They are not as extreme, but you cannot realistically have a civilized discussion on their servers. Unfortunately they are much more established with several big communities which are hesitant to move to more reasonable servers so while hexbear was an easy insta-ban for me and most other Lemmy users, we're stuck individually blocking ml users for now.
But hopefully because of the idiotic choice of the ml domain, they will eventually go the way of hexbear.
IMO they're just more subtle about it because they don't want a larger call for defed to happen, I'm sure they all have alts on Hex/Grad where they let out their..."restraints".
They're very quick to deride .world as nothing but a "Reddit 2.0 CIA front propaganda machine" and yet won't defed from it themselves....
Wasn't the whole .ml domain an issue way back during the reddit migration too, cause its the domain for Mali? I remember it being an issue when I came over to Lemmy, which was back during that migration. When Reddit locked down its api and a bunch of redditors (me included) did a "blackout" to protest.
Welcome to a tutorial on how to block .ml on your personal account.
In the top right corner of the top of the page, there are 3 horizontal white bars. Click it.
This will open up a drop down menu. At the bottom of that menu, you will see your username. Click it.
This will open another drop down menu with 3 options. Click "Settings".
At the top of your screen you will see 2 tabs. Click the one that says "Blocks".
Here you will see "Block user" "Block community" and "Block instance". Click the down arrow below "Block instance".
This will open up a search bar. Type "lemmy.ml" and click it after it shows up.
That's it! You've blocked .ml and will never see content from the instance. Now you don't need to make a feud post every day complaining about .ml and other instances you disapprove of. Think of all the time you will save!
But wait, we aren't done yet in this menu. Click the down arrow under "Block user". Now type "UltraGiGaGigantic" Make sure you select my .ml account as the other ones I no longer use. Thanks, appreciate it.
This whole instance-tribalism seems very self-defeating to me. Why be decentralised if everyone ends up so boxed off that there are just a handful of isolated instance-clusters talking amongst themselves? It's like how email (SMTP) is decentralised but the mega-hosts act like a cabal, gatekeeping so strongly (and virtually doing blocklist-by-default for unrecognised servers - even of good standing) ultimately capturing the user-base by undermining the decentralisation. Luckily with DKIM/SPF/DMARC/ARC/etc and stronger anti-trust regulations email seems to be slowly climbing back out of that hole. Unfortunately with all the banal tribalism it feels like much of the new Activitypub based tech users are willfully climbing into that same hole, without even being corralled there by mega-hosts.
I'm pretty sure if we're excluding instances with troll farms or hosting illegal material, the map of Lemmy instances is still kind of a single amorphous blob, with nearly all connected instances being just 1 connection away from their blocked instances. These can't be defined as isolated instance-clusters. Lemmy.world users seem to always know what hexbear users are up to because of their federated neighbors, lol.
PJ is kind of interesting, in that being anti-communist is a massive part of their reason to be on the fediverse, as a mod for 2 anti-communist communities and a prolific anti-communist poster. They denounce the Black Panther Party for being "violent" and supporting AES, but will uphold the Nazi-aligned Hungarian revolt, where Jewish people and Communists had their doors marked and were being lynched, as an example of "real revolution against the Soviets."
Tribalism has always been a thing but seems to be having a big resurgence lately. i think when the state of the world makes people feel small they crave more validation from echo chambers.
Lemmy.world seem to be more middle-of-the-road on many things while Lemmy.ml and Hexbear seem pretty intolerant to me
I think it was on Lemmy.ml that I saw someone have their posts deleted allegedly for spreading US propaganda or some reason like that, when all they had said was that the war in Ukraine was started by Russia invading Ukraine in 2014 (I'm pretty sure this is factually true and Ukraine didn't invade any of Russia until 2024)
For someone using a text based medium, one would think you would have better reading comprehension skills.
I picked this handle for one reason: idiots make exactly the kind of comment you just made and feel very clever for it. This helps separate the wheat from the chaff, showing who is worth taking seriously and who might find tasks like tying shoeslaces to be particularly vexing.
Anti-zionism is not Antisemitism. Zionism is not Judaism nor is it representative of Jewish people. Your conflation of the two is genuinely antisemitic.
Zionism is anti-Semitic at it's core, it other-izes Jewish people, and justifies the violent settler colonialim of Israel as in the defense of all Jewish people, which only serves to further fuel genuine Antisemitism at the expense of Jewish people globally. Zionism is also an inherently fascist ideology. The ethnic cleansing of the native people of Palestine has always been fundamental since it's inception as a colonialist movement. Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized by Zionism during its history.
What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to stop conflating Jewish people with Zionists, because Zionists are literally committing genocide and have specifically targeted children.
