It’s lemmygrad, we’re the spectre. I’d bet at least half of the other instances out there block us, there’s only like 300 dedicated users on this instance, and they still can’t stop complaining about lemmygrad/tankies
Really shows that liberalism is just a cult at this point. These people see any views outside their own bubble as heretical and become emotionally distraught when their own views are questioned. They’re not able to carry a rational discussion or even make an argument. When they engage with others they just follow a call centre style script where they regurgitate the tropes they memorized. The only tactic these trolls use is to brigade and silence views contrary to their own.
They would disagree because “lots of people are liberals.” Which is, ironically, a common defense a lot of cults use to justify why they aren’t a cult.
The “Call centre” script is pretty fascinating though, reminds me a lot of creationists. You can show them evidence of transitional fossils, biology experiments demonstrating evolution in a lab, it doesn’t matter. They’ll ask for specific evidence, then when presented with it, find some excuse to ignore it, like tone policing or attacking a source for being “illegitimate” or “biased” without even reading it. And when they can’t do that, they’ll just ignore the responses and only interact with the people hurling insults because they can dismiss that much more easily than a reasonable argument.
They’ll ask for specific evidence, then when presented with it, find some excuse to ignore it, like tone policing or attacking a source for being “illegitimate” or “biased” without even reading it.
I’ve been playing with dropping non-sequitor ridiculous links as “sources” in sincere comments, and I have pretty solid proof that liberals arguing on the internet almost universally do not click the links for sources.
I’ve done it quite a bit, and the only people who acknowledge or comment on it are comrades from here.
Oof, if I had a dollar each time I’ve linked something only for the lib to say “I’m not reading/watching that.”, I would be wealthy enough to be a member of the bourgeoisie.
Lmao the tankroll. Brrrrr.
Do you provide the actual source when the game is up?
The game hasn’t been up so far 😁
But sure, I think I would.
This
That’s an interesting idea. I’ve said something similar irl, that there’s a bourgeois script.
There’s no point arguing with someone who goes into it by default. Especially family members. Not everyone uses it, but for those who do, the only end point is an exchange of insults.
Good examples are reactionary TV ‘news’ presenters. They aren’t interested in the argument or evidence, only providing their audience with another example to confirm their pre-existing worldview. There’s always another quip, another reason why they don’t have to consider a new idea. It’s infuriating. But when you can recognise it, you’ll save yourself a lot of intellectual hardship and emotional pain.
Yeah that’s exactly what I realized as well. When you see that people are just regurgitating talking points they memorized, you know there’s no meaningful conversation possible and it’s best to just move on.
>liberalism is just a cult at this pointHad this viewpoint since my Neocon through Third Position days. Still had it by the time I entered communism. Agreed comrade.
I had an irl conversation the other day which hammered this point home. Westoids cannot psychologically handle being called out on being wrong, not knowing something, and on being prejudiced. That and all the other material reasons we know and discuss regularly mean that this instance, no matter how small, is a thorn in their eye, a spectre haunting their dreams.
Especially the prejudice, it’s always that we need to save Chinese people from their government, it’s always some extension of the white man’s burden couched in softer language
It really is treated as a “sin” to be ignorant of something in the west. Personally, I love not knowing something, because it means I get to learn something, but again, education in the west is treated as “that thing that happens when you’re 6-18 and no other time.” and refuse to ever try to educate themselves as adults.
Yea. I’ve learned to not believe everything I hear anymore. It takes time to look into whether something is true for me nowadays.
Lemmygrad: 😴
Lemmy: “tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie tankie”
Rent-free, just as Mao intended
Good.
just because it makes libs on federation seethe im pinning this post.
I’m honored , honestly it wasn’t even my intention but it’s an added bonus lol
based critical
Some ppl in this comment section be like:
Its crazy to see all the complaining about tankies, but I hardly see any complaining about exploding heads. Some people supporting Russia over the US is a big deal, but actual fascists passing laws in the US is barely a passing thought. Hating a foreign government more than home grown fascists is an american past time at this point. Shows where the “centrists” and “free speech advocates” sympathies lie.
