Guess I’m another proud ban of the world news .ml instance. Honestly, the pettiness of the mods over there is insane. They’re a cult. I can’t help but think they’re at least partly hijacked by some state sponsored astroturfing campaign.
Couple weeks back I got a 30 day. Made no comment in their instance. Was a random preemptive ban. The mod account listed the reason as a rule 4 violation. That’s their rule for spam and ads.
Yup it has been fairly recent that they’ve just started handing out bans for activity on other instances. You can tell they are very upset that they aren’t the biggest instance anymore and hate that they can’t control the whole fediverse as such.
Yep and for commenting here I picked up a few more preemptive bans in other sections of ml.
It’s pitiful behavior really. If their ideology was so solid they shouldn’t need to stop someone like me also on the left disagreeing with their authoritarian solutions. Everyone should be against authoritarianism period.
Ooo so we can make jokes about “you have been banned from ml”.
I got an account banned for suggesting that their meme responses are childish and cringy.
Ml is very anti-West in my experience. I heard about that kind of thing existing but wow. I think they conglomerated on Lemmy long before Lemmy was popular.
Lemmy was made by and is developed by Marxist-Leninists as a response to Reddit. You aren’t going to find any pro-west Marxist-Leninists. The admins of Lemmy.ml are also Marxist-Leninists, so in general Lemmy.ml is going to be far less pro-west than Lemmy.World, which is a Liberal Instance.
Lemmy.ml has fantastic FOSS and Privacy communities, so not all members are Marxists, but generally liberals coming from Reddit go to Lemmy.world, while Marxists go to other communities, in my experience.
How dare you suggest Xi Xinping isn’t the greatest benefactor of humanity of all times, you filthy capitalist pig? And I’m only slightly exaggerating here.
They don’t like it when I drag my balls across Xi Jinping’s face and he starts motorboating for sure.
I got banned from one of the .ml communities in my first week here for simply saying I didn’t believe in any particular form of government.
Like, that’s all I said. I told them socialism, capitalism, communism - I think we need a mix, not a selection. And they were like BANNED. I didn’t swear, nor was a disrespectful - I simply dissented, and their CCP brains exploded from my audacity.
This was way back when most of us came over on the FuckSpezflower.
Is it ml or grad that hosts a Mao reading group on their discord?
I don’t even mind that, and regularly attend those kinds of events at local campuses or book stores.
But why have those discussions if you’re just going to ban people who question theory from literally 70 years ago? Times change, and so frank discussions about what to bring into this he future to help with global emancipation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
But don’t try to tell me that none of these dictators did anything wrong, or that they should be forgiven because other people do bad shit, too.
They have a discord?
This explains the coordination attacking people who make anti Hamas statements.
I am so relieved to hear those bans aren’t uncommon.
I’m new from Reddit (where I was similarly banned for questioning questionable news sources in relatively niche subs), and I was so sure this was a set up that fostered a bit more conversation and etiquette, like waayyy forever ago. So I was pretty upset when I got eviscerated for trying to argue a coherent point there in favor of using media literacy tools in order to help evaluating sources for bias and funding.
I, too, am quite suspicious, given those mods and associated power posters on lemmy.ml, that there is a coordinated propaganda campaign there. Or, there are some turbo-nerd-tankies that regurgitate it at the speed of light of their own volition.
I 100% believe at least a few of them are either state sponsored, or political extremists (drank waaay too much kool-aid.)
It’s hard to say emphatically which it is. Their responses are just so incredibly far beyond reasonable.
Most of them are literally just children going through their edgy “I have no stake in society so burning it all down makes sense to me” phase.
I’ve literally described ml as “I’m 14 and very edgy”.
Tankies, like other fash, tend to push others out of spaces due to their vileness. I think it’s just a self-reinforcing cycle rather than coordination.
When I understood they’re descendents of ChapoTraphouse it all made sense. Half are righty astroturfers posing; some other sizable chunk are assuredly edgy teenagers. Some are foreign operatives. The rest are, frankly, the duped.
I would actually pay to see the look on Dessalines face when he realizes that he’s the nerd God to a bunch of teenagers.
I think they do it intentionally to maintain their echo chamber of propaganda.
It’s interesting, my instance doesn’t block them, so we end up often getting pulled into threads if we don’t check the details.
They definitely don’t like us when we show up, lol. You can tell they aren’t used to it, and they get legitimately angry when someone points out that American citizens aren’t evil, or that the world is more complex than their black and white views allow.
Is a real bummer because I am quite a lefty in my own group and general society, and I was hoping for some challenges from further left. But I guess if it’s not straight up revolutionary blood lust it’s just authoritarianism apologists.
Again, it’s one of the reasons I was stoked to join the lemmy/fediverse in the first place.
Same. This is my exact experience as well. They absolutely refuse to engage with broader leftist ideas on any academic level. They legitimately think the philosophy ended with Lenin and Mao. Even fucking Jacobin doesn’t have enough revolution fan service for them.
I do kind of get a kick out of them quoting Chomsky though, who is absolutely no friend to Marxist-Leninist brain rot.