Btw to anybody who comes across this user is a .ml Tankie, so anything not a tankie is right-wing to them
And Tankies = Authoritarian "communists" so basically, they're pro-CCP, pro-Russia/Putin and neither can do no wrong in their eyes or it's just CIA propaganda.
Anything critical of either, no matter how factual, historical or deserving it is is swiftly removed under their favorite catch-all "Rule 1 bigotry" on .ml
It happened to me when I called out the moderators for censoring comments pointing out the role of the DNC in the genocide of Palestinians, so I'd say it isn't wrong.
Regardless of whether you're politically left or right, I feel like the hexbear crowd is just tremendously unfriendly. Even when I agree with them, I usually feel bad reading what they have to say. Being unwelcoming is not a good strategy for proliferating one's politics.
Depends, if you're a Communist or an Anarchist and aren't being sectarian (except against, like, Gonzaloists that support Gonzalo and defend Pol Pot), it's very friendly. By not allowing liberalism, it ends up stopping endless arguments between leftists and liberals before they can even start.
hahaha, for those who like to play along, it's always fun to check the moderation history of the user under the comment with the three dot menu when someone complains about bans. I actually lol'd when I saw the ban from lemmy.ml/c/chess.
I had to check but hexbear currently redirects to chapo.chat so I assume they have the domain for now.
Which says a lot about the manufactured outrage. Nobody even has a clue what is going on over at hexbear, but somehow their Lemmy experience is ruined by it.
Clear your cache, the Hexbear domain is up for auction and (as it has for days now) will redirect to chapo.chat, their old domain that they still-owned.
This is partly why I've chosen a different instance other than .world. I can control what is and isn't in my feed, and it's not like contemporary American centrist liberals have the best ideas when it comes to the current political landscape.
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to authoritarian communists, especially those who support acts of repression by such regimes, their allies, or deny the occurrence of the events thereof. More specifically, the term has been applied to those who express support for one-party Marxist–Leninist socialist republics, whether contemporary or historical. It is commonly used by anti-authoritarian leftists, including anarchists, libertarian socialists, left communists, democratic socialists, and reformists to criticise Leninism, although the term has seen increasing use by liberal and right‐wing factions as well.
But it makes sense once you think about it. The patriarchy is about ten or twenty times as old as capitalism (depending on the definition). Of cause it will disappear once capitalism is abolished. Racism is about twice as old as capitalism. How could it function without capitalism once again?
But tbf hexbear does have a sizable trans community
You're not wrong, communists do have issues with effective communication. It's not trivial due to definitions and framing propagated by liberal institutions being designed, sometimes intentionally, to make it more difficult to communicate our ideas.
They're the reddit users that think voting is all you can do to end fascism.
They're the reddit users that think if you question authority you must love the other party's authority.
They're the reddit users that think anything to the left of them must be ignored, and anything to the right of them is just misunderstood.
.world has more insufferable people than any other community, it has the most spots on my blocklist. I'd block the entire thing if it didn't cripple my hobby communities and some of the few good ones from it.
I don't understand it. Sometimes you agree with someone, you get downvoted and they get upvoted. Or vice versa. Or you're downvoted like crazy, you come back after a few hours, the tallies are swapped.
Hexbear, grad and .ml are the Tankie Triad, .world defed's from Hex and grad because Hex is the worst, Grad is runner up. .ml tends to be more subtle about it and has largely avoided a more mass defederation movement like what happened with hex and grad
LMAO tru tru, but unfortunately the tankie admins and mods of .ml are quick to enforce the subtlety by censoring (the irony for a group that is quick to accuse others of it lmao) those kinds of posts under their catch-all "RULE1"
.ml is not subtle, they just circlejerk within their sub a shit ton, rather than infesting other communities. Usually the idiots tend to congregate it seems.
Yeah, I have "All" filter turned on and I don't see any Hexbear posts. Now that I think about maybe that those who complain about Hexbear intentionally go there?
You're on lemmy.world, which has been defederated from hexbear.net for ages. So yeah, somebody on your instance would have to go there so see their content, because your admin essentially blocked them for you. Anecdotally, I saw them on lemm.ee's All fairly frequently before I blocked them, and I still see their comments on posts on other instances fairly frequently.
Plus, more recently hexbear has had to change domains and apparently because of this federation with hexbear isn't working at all for anybody at the moment
The point is that Lemmy.world defederated from Hexbear, so the complaints about Hexbear coming from Lemmy.world users frequently are based on second-hand information.
I got permabanned from Hexbear for simply denouncing ageism.
Apparently not falling for the divisive labels they stick on every generation so they can blame each other is not tolerated.
Wow, IDK who that other person is.
Not only more attacks saying I'm a liar but also that I'm using an alt account.
