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askchapo @hexbear.net Kaplya [none/use name] @hexbear.net
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Should Hexbear MLs tone down their admiration for AES so we’re not scaring potential leftists away?

Inspired by recent discussions, I think Hexbear has a lot of good information about socialism but I wonder if the relentless defense of AES on Hexbear means shooting ourselves in the foot, since many potential leftists have been thoroughly primed to react negatively to AES states?

We’re not getting our messages out when progressive instances have already pre-emptively blocked us and calling us “tankies”.

People are being turned away without even taking the opportunity to read some of the stuff here, because they already have a pre-conceived notion about Hexbear being filled with “crazy tankies who defend totalitarianism”.

I know there have been a lot of propaganda and fabrication being perpetuated about socialist countries, and it feels “right” to defend them against these false accusations, but I wonder if this is doing more harm than good for the present day nascent socialist movement, at least in the Western countries?

We can remain on the current course and feel indignant about the tankie accusations, but will forever remain as a niche “tankie” community.

Or, we can open ourselves up, by toning down the admiration for the socialist states so we are not being treated as hostile by the other instances, and thus opening up the opportunities to have productive interactions with users (and potential leftists) from other instances?

(I do have my own position, you probably know which one it is, but I’m willing to hear from others and reevaluate my own opinions if needed).

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who responded. All points are well taken. Thank you.

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  • No, but not necessarily because you're wrong about Hexbear scaring people off. In the way I see the "leftist pipeline" hexbear is pretty much for people who are already fully on board. It's less of a platform for "radicalizing normies" and more of a place for leftists to talk to each other.

    • yeah, i was pretty much just in denial that communism was right until i encountered hexbear via the stupid ass lemmy dot world defederation. i was the biggest trot/demsoc weird theoryless combo in the world, until lemmy dot world was just basically like

      "HEY EVERYONE! HERE'S A FORUM OF PEOPLE WHO REALLY HATE NATO AND LOVE COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM!!!!!!!!!!!"

      and as someone living in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the u.s. empire i was yearning for a community of people who hated NATO and were communists and socialists, to the point where i was willing to look past the tankie-ness. then, through sheer osmosis, i realised how stupid i was and picked up a book

    • I was about to post same sentiment. Lemmyverse is small to begin with. There are plenty of other areas for people to begin the pipeline like azan or deprogram

      What other space exists for this type of community? I was engaging with some comrades in r/Collapse on a recent post until it got nuked for 'inciting violence' because it was a NYT article interviewing Andreas Malm about his positions on property destruction. There's no other online place for us if we always stoop to not scaring away libs where it's dubious if they'll ever come around

      • If I had the urge to argue with people on reddit for some reason (which apparently some people here do as evidenced by screenies) I'd be looking for reddit communities to try to shave off into the fediverse, at least u can get stragglers later 🥳

        • Yeah it's a bad habit I'm hoping to kick once I've gotten over this bout of COVID. For all I said, it doesn't really change any irl minds more than just shutting them up. Plenty of more productive things I could be doing with that time

          • The people on reddit have already gone through a particular process of elimination that makes arguing with many of them generally pointless on like, every level.

            • No argument from me there, I'll go at it with them to pull out all the arguments I might hear from people I know in the real world then just stop. I'm under no illusion the people I'm engaging with will come around haha

          • But there are useful communities. Imagine if we stole AskHistorians

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