Never change, lemmy.ml
Never change, lemmy.ml
For context: The thread was about why people hate Hexbear and Lemmygrad instances
284 comments
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One for communists is hardly any different [to one for nazis] as far as I'm concerned.
What do you expect to happen when you call a group of people "hardly any different [to nazis]"?
Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does. A capitalist society may commit genocide, a communist society may commit genocide. Neither are required to by their economic systems.
National socialism directly advocates for genocide.
It's a ridiculous statement to compare communists to nazis and it's not surprising that insulting communists like that will get you banned.
(Adding islamism to the comparison just makes the statement even more bizarre.)
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Yeah, it's not a fair comparison. You can say it's a dumb ideology but at the end of the day it's close cousins with big-L Liberalism, and often has been first to the social ideas we hold dear today.
They got banned because lemmy.ml is also a communist-run instance. The mods could have taken the high road and just replied, I guess, but that would have been extraordinary patience. So, they banned the person calling them a Nazi, and I don't think that was an unreasonable choice on their part.
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Communism does not advocate genocide any more than capitalism does.
So "eat the rich" is just edgy humor or what?
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
The Holodomor in the Ukraine killed about 3.5-5 million people. The Great Leap Forward killed somewhere between 15-55 million. The Khmer Rouge killed about a million. And I'm not trying to make excuses for National Socialism here, but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism's death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they're all evil ideologies.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
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every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide
This argument is so frustrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the common thread, both for communist countries and capitalist countries, and both for intentional genocide and crises through incompetence, is the consolidation of power in a small set of individuals or group that prioritises their own self interest over the common good.
The big issue with "trying" communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Never mind the fact that genocide is absolutely not limited to communist countries, and that genocide goes against the actual fundamental principles of a communist system, which is centred on equality.
Yes, the USSR committed genocide - so did Britain and America, and so are modern capitalist Russia and China right now.
There's loads of good reasons both for and against every economic system, communism included. But "communism=genocide lalalala" is just a cheap excuse to totally avoid considering the merits of a different economic system. Doing that denies yourself the opportunity to genuinely consider how a different economic approach, whether that's communism or just using concepts from the ideology, could improve the lives of citizens in a healthy democracy.
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So “eat the rich” is just edgy humor or what?
Yes. Most people don't want to eat other people. I would expect the explicit cannibalism to clue you in to a level of irony there.
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
Genocide has to be at least a bit deliberate, and generally they just fucked up their economy bad enough agriculture was negatively effected. In the USSR's case at least, the starvation affected the republics pretty equally, too. As Ukrainians were starving so were Khazaks. For political reasons, some parties have tried to make it sound like a targeted ethnic thing, but it just wasn't, and it certainly wasn't on purpose.
but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism’s death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they’re all evil ideologies.
This is the part where the communists come out with capitalism's death toll. Dumb ideology, maybe, evil ideology no, at least not on it's own.
Edit: Also, I take issue with not counting all of WWII as part of the Nazi death count, since they very deliberately made it happen. Consider this was in the space of just a few years, vs. an entire human lifetime for the Soviets.
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People hate hexbear and memmygrad because they are annoying.
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I prefer shittygrad
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[insert my very cool and funny meme sticker reaction here or whatever it's called]
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I left lemm.ee after a mod told me not to use profanity.
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What? I assume you mean admin.
They haven't told me anything and I use profanity all the time.
It's also not in the instance rules.
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Admin/Mod whatever. This is the message I got after reporting a troll and telling them off.
This isn’t meant to be a shit on lemm.ee comment. They operate the instance to be PG, that’s fine. It’s just not for me.
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I switched to lemm.ee because sopuli.xyz is prude instance and defederared from the biggest NSFW instance. Soon I'll need to spin up my own instance since every instance has some issues hah
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A mod? It's not like changing instance will do anything in that case
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Hey! No throwing shade on lemm.ee in my thread!
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Its kind of sad that the social media alternatives are all extreme. I was on odysse for a bit but I left because it was filling up with literal nazis
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[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
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Good thing is that communists are such a tiny portion of the populace that as this site grows at all, they'll swiftly be drowned out. They'll either flee to new obscure social media, cluster in their own federation, or accept that they're minorities anywhere that's popular.
Most people are normal people.
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Then you need to review your understanding of common english words, because thats what the comment you made says.
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The comment might be controversial, but it shouldn't be a bannable offense.
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It sure is a Blockable one though.
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I think its the option of most of the world
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So many people here trying to argue dictionary definitions and hide behind technicalities to make their little slice of authoritarianism better than that other slice of authoritarianism.
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Good lord, look at the replies to this post. Even being called out on the behavior, they still cant resist slapfighting over silly technicalities and dictionary definitions.
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Communism isn't inherently authoritarian, it holds no relation to authoritarianism or democracy, just like capitalism, and can exist within any political formation. Conflating communism with authoritarianism and capitalism with democracy will likely result in completely justified dictionary arguments, as this misconception is actually very important ideologically.
