Welcome ex-Redditors!
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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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That does sound bad. If that was my experience, I guess I might actively try to avoid them too. But as it happens, I just rarely see any hexbear stuff anyway. So the fueling of cross-instance conflicts feels unnecessary and a bit icky to me.
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Hopefully .world will serve as a quarantine instance for all the cringe-ass former redditors who love strawmen and reductionism and lame as fuck sayings like "tankie triad" and "narwhal bacon"
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Hopefully .world will serve as a quarantine instance for all the cringe-ass former redditors who love strawmen and reductionism and lame as fuck sayings like "tankie triad" and "narwhal bacon"
Seems it already does, largely.
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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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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.
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There is nothing left about promoting anarchy for your enemies and authoritarianism for your allies.
Hexbear does nothing but sit around all day sucking Xi Jinpings cock and praising Trump, and ML is just that but slightly watered down.
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If your definition of communism is China and your definition of Capitalism is Western Power, then you're a fucking Tankie, as 98% of self identifying communists on Lemmy are.
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All Tankies are Anarchists as long as that Anarchy is in a Western World Power.
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No they don't, reasonable criticism of the CPC is fine, they just ban jinogistic "China bad! Tinyman square! Winnie the pooh!" nonsense.
Those are pretty tame criticisms of the CCP to ban, it sounds like you just made that user's argument for them.
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Tankies say that shit but they don't mean it. They could easily support and promote socialism in Western Nations but they don't, instead the promote people like Donald Trump and try to convince people to resort to violence to tear it all down.
To them, real socialism is the enemy. "Communism" just means Eastern Power and "Capitalism" just means Western Power, it's political tribalism at its core.
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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.
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The f-slur is defined as referring to gay men, but people also use it to insult straight men by suggesting that they're gay. In the same way, "tankie" may be defined as a particular type of communist, but it is deployed against people who don't fit the definition to imply that they do.
This is how basically all insults work, don't play dumb. The definition is something assumed to be bad, and the way it's used is to suggest the person meets that definition.
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They still federate with some instances. They're just like everyone else, but have strict rules about not being a jerk.
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Just say you're fine with capitalism as long as lgbtq people are addressed in the way you want, it's a lot faster and more intellectually honest.
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Cool! I also made a reading list linked on my profile you can check if you want to compare, but not super necessary.
I'll do that, thanks. I like challenging reads and have sadly misplaced my e-reader, so my to-read list is backing up a lot.
![Cowbee [he/they]](https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/c18ce632-5fb5-4888-8226-3dc55a07acc4.jpeg "Cowbee [he/they]"){kind=avatar}
