I just had a good interaction with someone on blahaj. Without going into too much detail, they had posted posted some inflammatory (as in meant to invite “dunking” by hexbears) imperialist apologia, got called out on it by some of our users and some blahaj users, and then deleted it and posted something positive instead. Some of our users (including me) exchanged good vibes and best wishes for our communities to live in peace and a negative interaction transformed into a positive one.
I know, this is pretty much the best outcome for a situation like this. And of course, we have seen some extremely bad faith words and actions by some users on other instances, but I would like to see this less common outcome become a more common one (and for us to stay federated!).
I don’t want us to give up our culture and our principles either! Many users on other instances aren’t used to seeing our kind of politics at all. When you’re talking to someone in real life do you immediately break out the Stalin portrait and the budenovka and launch into heated polemics against things they had considered just basic facts about reality? I would love for that to continue on our instance, but I think we should cultivate an approach of carefully considered discussion on others (when we can). It’s definitely possible to be a communist or an anarchist without being so antagonistic all the time. Our political thought and practice flow from the basic experiences of working class people which mostly everyone can relate to.
That being said, what I said really only applies to people who don’t mind living in peace with us in the Fediverse. I think that’s most people on other instances. At least from what I’ve seen, the worst of the arguments and struggle sessions that happen on other instances were exacerbated to that level by just a few bad actors in the other communities. One of them was even very obviously using multiple accounts to draw hexbears in (who can’t resist a good dunking lol) and turn the thread into a mess. It’s a good idea to consider whether using the PPB on some troll’s self-debunking argument is worth it or not, especially when they may be trying to make our community look bad rather than trying to prove any actual point.
Unless we avoid contributing to more incidents it’s likely more instances will defederate from us. Some of these are probably unavoidable just because of the personal attitudes of the admins there (like with lemmy.world). And we will also probably become more insulated again if that happens. Some of us think that’s a good thing and that’s fine, but personally I like seeing and engaging with all the nice furry, LGBT, tech, etc. content from other communities! And I like seeing new users here.
Now if you read all that you should probably go touch grass for at least a few minutes hehe. Mandatory reminder that all this doesn’t really matter much politically, the Fediverse is a small community within a small community, go do real life stuff with people, and so on and so on.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this. I have to go now but I’ll be back later.
Edit: :(
It sucks we had to defederate but I support the decision after seeing some of the stuff that happened. Fuck that 196 mod and fuck liberals harrassing our queer users for not sharing their imperialistic hegemonic omnicidal worldview.
I can provide a little insight here, perhaps: from the average Hexbear dunker’s point of view, it’s a little like you’re an astronomer and all you’ve been talking about for the last three years is astronomy and all sorts of scientific studies and your average discussion is like “Well, actually, I believe the percentage uncertainty in the diameter of Alpha Centauri’s orbit around the galactic center may be off by 2% due to these newly discovered variables…” and then one day, your community is joined at the hip to a bunch of flat earthers. So if somebody comes to your instance (or even if you see a take in a different instance) and says something like “these astronomers are such fucking gullible idiots, holy shit. the level of denialism that the Earth is a flat disc, which is what everybody agrees on, and that the stars aren’t just satellites, is unbelievable. have these people never read a single book? we have a bunch of respectable flat earther philosophers and scientists and they instead hide away in their tiny conspiracy websites posting ‘studies’ to each other. ok, if the stars are real, explain why they aren’t all as big as the sun then, as you seem to think the sun is also a star. owned with your own logic, moron.”
and it’s like, holy shit, I have spent the last three years doing so much learning about all these different things and systems and histories, and seeing somebody come along with arguments that have been debunked for years, no, decades, no, over a century, and they repeat them and expect them to be “owns” or something? they’re calling me the moron? these people have literally no idea what they’re talking about!
