If I start talking to random people in a bar odds are I won’t meet a single one who will start calling me a Nazi because I believe in the Uyghur genocide…
Everybody loves jerking off about failed states but leave out how they always have to make it a vacuum while constantly under fire, conspiracy, and embargo by every capitalist state on the planet.
True, I’d expect pretty wild conspiracies like flat earth and chemtrails to be laughed at here, but a disturbing number of lemmings and even progressives in general follow a set of less outlandish - but more insidious - conspiracies that usually fall into the “collusion and malice” type. I could say that General Motors et al. killed most of the US passenger rail and streetcar systems, and most people here would accept that as a fact. Case closed, capitalism is evil and should be abolished, every bad thing is cause by someone with I’ll intentions making it worse.
I, however, tend to be suspicious of those sorts of takes in general. Returning to the alleged “streetcar conspiracy”I’ve actually done quite a lot of research into this and can decidedly say that the primary cause of the decline of mass transit in the US was… There were at least 5 primary causes, none of which were shadowy groups deliberately working to destroy it. Rather it was killed by a changing urban environment, failures to adapt to modal shifts, legacy streetcar systems just generally sucking, and local governments taking transit for granted and assuming that they can hold streetcar companies to exacting standards while expecting them to remain solvent, all while not considering it their problem.
I could go on, and can send some sources and references (maybe not direct links though) if you’d like to learn more. But my main point is that far too many people assume there’s a nefarious actor pulling the strings the whole time when it’s usually several factors lining up all the holes in the Swiss cheese and creating a negative externality we still talk about to this day.
There (usually) isn’t a conspiracy, and if there is it’s unlikely to be anywhere near as all-encompassing as you think. People say there is because it gives them someone to blame, helps channel their anger at something tangible, and just makes a good story.
Honestly, this place is full of communists. I’m not the biggest fan of communists, to be frank. There is a lot of backwards ideas that get accepted as “leftist,” when they’re really statist. Particularly revisionist history statist. If a communist party said it, you gotta defend it kinda thing.
I don’t identify as a communist. I just don’t want life to be unreasonably difficult for people. Thats it. I just what the promise of what labor was supposed to be. I want it to free us from the shackles of work or die. Guess that is extreme left now even with tankies around the corner from us.
Exactly. We have 50 years of computer driven exponential growth and not a fucking thing is better for us. We don’t work less, travel more, be richer, live a better life, or have a better future for the planet. It should make everyone anti-capitalist.
This. When I was younger I considered myself pretty centrist, generally people would agree. My views never really changed, but the Overton window has shot so far right I now get called a commie (I guess here I’m a tankie? Still dunno wtf that’s about except a slur for ‘left of Biden’) because I think a 40 hour work week should put a basic roof over your head, whether an efficency on your own or a roomie in a nicer spot.
(I guess here I’m a tankie? Still dunno wtf that’s about except a slur for ‘left of Biden’)
As far as I can make out, tankies are people who support communist governments even when they go way too far. So even though leaders like Jinping are essentially dictators, because they’re ostensibly communist the tankies support them.
At least that’s what I’ve seen from a few weeks on lemmy. I’m sure some tankies will be along to correct me soon.
Ah, so the thing I still haven’t seen happen except for everyone saying it happens to attack leftist instances.
Oh, and people attacking others for worshipping someone all in when they point to any particular point of a particular person (IE “In regards to X, Lenin said Y” “Oh HeRe We gO aNoThEr LeNiN wOrShiPpInG tAnKiE”)
Of course, I’m sure there’s SOMEBODY out here simping for China or whatever, but if that silly small percentage paints all leftists then by their own logic all capitalists should be branded as fascists - WAY more “right” people calling for fascism around here than China worshipperss and whatnot.
Not extreme left but it’s socialist and isn’t consistent with American ideals. You can bitch about that shit if you want but we’re in the decay phase after a gluttonous society and you think the answer is communism? You do, you think everyone and everything should be “fair” but life and this country don’t work like that.