FYI lemmy was founded by a tankie, you shouldn’t be that surprised.
the free software “movement” as it were attracts everyone from tankies to ancaps, and personally I think that’s great. At least (almost) everyone can agree on something
I assumed and gathered the gist of the general ideology here, even if I don’t know the story at all.
I was attracted to the decentralized aspect of it all, and was hoping for challenging views and conversations. I ended up having what I found to be a frustrating but productive one, that then ended up gradually deleted by mods and then I was banned.
I wanna get out of the echo chambers it’s so easy to create.
It really sucked!
I wanna get out of the echo chambers it’s so easy to create.
I think you’d probably have to log off to escape that, but then you’d just be confined to a different kind of inescapable echo chamber
I look forward to helping make them hate their own creation.
Similar story here. Got banned from world news.ml on my first or second day for calling out russian/chinese govt talking points. Their go to is, “all western media is a lie, heres what glorious china has to say. At worst, the truth ‘Lies in the Middle’ TM.”
On reddit id say its worse. Post api changes, all the left leaning communities got absolutely hijacked. Places that prided themselves on no bans were banning anyone not regurgitating russian propaganda or “noo vooting” rubbish.
It’s definitely worse here in the sense that there’s more blatant repression. But I prefer that to the insidious ways they do it on reddit.
Hard disagree. I started picking up bans in formerly mildly left subs like therightcantmeme, more left leaning subs like completeanarchy, and the place was suddenly full of insidious left-passing communities like ultraleft over night. What were once spaces that banned no one, embraced many different leftist schools, and prided themselves on thinking for themselves now banned leftists who broke rank and file and instead offered the correct opinions on any host of issues the second one asked. To put another way, there was an influx of posts like, “im new, whats the [insert leftist branch here] thought on [insert modern political issue here]?” There was a time when these posts were not only hardly existent, but such asks would be met with, “go and read up on theory and see what u like, dont ask for ur thoughts to be spoon fed to u.”
I guess I was just referring to the larger subs on reddit like politics, news, and worldnews. I’m not part of any smaller political subs.
Ahh understood. I remember worldnews turning into, “and heres why the IDF is holy and Gaza should be leveled,” which, while batshit as well, is the opposite of what the tankies are saying.
The big subs really ramped it up when it came to Israel. Worldnews would have whole threads with 600 comments all saying [removed]. Prior to that it was much more subtle.
I’ve never seen a singular group online that felt more like talking to NPCs then the Hexbear/Lemmygrad folks.
Consider blocking hexbear if their antics get annoying. They aren’t as bad as the .ml instances but they can be super annoying
I blocked them because their users, thinking I was Jewish, were constantly harassing me.
It’s reassuring that most people have forgotten about hexbear.
Isn’t lemm.ee still federated with hexbear? I used to have an account over there and fled to .world when the admin refused to stop apologizing for their God awful behavior.
We are but I just use a Lemmy viewer that can block entire instances, problem solved.
You don’t need a lemmy viewer or app anymore, lemmy itself lets you block instances entirely now.
Even better!
Yes, they are. In fact I made a multiple-page-long post (on my old lemm.ee account) to the lemm.ee meta community asking to defederate from hexbear.net. Fortunately now you can just block an instance.
Edit: to be clear, I am not criticizing lemm.ee admins. They have their own reasons to not block hexbear.net, and I respect their decision.
Yes, that is what they’re aiming for.
Yes lemm.ee is still federated with hexbear, which is frankly fine by me (at least ever since blocking instances was introduced).
If they’re blocked from your feed, it doesn’t really matter.
Think a lot of big places defederated with lemmygrad and hexbear. .ml slipped under the radar, so you have to block it manually.
Nah lemmy.ml didn’t slip under the radar, it’s intentionally still federated with because it’s the main instance of the core lemmy developers. Said developers also own and operate lemmygrad, but lemmy.ml is meant to be neutral ground.
lemmy.ml never really used to be that bad, either. It was only after the mass defederation of hexbear that users from there started making alt accounts in other instances, lemmy.ml being one of the main ones and, unfortunatley, lemm.ee getting its share also. lemmy.ml is still ostensibly neutral ground, however now it has a pack of refugee users skewing how its perceived.
I think feddit.uk is still federated with hexbear btw.
Nah man, I’ve been banned twice now simply for mentioning that time Russia shot down a civilian airliner over Ukraine. .ml is very fucking far from neutral.
i left .ml because i kept getting banned when arguing with tankies
I think it was primarily /c/worldnews over there that has that issue, what really doesn’t help is they use the same font and colour as the same community from lemmy.world.
Nah ml isn’t neutral. I was banned for saying NATO is a defence alliance
I also find shitjustworks to be bad.
What’s wrong with shitjustworks? I just moved my account there because they seemed nice IMHO.
I think a lot of trolls set up accounts there.
Nothing. It’s a good stable spot. Stays updated. It has the best instance name too.
Yeah, I block all three.
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What happened to them anyway?
They defederated because people were being mean to them (after they brigaded numerous threads, were omnipresent nuisances and annoyances, and posted a pig shitting on its own balls everywhere).
Given that “the dunk tank” is still one of their bigger subs, id say theyre still brigading.