Tbf exploding heads is defederated even more extensively than we are, and are much smaller instance than us, a lot of them probably aren’t even aware of exploding heads
What is exploding heads?
Nazi free speech absolutist instance
Yeah, I think its more that we are more notable than them. Still, one of us supports the working class and the other hates it. So one of us ought to be opposed and not the other (hint: its not the one that supports the working class)
That’s their secret, cap. They(Amerikan/westernized liberals) hate the working class too; you ever heard how a liberal talks about “flyover country”, “the sticks”, and “the cousinfucker states”?
Most western liberals are primarily focused on social issues because of the media narrative centering those issues as the dividing line. The American two party duopoly does not want people thinking about actual economic policies to help the working class, it would make the masses realize they are much more alike than either sides ruling class
foreign policy is practically identical between the two parties as well.
well, Democrats hate Russia more and Republicans hate China more. Still very similar.
This is making a lot more sense now. I thought this emoji 🤯 was a dog whistle for something and felt too daft to ask.
Oh are people using that emoji to refer to exploding heads?
No, I k don’t think so. I didn’t realise exploding heads was an instance. So I thought you were talking about the emoji.
Oh I see what you mean now
This is why I made my own instance, when the large instances defederate from one another they are effectively censoring and controlling what you see. In most cases, that means banning any sort of marxist discussion.
And all their users don’t realise that the reason those censoring instances look more like Reddit is because Reddit had a campaign to censor all radical speech. It’s not rare because radical speech isn’t popular, it’s rare because it’s hidden and crushed.
Would you talk me briefly through setting up your own instance? Do you just run it when you want to go online or do you need to stay connected with a 24/7 self-hosted server? Don’t answer these questions if it means sharing details that would compromise your security.
Late ass reply, sorry! I just now have finished tweaking my config to my liking.
I purchased a VPS and a domain name - I run it 24/7 on that server. The VPS is about $10 a month. If Lemmy optimized its db queries a little bit I bet I could get away with hosting it on a $5 a month server, though.
On that server, I’m running the Lemmy Docker container. There are some docs here: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/install_docker.html The docs are a little light on the env variable configuration though… there were some settings I had to hunt to find.
I am using Caddy as a reverse proxy: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/caddy.html
Caddy takes care of https automagically with Let’s Encrypt.
All in all, it is a pretty simple setup. I don’t know the security profile of Lemmy so I don’t host anything worthwhile on this server in case it gets compromised, just Lemmy.
if you ever take a stab at it, I’d be happy to help answer questions. I am not sure if there is a dedicated community somewhere in the Fediverse for Lemmy selfhosting discussion.
campaign to censor all radical speech.
Yeah, reminds me of posting in r/socialism101. Got a bunch of responses in from communists but my being able to see them and associated notifications were very delayed, indicating Reddit gave some kind of hidden shadow ban on their posts and the mods were manually approving them.
There’s some mechanics that need to be sorted out with federation. But I say this while not offering any help to Lemmy, so I’m just ranting and not criticising where the project is right now. They only have so many devs working on it and the founders are doing overtime to bring new features in.
I’m banned from lemmy world apparently which means that lemmy world users who interact on lemmygrad or any other instance will not see my comments, as they won’t be federated (copied over to lemmy world’s database essentially). I can see some problems with that because while I get the principle, it effectively allows instance administrators to determine who can read whom. If you make a friend on another instance too and they get banned or their instance defederated, you’ll lose all contact with them.
Perhaps even worse is that lemmy.world users who come to lemmygrad won’t be able to read my comments, which is just weird because this is my instance. I effectively cannot interact with them even on my home instance! Being an admin too makes it more complicated, like if I posted a pinned message to welcome users from X instance and I’m banned on that instance, they effectively wouldn’t see it. You also don’t get a notif when you’re banned or unbanned, so you would never know.
