this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024

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Why there is so much communist propaganda on lemmy? (feddit.uk)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

306 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Even from people that never lived in a communist state

edit: im 17 and i hate communism

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[–] [email protected] 123 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

Lemmy, the social network, started off as a leftist hangout spot.

From the perspective of "Open Source developers who are anti-Reddit pro-Fediverse", it makes a lot of sense for Leftist/Communist and anti-corporation leaning people to hang out.

After all, the more extreme the viewpoint, the more driven to action (ie: write tens-of-thousands of lines of code and release for free) people get. In some regards, its the nature of Open Source + volunteer effort to attract a more extreme ideology. IE: Free Software is driven by ideology, not by money. So you get ideological people, especially when the software is small and niche.

The July 2023 Reddit Blackout was a big challenge for Lemmy's old community and the new community, as the new community basically "invaded" a large scale leftist hangout spot. But hopefully we all learn to work together and the nature of our neighbors moving forward.

I think anyone here (likely everyone?) is at least on the anti-corporate anti-Reddit side of the discussion. Which is enough of an alliance to keep us together, for now.

It does mean that we'll have to keep up with the far-left old-timers on this network who wish to push their viewpoints. But they are the legacy and the start of Lemmy in some respects, even as the hypergrowth (starting in July 2023) has moderated the community pretty severely.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 7 months ago (9 children)

I don’t see the problem with people having communist views…capitalism isn’t great.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Yeah, the problem is that you have instances like Hexbear and Lemmy.ml that tread more into tankie territory, where if you argue anything less than the complete annihilation of the West and hail China, you're likely to get harassed. I think rational people can agree that there's a pretty gap between "The current system is corrupt" and "anyone who thinks differently than me should die,' but I've seen plenty of irrational leftists.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Came here to make this point.
The CCP's version of "communism" is almost a textbook example to me of how an interesting system that can work beautifully on the local level can be completely betrayed and turned in to something much more like an oligarchy.

I don't understand how someone of reasonable knowledge and judgement could possibly be a tankie in 2024.

[–] southsamurai 13 points 7 months ago

Eh, if by tankie you only mean literal communist tankies, that's just a single aspect of human nature.

There's absolutists, extremists, and (frankly) sociopaths in every political/ideological grouping. The more you get towards an extreme, the more you run into militant examples of the group. Tankies are just the communist bloc of the crazies.

But, there's folks like me that are all for revolution, but draw the line at unlimited killing to achieve it, or the eradication of groups in the name of the cause. I'm an extremist by most peoples' standards, but they've never been exposed to the real crazies of any extremist bloc.

You run into the bonkers adherents of communism, anarchism, nationalism, or religious extremists, and they're essentially the same mentality because it's a human failing that some of us are willing to kill indiscriminately for a belief. We're just lucky that that degree of extremism is split up, keeping them from being a serious, constant threat rather than the intermittent threat that they are.

Seriously, if you ever spend time around people that are working towards a goal like a change towards socialist thought, you'll run into the batshit ones on the edges. You hang around the wrong places, you'll run into right wing militants as well. They, none of them, are avoid knowledge, judgement, or reason. They're zealots, and they'd be the same no matter what ism infected them because it's about the fire, the anger, not the actual thing they're using as their obsession.

Fuck, I've met a couple of people involved in pacifist movements seriously express the idea that "we" should just rise up and kill until all the warmongers are gone. People, humans, are always going to have zealots like that, no matter what.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I mean, I don't have much problem with people disagreeing with me. But I'm pretty openly pro-capitalist, though I'm not a dumbass libertarian.

I recognize the need for the "capitalist edge cases" (externalities, monopolies, etc. etc.) that must be regulated and fixed for the system to work. I also recognize that we've failed to regulate externalities (ex: CO2 emissions), and failed to regulate monopolies / anticompetitive behavior (see Google).