Back when blahaj.zone defederated from hexbear the tankies started brigading blahaj and spamming comments about how “transphobic” blahaj’s mods/admin are. I pointed out how absurd this argument was given the admin and many of the mods are actual trans people.
This upset some moron and they posted a comment “calling me out” on c/dunktank.
Yup, sounds about right. And then they circlejerk over how righteous they are 🙄
They absolutely do, but they come in with .world and .ml alts now.
Yup! Thats exactly how it goes. Then they argue with shifting goalposts or gish gallop you into the dregs of a thread before they finally catch u misspeaking or not addressing one of their shifted goalposts and go, “ha! Look how full of shit u are!” Theyre incredibly toxic as they do it, and get mad if u preach any amount of unity on the left.
.world defederated with hexbear preemptively, but i’m sure hexbear would have defederated with .world pretty quickly anyway.
But i shouldn’t speculate, and you shouldn’t lie.
Preemptively? It should’ve happened even sooner. They should lose .ml also.
Hexbear still federates just a lot of the big ones cut them off (or vice versa)
Your instance still federates
Instance blocking was implemented
*Blocked
Governments can and should be criticized without bigotry towards the governed populace. We should always take the side of the civilians, as we are civilians too.
It is in fact these governments producing massive amounts of propaganda to demonize “the other side.” What might they have to gain from global culture wars such as this?
Governments can and should be criticized without bigotry towards the governed populace.
In theory, sure.
In practice, there is some tacit understanding that a plurality of residents in a nation will hold views of the popular government.
The end run around this is to assert everyone in Bad Foreign Country are brainwashed or broken. But then you end up with proud outspoken nationalists vocalizing support. So we go to the Wumao/Bot narrative, where everyone speaking positively is paid off or fake.
And then finally you get to an actual conflict of civilizations - an Israeli / Russian invasion that is popular within the invading country - and that’s when you have to square the circle.
When hundreds of thousands of people are killing/dying to perpetrait a national agenda, it can’t just be “Country Bad / People In Gray Area”.
At some point, you have to see trees as part of the forest. It can’t just be a flag that you’re upset by.
Wanting trans people to not be exterminated is not “culture war”, fuck you and your both sides bullshit
This “global culture war” they’re talking about isn’t about trans people. I’m assuming you mean the culture war in the US. What they meant was the east VS west culture war.
That’s not a culture war, that’s a war war lol
That’s not what that word means.
Sure honey, whatever you say
Did u just take a gigantic shit into your own breakfast cereal and then get mad at someone else for it? 🤔
At least try to be topical when insulting.
I’m just as tropical as anyone else here.
I got banned from a ml community for saying NATO is a defensive alliance lol.
Same. They can’t allow acknowledgement of Europe being in the most peaceful span of its recorded history thanks to the EU and NATO. That cooperation and allowing people to be different but still respectful has been a success for many.
They’re stuck in the burn it all down phase of being an edgy teenager that finds out life is hard. Unfair. And kinda sucks sometimes. That humans aren’t perfect and therefore our societies and systems also aren’t perfect.
But they’d throw it all away instead of iterating on what already works. My job is literally process improvement and change management. People who try to come up with the best idea on their own fail. It’s diversity of thought and background that leads to the best solutions.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, who exactly was NATO defending itself against? there was no longer an adversary superpower that needed to be fought with mass fighter jets and tanks. Russia was agreeing to let American military aircraft through its airspace for chrissakes
The only reason NATO stuck around back then was that a bunch of bureaucrats really wanted to keep their jobs.
It’s amazing you’re trying this rhetoric when Russia is literally on the warpath.
I recently read a book about the relevant history and it’s been 20-30 years since. I was curious about how Russia started on the warpath and the transition from Clinton to Bush (Iraq, the ABM treaty, etc) was a fairly major factor. It was a very jarring contrast reading speeches and news reports from back then, such as the franco-german-russian united front against the iraq war. Things could have gone very differently back then if a few decisions weren’t made.
- I can’t believe you fell for that. And 2) back to the original point of late ninties early 2000s, some people can see beyond the very measly 5 years you tried to limit it to. Ciao.
This is the same energy as polo is gone so we don’t need vaccines anymore.
Comparing an entire country to a disease, stay classy reddit
idk how else to respond lol. Did not expect to see defenses of the bush administration’s foreign policy on lemmy
Truth is you had no point. And it was easily shown with 1 sentence.
No, the point is that the situation was a bit more complicated than “Russia is a disease that cannot be reasoned with” within living memory. Sure at this point we’re cheerfully careening towards ww3 with all diplomacy out the window (with Russia as a primary driver). But it didn’t use to be like that
Reality is more complicated than the strawman you were putting into someone else’s mouth? Ya don’t say… I mean that’s sort of the point of a strawman like the one you were making.
But also, I’ve not seen any serious analysis backing the idea we’re currently on a path to WW3. Such a situation is unlikely to be produced by the Ukrainian conflict alone.
To back that claim you’re going to have to rely on theoretical escalations outside that conflict… And that’s not what “careening towards” means.