Associating communism with things like USSR or, in an even more cursed way, China and claiming communism is authoritarian is actively harmful, especially considering that neither of them ever had communism to begin with - they had socialism and claimed to be directed towards communism some time in the future.
Such shortcuts, like communism=authoritarianism=evil prevent you from actually familiarizing yourself with the concepts and puts you in a position when you oppose a strawman.
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The problem is that the orthodox MLs you find on lemmy do un ironically defend autocracy in the USSR and China, dismissing criticism of these states as western propaganda.
Trust me, id love a leftist space on the internet which doesn't make folk heroes out of tyrants. Lemmy is not that place.
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Context matters in this discussion.
The moderators of the lemmy instance OP got banned from have Russian and Chinese iconography in their profiles - its explicitly authoritarian and arguably communist in name only in order to attract naive idealists who otherwise would be against authoritarianism.
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Yes, exactly like that is what i was talking about.
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Regardless, there is an important distinction.
You can argue all you like that political systems like communism and socialism may have lead to things like corruption, famine, wars and genocide but ultimately, the people who support those systems are seeking a fairer way to run society for all people and believe in it despite its history.
Head over to the far-right and the genocide is the point. They want "undesirables" to be killed, enslaved or completely repressed.
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That's the rub though. Many of us do support democratic socialism and social democracy, and are excluded, mocked, and banned because those forms of leftist ideology aren't edgy enough.
I've tried to calmly explain the academic basis for democratic socialism on lemmy a number of times, and it inevitably results in me getting banned, mostly for being critical of the shockingly violent rhetoric favored my ML purists.
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There's no need to make that argument - history has made it time and time again, and if you succeed at a communist revolution, history will again show that it was a bad idea.
The problem isn't the motives or empathy of the communist and socialist idealists. The problem is the willingness to face hard truths.
It's definitely better to seek a better way to run society. But it's definitely not better to claim you are doing so while executing an old, rehashed playbook of societal failure, claiming It Just Wasn't Done Right Before™️.
We need a better system. Communism is not it. Any system you build must be one that resolvea the ideals of communism with the pragmatism of capitalism. When that system is found, it will address the weaknesses of both.
I think that system is culturally-rooted sovereignty - that each person takes responsibility for their own life and for the sovereignty of others, because it is in their own best interest to do so. It is how I live.
The nice ring about it is that I don't have to convince anyone else to live that way - I get the benefits of it just by living it. The difficult thing about it is that I don't get the psychological convenience of thinking others should think as I do - everyone has their own reasons to live as they do. Until they cross a sovereignty boundary, and I'm involved somehow, I get no say.
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Can we just not do either? I literally don't care to read about how you think the world is bad on a community about onions
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Yeah no shit if you go to the communist instance and say communists are just as bad as nazis, you're gonna get banned. You even admit to doing this specifically to get banned in your own comment.
Like even though I'm a socialist, I think the guys at lemmy.ml are a bunch of nutjob tankies, but banning people that come to their instance just to be a troll, insult people and purposefully try to get banned isn't actually a bad thing.
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I got a 30 day ban on my .ml account for telling the little troll clowns on Hexbear that their childish meme responses were cringy and embarrassing.
I’m just not going to use that account anymore. Let them drive their own community away. There’s better instances.
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Yup. They post gifs of pig shit, I say that's not contributing to the conversation, and then I get a ban for it and they keep literally shitting up the thread.
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You compared communists to ethno-staters. There's extremist and there's radical.
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"There the same picture"
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I didn't claim they're the same. They're all extremist however. Wanting to overhaul the entire economic system is kind of extreme, don't you think?
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It's maybe hard to realize but these moderators wants an environment where their users never see an uncomfortable opinion that upsets their users.
As an adult, I don't have a problem with different opinions, but my teenage son has massive issues with it. He wants to go to war with people over opinions, and if they don't agree with him, they are stupid. So I think it's a maturity thing.
Sooner or later, you realize that people have different opinions, and censoring them doesn't make them go away. The ability to discuss different opinions is what makes someone mature.
Anyway, I can absolutely understand why they don't want to moderate difficult discussions. That's a lot of work.
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I'll just leave this here
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Thanks. I tried to post the original link but it just says "No posts." Weird.
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Perhaps reddit would be more your jam?
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It was. Too bad that place no longer exists.
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I can no longer sign in on Infinity for Reddit
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Honestly the political extremism makes me want to leave. I've already left a few communities and its sad to see the hate on even basic communities.
I just need to learn to ignore it
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this is some doctor house putting postits under people's chairs predicting their responses in advance shit
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It's only 30 days, and you clearly know nothing about the nuances of communism to be fair.
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Clearly...
I think you missed the point. The point is that we don't want to learn the nuances of communism on every single community. I just want to spend some time on lemmy without seeing a comment about how the world is ending and having a authoritarian communist society is the only solution.
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Well, this is a social media site and one for nerds at that, if you can't handle some real-world news or discourse you should probably block those instances and communities. Those features exist for a reason lol.
