see these things implemented in the past and say “let’s just do that.” Why can’t we take the good parts and think beyond the rest? These are systems that just won’t work with current population growth and resources. We can always do far and away better than capitalism, but I’ve talked to a handful of working class people that lived under communism for years and they have nothing good to say about it. Not a single positive thing. It’s easy to dream about these things and wax poetic when you don’t experience them firsthand.
Any time a path opens to seize power, humans fill that void regardless of what they believe in. Now suddenly we’ve traded authoritarian 1 for authoritarian 2. It makes no sense to me and I read both Lenin and Marx.
It’s not even an issue of population. Communism requires material conditions you simply cannot create by killing the opposition, no matter how much you desire to preserve “the revolution.”
Capitalism is but one manifestation of material and labor scarcity. Until those things are eliminated you will experience the exact same ills in one form or another. Until those things are eliminated the only option available is harm reduction. Revolutionary communism fails specifically because it fails to recognize itself as a particularly shitty form of harm reduction, insisting the entire concept is bourgeoise propaganda. This is what contemporary leftist theorists have come understand, and what obnoxious internet edgelords refuse to acknowledge, because it requires admitting that Stalin and Mao didn’t get it right.
Ironically this is literally the foundation of Dengism and modern China, which MLs say they like, until you reduce it to first principles, at which point it once again becomes bourgeoise propaganda.
Until those things are eliminated you will experience the exact same ills in one form or another.
Under capitalism, stores throw perfectly good food in a padlocked bin while people starve. Investors speculate on empty properties while people die of exposure. Capitalism creates scarcity so that it can sell people the solution.
It’s 2024, our technologies for agriculture, medicine, engineering, and education are amazing. In terms of the basic necessities of life, we are already a post scarcity civilisation. What we’re lacking is a post scarcity economy to match it.
We can always do far and away better than capitalism
i think the real ticket, for global economics, especially ones that are going to be sustainable is going to be some sort of pseudo capitalist society. Especially one with a free market. Free market decentralization is a hard target to beat.
There’s room for a lot of interesting study here, i’m not sure any exists, and i’ve yet to see any unfortunately, it’s mostly just people dickwagging around trying to do the le socialism thing, which is funny, i guess.
My former officemate grew up in Russia in the 80s, he hated a shitload about growing up in the Soviet Union. He raved consistently about two things: the education system and gender equality.
His mother was a mathematician and computer programmer, and he didn’t have issues with school there until after he’d been here (the US) as an exchange student and had some… Cultural differences with his teachers.
“People who smile a lot in Russia are considered to be unintelligent”
The problem is that folks see these things implemented in the past and say “let’s just do that.” Why can’t we take the good parts and think beyond the rest?
Of course we should! Every instance of socialism should adapt to the specific material conditions. There’s not much reason to think that socialism in developed countries would look the same as socialism is pre-industrial societies.
It’s just that in order to know what worked and what didn’t, it’s necessary to treat those projects as serious, earnest attempts at socialism and to be willing to point out both the positive and negative aspects. And doing that will immediately get you branded as a tankie by .world. Because in practice, tankie doesn’t actually mean that you defend everything any socialist state ever did, it means that you defend anything a socialist state ever did. Thinking critically and trying to learn from the mistakes from the past makes you a tankie.
Dronies have a pathological need to distance themselves from every attempt at socialism (except the ones that failed, which can be upheld as perfect since they never had to implement their vision), which renders them unable to look at the past from an objective standpoint. They are more concerned with making sure everyone knows that they’re “one of the good ones” than they are about studying and learning from the past. Tankies, otoh, are willing to own up to the facts and acknowledge that past projects were genuine attempts, even when they ultimately failed as the USSR did. Of course it would not have failed if it didn’t have its flaws. But you will rarely see a dronie pushing this angle or interrogating the reasons for the failure, because learning from its mistakes is too close to treating it as as serious and legitimate project - far better (and easier!) to just write off the whole thing and push for shit that has only ever existed in your head and has never been tainted by contact with reality.
I’ve talked to a handful of working class people that lived under communism for years and they have nothing good to say about it. Not a single positive thing. It’s easy to dream about these things and wax poetic when you don’t experience them firsthand.