Could be if we tried. The democrats have been neo-lib appeasement artists because they are a part of the ruling class. This system cannot hold. Something will change. We just have to wait and see which way it breaks. Either way, I’m already doing the work to see a world I want. I don’t care about the noise. Arguments like “Life ain’t fair” are a poor substitute for putting yourself out there. I used to think much the same way. But, I had to do something about how bad it is getting.
Define ‘full of communists’… cause it sounds like such an american phrase and perspective. To me, it’s just a more leftwing centered space. The real communists are a minority. At least on the biggest Lemmy servers.
Yeah but those instances are not nearly as big as lemmyworld and the others. I also didn’t say that there were no communists at all. There are just not as many as OP made it out to be.
I just checked and you’re instance isn’t federated with Hexbear so you don’t see their users’ comments, my instance was federated with them for a couple of days and it made the Lemmy experience a mess.
Lol I’m not crying “SOCIALISM!” because someone recommended taking care of poor people. And maybe it’s just the communities on lemm.ee, maybe it’s because I interact with the communities more because I can’t bite my tongue. But I come across way more communist communities than anything else. Your instance matters. I see a lot of communist communities. As an anarchist, the prevalence of communism on lemmy is troubling to me because I see huge flaws in the thinking and i want to see the left not follow down a doomed hierarchical road that has proven to be a failure over and over and over again.
Lemmy.world I think has banned most tankie subs. It wasn’t until the endless problems with lemmy.world that I switched over to lemm.ee and I see way more communist shit, but have way fewer connectivity issues.
What system do you think they are referring to as an anarchist? Anarchism is simply opposition to hierarchies that allow control over others, such as the control capitalists have over workers by owning the means of production and political forces. The system that anarchists advance in place of that can take an unlimited number of forms.
Anarchism is simply opposition to hierarchies that allow control over others, such as the control capitalists have over workers
Or the control the hierarchical entity (state) must have over a populous to stop thievery and violence. Even in a perfectly idealized world, anarchism only just barely gets to work, teetering on the brink of collapse.
We have a state now though, has thievery and violence been stopped? How many thousands are in poverty, how many are killed in global wars waged in the name of profits? There are states where theft and murder are extremely rare, and states where it is common. What is the difference between the conditions where it is common and uncommon? Is a top-down control and manipulation the only way to reduce violence?
Anarchism works all the time. It’s more than a political structure, it’s an idea about how to organize relations between people, and there already are many groups that are active that function on anarchist principles.
Any group that collects itself in the modern world as anarchist, like anarchist groups in the Spanish Civil War, are heavily repressed by state forces. Capitalist states work together to discourage anarchist ideals even more so than communism because of the possibility it has for threatening traditional power structures.
the possibility it has for threatening traditional power structures.
You mean the possibility of completely collapsing civilization as a whole.
We have a state now though, has thievery and violence been stopped?
Fallacious reasoning, and pretty obvious at that. I give you a cup of water - some water has been poisoned by heavy metals. If you drink the cup of water, will you get metal poisoning? The only intellectually honest answer is: the question is flawed. The same way it doesn’t follow that
Some water is poisoned ⇏ All water is poisoned
It also doesn’t follow that
The suppression of violence begets control ⇏ All control suppresses violence.
This is further proven by your following statement
What is the difference between the conditions where it is common and uncommon?
Tell that to Voat, or Gab. There’s plenty of offshoot free speech platforms that got flooded with actual racists and Nazis the same way that Lemmy got flooded with actual communists and anarchists.
It’s because when you have a new platform, a lot of your first users will be the worst kinds of people to exist on the internet. It’s why “”“free speech absolutist”“” spaces quickly devolve into nazi hellscapes that repel all but the most equally toxic and revolting people unless they cut their claim to absolute free speech.
A heel dragging regressive policy opinion should always be met as such. The world will never go back to the Wild West with gun laws, whites owning everything, women are property etc; to have a political viewpoint desiring these things and feel that it is correct is laughable.