(like, I used to be one of those “we need to oppose authoritarian governments and promote democracy and freedom and justice for the poor people living in those countries” people and now I’m just very embarrassed about that opinion, it’s barely even scratching at the surface of a vast ocean of so much history and philosophy and economics. it’s the Dunning-Krueger effect in action.)
and even in their more concillatory posts, it’s like “Fine, we need to learn to coexist. I certainly don’t support their blatant conspiratorial authoritarian nonsense - sorry, opinion - that the Earth is round, but maybe we can have a discussion and come to some compromise that maybe stars are real and far away.” and you’re still grumbling because they’re still obviously, just, wrong. Like, unequivocally just still incorrect.
so you basically have the option of being one of those scientists who are like “Hey! It’s nice that you’re making scientific arguments about the consequences of a flat earth theory, but maybe we can help you out by talking about the mechanics of how a round earth might work, and it might even make more sense than a flat earth!”, or, more likely, you’re exhausted already and you think that no amount of niceness and reasoning is going to get through to them so you just start calling them names and shit and hoping that the dunking will be enough to make them see the errors of their ways, but even if they don’t, it at least might make them leave you alone.
that being said, I think it’s best to approach people at the level of their own good faith while on the instance you’re on, and be even slightly more polite than them on foreign instances. so if somebody comes along on Hexbear from another instance and is like “Hey, I’ve heard a lot of things about Venezuela/Cuba/China/etc, are these true?” then dunking on them would obviously be inappropriate (and to be fair, most of us already know to not dunk in that situation). But if somebody comes on here and starts saying that, for example, downplaying the negative impact that the Democrats had on America’s response to coronavirus, or starts saying shit like “The CCP is a bunch of redfash,” then nobody should be surprised if we get angry at them and start spamming PPB.
But if I heard those two things on foreign instances, I might not be particularly nice to them, but I might at least explain my position and why they might be wrong. If they then continue to be morons without trying to rise to my level of good faith, then my patience will wear thin.
First of all, completely agree about the delineation between local and federated. Your house, your rules. Things get more complex when you’re visiting their house.
Assuming for the sake of argument that all your positions are 100% correct (I don’t know all your positions, can’t comment on what I don’t know, but anyway) there is an issue with your analogy: this’d be like saying most of the major high schools and universities are teaching flat earth theory, and it’s commonly accepted as true. An argumentum ad populum is of course not logically sound, but to a layperson is compelling. Especially when they grew up surrounded by those that believe in the flat earth. Not only that, but that a flat earth is the morally superior position. To those shouting insults at you and making shit up, not worth even engaging imho, but I’d argue it’s at least understandable where they’re coming from.
Even I don’t think all my positions are 100% correct, just like how not all scientific claims are always accurate and have to be backed up by replication studies and there has to be experiments and theoretical models and everything, and even then those models are mere approximations of reality. We’re all mortal human beings with incomplete knowledge based on propaganda, whether one calls it propaganda or not, and to be even approximately correct on a majority of issues is about as good as one can truly hope for. My problem is when people are unaware of these things and believe that their very clever brains with perfect information (supplied via Washington Post articles or some thinktank or whatever) have Solved The Issue™ and everybody who argues against it must be in bad faith or an evil person or just simply not understand that what they’re saying is wrong and bad.
Yeah, I agree, this is a very good point, and it’s why it feels like you’re so routinely punching a self-reinforcing steel wall when you try and engage with liberals and conservatives (and even sometimes other baby leftists) on some issues. I feel like I had to undergo a sort of ego death - maybe not that drastic - when I transitioned from social democrat to democratic socialist to socialist to Marxist, where I had to let go of my previous programming to do with politics. Of course, we aren’t going into dipshit QAnon territory here - scientific facts are facts, and if a scientific study adequately performed (so like, not a climate study backed by ex-fossil fuel industry workers) disproves a part of my worldview then I must let it go; we aren’t cranks. Many of us would even say that we take the most scientific approach to politics, hence the half-serious, half-ironic use of “The immortal science of Marxism-Leninism” sometimes.