If a car is careening towards something, it doesn’t mean - it would be happening if it means it is happening BECAUSE…
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Funny how right after Openskies ended Russia invades a country. Almost seems like all the precautions in place were kinda keeping them from misbehaving.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 and is a group of 32 countries from Europe and North America that exists to protect the people and territory of its members.
… treaties don’t just disappear after a short amount of peace. I think it would take at least 50 solid years and probably some democracy for that sort of thing to happen.
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Found them!
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NATO is about as “defensive” as the US’s arsenal of nuclear weapons is “defensive.”
Not something I’d ban you for, though - until you start acting like a shitlib.
Found him!
You found what, liberal?
whooooooosh
Again - you found what liberal?
You a bot or just…touched?
You sound just like the Donald Trump supporters I’ve met online: the style of “argument” and even the “insults” are identical.
What a coincidence.
Come now, liberal… are you too politically incompetent to explain your little liberal joke to me?
Try not to disappoint.
what exactly does “liberal” mean to you? what makes some socialist a “lib” as opposed to a pureblooded leftist hero?
There is no such thing as a “socialist” liberal because there is no such thing as an anti-capitalist liberal - once you cross over into anti-capitalist - ie, socialist - territory, you automatically become anti-liberal, too.
Again, your goal seems to be tracing a very small territory which will obviously be rejected by most… It’s as if that’s your aim is to be more radical and exclusive “than thou”.
To me this is no different to the billionaire bragging about his particularly libertarian agenda, or extremists Randian “egoic motivations”.
Its aim is to perform and adopt an assigned cultural position in order to reproduce the dominant cultural hegemony; positioning and imparting the awareness of the majority population’s moral imperative to avoid both positions as ugly and extremist, and hence their righteousness for staying away from both.
which will obviously be rejected by most…
Then let them reject it.
Throughout your comments there are quite a few people who are blatantly socialist, and people who say very anti-capitalist things that may be socialists, who you have called a lib. It just seems you perceive it as an insult towards people who hold different beliefs, rather than describing capitalists… not to say that the specific OP here isn’t a capitalist, but some of the others definitely aren’t.
I wouldn’t count myself as a capitalist, personally. I may be more amiable to short-term solutions that acknowledge that we are still in a capitalist society, but I see an investor-driven economy as ruinous to both itself and democracy, and not something that can be sustained in a truly democratic society.
It looks a lot like you’re trying to alienate other leftists from your position, rather than actually make any reasonable arguments for your own beliefs.
Don’t you ever feel like you’re betraying your own beliefs when you go for over simplified attacks.
Like using “liberal” as an insult… I mean, it suggests your preferred ideology would be a kind of fascism or authoritarianism. Something without social liberalism.
I mean, you’re obviously frustrated and a believer that any serious discussion would be futile… So why not just walk away rather than damaging your own political position?
Haven’t you learned how to argue your positions using someone else’s values?
Just seems like you’re the biggest liberal, like you’re doing a big show of the freedoms of political discourse, showing how you’re free to be rude. Showing you’re openly avoiding constructive discussion, and not realising that’s still discussion.
It’s a very liberal thing to do.
…and I’m not sure of the purpose but it doesn’t seem to be bolstering any other political position. Just seems to reproduce a culture in which the far left are under represented and seen as unreasonable. One where it’s seen as just and right to not have a popular Marxist party and to lock that particular rhetoric out.
Why so blatantly lean into the agenda that’s so obviously what economic liberals prefer. Doesn’t that just enforce the hegemonic false consciousness that works against you and your politics???
It looks a lot like you’re trying to alienate other leftists
What leftists?
Like using “liberal” as an insult…
That’s because it is an insult.
Something without social liberalism.
Yes, please.
and not realising that’s still discussion.
Good thing you told me, then.
Just seems to reproduce a culture in which the far left are under represented and seen as unreasonable.
There is such a thing as a “far left” now? Where’d you get that from? PragerU?
Yes, clearly you guys keep losing because of the DNC, not because of your inability to create alliances and earn everyone else’s votes.
Remember, if a candidate needs to earn your vote, then your favored candidate needs to earn their votes too. You’ll find it difficult to do so while you keep burning bridges.
Yes, clearly you guys keep losing because of the DNC
Ummmm… okay?
not because of your inability to create alliances and earn everyone else’s votes.
Right.
then your favored candidate needs to earn their votes too.
Uh-huh.
You’ll find it difficult to do so while you keep burning bridges.
Most interesting, I’m sure.
Will you be saying anything relevant any time soon?
For you, probably not. What I said is for people who actually want to see leftist change happen, not for people who just want to scream and win against liberals even if it means empowering fascist authoritarians.
What I said is for people who actually want to see leftist change happen,
It’s always a good idea to actually understand terms before throwing them around.
Specifically, in your case, your misuse of the term “leftist,” liberal.
Oh, you misunderstood. I was referring to the socialists and bona fide leftists who are actually trying to accomplish their goals and ideals.
As opposed to you, who prefers to be right and own the libs at all costs, versus actually seeing their professed ideals become a reality.
By the way, throwing terms around meaninglessly is also a bad idea. At this point I have no idea what you mean by liberal, because it seems to be “anyone who disagrees even a little bit with me”.