You should talk to some Australians instead. Australia’s communist nations have been stripped of their land, so most australians alive today don’t have much direct experience with communism, but the modern descendants of Australian communists all have good things to say about the way it was done 300 years ago what with the stateless, classless, moneyless gift economy.
What’s worse on the internet these days is “Marxists” that have never read Marx, or just the Manifesto, yet think themselves an authority on the subject. I made an intro to Marxism reading list to help alleviate that, and try to point out misframings and misunderstandings of Marx when I see it, but it’s still a huge issue across Lemmy. Particularly Lemmy.world.
You’re absolutely right. I just signed up on .ml because I was a reddit refugee and it was one of the largest instances, and it got the fastest updates. Like a year later, suddenly everyone’s talking about me like I’m part of some crazy cult. I bet well over half of .ml users don’t even come close to the extreme stereotype, but are considering going to another instance just so we don’t get bullied any more. It’s likely going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It pushes the lemmy.ml users who are normal out while angering and reinforcing the identity of the ones who are extreme.
Sure, whatever. That’s what happened on X. The normal people are leaving and the Nazis are stuck in their hate bubble with no normal people to talk to. Let’s do that.
Posts like that encourage extremism. It pushes the lemmy.ml users who are normal out while angering and reinforcing the identity of the ones who are extreme.
if your community becomes more toxic when people leave it because other communities call it toxic…maybe its actually toxic.
IMO if I was running an instance it would have already defederated from ml instances.
i’ve had interactions with a lot of normal people on lemmy.ml, i’ve also had a lot of interactions with a lot of really fucking weird people on lemmy.ml
i’m also blanket banned on lemmy.ml as well, so that’s fun. They don’t really like dissenting opinion over there.
All of these spaces are permeated with foreign actors. Not all users, but I know a percentage of the users statistically have to be across all the large instances. I’m in tech and we’ve seen fake users appear in public Slack and Discord channels, try to schedule job interviews (it’s happened before), etc. The forces these governments have in tech behind the scenes is enormous, and there is no way to truly know who is and isn’t a state actor on the web.
We need more critical thinking. More separation of person from ideas. People get too hung up on figures.
Yes that’s why I stated Stalin, Putin, and the CCP are ideologically opposed to socialism/communism. People who enjoy socialist concepts should be opposed to Lemmy.ml, not see common grounds with them.
Hey, I was you about 6 months ago. Same views, and then I was called a dirty imperialist just because I wasn’t left enough. Like, these ML people are out for blood. They want a revolution and it’s acceptable if people have to die to achieve it.
They want a revolution and it’s acceptable if people have to die to achieve it.
Yeah that’s how revolutions work. Because the alternative, at least in theory, is more people dying of poverty, environmental pollution, institutionalized oppression, and other consequences of the current global economic system.
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is against all forms of authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including the state and capitalism.
Um. No. I rather enjoy having a government, just a government that isn’t corrupted by the rich and actually takes care of its people like it’s supposed to. That inherently necessitates it having authority.
That’s not what the theory of communism aims for, but you do you.
Edit: to go in a bit more details, anarchism doesn’t deny all authority, just authority gained by and used for coercion. A doctor would still have authority to recommend treatments, since they are more knowledgeable, for example. So that uncorrupted and caring government you want is simply a form of anarchism
That description does not contradict my words. It says about abolishing coercion and hierarchy, not authority
Edit: I re-read your reply. Yes, the part about being “against all forms of authority” is not entirely accurate, but the second part is true nonetheless. I suppose you could rephrase my example with the doctor and call it an “expertise” instead of authority, but the concept of it is people would still defer to specialists in specific fields that have more knowledge and experience than them.
As I’m new to the anarchism myself and do not wish to misrepresent its values, I think this this site might give you a better in-depth look
It’s extremely telling that you are relying on Wikipedia for your understanding of Communism, rather than Marx, Engels, etc. You should read theory, if you want to start I made an introductory Marxist reading list.
i like to think of anarchism as the educated brother to the miscarried libertarian-ism.
