Welcome ex-Redditors!
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No, I mean it's the new / local meme word to shut off conversation. And apparently used pretty much the same way right-wingers use it.
Ah! Yeah, that's true
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I'm curious where a lot of those folks come from/what their backgrounds are. I assume like 50% are Russian bots, but of those who are real people, how'd they end up where they are in life/their opinions? I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
I question the "Russian Bots" narrative pretty heavily, there's no evidence for that conspiracy theory nor would it make sense, Lemmy is too small to make an impact. Either way, I started reading Marxist theory a bit in college but more when I actually started working, and over the years I've read more theory and history.
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Yeah I randomly picked an instance when I created this account around a year ago, and these days I see people comment things like “lol of course you’re from .ml”.
I don’t even know what’s the difference between instances. And it’s not like we were given a whole lot of explanation when picking one.
Woohoo for tribalism
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I'm going to read all that later, but for the record, I'm a white man in my mid 30s.
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Tankies aren't communists.
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Karl Marx said communism is stateless. Tankies are named after their support of soviet tanks to put down revolutions. That's the opposite of stateless.
Marx also described the State as the elements of government that entrench class distinctions like private property rights and armies, but that such a state could only wither away once all industry was publicly owned and controlled. Marx believed the workers needed to be armed and protect revolution.
This has also been explained before, but one of the "revolutions" you defended was led by Nazis that were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, and had started lynching them.
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woow, you're gorgeous... I DMd you
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Nothing says holocaust denial more than deliberately watering down the term 'genocide'
Trump isn't a fascist, y'all leftists are just over-reacting, stop watering down the term "fascism" /s
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I question the "Russian Bots" narrative pretty heavily, there's no evidence for that conspiracy theory nor would it make sense, Lemmy is too small to make an impact. Either way, I started reading Marxist theory a bit in college but more when I actually started working, and over the years I've read more theory and history.
I'm admittedly not well-versed in Marxism, beyond having the experience of, "Man, this shit looks good on paper!" But I would always take that a more communal-style communism route, so where I struggle is with the purported admiration of the Chinas and USSRs in the world. I suppose you might argue that my view is based on a misunderstanding, which I kind of get. But on a gut level, I have such a hostile feeling toward any authoritarian-style structure that my hang-up always comes back to that. Again, based on a very surface level understanding of what I presume to be a diverse group of views, which is probably part of the issue with simplifying it all.
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Then why choose to believe what those same human rights abusers tell you is true about another country?
Why do you assume I'm believing Americans?
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I'm admittedly not well-versed in Marxism, beyond having the experience of, "Man, this shit looks good on paper!" But I would always take that a more communal-style communism route, so where I struggle is with the purported admiration of the Chinas and USSRs in the world. I suppose you might argue that my view is based on a misunderstanding, which I kind of get. But on a gut level, I have such a hostile feeling toward any authoritarian-style structure that my hang-up always comes back to that. Again, based on a very surface level understanding of what I presume to be a diverse group of views, which is probably part of the issue with simplifying it all.
I think a useful exercise would be to look at what, as you say, "looks good on paper." Where did you get that conception, from Marx, or people talking about Marx? Part of the Red Scare was blunting and twisting Marx, it wasn't just "Marx and Marxists eat babies" or overt misinformation easily dispelled, but often worked in subtle ways, and still does.
I am not going to turn this into a lecture on Marxism (unless you want that, I can do that for hours because I am a fucking nerd). However, I do want to point out that Marx's prediction for Communism was of a fully publicly owned and planned economy over the world, where everyone shared equal ownership with all of industry. He predicted this because he watched Capitalist industry get larger and larger over time, and competition become less and less feasible as barriers to entry got more expensive.
I think you have an idea of Marx in your head that envisions a horizontalist, decentralized economy, when Marx thought further centralization is a necessity of advancing industry in a more and more interconnected production process. We could spend days and years talking about what the PRC and former USSR gets right and wrong, but my point here is more about just how easy it is to misunderstand Marxism entirely from the get-go.
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I have a very different experience. When Hexbear was still federated with the large instances it was total mayhem. They would turn every thread political, constantly spam images of dictators like Stalin and Mao, and swarm anyone who disagreed. I've seen them deny the wrongdoings of China and the Soviet Union quite often, which is probably also what's necessary if you spam Mao and Stalin unironically.
I'm quite left of center myself, at least relative to most people I know in real life. But these people seemed totally insane. It was probably also a numbers game, since Hexbear was relatively large at the time compared to basically every other instance. So maybe this was just an annoying minority. But nevertheless I'd never purposefully go there, and I'd recommend anyone to stay away. It's way better than for instance a Trumpist/far-right instance, but I'd rather avoid both.
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After numerous temporary bans, I am the recipient of a permanent ban from Reddit. In a reply, I stated "Don't ask, don't tell, don't say tranny." From that Reddit determined I am a hateful individual. As their conclusion defined them as dysfunctional and extremely judgmental, their offer to file an appeal prompted me to author "Don't ask, don't tell, don't say Reddit."
I know it isn't powerful and offensive, but since they are offended by a belch, fart, eye-twitch or hiccup, I am sure it will do to make my point.
Glad to be aboard.
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Seems it already does, largely.
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Can we just defederate and be done with it?
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I think a useful exercise would be to look at what, as you say, "looks good on paper." Where did you get that conception, from Marx, or people talking about Marx? Part of the Red Scare was blunting and twisting Marx, it wasn't just "Marx and Marxists eat babies" or overt misinformation easily dispelled, but often worked in subtle ways, and still does.
I am not going to turn this into a lecture on Marxism (unless you want that, I can do that for hours because I am a fucking nerd). However, I do want to point out that Marx's prediction for Communism was of a fully publicly owned and planned economy over the world, where everyone shared equal ownership with all of industry. He predicted this because he watched Capitalist industry get larger and larger over time, and competition become less and less feasible as barriers to entry got more expensive.
I think you have an idea of Marx in your head that envisions a horizontalist, decentralized economy, when Marx thought further centralization is a necessity of advancing industry in a more and more interconnected production process. We could spend days and years talking about what the PRC and former USSR gets right and wrong, but my point here is more about just how easy it is to misunderstand Marxism entirely from the get-go.
I suspect you're right. I have a list of books I still need to read on this stuff.
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I suspect you're right. I have a list of books I still need to read on this stuff.
Cool! I also made a reading list linked on my profile you can check if you want to compare, but not super necessary.
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Can we just defederate and be done with it?
We are actually defederated from 2 of them on World, but Lemmy.ml is also the community run by Lemmy code contributors so a lot of people are hesitant to let it go.
It's got my vote, though, fuck em.
![Cowbee [he/they]](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/c18ce632-5fb5-4888-8226-3dc55a07acc4.jpeg "Cowbee [he/they]"){kind=avatar}
