this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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Lefty Memes

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Neoliberal adaptation (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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If the Twitter/X thing teaches you one thing, let it be this: Twitter was a neoliberal place. Then Elon Musk made it into X, a fascist place. Once again, neoliberalism laid the foundations of fascism. But that’s not the (whole) lesson… Neoliberal folks are still using X, calling it Twitter to make themselves feel better, and pining for the good old days. And there’s the real lesson: When neoliberalism turns into fascism, neoliberals will adapt to life under fascism. Right, class dismissed.

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(We really need a better way to crosspost from mastodon...)

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[–] [email protected] 117 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The conclusion is moot when the premise itself is wrong. Twitter was only "a neoliberal place" if you're only looking at the neoliberal part of it. It's like saying "YouTube is a site about sports highlights" because that's all you watch.

If you used Twitter and only saw neoliberal garbage, that's on you for following neoliberals. It completely ignores the majority of communities.

When I was active on there, if I saw a political tweet it was pro-socialist 95% of the time.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (13 children)

Aral is promoting the Fediverse.

He’s also saying neoliberals/centrists are largely performative, and they are fine with fascism. It’s a variation of the Nazi bar story.

There were always problems with Twitter’s moderation as it was lighter on the right than the left. The famous comment about not banning Republicans congresspeople comes to mind. It was never as right leaning as Facebook though.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

There are plenty of ways one can promote the Fediverse without saying things that are factually wrong

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[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

i think youre misunderstanding the point they're trying to make, but then again they're not expressly clear who they're talking about either and "neoliberal" is a term that means different things based on how we've been using it etc etc.

If the Twitter/X thing teaches you one thing, let it be this: Twitter was a neoliberal place. Then Elon Musk made it into X, a fascist place. Once again, neoliberalism laid the foundations of fascism.

I suggest they're referring to the ownership of Twitter, not twitters users here. Twitter was owned by neolibs (they assert) and sold to Elon. They're saying Elon is making X more fascist, not speaking about the userbase.

Neoliberal folks are still using X, calling it Twitter to make themselves feel better, and pining for the good old days.

And there’s the real lesson: When neoliberalism turns into fascism, neoliberals will adapt to life under fascism. Right, class dismissed.

Now he's moved to the userbase, which is confusing and muddles things up a bit. but his point here is the neolibs are the ones who stayed on X even after fascist users started coming in due to a fascist ownership. They complain, but they get by, because (and this may now just be my projecting my own thoughts) neoliberals have 0 morals and 0 insight.

You said you aren't there anymore. I think this means you're exempt.

Anyway that's what i got from it

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I stopped being active on Twitter long before the sale for unrelated reasons but I've popped on from time to time because I still have friends on there who don't use other platforms.

I take issue with the "everyone who stays is complicit" argument in the same way I have issues with the "everyone in Alabama is a racist magat" because it completely ignores why people actually stay - community and connections.

Unless you can convince your entire circle to switch to a different platform all at once, the move is painful. I get it.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The users on it might "do socialism" but the owners, curators, and managers just saw that as a product for them to sell ads next to. The socialism is sort of bait.

Having a show featuring socialists or with socialist themes doesn't make your network socialist.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

That's a fine take and all but the screenshot in the post is about the users, not the owners.

Using your analogy, the hosts of a socialist show are neoliberals because the network - the only network for over a decade - is neoliberal.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Also the OOP's line of logic seems to imply Elon bought Twitter because it was neoliberal?

Elon has billions of dollars he could buy half the lemmy instances if he gave the admins the right check amount.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Wikipedia says neoliberalism is considered an insult 🤔

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It says the same thing about TERF. When people find accurate, clinically boring descriptions of themselves offensive, it's not the term that's at fault.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I think it's just that people use it as an insult. I think that is the case with many insults. I think retarded started as just a descriptive word.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Except "neoliberal" is insulting because it's accurate.

It's never changed meaning. People just began to realize that neoliberalism is awful and neoliberals are calling it an insult to be accurately described. Exactly like TERFs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (8 children)

It's not like mentally retarded can't be accurate. But it's the intent and repeated use as an insult that makes an insult and insult. Could just be a neutral descriptor because in itself it doesn't mean something insulting.

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[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah iirc it was the clinical and pepper term to replace "mongoloid".

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Well, think of it this way. Have you ever heard anybody call themselves a 'neoliberal?'

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 11 points 5 months ago (2 children)

There's /r/neoliberal. But don't go there. t'is a silly place

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I got permanently banned from Reddit for saying that punching Nazis was a good thing.

Probably the best thing that ever happened to me on the interwebs.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Damn i feel like a chump comparitively. I still have my old reddit account tho i haven't logged in since i left for here. I want to see if he becomes a shill if i leave him there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm still banned but they sent me a stock offering. It's a crazy world

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

The users of it don't like it when you point it out either. Or they try to say it's embracing the joke, as they usually do nothing but show why it's an insult

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Neoliberal is an accurate descriptor for most liberals, progressive or conservative. The politics they support are similar more than they are different. The strong social safety net libs are social democrats who are either confused or in denial. I can't fault them too much, good political education is basically non-existent in most schools. That still doesn't mend the whole "caving to fascism" thing, social democrats still advocate capitalism. See how Sweden or Finland have been doing lately for a prime example

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[–] mindbleach 18 points 5 months ago (3 children)

People are still calling it Twitter because X is a fucking stupid name.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Xitter

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

“The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative.”

- Malcolm X

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

the white liberal likes money more than racism
the white conservative likes racism more than money

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't think it really fits, Elon Musk bought the place. If anything the lesson is that money rules the world, ideology is secondary.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if theres an ideology that is more in line with "Money Rules the world " hmmm

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I meant that if it had been bought up by someone favouring socialist users and wanted to further that ideology, it would seem a bit strange to me that someone's takeaway would be that neoliberalism laid the foundations for socialism.

It's a website that got bought. If you meant that "money rules the world" is capitalism or neoliberalism then their point becomes a bit muddled, with capitalism laying foundation for capitalism or neoliberalism laying foundation for neoliberalism. What would that even mean?

I don't see any sort of ideological struggle or laying foundations. It was just a purchase. My friend didn't lay the foundations for me to drive to places when I bought his car and used it to drive places hah.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

not a meme, please use the sister communities for content like this
(I hate to do this bc I agree with it, but my brain hates twitter posts or just generally walls of text in a meme community)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Libs love fascism but Twitter could be turned into X and made fascist isn't an argument for that. Maybe on the extremely loose way that private property allows this to happen.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (5 children)

In today's episode of "you're a fake leftist!!!"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Honestly, the left spends more time trying to distance themselves from other leftists than they do helping their cause.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

The mistake here is that Twitter was ever anything but bots.

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