It’s harsh, but i’ve never seen a libertarian make a good point, or understand anything remotely relevant to government, so.
I think anarchy, by the very nature of it’s existence is more suited to handle the challenges presented by no government existing, notably, a new government being created. Because anarchy is most often following a government collapse, and followed by a new government being created.
It’s important to distinguish anarchy and anomie. The latter is the government collapse you mentioned, accompanied with lawlessness and lack of morals, while the former is simply lack of central overseeing authority (archism), for one reason or another.
The long term goal of anarchism is not destroying all governmental structures in one fell swoop, but rather gradually building communities based on liberty, solidarity and mutual help that don’t require hierarchy or coercion to function.
Then those communities naturally take over governmental functions like protecting the people, the central government dissolves when it is no longer needed and the process doesn’t harm anyone. No “new government” is created nor is necessary.
In terms of relationship between anarchism and libertarianism, I like to think of anarchists as a subset of libertarianists (since we all oppose authoritarianism fundamentally). I’ll admit I’m not as familiar with other libertarian ideologies.
Sure, in the same way I appreciate Kant or Kierkegaard or any other modernist - as foundational thinkers who laid the groundwork for more contemporary ideas. The entire issue is that so many internet leftists take Marx as dogma, and are often poor students of philosophy outside of that very narrow context, yet will lecture you about how you only disagree with them because you haven’t read enough year one polisci material. ML spaces are as dunning Kruger as the internet gets.
I don’t have an issue with lemmy.ml users but that’s because I don’t use sweeping generalizations. I’ve had perfectly acceptable conversations with people across all kinds of instances.
I’m not a tankie but am a fan of parts of communism and I like socialism.
I like socialism too. But I hate bootlicking authoritarian simps who pretend like they know shit about socialism because they read that one Lenin essay on Marxist.org
The problem is that folks see these things implemented in the past and say “let’s just do that.” Why can’t we take the good parts and think beyond the rest? These are systems that just won’t work with current population growth and resources. We can always do far and away better than capitalism, but I’ve talked to a handful of working class people that lived under communism for years and they have nothing good to say about it. Not a single positive thing. It’s easy to dream about these things and wax poetic when you don’t experience them firsthand.
Any time a path opens to seize power, humans fill that void regardless of what they believe in. Now suddenly we’ve traded authoritarian 1 for authoritarian 2. It makes no sense to me and I read both Lenin and Marx.
It’s not even an issue of population. Communism requires material conditions you simply cannot create by killing the opposition, no matter how much you desire to preserve “the revolution.”
Capitalism is but one manifestation of material and labor scarcity. Until those things are eliminated you will experience the exact same ills in one form or another. Until those things are eliminated the only option available is harm reduction. Revolutionary communism fails specifically because it fails to recognize itself as a particularly shitty form of harm reduction, insisting the entire concept is bourgeoise propaganda. This is what contemporary leftist theorists have come understand, and what obnoxious internet edgelords refuse to acknowledge, because it requires admitting that Stalin and Mao didn’t get it right.
Ironically this is literally the foundation of Dengism and modern China, which MLs say they like, until you reduce it to first principles, at which point it once again becomes bourgeoise propaganda.
Under capitalism, stores throw perfectly good food in a padlocked bin while people starve. Investors speculate on empty properties while people die of exposure. Capitalism creates scarcity so that it can sell people the solution.
It’s 2024, our technologies for agriculture, medicine, engineering, and education are amazing. In terms of the basic necessities of life, we are already a post scarcity civilisation. What we’re lacking is a post scarcity economy to match it.
i think the real ticket, for global economics, especially ones that are going to be sustainable is going to be some sort of pseudo capitalist society. Especially one with a free market. Free market decentralization is a hard target to beat.
There’s room for a lot of interesting study here, i’m not sure any exists, and i’ve yet to see any unfortunately, it’s mostly just people dickwagging around trying to do the le socialism thing, which is funny, i guess.
My former officemate grew up in Russia in the 80s, he hated a shitload about growing up in the Soviet Union. He raved consistently about two things: the education system and gender equality.