But so much of politics is up to interpretation, and facts are so often either omitted or overly emphasized to make a point (libs typically call the discussion of these facts “whataboutisms”), and communists can take entirely different framings of issues or reality itself, which makes it extra difficult to communicate effectively with liberals. The political compass is a good example, as most of us simply believe it’s a bunch of nonsense that doesn’t hold up to serious scrutiny, politicians are almost arbitrarily placed throughout it, left and right, let alone authoritarianism and libertarianism have basically entirely different definitions to a liberal and a communist, and so we laugh at people who make it their identity and have their position in their profile picture. To that person (let’s say a 21 year old frequent Reddit user whose only post-school political education has come from memes on social media and the occasional article that comes up on their phone or home page) saying “This is a bunch of bullshit!” might just come across as “We’re all in the top/bottom left corner and so are detached from what reality looks like!” but they don’t even really know anything. As I said, it’s the Dunning-Krueger effect.
Indeed, and this is why - as much as I grumble - some patience is needed with people. Nobody is born with a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other, and I certainly wasn’t. I could make fun of all the people who joined the Left only in 2016, when Trump made politics too difficult to ignore anymore, for being “late to the program”, but I’d be making fun of myself also.
Sankara said it best: “As revolutionaries, we don’t have the right to say we are tired of explaining. We must never stop explaining. We know that when the people understand, they cannot help but follow us.”
Well, thanks for not being tired of explaining this to me :)
I’m still very firmly in the social democracy camp, but it would be the height of arrogance to claim that this is where I’ll sit permanently and that I know all the answers, and it sounds like you’re similar to me in that specific regard. I guess my big stumbling block with some of the views expressed here is the detachment if it’s against the “imperial core”. The idea of supporting Russia because of Critical Support, that it’s absolutely fine to ignore Ukrainian sovereignty and their wishes because NATO bad (not trying to put words in your mouth, this is my simplistic understanding of the position) seems incredibly apathetic to real people struggling to not get absorbed into the Russian empire.
That’s fine. It took me… I think from 2018 (when I gave up on the Democrats fully) until 2020, and the whole way I was like “Well, I’m not sure if I’m ready to accept THAT position yet, but I am willing to admit that I don’t actually know much about it.” And you might even stop at a certain point and decide, actually, I am comfortable being a socdem or a demsoc or a socialist or an anarchist or a trot or whatever, and I won’t be where this other guy is.
Being open-minded like you are is the most important part of that psychological development. It is so incredibly important to admit that you literally just don’t know anything, or hardly anything, about - idk, the USSR, or Chinese history from the 1940s to the 1970s, or the history of socialist movements in Latin America. None of us come out of the womb knowing that. The only reason people should ever dunk on you for not knowing about these things is if you come in pretending you know a lot without actually knowing a lot, few of us are so cruel as to respond to genuine, good-faith questions even about sensitive topics with insults. We are all comrades here.
But it won’t just be propelled by communists online, it’ll also be influenced (I would even say mostly influenced) by your experiences, and the experiences of your family and friends, and what you read in the news. Back in 2016 I wouldn’t have called for Maoist actions against landlords, but after nearly a decade of experience and watching others suffer under them, well…
And, of course, reading books. It’s daunting but even a medium-sized book every two months, for a year or two, will put you lightyears ahead of most other people in the political playing field. Even some of your fellow leftists.
I hope you and fellow lurkers in your boat have a good time here!
Cheers. Treading carefully to not dox myself here, but here in Eastern Europe, my family and friends’ family have some personal history and grievances with the USSR’s puppet states. This is the reason why my natural instinct, correct or not, is to treat anything even vaguely positive about the USSR with extreme suspicion.
Thanks for your time and thoughts man, I appreciate it.
Just for the record, even if you consider yourself a socialist, social democracy is just nice capitalism for a segment of white people. Have your beliefs, but you will run into people saying “social democracy is the moderate wing of fascism”
I think that’s very simplistic, especially when I try my best on a daily basis to push back against the pretty abhorrent racism that exists in my country. It is a fair criticism to say that I’m not as extreme as the average hexbear user appears to be, and I’m definitely not as bold or revolutionary, but I do take offence to the implication that my views are restricted to the betterment of one ethnicity.
Personal offense is the last resort of a liberal. Sorry man, one good deed does not unmake imperialist supply chains
I did not mean to imply nor say that my taking offence removes the ability of people to critique. Just stating facts about how I feel about it.