What free market? All I have ever known is corporate socialism. Subsidize business with taxpayer dollars. Regulatory capture to prevent competitors from entering the market.
Somehow it’s not socialist when you prop up corporate entities with billion dollar handouts a few times a decade everytime they fuck up but a single mom getting $100 only usable for food because she was let go from her job of 5 years with 10 minutes notice is a communist plot single handedly destroying America.
Lmfao imagine simping so hard you believe nobody goes to jail in the name of capitalism in the land of the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.
Or gets taken out.
Or has their government interfered with or overthrown.
You see all these people out here suffering and still say this? Where in the world can I get what you are taking because I’d love to be able to tune out everything that hard.
Just one example, Democratic Confederalism. There are endless possibilities, even within the scope of ‘communism’. To think free-market capitalism is the best that can be come up with is a severe underestimation of the powers of human ingenuity.
That is one of my biggest gripes with political discourse of all varieties, lack of creativity. I admit don’t know enough about the ‘democratic confederalism’ to fully support it, but from what I’ve heard it is compelling, it just comes to mind when I think of the question of capitalism vs communism.
I’d be interested to hear what you think communism is but I digress.
My better system starts with providing universal healthcare, education and housing.
That’s it. I want people to not go bankrupt for going to the hospital, not take out huge loans for university education and not have to pay exorbitant housing costs.
If you think this is fairy land dreams you have no comprehension of how much money is currently being redirected from these very things into the hands of capitalists so they can have a bigger yacht.
What makes you say that? As a random example, leaded gasoline existed for 50 years longer than it should have. We’ve known lead was toxic since the Roman empire, and the only reason it was invented was to increase profits.
Romans died from lead in the aqueducts by the tens of thousands in Pompeii so saying they “knew” is misrepresentative to say the least. They didn’t know why. Do you really need hyperbole to make your point?
Before modern germ theory, we thought nightshade killed us because it unbalanced our humors. The why isn’t important, it’s the understanding of toxicity.
In the marketplace of ideas, rightwing thoughts will be mocked, as they always should been…
Lemmy feels a lot more authentic to real life. If I started talking about tinfoil hat conspiracies, my friends would ridicule me to no end.
As they should.
Same here.
If I start talking to random people in a bar odds are I won’t meet a single one who will start calling me a Nazi because I believe in the Uyghur genocide…
How is the Uyghur genocide a right wing thing? I’m out of the loop here
Tankies tend to assume any accusation against a Marxist state is either a lie or the victims deserved it.
One of the reasons is that you’ve got people like the Heritage Foundation running around including Nazis in their “victims of socialism” lists.
Both as the victims and perpetrators btw, lmao.
Mostly though they just seem weirdly stuck in a Cold War mentality.
Everybody loves jerking off about failed states but leave out how they always have to make it a vacuum while constantly under fire, conspiracy, and embargo by every capitalist state on the planet.
Ok, but how does that change the fact that Lemmy’s communists will call you a Nazi for pointing out the genocides perpetrated by those States?
…but but… what about…?
It’s not whataboutism when the person is bringing the conversation back to the topic that another person whatabouted away from.
On today’s episode of “Things everyone says lemmy leftists do but have never been able to provide examples of”
Nah, it’s just that when provided with examples people like you either stop responding or try to find a justification for it.
Go ask the hexbear users!
True, I’d expect pretty wild conspiracies like flat earth and chemtrails to be laughed at here, but a disturbing number of lemmings and even progressives in general follow a set of less outlandish - but more insidious - conspiracies that usually fall into the “collusion and malice” type. I could say that General Motors et al. killed most of the US passenger rail and streetcar systems, and most people here would accept that as a fact. Case closed, capitalism is evil and should be abolished, every bad thing is cause by someone with I’ll intentions making it worse.