His mother was a mathematician and computer programmer, and he didn’t have issues with school there until after he’d been here (the US) as an exchange student and had some… Cultural differences with his teachers.
“People who smile a lot in Russia are considered to be unintelligent”
Of course we should! Every instance of socialism should adapt to the specific material conditions. There’s not much reason to think that socialism in developed countries would look the same as socialism is pre-industrial societies.
It’s just that in order to know what worked and what didn’t, it’s necessary to treat those projects as serious, earnest attempts at socialism and to be willing to point out both the positive and negative aspects. And doing that will immediately get you branded as a tankie by .world. Because in practice, tankie doesn’t actually mean that you defend everything any socialist state ever did, it means that you defend anything a socialist state ever did. Thinking critically and trying to learn from the mistakes from the past makes you a tankie.
Dronies have a pathological need to distance themselves from every attempt at socialism (except the ones that failed, which can be upheld as perfect since they never had to implement their vision), which renders them unable to look at the past from an objective standpoint. They are more concerned with making sure everyone knows that they’re “one of the good ones” than they are about studying and learning from the past. Tankies, otoh, are willing to own up to the facts and acknowledge that past projects were genuine attempts, even when they ultimately failed as the USSR did. Of course it would not have failed if it didn’t have its flaws. But you will rarely see a dronie pushing this angle or interrogating the reasons for the failure, because learning from its mistakes is too close to treating it as as serious and legitimate project - far better (and easier!) to just write off the whole thing and push for shit that has only ever existed in your head and has never been tainted by contact with reality.
You should talk to some Australians instead. Australia’s communist nations have been stripped of their land, so most australians alive today don’t have much direct experience with communism, but the modern descendants of Australian communists all have good things to say about the way it was done 300 years ago what with the stateless, classless, moneyless gift economy.
What’s worse on the internet these days is “Marxists” that have never read Marx, or just the Manifesto, yet think themselves an authority on the subject. I made an intro to Marxism reading list to help alleviate that, and try to point out misframings and misunderstandings of Marx when I see it, but it’s still a huge issue across Lemmy. Particularly Lemmy.world.
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That’s why I think they’re astroturfers. I mean how else are you going to deter people from a political idea without being completely insufferable?
The communism is a facade for their propaganda, and it also bolsters extremist discourse. Win-win for them.
You’re absolutely right. I just signed up on .ml because I was a reddit refugee and it was one of the largest instances, and it got the fastest updates. Like a year later, suddenly everyone’s talking about me like I’m part of some crazy cult. I bet well over half of .ml users don’t even come close to the extreme stereotype, but are considering going to another instance just so we don’t get bullied any more. It’s likely going to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’m not even a .ml user and posts like these are pushing me to switch to their instance lol.
Sure, whatever. That’s what happened on X. The normal people are leaving and the Nazis are stuck in their hate bubble with no normal people to talk to. Let’s do that.
if your community becomes more toxic when people leave it because other communities call it toxic…maybe its actually toxic.
IMO if I was running an instance it would have already defederated from ml instances.
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i’ve had interactions with a lot of normal people on lemmy.ml, i’ve also had a lot of interactions with a lot of really fucking weird people on lemmy.ml
i’m also blanket banned on lemmy.ml as well, so that’s fun. They don’t really like dissenting opinion over there.
All of these spaces are permeated with foreign actors. Not all users, but I know a percentage of the users statistically have to be across all the large instances. I’m in tech and we’ve seen fake users appear in public Slack and Discord channels, try to schedule job interviews (it’s happened before), etc. The forces these governments have in tech behind the scenes is enormous, and there is no way to truly know who is and isn’t a state actor on the web.
We need more critical thinking. More separation of person from ideas. People get too hung up on figures.
Except on .ml that “critical thinking” you’re talking about is western anti Bolshevik propaganda to them and you’ll be banned.
That’s the problem with .ml, you just get banned.
Sounds like you might like anarchism
I do have some anarchist tendencies.
we do a little bit of dbzer0ing
Nothing about a dictatorship is public ownership.
*ism is just a tool for any aspiring autocrat. Stalin would have been far-right if he saw it as being a valid pathway towards power.