I was referring to the socialists and bona fide leftists
Sooo… people you wouldn’t recognize if they were standing right underneath your nose, then.
At this point I have no idea what you mean by liberal,
No, I guess you don’t.
Do you wanna know why we call the far right the “far right?”
Will you be saying anything relevant any time soon?
Hawt dawg, we have an edgelord!
Character A): What is it you believe yourself to be rebelling against?
Character B): Whaddya got?
Yes, I’ve read Marx and Engels. Yes, I’ve read Conquest Of Bread. Yes, I’ve read Lenin. Yes, I’ve read up on the history of socialist movements.
But yeah, I’m just an ignorant anti-tankie swine. If I read one more Holy Text, THEN I would be enlightened.
I adore Marx, and the only reason I don’t regard myself as a Marxist is because I’m not married to many of his interpretations which have been somewhat superseded by later sociological theory on the importance of non-material conditions and postmodernist critiques of structured narratives within the soft sciences. But hey, I’m just some right-wing chud, clearly. I hold every opinion ascribed to me in this comment thread despite often and on this very website espousing the literal opposite position.
This is why tankies and their apologists are so fucking insufferable.
Totally get you, though:
sociological theory on the importance of non-material conditions and postmodernist critiques of structured narratives within the soft sciences.
Maslow’s heirarchy usually holds up to the former. But for the latter? It is a realm rife with grift. Even the best intentions can end up warped or being co-opted. So that’s probably where the contention comes from especially if you start with an aggressive posture.
Oh yeah, the nature of postmodernism means it’s very exploitable. I meant it more as justification for my broader disassociation more than something I bring up; I usually leave postmodernism out of it. Just outlining the internal thought process of why I wouldn’t describe myself as a Marxist.
I read this as if it was an Operation Ivy song.
So which communities in the ml instance have such views?
The admins for fucking one. I’m about to go to bed, but you can check about ‘Sinophobia’ bans for talking about the Uyghur genocide for proof on the admins. I’ll dredge up some choice examples from Lemmygrad when I wake up, if you’re still interested.
Damn I left reddit because of shitty politically moralized admin censorship. Is there really no escape from this hell
Defederation, we got the tools, just use em.
The admins for fucking one.
Which .ml admins are pro-Israel?
I think you might have misread the meme. They aren’t pro-israel, but they’re willing to overlook genocide in China using the same defensive rhetoric that pro-israel people use.
I’m not sure if I missed something.
Is the Chinese military bombing and butchering it’s way through a neighboring state?
Is this meant to imply that mass incarceration is genocide?
What postmodern critiques are there of narratives in the soft sciences? Juz curious.
The simplest version of the postmodernist argument is that grand, overarching narratives are just pareidolia for academics - people search for shapes where there are none; and that perception shapes reality to such a degree that one cannot examine simply the ‘conditions’ of a society, even non-material ones, and expect to understand its contours.
It’s more nuanced than that I think, but honestly, it’s been almost a decade since I was last in college and read up on it, so I don’t know how much I trust myself to give a more in-depth explanation, lol.
Thanks for your honest answer. I might look into it further.
The fun part about being federated with Hexbear is seeing extremely team-based world views that are different from the ones I normally see. I’m used to seeing people who are blindly pro-America. It’s weird seeing people who can’t imagine China ever doing anything wrong.
There are a number of users that I enjoyed interacting with but, the instance got way too toxic. They’ve cultivated a culture of rushing to be the first dunk on people, without caring if there may be miscommunication or factuality. It’s VERY tribalistic. And don’t dare question the summary execution of the Romanov children, dissidents, Soviet expansionism, or Stalin’s willingness to divide up the world with Hitler.
It’s funny how people that casually see hexbear always say this but there is critique about things China does there all the time, most posts are jokes so outsiders might misinterpret it. Hexbear doesn’t really stan anything as a unit except the end of Western imperialism.
Every time I interact with any hexbear user in anything remotely related to China, it is flying whataboutism “But U.S. …”, “It is unlike the west haven’t …”, “We should fix our own problem first”.
Thanks, I am trying to fix our own problem. I am Chinese… And they would never defend any western allies’ action with the same whataboutism (of course I am not saying they should, whataboutism is a valid excuse to neither China nor the west), like they did with China and Russia. To me, this feels like pro-China/pro-Russia bias.
Besides, the world is definitely not better off with more dictators, people shouldn’t be fine with repression just because they are not in the same country as you.
Thanks, I am trying to fix our own problem. I am Chinese…
I have been accused of not being able to correctly interpret East Asian history because of my eurocentric biases… I am Korean.
It’s crazy how much they (typically white Europeans) accuse people of being sinophobic or eurocentric, and then attempt to explain East Asian history to Asian people in the most eurocentric way possible.
Obviously no community is a monolith, but if I come across a user with that kind of viewpoint, it’ll be from one of the stereotypical instances.
I see so much whining about tankies, and so few tankies.
Once world has defederated from .ml, which is the next instance to be designated the tankie instance?