Great mindset.
I really liked Hexbear and still visit, it has great post and info.
But if this is the tactics people defending it and not owning up to their mistakes/actions use it should be a surprise I got banned in the first place.
The only people who let Trump win the election are the democrats. We spent years telling them what they need to do to win, instead they chose to end covid protections, divert covid funds to the police, build Trump's wall, facilitate genocide, and other extremely unpopular policy.
They knew these policies were unpopular among everyone who might vote democrat, they chose to do it anyway.
You keep yelling at them to do what you want. But if you're such a formidable power to influence the elections, you could've done it already, in a way that was clearly presented to you.
You didn't.
That means that either you overestimate the number of people that think like you, or all of you don't know or care how to participate in democracy.
Both of those options mean you know jack shit about what to do to win the elections, and can only yell on social media.
That by the way says nothing about the validity of your claims, you could be morally correct and advocate for objectively good things, but if they aren't getting you in power, it doesn't matter.
you overestimate the number of people that think like you
It doesn't matter how people think, left policy is overwhelmingly popular and republican policy is only popular with republicans!
How the hell are you arguing that the democrats did the right thing, when they lost. They chose policies that they knew would decrease turnout with their base to appeal to "moderate republicans", and once again, the "moderate republicans" voted for republicans.
you know jack shit about what to do to win the elections, and can only yell on social media.
We've tried every thing in our power to influence the democrats. When we protest, they send police to silence us.
Maybe I'm misreading that link of yours, but it shows that four specific policies have popular support. It certainly doesn't show that all of the Democrat Party policies have overwhelming support. The recent election proved that about as definitively as is possible in American election history.
You have zero idea how popular progressive ideas among voters, because you motherfuchers don't vote. Random polls means nothing if they aren't followed by votes, and they aren't.
Last time they run they were running much more conservative campaign with an old white dude woth much more conservative platform and they won. That's also not the whoe story of course, but this explanation fit more precisely than yours.
We've tried every thing in our power
Oh my. Have you tried voting for the candidate you like? Bernie lost popular vote (I repeat, popular vote) (I repeat again, popular vote) twice when he was nominating. Have you and your hoards of silent majority, tried sending a fucking mail twice in a decade?
Again, if you all did, that's an indication that there is not enough of you and US is a conservative shithole where most of the people want monstrous policies.
If you didn't, that means you aren't citizens, and your opinion doesn't matter for the purposes of the government, you're children and should be treated as such.
I don't know which is worse.
Last time they run they were running much more conservative campaign
Biden barely scraped by the skin of his ass, and my experience phone-banking in 2020, half the voters I talked to thought Biden was for free healthcare, cannabis, defunding the police, freeing the ICE camps, and free college because he was the democratic candidate.
Meanwhile Kamala said the only thing that would be different from Biden's administration is that she would appoint a republican to the cabinet and ran on building Trump's wall. The dem messaging went right of 2020 on trans people, crime, foreign policy, economic policy.
The average voter is very low information when it comes to politics, but they know healthcare is too expensive, they know college is too expensive, they know locking migrants in cages is bad.
Left policy is popular because it materially improves people's immediate conditions. It doesn't matter whether someone has conservative ideas or not when their livelihood depends on a specific policy. When you weaken it or add a bunch of means-testing and complicated rules, your supporters will care less, and your opposition will continue to oppose you.
I live in SC, my vote had no effect on the outcome of the election. The only possible thing I could do to affect the outcome of the election was telling dems to stop doing things that decreased turnout, such as facilitating genocide and pretending to be powerless, and do things that would increase turnout such as legalizing cannabis, putting Trump in prison, facilitating women's healthcare.
Instead the democrats called us antisemites and BlueMAGA dipshits like you assured everyone that the democrats could win by maintaining the course.
That didn't happen. You should have been next to us screaming at the democrats to stop driving us over the cliff, but instead you criticize people who were literally powerless to affect the outcome of the election for not being silent as the democrats drove the bus off the cliff.
Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. It's because you deeply don't understand anything about how US government works and what plays to your elections. Simultaneously you claim that you know what strategy Democratic party should adopt to win.
hahahahaaa
your genocide friends made it happen.
Tonedeaf horrible people.
you want people with a conscience to vote for genociders?
the palestiniens and the rest of world is owned.
Jeez AFAIK there is somewhat of a ceasefire and all Gaza was destroyed and 10000's killed under Genocide Joe.
And the world is a better place with the orange clown destroying the US imperialist from within.
You're completely ignorant.
Let me guess, algerian-french uncle Tom?
What I think is that your selfish privilege under-educated americans who are the stupidest people on the planet but believe to be the smartest. For the entire world, you and maga are exaclty the same stupid people, who are threatning the very survival of the specie. You chose a a nazi pedophile to own the libs, you will have the dictator you deserve, good luck lol.
