I’ve been trying to make people aware of Lemmy on discord and Mastodon, but it’s always met with resistance citing “the devs are pro authoritarianism tankies.” Kbin seems to be picking up steam because of the developer baggage.
Do you feel like this negative perception will hamstring Lemmy’s growth?
And I also misused straw man here as well. In hindsight, with a rested mind, I shouldn’t have listened to my primary response and instigated shit. But here we are.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not against communism. I am against the results of every experiment we have experienced so far with communism. I do recognize the way we currently run the unchecked capitalism and liberalism will also end up in authoritarianism I despise. Back to kings and fiefdoms but named companies and their CEO’s and their shadow council of shareholders.
I believe the golden road is somewhere in the middle. Where people can still choose who they want to be, free to choose how they wish to live as long it doesn’t hurt others, and enjoy the fruit of their labor. Companies are not faceless entities and everybody inside a company are held responsible for the actions they make. Where money can only buy yourself comfort, not power.
I know that is just a pipe dream. We were never able to achieve it now and never will. We humans can never hold a balance. Some people who just get a smidgen of power over others just abuse it for the thrill of it. And some won’t stop until they have everyone under their thumb. Greed, the worst human flaw of all. Even the fairest system we might ever think of will break as soon as we allow greed to fester. And greed does not care how power is collected, money, favors, goodwill, popularity. One wrong person who thinks they deserve more than the others, think they are more equal than the others, getting just that bit of power will set off a snowball that always ends in suffering of everyone except the few. Until the many revolt and bring justice to those on high.
Humanity loves their systems. Thinking of them, building them, bending them, corrupting them, and then breaking them with bloodshed. To just start the cycle again and again.
I will stop my nihilistic TED talk here. Best regards and may you find the communist utopia you seek.
A huge amount of what you discuss is covered very explicitly in “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific,” so I’ll just offer the text and audio formats of that in case you are interested and leave you on your way.
Thank you for the sources.