I, however, tend to be suspicious of those sorts of takes in general. Returning to the alleged “streetcar conspiracy”I’ve actually done quite a lot of research into this and can decidedly say that the primary cause of the decline of mass transit in the US was… There were at least 5 primary causes, none of which were shadowy groups deliberately working to destroy it. Rather it was killed by a changing urban environment, failures to adapt to modal shifts, legacy streetcar systems just generally sucking, and local governments taking transit for granted and assuming that they can hold streetcar companies to exacting standards while expecting them to remain solvent, all while not considering it their problem.
I could go on, and can send some sources and references (maybe not direct links though) if you’d like to learn more. But my main point is that far too many people assume there’s a nefarious actor pulling the strings the whole time when it’s usually several factors lining up all the holes in the Swiss cheese and creating a negative externality we still talk about to this day.
There (usually) isn’t a conspiracy, and if there is it’s unlikely to be anywhere near as all-encompassing as you think. People say there is because it gives them someone to blame, helps channel their anger at something tangible, and just makes a good story.
And there are no conservative ideas that aren’t tinfoil hat conspiracies, I guess
There are some - ideas that people should just eat shit and work as slaves.
Honestly, this place is full of communists. I’m not the biggest fan of communists, to be frank. There is a lot of backwards ideas that get accepted as “leftist,” when they’re really statist. Particularly revisionist history statist. If a communist party said it, you gotta defend it kinda thing.
I don’t identify as a communist. I just don’t want life to be unreasonably difficult for people. Thats it. I just what the promise of what labor was supposed to be. I want it to free us from the shackles of work or die. Guess that is extreme left now even with tankies around the corner from us.
Exactly. We have 50 years of computer driven exponential growth and not a fucking thing is better for us. We don’t work less, travel more, be richer, live a better life, or have a better future for the planet. It should make everyone anti-capitalist.
Data I’ve seen suggests otherwise. Care to engage with me so that we can figure out where the discrepancy lies?
You’re joking, right? A peasant in the 1200s would work less than a regular person today.
Do you think an average person in 13th century had a better quality of life than an average person living in the 21st century?
In many aspects, yes, they did lead a more fulfilling life.
Imma call bullshit on that one lol
And sources for that?
Drop links so I can move to this paradise 😭
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-between-different-poverty-thresholds-historical
This. When I was younger I considered myself pretty centrist, generally people would agree. My views never really changed, but the Overton window has shot so far right I now get called a commie (I guess here I’m a tankie? Still dunno wtf that’s about except a slur for ‘left of Biden’) because I think a 40 hour work week should put a basic roof over your head, whether an efficency on your own or a roomie in a nicer spot.
As far as I can make out, tankies are people who support communist governments even when they go way too far. So even though leaders like Jinping are essentially dictators, because they’re ostensibly communist the tankies support them.
At least that’s what I’ve seen from a few weeks on lemmy. I’m sure some tankies will be along to correct me soon.
Ah, so the thing I still haven’t seen happen except for everyone saying it happens to attack leftist instances.
Oh, and people attacking others for worshipping someone all in when they point to any particular point of a particular person (IE “In regards to X, Lenin said Y” “Oh HeRe We gO aNoThEr LeNiN wOrShiPpInG tAnKiE”)
Of course, I’m sure there’s SOMEBODY out here simping for China or whatever, but if that silly small percentage paints all leftists then by their own logic all capitalists should be branded as fascists - WAY more “right” people calling for fascism around here than China worshipperss and whatnot.
Not extreme left but it’s socialist and isn’t consistent with American ideals. You can bitch about that shit if you want but we’re in the decay phase after a gluttonous society and you think the answer is communism? You do, you think everyone and everything should be “fair” but life and this country don’t work like that.
Could be if we tried. The democrats have been neo-lib appeasement artists because they are a part of the ruling class. This system cannot hold. Something will change. We just have to wait and see which way it breaks. Either way, I’m already doing the work to see a world I want. I don’t care about the noise. Arguments like “Life ain’t fair” are a poor substitute for putting yourself out there. I used to think much the same way. But, I had to do something about how bad it is getting.