So I'm a "capitalism works, but only if we work to make it work" kind of person. I think at the moment, Reddit and many other social networks are falling into the well known and well studied failures of raw capitalism, but somehow today's society has forgotten all the 1910s era solutions that we did (ex: Jungle, etc. etc.) where we regulated the hell out of the shitty behavior and fixed the most blatant problems, for the better of America.

We just gotta do the same thing today.

Overall, I accept that the commies / tankies were here first, and the history of Lemmy makes it clear why that happened.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (4 children)

I think anyone here (likely everyone?) is at least on the anti-corporate anti-Reddit side of the discussion.

I don't particularly have any problem with Reddit beyond the fact that (a) I don't like their "new" Web UI and (b) the fact that one of the moves that they made to monetize their service was to ban third-party clients, which is a tradeoff that I'm not willing to make.

I mean, I was expecting that at some point, Reddit was going to have to have to shift from growth to monetization. I just didn't agree with the particular tradeoff that they chose to make.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Multiple reasons.

Lemmy was crested by and is maintained by Marxist-Leninists.
Lemmy's structure and rejection of the Profit Motive is in line with Communist ideals, and attracts Communists and other leftists over Reddit, which is Capitalist.
FOSS in general is supported by Communists and Anarchists.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Be careful where you tread here. You must be careful to separate "communists" (people who believe in economic reorganization away from the power of capital) and "tankies" (those who support corrupt regimes that project the illusion of communism).

There are indeed quite a few communists and various other alt-camp political spectrum believers on here. They do have quite liberal beliefs but don't typically cause much of a fuss, because rational people can coexist with differing beliefs... and i dont mind them one bit. But the tankes, like lemmygrad, hexbear, etc, do stir up an anti-west "commie propaganda"fuss every chance they get, without being related to actual communism, especially if one mentions a hot button like Israel or Ukraine. And if you get into an argument with a tankie, they will just sling mud on you and call you a Nazi.

The cool part is, you can filter a lot of the chaff by just blocking the ugly instances from your user settings page (since Lemmy supports that now), blocking frequent flyers, and trimming/moving your subscribed community list to other, often smaller instances. A minimal amount of effort VASTLY increases the quality of content you'll see on lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (24 children)

There are very few real communists left. On here, it’s going to be pretty much all tankies.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 7 months ago (5 children)

I think it’s because my rent is a third of my income and im not allowed to function without not only feeding the parasites but making them morbidly obese.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Rent is only a third of your income? You lucky bastard.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 7 months ago (22 children)

American says communism and means socialism

[–] funkless_eck 42 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

the hardest test for any American

define communism

define propaganda

use both in a sentence that applies to the agreed definitions

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 7 months ago (19 children)

I've lived all my life under capitalism and I hate it.

I've read Marx, (for real, grab the book and read it!) and I see the dude does have a point.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Communist Manifesto

The language can be a bit tough to understand these days though so might want to read Ted Reese's Socialism Or Extinction instead

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 7 months ago

Probably has something to do with leaving a platform because it turned into a capitalist shithole?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I'm beginning to see why people call lemmy.world the Reddit of the fediverse

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's a microcosm of Reddit, in a lot of bad ways IMO.

Reddit is clearly declining due to enshittification, so more ideological types leave. Radical liberals, Marxists, Anarchists, and so forth leave for other places.
Leftists and people who have more niche interests like programming, Linux, FOSS, Piracy, Star Trek, LGBTQIA+, or other such unique interests go to more specific instances, while people seeking a replacement for Reddit go to the largest generalist instance.

The consequences of 1 and 2 are that Lemmy.world is filled with ideological liberals, but typically not leftists, FOSS enthusiasts, Piracy nerds, Star Trek, or other unique interests. All that's left is the ideological generalist crowd, which is an echo chamber more defined by what it isn't than by what it is.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

why not? if you'd like a more capitalist experience you can always go to reddit. don't forget to download their shitty app that no longer has competitors.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (25 children)

Because there's nothing wrong with being communist, and yet most of western civilization publicly demonizes communism and anyone who espouses communist views. Given the freedom to share an idea without fearing ad hominem attacks, ideas are judged on their merits alone.