But I’m sure these will be improved in due time.
I didn’t see a site ban for you in dot world’s modlog, but I did see this gem:
I think a good way to mitigate this for the moment, and temporarily, would be to have a dedicated admin account only for that purpose and your normal user account for anythiny else. This should help fight the problems you have in the short term.
it’s too late unfortunately as I’ve already been banned from lemmy world. Dk if it’s a temp ban or what though and I don’t care enough to trudge through the mod log lol
Lemmygrad is already acknowledged by all other instances to be itself a power.
I thought it was Wisconcom.
That would be a spectre haunting lemmygrad, comrade, although that gives way too much weight to him tbh
He’s more like a smelly fart, an occasional nuissance
Yes exactly lol
He’s the box ghost.
He’s only haunting the thermonuclear
300? We must have ADHD cus we active as hell and I barely participate
I meant like people who regularly post or comment, we have way more lurkers than 300
Per the sidebar right now it’s just 150 per day, 350 a week, and 669 per month.
I think we’re preeeetty active for our numbers.
669 a month is around double the activity we had before the reddit exodus
Thanks for adding that! I didn’t know it was that much of an increase.
That’s cool.
And the figures in that ‘research’ paper are up to April 2022, with much smaller numbers. Tbh there’s so much wrong with the methodology of that paper, I wouldn’t read too much into it.
They hate us because they ain’t us.
I love how the Spector seems to imply an evil in the heads of most Normans. I see it in my friends group and I will admit I had heard the line in the past and thought the same. Then I decided to actually read instead of parrot and realized it’s a Spector in the same literary sense as the Spectors from A Christmas Carol that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge.
The Spector of Communism exposes the world to the material realities of it’s past and present, which lay the stones that lead to the grim shadows of a future yet to come. Shadows, dear reader, that we might change by leading an altered life.
Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come
Reminds me of https://existentialcomics.com/comic/148
“A spectre is haunting the Young Hegelians: the spectre of my glorious beard.” “I thought we agreed not to do the spectre thing anymore”
Edit: Fixed typo
In his personal life, Marx was extremely poor at his own finances… He apparently would go on pub crawls where he had one beer at each bar on his street (there were twenty three bars), and would chain smoke and eat poorly.
Literally me fr fr
Shaving is indeed a problem.
I haven’t heard of you yet, what are they complaining about? I’ve only heard complaints about Nazis and fascists
Can’t tell if this is supposed to be a “tankie red fash lol” dig but I’ll take it in good faith anyways.
We uphold socialism here, not that socialist states are/were perfect places, but that they are/were legitimate attempts at building worker states, and demonstrably improved the lives of their citizens. Liberals (we use that to mean anyone from a nordic soc dem to moderate republican, or even unserious anarchists) really really don’t like this. The accuse us of “genocide denial” or just being “delusional” for questioning the dominant western narrative
It doesn’t help that there really is nuance in discussing previous and current socialist experiments but even that has practically become a meme and is met with “communism has never worked” commentary from liberals.
Exactly, often times we just give up because liberals constantly make bad faith arguments, so we just respond with goofy “stalin did nothing wrong” memes
I’m actually working through some thoughts on how to even explain that there is bad and good in these systems. But unless you have a good understanding of history, theory, or even dialectics(which I don’t quite yet) it’s really tough to do without resorting to whataboitism. At least for me it is. A common point that I see brought up on the left, and I think it’s a good argument, but when the black book of communism number of 1 gorbillian dead get brought up, you can easily argue that you can calculate 100 million excessive deaths every 10 years in the US as a counterpoint but I think we can all agree that excessive deaths are bad regardless. Well unless they are fascists of course.