I’ve been an active user since before lemmy.world, although I’m new to my current instance. Anecdotal but I now see far more comments to the effect of “tankies sure are gonna hate this”, where tankies then never show up, than those where they do.
It’s especially comical with the Lemmy.world users as their instance has blocked the largest sources of tankies. Even my alts in instances that haven’t blocked .ml don’t see anywhere near as many tankies as people griping about these tanky boogymen that have yet to arrive. I’ve even seen people who obviously aren’t tankies or even tanky adjacent being accused of being one. I’ve been accused of being one for just pointing this all out.
I’ll suggest a possibly unpopular opinion: the term tankies is turning into Lemmy’s equivalent of “woke” - many of those using the term don’t seem to know exactly what it means and its loose definition is expanding toward “anyone I don’t like”.
Lemmy.world is generally filled with extremely ideological Liberals with no real niche interests represented by Lemmy.
Reddit is getting worse and worse. After all, how could it not? The profit motive ruins everythinh over time, after all. Therefore, the people who leave Reddit for Lemmy generally dislike the direction of Reddit, such as Marxists, Anarchists, and ideological Liberals.
This brings us to Lemmy. Lemmy.world is a microcosm of Reddit, it’s the largest explicitly generalist instance. It’s the fediverse for people who don’t care about the fediverse, it’s for refugees from Reddit. The problem is that the leftists are on different instances from Lemmy.world, because they go to the explicitly leftist instances, or other instances for niche interests.
That’s why Lemmy.world represents Liberals too ideological to stay on Reddit, but who also aren’t comfortable with Marxists or even Anarchists. It’s Reddit 2.
I think you’re 100% right. The OP and I just had a really good discussion that helped me understand the heart of our disagreement regarding their tanky take is different perceptions of Lemmy population tanky sentiment. I mostly see comments to the effect of “where are all these tanky comments?”, a sentiment I share, versus “those aren’t tankies, therefore it’s not a tanky comment”, some of which I think they’ve seen as tanky apologia. And maybe it is, I’m sure they’ve had their own unique Lemmy experience. Anyhow, it meant the implications of their statements are interpreted entirely differently between the two of us. This dovetails perfectly with your comment. Not necessarily that they’re a liberal, as I can only guess about their beliefs, but that my experience on different, definitely more leftist instances is likely significantly different than theirs on .world.
Yep, I agree. I think a particularly large part of it is that many on Lemmy.world are tangentially familiar with Marxism and Anarchism, but fundamentally have not yet engaged with the source material. A quick example is Marx’s view on Government, which gets confused with Anarchistic by Liberals who have only heard “Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society” and stopped there, when Marx has always advocated for a Democratic World Republic.
That’s why I try to spend a good amount of time trying to lead Liberals towards Leftist theory like Marx or Goldman, and towards Dialectical Materialism rather than Idealism. The Liberals on Lemmy.world are radical, but directionless, so actual Leftists are scary.
As for OP, they called me a “fascist” for saying voting isn’t going to move America left, outside revolutionary pressure will. I have never advocated against voting, and have also expressed my intention to vote for Biden, but OP can’t resist when it comes to punching left.
They admitted that they’re quick on the draw, which I think explains the punching, but I don’t think they’re intentionally a bad actor. I think we’re all dealing with the application of what you’ve so eloquently explained: we’re talking about the same broad topics but using words and concepts that mean entirely different things depending on the commenter or reader, plus individual personality quirks. We’re all definitely not always benevolent, patient, and reasonable, even when when we think we are.
When I put on my old “I’m liberal but think socialism is edgy cool despite misunderstanding what it is” hat from my younger years, I can see how a lot of things just in the few paragraphs we’ve written can seem really awful or scary. Outside revolutionary pressure? That’s China, right? Tanky!
Oh, I agree! I don’t think OP is an intentionally bad actor, at all really. I would, however, bet with absolute confidence that they have never actually engaged with Marxism or Anarchism, which is why it would be fantastic if they agreed to read leftist theory. It’s just frustrating to see nothing but left punching from OP and judgements on who is left and who is right without engaging with leftist theory themselves.
Your second paragraph absolutely resonates. I myself used to be a “centrist,” then a liberal once I actually grew up a little bit, then became a leftist during my college years and have been reading theory and trying to better my understanding ever since. To be called a fascist when I know for absolute fact that I stand to the left of OP just frustrates me.
That all being said, I don’t believe OP is bad-faith, just not familiar with leftism and haven’t really done any reading. I’d be thrilled if they agreed to read Marx, but they have probably mentally written me off.
Oh, I agree! I don’t think OP is an intentionally bad actor, at all really. I would, however, bet with absolute confidence that they have never actually engaged with Marxism or Anarchism, which is why it would be fantastic if they agreed to read leftist theory. It’s just frustrating to see nothing but left punching from OP and judgements on who is left and who is right without engaging with leftist theory themselves.
What was your stake? You’d lose your absolute confidence bet. Fuck man, I have repeatedly expressed support for anarchists on here. But you know, anyone who doesn’t like tankies just hasn’t read enough theory, of course. If only they read more theory! /s
That all being said, I don’t believe OP is bad-faith, just not familiar with leftism and haven’t really done any reading. I’d be thrilled if they agreed to read Marx, but they have probably mentally written me off.