Effective tyrants are forever pragmatic and never burdened by ideological loyalty.
Yes that’s why I stated Stalin, Putin, and the CCP are ideologically opposed to socialism/communism. People who enjoy socialist concepts should be opposed to Lemmy.ml, not see common grounds with them.
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Hey, I was you about 6 months ago. Same views, and then I was called a dirty imperialist just because I wasn’t left enough. Like, these ML people are out for blood. They want a revolution and it’s acceptable if people have to die to achieve it.
The CCP nad Putin cucks aren’t even leftists, like at all. ML and Hexbear supported Donald Trump because he is anti-NATO.
Yeah that’s how revolutions work. Because the alternative, at least in theory, is more people dying of poverty, environmental pollution, institutionalized oppression, and other consequences of the current global economic system.
I hate when leftists punch down on other leftists. It’s not a competition!
Probably why you don’t have issues with Lemmy.ml users.
Im the same, I like socialism and the theory of communism is nice.
I don’t like .ml users because they hardcore believe and spread the bastardized authoritarianism-based CCP/Russian propaganda version of communism.
Right. They’re opposed to socialism and what the hold up as communism is actually Fascism with a heavy dose of State Capitalism.
What you’re looking for is anarchism. Aka libertarian socialism.
Um. No. I rather enjoy having a government, just a government that isn’t corrupted by the rich and actually takes care of its people like it’s supposed to. That inherently necessitates it having authority.
That’s not what the theory of communism aims for, but you do you.
Edit: to go in a bit more details, anarchism doesn’t deny all authority, just authority gained by and used for coercion. A doctor would still have authority to recommend treatments, since they are more knowledgeable, for example. So that uncorrupted and caring government you want is simply a form of anarchism
Either you’re thinking of something else or you should go update Wikipedia then, because that’s where I got that description from.
That description does not contradict my words. It says about abolishing coercion and hierarchy, not authority
Edit: I re-read your reply. Yes, the part about being “against all forms of authority” is not entirely accurate, but the second part is true nonetheless. I suppose you could rephrase my example with the doctor and call it an “expertise” instead of authority, but the concept of it is people would still defer to specialists in specific fields that have more knowledge and experience than them.
As I’m new to the anarchism myself and do not wish to misrepresent its values, I think this this site might give you a better in-depth look
Anti-authoritarian is a word, so there’s that.
It’s extremely telling that you are relying on Wikipedia for your understanding of Communism, rather than Marx, Engels, etc. You should read theory, if you want to start I made an introductory Marxist reading list.
i like to think of anarchism as the educated brother to the miscarried libertarian-ism.
It’s harsh, but i’ve never seen a libertarian make a good point, or understand anything remotely relevant to government, so.
I think anarchy, by the very nature of it’s existence is more suited to handle the challenges presented by no government existing, notably, a new government being created. Because anarchy is most often following a government collapse, and followed by a new government being created.
It’s important to distinguish anarchy and anomie. The latter is the government collapse you mentioned, accompanied with lawlessness and lack of morals, while the former is simply lack of central overseeing authority (archism), for one reason or another.
The long term goal of anarchism is not destroying all governmental structures in one fell swoop, but rather gradually building communities based on liberty, solidarity and mutual help that don’t require hierarchy or coercion to function.
Then those communities naturally take over governmental functions like protecting the people, the central government dissolves when it is no longer needed and the process doesn’t harm anyone. No “new government” is created nor is necessary.
In terms of relationship between anarchism and libertarianism, I like to think of anarchists as a subset of libertarianists (since we all oppose authoritarianism fundamentally). I’ll admit I’m not as familiar with other libertarian ideologies.
You can still appreciate Karl Marx’s Manifesto without endorsing the Soviet Union or China.
Sure, in the same way I appreciate Kant or Kierkegaard or any other modernist - as foundational thinkers who laid the groundwork for more contemporary ideas. The entire issue is that so many internet leftists take Marx as dogma, and are often poor students of philosophy outside of that very narrow context, yet will lecture you about how you only disagree with them because you haven’t read enough year one polisci material. ML spaces are as dunning Kruger as the internet gets.