This was one of the hardest parts of my transition to socialism, finding good information that didn’t require a doctorates degree in history and/or philosophy. The S4A podcast has been running for years and is just now getting to the end of their “introduction to Marxism” series… Like, you can’t expect most people to do this…
After buying a number of books I am making my way through them and they are fascinating. But it did require me to self-investigate and open my mind a lot, and read a lot, to decide to study further.
The nuance is so strong and so many people have been taught bad information that it’s hard to even begin a good conversation, so we resort to jokes because at least we can get a laugh out of it. I’ve dumped walls of text, and gotten some good results, some bad results.
I’ve been on the lookout for short/easy introductions that aren’t in-your-face-about-it (Worked for me, but not for everyone). There’s no reason to pander unnecessarily, but to provide reasoned arguments in short-form, to plant the seed of information that could bring someone out of their propaganda. I guess the biggest problem is just getting past the initial ichy feeling most people have when the word “communism” is thrown out.
I think for me it started with just anti-capitalism, and US military actions that were obviously against our “core values”. But that’s not enough for everyone.
I am also working on a short list that I can recommend so once I am at home and can type them up we can compare notes maybe lol. I’m trying to find books that aren’t super dense but still cover all that needs to be to get the point across. For example, I had an easier time with Principles than I did with the Manifesto because Principles reads a lot like it was written recently. Still read the Manifesto tho, ya know?
I’ve found myself also starting to attempt to explain things in simple terms and idk where that even came from. Understanding how Marx developed his ideas for Marxism from a philosophical perspective is crucial I think but damm is it tough at times.
And yeah you can describe socialism or communism to quite a few people and not call it those words and they tend to jive with it but as soon as you drop the C or S word it’s all over. I work closely with a local Dem club where I’m at(I know still liberals but a lot of them seem to mean well, and a few of them do knowy views) but a few weeks ago socialism got brought up and 2 of these older dudes started in on how “socialism has never worked” and without skipping a beat one said we need to go back to aggressively taxing the super rich. Same set of people want M4A, affordable healthcare and school and all the other stuff and I’m like yeah that’s kind of socialism my dudes. And again, their is even nuance to what actually is socialism in that context but you get it.
US capitalism isn’t working, so there’s that as a counter point lol
Oh, US capitalism is working exactly as intended. They just lie about what was intended.
In the minds of some, we communists are apparently one and the same with fascists.
But the reason there are so few out and out fascists on Lemmy is exactly because it’s a communist project, and we were the biggest instance before the reddit exode. They actually discussed this on reddit in some of the more reactionary subs and decided it wasn’t worth getting on lemmy because of this.
What do you mean when you say it’s a communist project?
It’s an instance for Communists, specifically Communists who support AES (actually existing socialism). In short, we think that the USSR and PRC (among others), while not perfect, were legitimate attempts at building Socialism and better than Capitalism as it exists in the West.
Other people don’t like that because, to them, Stalin was just Red Hitler and Xi Jinping is literally committing a genocide right now. Neither are true.
Ah okay I can see how that’s controversial, given China is heavy on censorship and control, and in reality they’re just another form of capitalism run by a rich oligarchy. Plus with the way the world has changed, I think a new system is needed because we’re heading towards enough automation that not everyone should need to work.
I don’t know much about the USSR so I won’t comment on that
China is not run by a rich ogliarchy. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIOg_K6Z1fg
I approve of the source, however disagree with the conclusions
Ok but in all honestly, just because there are rich people in China doesn’t mean it’s a ‘capitalist ogliarchy’. Sure, there are billionaires in the party, but they have just as much power as any farmer or worker, no more and no less.
That’s not true in the slightest though? I mean the very fact that there are different wages, there’s poverty, China invests heavily in foreign companies (both the government and private Chinese corporations), that’s all capitalism. The farmer doesn’t have any say in what tencent or the China Evergrande Group does. The CCP controls the media and limits free speech, and makes decisions for everyone. Even if you’re to somehow convince me that the people who control the CCP aren’t rich oligarchs, they’re absolutely still in control of the CCP, and it’s not communism.