I’ve read Marx, and expressed on here, multiple times, great admiration for Marx and Engels and their writing, and even cited them at points.
Sorry that that’s not enough to make me pro-tankie. Fuck, if anything, it made me more anti-tankie.
Sorry, on second thought, you should really explain to me what I believe, you know me better than I do.
You might just have a more narrow definition of tankie, for me, tankies are about 4/5ths of .ml instances are tankies
Could be the ratchet effect. Lemmygrad and Hexbear are both explicitly Marxist-Leninist, but .ml is explicitly FOSS and Privacy based, just with Marxist-Leninist admins.
I suppose the “next boogyman” will probably be an instance with a very lax defederation policy like Lemm.ee, db0, or Shitjustworks, if Lemmy.world ever defederates with Lemmy.ml. Either that, or Lemmy.world will jump ship to Sublinks and that will be an entirely different platform.
I mean there are communities dedicated to having a problem with Lemmy itself being developed by Marxist-Leninists. Not sure it’ll stop at the instance level.
But hey: Shitjustworks defederated Lemmygrad since the admin doesn’t like them and hexbear defederated shitjustworks, so I only ever see these kind of after-action-reports from the folks that go out searching for bad takes from those instances or wherever.
My comment was more to the effect that since Lemmy doesn’t really have a large number of Conservatives, the Left in general is the boogeyman for Liberals in Lemmy.world, and they largely won’t stop punching leftward until they either become leftists themselves or they leave Lemmy (perhaps via Sublinks?).
What are you on about? lemmy.ml has always been a tankie instance, that was the first Lemmy instance and it was set up by the tankie devs.
And you’re on lemmy.world, which has defederated from most of the extreme tankie instances anyway.
I called this back when world defederated from grad. That centrists would declare some other instance to be full of tankies and start trying to get it defederated.
Wasn’t very popular at the time.
Anarchists and libertarian socialists aren’t centrists.
Also, tankies moving to a more popular instance that tolerates them to harass more people is the most predictable thing in the world. (specifically lemmy.world)
So which instance will this army of bogeymen “move to” once world defederates from ml?
Look at reddit. Tankies infiltrate lefty subs and try to take over all the fucking time. So who knows which instance will be the next one. We don’t shift goalposts, tankies find a new angle.
Look at reddit. Tankies infiltrate lefty subs and try to take over all the fucking time.
Yes, they’re truly behind every rock. It’s not at all that centrists point at anything to their left and scream “tankie!”
So who knows which instance will be the next one.
One thing is for certain. Paranoid centrists will identify one as the source of all their problems and start screaming to burn the heretics.
Yes, they’re truly behind every rock. It’s not at all that centrists point at anything to their left and scream “tankie!”
My favorite was when ToiletPaperUSA, a left-leaning meme group, definitely didn’t have half the mod team removed by a handful of tankies who replaced them with their own goons and then subsequently banned and removed all criticism of China until the long-inactive founding mod was reached and restored the old moderators.
I guess I’m just dosed up on shrooms or whatever.
whatever one they all switch to so they can spread their bullshit.
Well, you’re the first one to own up to centrists’ methodology for trying to push lemmy to the right.
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There’s a lot of tankies. You’re one of them. Although you pretty narrowly focus on “biden bad” propaganda
I don’t think they’re a tankie, just a tankie apologist. Though one could always look at the “There are 9 fascists sitting at a table” argument, I don’t think they’re ideologically completely aligned. Just enough to be willing to slobber on their boots.
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That you can complain about fascism while unironically using this textbook fascist logic is enlightening.
Do you think the “9 fascists sitting at a table” argument is ‘textbook fascist logic’?
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Man, in this very thread the progression I’m removed about happens with “There aren’t any tankies!” comments.
“Leaves of three, leave it be” isn’t a law, but it’s quick advice. If you’re out in the woods of Appalachia and see some ivy with three leaves, chances are it’s Poison Ivy. “Generally posters claiming there aren’t many tankies on the Fediverse are concern trolls” isn’t a law, but it’s quick advice. If, in the Fediverse, of all places, someone is not merely claiming to have personally not seen many tankies, but firmly saying (or implying through additional statements) that there aren’t many tankies on here, they are generally a concern troll.
As for tankie apologists, I don’t see why a tankie apologist should be regarded differently from a Nazi apologist, or any other fascist apologist. Ardent apologism by people not part of the in-group is a thing, and surprisingly common. Like atheists who praise Christians to high heaven (pun intended), or right-wing minorities playing “They’re not that bad” games about the alt-right.
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Go away, stalker.
I’m not stalking you, I just call out people with shit takes, and you spew a lot of shit everywhere.
Weren’t you going to block me? Whatever happened to that?
I’ve noticed that whenever a concern troll gets noticed for how often and consistently they regurgitate their bile, they always throw a fit. A shame. No one takes pride in their work these days!
It’s like they forget Lemmy is a small enough community that people will recognize usernames and patterns of behaviour. They shouldn’t be surprised at being called out on multiple occasions.