Define ‘full of communists’… cause it sounds like such an american phrase and perspective. To me, it’s just a more leftwing centered space. The real communists are a minority. At least on the biggest Lemmy servers.
Go for a walk in Hexbear and Lemmygrad communities, these are Lemmy’s communists…
Yeah but those instances are not nearly as big as lemmyworld and the others. I also didn’t say that there were no communists at all. There are just not as many as OP made it out to be.
I just checked and you’re instance isn’t federated with Hexbear so you don’t see their users’ comments, my instance was federated with them for a couple of days and it made the Lemmy experience a mess.
I have more than one account, none of them get many communist posts. Maybe there’s one in there in a few rare occasions but it’s not significant.
Lol I’m not crying “SOCIALISM!” because someone recommended taking care of poor people. And maybe it’s just the communities on lemm.ee, maybe it’s because I interact with the communities more because I can’t bite my tongue. But I come across way more communist communities than anything else. Your instance matters. I see a lot of communist communities. As an anarchist, the prevalence of communism on lemmy is troubling to me because I see huge flaws in the thinking and i want to see the left not follow down a doomed hierarchical road that has proven to be a failure over and over and over again.
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Hm might be. On lemmy, the instances you’re signed on significantly affect your experience.
Lemmy world and feddit never gave me such vibes tho. But it might also be because you’re indirectly looking for these confrontations.
Lemmy.world I think has banned most tankie subs. It wasn’t until the endless problems with lemmy.world that I switched over to lemm.ee and I see way more communist shit, but have way fewer connectivity issues.
Good to know
Instead you’d want everyone to adopt a system that literally can’t possibly work. Genius.
What system do you think they are referring to as an anarchist? Anarchism is simply opposition to hierarchies that allow control over others, such as the control capitalists have over workers by owning the means of production and political forces. The system that anarchists advance in place of that can take an unlimited number of forms.
Or the control the hierarchical entity (state) must have over a populous to stop thievery and violence. Even in a perfectly idealized world, anarchism only just barely gets to work, teetering on the brink of collapse.
We have a state now though, has thievery and violence been stopped? How many thousands are in poverty, how many are killed in global wars waged in the name of profits? There are states where theft and murder are extremely rare, and states where it is common. What is the difference between the conditions where it is common and uncommon? Is a top-down control and manipulation the only way to reduce violence?
Anarchism works all the time. It’s more than a political structure, it’s an idea about how to organize relations between people, and there already are many groups that are active that function on anarchist principles.
Any group that collects itself in the modern world as anarchist, like anarchist groups in the Spanish Civil War, are heavily repressed by state forces. Capitalist states work together to discourage anarchist ideals even more so than communism because of the possibility it has for threatening traditional power structures.
You mean the possibility of completely collapsing civilization as a whole.
Fallacious reasoning, and pretty obvious at that. I give you a cup of water - some water has been poisoned by heavy metals. If you drink the cup of water, will you get metal poisoning? The only intellectually honest answer is: the question is flawed. The same way it doesn’t follow that
Some water is poisoned ⇏ All water is poisoned
It also doesn’t follow that
The suppression of violence begets control ⇏ All control suppresses violence.
This is further proven by your following statement
Which opposes your own argumentation.
It’s the type of communism present on Lemmy that makes matters worse too…
Tell that to Voat, or Gab. There’s plenty of offshoot free speech platforms that got flooded with actual racists and Nazis the same way that Lemmy got flooded with actual communists and anarchists.
It’s because when you have a new platform, a lot of your first users will be the worst kinds of people to exist on the internet. It’s why “”“free speech absolutist”“” spaces quickly devolve into nazi hellscapes that repel all but the most equally toxic and revolting people unless they cut their claim to absolute free speech.
Yeah, any ‘free speech absolutist’ platform turns into a Nazi fascist bigot safe space because they refuse to moderate the platform
Ah, Voat. Come for the freedom of speech, decide not to stay because ABSOLUTE freedom of speech inevitably becomes racist.