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you clearly know nothing about the nuances of communism
Nore does anyone one lemmygrad either, but that's apparently fine
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It's not fine, no I bet you it's cia funded or something to have such a big presence online. Tankies are surprisingly uncommon IRL in my experience. Maybe increasingly so, but it's still hard to deny it as a threat to real leftism. Raddle.me seems much more levelheaded if anybody's looking for a explicitly anti-authoritarian alternative
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30 days, how kind. Looks like you have something to do 12/23
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Lemmy overall is just different shades of red. Picking your instance just allows you to select pink vs. crimson.
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lemmy.world mods will probably soon prove you right
EDIT: Users were quicker
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EDIT: Users were quicker
that is actually really funny
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It's great. The more you get down voted the more you are proven to be right LOL
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I've always found it odd why we don't treat communism in the same vein as Nazism.
They're both horrific ideologies that have led to the deaths of millions, but one is considered trendy.
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They are radically different but authoritarians have corrupted both to be the same brute force regime. Communism shouldn't have any specific single leader. It should be a conference of lots of little communities that participate together to make a state work. Sadly authoritarian ideals corrupt politics and make people want to rule that should never be leaders in the first place. Those leaders install their own friends who run the government into the ground - and it's the government model that is to blame?
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You are spot on on just about everything. The only thing I take issue with is saying that both werr corrupted by authoritarians. Fascism doesn't exist without authoritarians. It's just a shame that in America, especially as well as plenty of other places in the west, we are miseducated if we are educated at all on the subject.
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If the model realized at scale repeatedly results in the same or similar effects, maybe there is something wrong with the model.
(Be those inherent mechanical flaws, flaws of ignoring parts of human nature, flaws of a model designed to work in a vacuum, or flaws of intricate and fragile necessary rules)
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and it's the government model that is to blame?
Yes, because it leaves itself so prone to authoritarian takeover. As I’ve said before, this is a feature of communism, not a bug. A single, one-party “transitional” government is intended. You might as well just put up a sign that says “Dictator Wanted.” This is why there isn’t a single instance of communism on a nation-state scale that hasn’t quickly devolved into an authoritarian state. It’s not hard to understand this. Your government model has to account for the reality that people are going to disagree on things and faction out. Your model has to be able to manage that process. Communism insists everyone adhere to the same ideology, and those that don’t just get “re-educated.” It’s a horrible ideology, a horrible government model; naïve utopian fantasy at best, cynical authoritarian scheme at worst.
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There's no difference between them. That's the thing. Two words for the same pile of shit.
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Communism scales horribly and practically begs for intolerant authoritarians to take over because the structure promotes compromise and compromising with intolerance ends up with intolerance. It works well when a small group voluntarily creates a small commune and everyone is on the same page. Everyone being able to see the overall community is pretty important for them to see how they fit in.
Capitalism also scales terribly, but when approached as a competition that requires regulation at least it can scale better because everyone can be watchful of bad actors. It still scales poorly because large companies can gain undo influence over government, but at least that influence tends to be about business and profit and not ethnic cleansing of the 'wrong people' that tends to be inherent to large scale communism. Yeah, that can also happen for profit with capitalism too, but again the acknowledgement of necessary regulations can mitigate that for the most part.
Everything tends to fall apart at a large enough scale though.
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It's not "considered trendy", your understanding of communism – an economic system – is just conflated with authoritarianism – a political system. You can advocate for one without advocating for the other.
That said, capitalism also leads to the deaths of millions, but somehow that's just an unquestionable fact of life.
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Oh gee if only there was a single example of communists that actually acted on some of these purported principles instead of turning authoritarian the first chance they get
No, social democracies don’t count. They are what tankies SHOULD strive for, instead of sucking off… checks notes famous beacons of liberty Russia and China.
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Perhaps it's us greedy humans that's the issue and the economic model only limits how completely we can fuck things up. Badly when it's capitalism and really badly with communism.
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Because one of them promoted racial superiority in its main book, while the other equally hated everyone? Do your research!
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I completely understand where you are coming from, but you got to realize that that concept of communism has been warped by western propaganda and selective education.
People hungry for power will use what ever ideology appeals to the people to gain power. Look at Donald Trump. He was historically a Democrat from New York uninterested in politics. He ran as a Democrat the first time but made no headlines. He switched parties and started talking pro-christian rhetoric. He is very obvious no Christian.
You see it with "Protect the children" anti-abortion groups. Who have no interest in actually protecting children. Groups that target trans people with the same stance have no interest in actually protecting children. Groups who are say they want to stamp out pedophilia use it to target privacy laws.
And you have groups like Nazis and Lenist who used socialism and communism as a means to an end. Those groups used those movements to consolidate power and wealth to the 1%, and used violence against others as a way to ensure their continued control, they were neither communist or socialist in practice, only in their speech.
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Communism is always dictated by a few and causes harm to many. In order for communism to work you need to stop the flow of information as education makes people want to pursue there own goals at the expense of everyone else.
You talk of corrupting power but I've never heard of google wanting to kill.
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Well they're considered just as fringe group by pretty much everyone else except for the people subscribing to it. Ofcourse they'll soon rush to tell you how their idea of communism is different and will actually lead to utopia but just imagine a neo-nazi trying that same argument.
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