Nothing worse to them than pattern recognition.
Which bile would that be?
Go away, stalker.
Depends. Which one will be banning people for ‘Sinophobia’ for voicing anything other Critical Support For The Comrade-Chairman?
Why do I get the feeling you got banned and are mad about it?
Why do I get the feeling you got banned and are mad about it?
lmao. I’ve observed .ml, but not participated, because I saw it was a shitshow early in my migration. Check the Lemmy modlog if you like; I haven’t been banned from any .ml community as far as I know. I don’t think I’ve ever even intentionally commented on an .ml community past the first month.
But disingenuous bullshit is the constant fallback of concern trolls like you. Spew enough shit, and someone will eat it up, just like the rest of your circle.
Instead you make inflammatory post about .ml from afar. Thanks for your concern. Maybe you should try ignoring .ml which you supposedly hate so much?
Maybe tankies from .ml and Lemmygrad should stay the fuck out of communities where non-fascists are the majority.
So you just read it to have something to your left to hate?
I guess that’s one way to live. You know you can block instances, right?
So you just read it to have something to your left to hate?
No. I read it because I was curious as to whether it was a good instance to interact with.
I found out very quickly that it was not.
But you aren’t interested in anything except apologia for tankies. I don’t know that you’re a ‘useful idiot’, so to speak, but I do know that you’re useful for them.
I guess that’s one way to live. You know you can block instances, right?
I don’t even have anything I’m not subscribed to on my feed, lmao.
Watch the goalposts change now from “ML isn’t that bad!” to “Well you can just block it!” and, subsequently, it will become “Well the tankies aren’t running your communities so why do you care?”
The accusations change; all that remains is the desire to defend their bootlicking friends.
I don’t even have anything I’m not subscribed to on my feed, lmao.
So you’re mad about something you don’t interact with?
It looks to me like you’re mad about something you disagree with and blocking them isn’t enough for you.
So you’re mad about something you don’t interact with?
It looks to me like you’re mad about something you disagree with and blocking them isn’t enough for you.
“Tankies don’t even run your communities, so why are you mad?”
Fucking called it.
State run capitalism is not the way
No, don’t worry, Socialist Billionaires With Chinese Characteristics will TOTALLY be conducive to the formation of a worker’s state. /s
I’m on ml, it’s actually quite nice shitposting and linux memes. I think this is mostly true for the insufferable assholes at hexbear. Just block them.
My lemmy experience was drastically improved when I blocked hexbear, highly recommend
You don’t miss the hundreds of random giant emojis comments in threads?
Same. Lemmygrad as well
Sadly blocking them doesn’t prevent them from harassing other people. Their behaviour is awful and it likely drives away new users. They can still vote and reply to your comments, you just can’t see it yourself.
Lies
You got me. It’s actually communists vampires propaganda and chocolate cookies recipe.
ayo bruv, don’t be slandering all of us
It’s more your ruling politburo for lemmy.ml
At this point if you haven’t been banned I assume you aren’t trying hard enough.
Condemning your leadership is not an attack on you.
Hint hint.
And many just invert the reactions. Not better, in my opinion.
Is the hypocrisy being portrayed here that they should agree criticism of Israel is anti-semitic? Or they should disagree criticism of China is anti-Chinese?
Criticism of China is not anti-Chinese.
Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic.
People are quick to tie the name of a country or nationality directly with the culture/peoples that said name was derived from (or vice versa). Unfortunately to many people, “Chinese” as a nationality is the same as “Chinese” as an ethnicity/culture/language (rather, a group of ethnicities/cultures/languages since “Chinese” is used for many groups, though it’s mostly Han and relatively closely related groups), and their logic is criticizing or denouncing China is an attack on Chinese nationals, which is equivalent to attacking ethnic Chinese.
Sometimes their logic is – actions against China are meant as a way to undermine Chinese influence for the purpose of committing hate crimes or genocide against Chinese (China is totally the protector of ethnic Chinese in this case). Basically similar to Russian bots’ favorite excuse but rebranded.
With Israel it’s a lot easier for them to separate “Israeli” (the nationality) from “Jewish” (the ethnicity & religion) because (in English) they’re completely different words, so it’s a lot easier for them to tell “Israeli ≠ Jewish”, as opposed to their head exploding when they think “Chinese ≠ Chinese”. It’s easy for the uninformed and malinformed (and those who benefit from such a viewpoint) to rationalize the sentence “attacks against Chinese are discriminatory against Chinese” but less so of “attacks against Israeli are discriminatory against Jewish”, even though in both the first term is a nation or nationality and the second term is for a variety of ethnic groups that isn’t necessarily tied to the nation and describes many peoples who have no connection to the nationality.
In Chinese you may call someone of Chinese descent
huaren, but you generally usezhongguorenfor both Chinese nationality and ethnicity (withzhongguobeing “China”, essentially “China people”), while Israeli isyiselieand Jewish isyoutaiwith no chance to conflate the two. The Chinese bots get confused by the same language issue too.
Two leaning things attract people: The leaning tower and people leaning left😃
Which makes the simping for China all the more inexplicable.
yeah, seems legit
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