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Illegal for a reason.
There aren’t a lot of anarchists here, going by the anarchist communities I’ve seen.
Yo
A heel dragging regressive policy opinion should always be met as such. The world will never go back to the Wild West with gun laws, whites owning everything, women are property etc; to have a political viewpoint desiring these things and feel that it is correct is laughable.
Free market Capitalism is the greatest economic system to ever exist.
What free market? All I have ever known is corporate socialism. Subsidize business with taxpayer dollars. Regulatory capture to prevent competitors from entering the market.
Somehow it’s not socialist when you prop up corporate entities with billion dollar handouts a few times a decade everytime they fuck up but a single mom getting $100 only usable for food because she was let go from her job of 5 years with 10 minutes notice is a communist plot single handedly destroying America.
Communist governments do the exact same thing, except if you talk about it they send you straight to the gulag.
Lmfao imagine simping so hard you believe nobody goes to jail in the name of capitalism in the land of the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.
Or gets taken out.
Or has their government interfered with or overthrown.
Nope capitalism is love and freedom 💖 UwU 💖
That’s the point. Whoooosh.
Delete your account and leave society, you’re not welcome ANYWHERE.
Hahaha 🤣
Cope and Seethe commie
Says the rightwing scum getting shunned wherever they go.
The profits are privatized, and the bailouts are socialized.
Hence why our economy is going to shit.
We need to eliminate the corruption and return to free market principles, not add even more buerocracy that only benefits the Oligarchs.
My dude, the people that run the companies ARE the oligarchs.
How braindead does one have to be to believe the companies fucking you over with regulation will stop without.
Govern me harder daddy! 🤣
Wow, your little brainlet really got triggered, huh?
You see all these people out here suffering and still say this? Where in the world can I get what you are taking because I’d love to be able to tune out everything that hard.
It’s the best at creating rampant consumerism and waste in the name of fake numbers going up at the cost of human happiness and fulfillment.
Nope, that would be your government interfering in the free market by issuing inflationary fiat currency.
Inflation drives a spend it or lose it mentality. Crony capitalists love that shit.
You must have limited aspirations if this is the best you can imagine.
If you have a better system for the future, let’s hear it.
And no, a reboot of communism doesn’t count. Fresh ideas please.
“If you have a better system let’s hear it”
any suggestion other than the current system
“No NO NOOOOO! IT’S NOT CRONY CAPITALISM! WAHHHH!”
Communism was a failure, end of story. Come up with something else.
Just one example, Democratic Confederalism. There are endless possibilities, even within the scope of ‘communism’. To think free-market capitalism is the best that can be come up with is a severe underestimation of the powers of human ingenuity.
Finally someone willing to think outside the box! Thanks for posting, this looks like a good read.
That is one of my biggest gripes with political discourse of all varieties, lack of creativity. I admit don’t know enough about the ‘democratic confederalism’ to fully support it, but from what I’ve heard it is compelling, it just comes to mind when I think of the question of capitalism vs communism.
Communism hasn’t ever even been implemented, except in small communes.
NoT rEaL cOmMuNiSm 🤣
I’d be interested to hear what you think communism is but I digress.
My better system starts with providing universal healthcare, education and housing.
That’s it. I want people to not go bankrupt for going to the hospital, not take out huge loans for university education and not have to pay exorbitant housing costs.
If you think this is fairy land dreams you have no comprehension of how much money is currently being redirected from these very things into the hands of capitalists so they can have a bigger yacht.
What makes you say that? As a random example, leaded gasoline existed for 50 years longer than it should have. We’ve known lead was toxic since the Roman empire, and the only reason it was invented was to increase profits.
Romans died from lead in the aqueducts by the tens of thousands in Pompeii so saying they “knew” is misrepresentative to say the least. They didn’t know why. Do you really need hyperbole to make your point?
Before modern germ theory, we thought nightshade killed us because it unbalanced our humors. The why isn’t important, it’s the understanding of toxicity.