[Someone] = Stereotypical leftist adjacent person who (semi)frequents the mainstream web. Curious in this whole socialism thing, has very little theoretical knowledge.
Scenario: They’ve come to you complaining about the quality of their time online worsening and how they’re looking for what they say is a “Open-Minded Community” They have already tried places like r/socialism and say: “They’re way too snobby and book heavy.”
You ask them what they think about socialism and they say: “Well I don’t really know, but Zahran seems pretty cool, maybe it’s possible to have a good version of it.” “I know the Soviet Union failed, but given how tyrannical Stalin was, maybe it’s because they had bad leaders.”
What would be your approach be?
This place is way too hostile for me to suggest to irls. I would like that to change, but i don’t think it’s likely. I think it would be more productive to start my own instance for my friends and I can crosspost some Hexbear content here and there (which would be mixed in with other crossposts and direct posts) so they only see the good stuff.
Times have definitely changed though. I never brought r/cth up back then, but now that subreddit would be pretty mainstream for my circle.
My approach would be just discussing things with them yourself instead of pointing them to a forum where wildly socially maladjusted people* are constantly posting fantasies about killing people and declaring Stalin’s only mistake was stopping at Berlin. No offense to the latter group, there’s just a pretty ideologically insular culture that you don’t want to expose some socdem to.
*I say this as a wildly socially maladjusted person myself.
where wildly socially maladjusted people* are constantly posting fantasies about killing people and declaring Stalin’s only mistake was stopping at Berlin.
Get off the Internet, make your dreams reality.
I was even less than a socdem when I first came across Hexbear. Naturally, I was horrified, but when I kept seeing the same strawmen get posted about it over and over, I realized y’all couldn’t be as bad as they say. Then I realized most of what you said made sense. Then I joined and have learned through meme osmosis and been inspired to read actual theory too.
I’m genuinely glad that happened for you and I appreciate the intellectual integrity of identifying the misrepresentation of a group that you independently already disliked, but I can’t tell if you’re saying we should generalize from that experience.
I don’t think I’m saying that. Just saying some people who seem too far gone might still make their way to the socialist side. I love this community (mostly) the way it is. It’s silly, and the people who make it out to be super scary and evil are just lying about it.
To be clear, I meant it as being something genuinely unclear to me because people do a survivor’s bias thing all the time where “it worked for me, so it must work in general”. Sorry if I sounded accusing.
I agree with you that lots of people can be reformed, I think it’s practically possible for most people and we as socialists should seek it out, though that’s of course different from saying every socialist needs to devote all their energy to arguing with every reactionary they see (which some others, not you, use to make a false dichotomy in the other direction). I don’t think it’s helpful to try to evaluate who is somehow morally worthy or unworthy of help, we have a better future with more comrades regardless of who “deserves” it or not.
Ye. I like restorative justice and redemption where possible. It may not always be possible, I’ll reluctantly admit, but when it is. And I don’t think you sounded accusing. My brain interpreted the comment as “should we act more appealing to the general audience,” and I wasn’t in favor of that. We have a unique culture that isn’t for everybody, but that’s what grad and .ml are for.
Oh yeah, that’s understandable. I disagree with some of the things that also make us less appealing to a general audience (I tend to be anti murder fantasy) but only on the grounds that it’s bad for the mental health and social adjustment of the people doing it and, insofar as it has a political character, is reactionary. But my original comment wasn’t about it changing or not changing, just that things like that make us generally bad as a radicalization pipeline for naive moderates, so OP shouldn’t direct their friends to us (yet?)
Anyway, I think I’m just talking in circles.
neg them by saying they’re not gay enough to post here
I would never try to convince someone to post on hexbear. I would direct them towards IRL socialist or leftist organisations instead.
i would never try to tell someone about hexbear. i would consider mentioning .ml
The only friend I’ve tried to explain hexbear/lemmy to is also the friend who though Linux was a company you could invest in. 15 mins is not nearly long enough
hodling until the year of linux on the desktop
HODL(hold on for dear linux)
Make them play Disco Elysium
In this scenario, do I have a weapon of some kind?
Get to the bad post mines. NOW
I think it’s one of those things where you need to already be there ideologically to get it. If you just bring some liberal in here, their internal red scare propaganda alarm is going to go ballistic and all they’ll see is just crazy take after crazy take. Sounds cliche but they need to do some reading or learning first so they can understand why we support AES, why Stalin wasn’t as bad as they say, the importance of the class character of the state, the economic strangling of the USSR by the west, difference between bourgeois and proletarian democracy, etc. If they aren’t interested in learning about those things or find it too boring or are too ideologically opposed to even consider them, then I’m not sure this person is ready to dive into these topics in a serious way yet.
Emotes… we’ve got so many emotes… thousands even.
hey have you ever wanted to post but like badly
They have already tried places like r/socialism and say: “They’re way too snobby and book heavy.”
I think the first step is to actually get them to read theory so they drop the anti intellectualism, and before that step happens I don’t really think anyone would have much patience for them here. There is no such thing as being “too book heavy” in Socialist terms.
I would pitch them on the obvious benefits of community owned online communities like that they won’t necessarily go to shit, the way capitalist owned communities do.I don’t think everyone needs to be on Hexbear. Doesn’t hurt to try but they need to like something about it and by your description it won’t be the politics, at least not immediately.Tbh I really don’t discuss niche online forums with people I know in real life.Honestly just listen to what purpleworm says
They have already tried places like r/socialism and say: “They’re way too snobby and book heavy.”
Well, to be fair, that’s one of the most stuck up communities on the internet.
Maybe tell em about the fediverse in general, I wouldn’t put anyone up to hb specifically unless I know they’d fit right in.
On the tyrannical Hexbear website, you get rewards for posting badly. But the badposts consume the upbears and turn into worse posts, which gives more upbears. The circle of posting