Oh my god there are companies, guess there’s no more socialism guys!1!1!!1
Just because there are companies does not mean that China is revisionist. And Tencent and China Evergrande have nothing to do with the government. Why would they?
edit: What do different wages have to do with socialism? Also it’s CPC, not CCP.
The CCP controls the media and limits free speech,
In my country like three completely unnacountable megacorporations control the media and limit free speech. The CPC at least gives a shit about public health and safety
and makes decisions for everyone
I don’t remember being consulted on the decision to invade Iraq, continue the illegal blockade of Cuba, send missiles to Nazis in Ukraine, make food twice as expensive, have the sky turn blood red from fire every couple years, be watched by police snipers at a football game, live in an endless pandemic, or drink microplastics for the rest of my life.
Sure, this instance defines itself as pro-Marxism/pro-socialism, and there is a serious conversation to be had about the pros and cons of different systems of economy. I struggle to understand, however, why people on this instance are so pro-Russia today, where Russia now is so blatantly a capitalist kleptocracy. This undermines any perception that people on this instance are approaching this in good faith, and gives the impression lemmygrad is the product of Russian troll farms.
As to why this small instance gathers so much attention within Lemmy, it keeps showing up in my “All” feed, that probably has something to do with it 👾
We are not “Pro-Russia”, this is a bad faith label that is used to smear us. We SUPPORT Russia in the current conflict against Nato and the west. Which is what any principled anti-imperialist would do.
So just to wrap my head around this, the anti-imperialists are the ones who have invaded a sovereign country twice in 8 years?
🗣️ IMPERIALISM DOESNT MEAN “ONE COUNTRY INVADES ANOTHER PLEASE GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD”
Aight I googled it because learning is fun
- a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means*
Sounds like it fits mate
Lmao, you probably think the soviets pushing into Nazi Germany on the eastern front is Russian “imperialism” too, since a military entered a foreign country. Read a book.
Not at all dude. Russia defended its land in an existential war against a fascism in way not dissimilar to what Ukraine is doing right now. I suppose the question is why does Russia 41-45 have the right to defend their sovereignty while Ukraine 2014-present does not? Don’t forget that the Soviets benefitted massively from US and British arms and equipment much like Ukraine today.
Do yourself a favor and see what happened in 2014.
I’ll give you a hint. It was a coup.
The anti imperialists are the ones preventing the expansion of the organization that attacked Iraq, took part in several conflicts in former Yugoslavia, invaded Afghanistan, attacked Iraq again and then Libya.
All while expanding to 15 countries in the last 30 years. That is the imperialism we are opposing.
So the anti-imperialists are the ones who invaded twice and annexed Chechnya, rolled tanks into Georgia, invaded Luhansk, Donetsk and Crimea in a blatant land grab, levelled Syrian cities (which is ongoing btw) and used chemical weapons on civilians, aggressively pursued Russian interests in Mali, Libya and Sudan with the Wagner group, and started a full scale invasion of Ukraine which is ongoing… and they’re the good guys?
It’s wild that you can look at them and say yeah, russia are the good guys in this whole thing lol. There’s a reason why countries want to be in NATO in 2023 and that reason is Russia.
You did not just compare Russia preventing a Jihadist breakaway state from forming in their country to the US destroying Iraq for made up reasons and creating the catalyst for all modern Islamist terrorism, Jesus fucking Christ.
Just casually sweeping the soviet invasion of Afghanistan under the rug 👏
More ahistorical nonsense.
They asked the Soviets to help them…kinda like how the people of the Donbass also asked Russia to help them.
funny… i had Lemmy.ml bookmarked in a browser i rarely use and it says it’s an online place for leftists. couldn’t be further from the truth these days
It suffered due to being the lemmy instance run by the creators of Lemmy. The admins seem to be annoyed with it being overrun by reddit shit-libs now.