I'm now even american you idiot. I'm from one of the country your pedophile-president wants to annex lol.
Palestine thank you for letting bilionaires-nazis take the power!
Now they lost their land and an ethical genocide is on the way but you and your friends will soon get the chance to go get a bigmac in gaza!!!! How exiting for colonialist privilege white ass like you, writing from mom basement!!!!
C'est toi l'imbécile qui est incapable d'apprendre plus d'une langue.... Moi j'en parlais déjà trois à dix ans. Oh, et ta maman a appelé, il n'y avait plus a captn crunch, elle à pris des frootloops.
For example, people in the middle recognise that Ukraine was the victim of an invasion, but people on the far-right and far-left both insist that Russia is the real victim for some reason
Maybe it's because both the far-right and far-left envy the state power that Putin has?
Worth noting that neither axis is labeled, and that the graph itself doesn't make an effort to understand anything "tankies" support or denounce. It's just vibes-based analysis.
Fair enough. I'm definitely not saying everyone on the left is the same as the far-right, I don't believe that at all.
It just seems to me there's a segment of people who consider themselves on the far-left (posters from Lemmy.ml and Hexbear sometimes) who hold positions which can be quite similar to the far-right. Another position that both segments sometimes hold is that Israel shouldn't exist. I definitely disagree a lot with the current Israeli government but if someone says Israel shouldn't exist then you may as well say that no country should exist.
So no countries should exist? Sometimes I wonder how a single world government would work. But maybe it's not worth thinking about too much since it's not a realistic prospect currently.
would you have said the same of people saying Nazi Germany shouldn’t exist during WW2?
Perhaps it's reasonable to say that a peaceful and non-genocidal Germany can exist (today's Germany I think fits into that description). So maybe the same applies to Israel.
When the ICC issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas, I thought that made sense, because both sides killed civilians. Both sets of leaders should probably face trials. Maybe in the future Israel and Palestine can both be led by peaceful governments.
Not who you were replying to, but I think this is a good point to jump in. A world Socialist government is necessary as production advances, it's a process and not a decision someone can make.
Either way, Israel only exists through Settler-Colonialism and genocide of Palestinians. Hamas is a reaction to Israel's genocide of Palestinians, condemning both the oppressor and the oppressed due to both "using violence" just serves to preserve the status quo. I think you'd benefit greatly from reading Frantz Fanon. The "two-state" solution isn't a solution, it just entrenches the genocide of Palestinians. A single, secular state (the solution commonly supported by Palestinian experts) is the only way to stop the genocide.
Nearly everyone outside of the enlightened rational centrists has soured on this whole idea of "benevolent interventionism," with very good reason. We've seen how our leaders used lies and deception time and time again to get involved in pointless, destructive wars for their own interests. People look back at Iraq and Afghanistan, and Vietnam, etc, and say they were obviously unjustified, but at the time people supported them, and everyone was immersed in propaganda. Of course, in every war, those who push back for any reason are always accused of treason and supporting the other side, whether the specific term is pinko, terrorist sympathizer, or tankie.
It's really no mystery why a bunch of disparate political groups oppose a conflict halfway around the world under the same leadership and media that led us into Iraq and Afghanistan, the mystery is why liberals are so willing to trust them again.
I'm not saying I support western intervention in Ukraine necessarily. I wish there was no war at all over there. I'm just saying that between Ukraine and Russia, Russia has been the aggressor. Also I've definitely seen some Lemmy leftists (but definitely not all leftists out there) who are in favour of Putin's regime, for unknown reasons.
It’s really no mystery why a bunch of disparate political groups oppose a conflict halfway around the world
You're basically proving my point by admitting that you do have a very similar view to the far-right.
who are in favour of Putin’s regime, for unknown reasons
Have you tried asking? Or do you not believe the reasons they tell you?
You’re basically proving my point by admitting that you do have a very similar view to the far-right.
"Wow, both the far-right and the far-left distrust the US government, therefore they must be exactly the same." This is such a childish analysis. I could just as easily say that both liberals and fascists dislike communism, therefore liberals and fascists are the same. Or fascists could say that both liberals and communists dislike fascism and are therefore the same. It's such a nonsense point that it's hardly worth a response.
Have you tried asking? Or do you not believe the reasons they tell you?
So you are you in favour of Putin's regime? In which case I don't see how you can think of yourself as a leftist. If you actually do support Putin's regime then you have a lot in common with the far-right who also do.
If Putin's regime was in the US then many people would call such a regime fascism.
Not particularly, no, but I suppose it depends on what it means to "support" a foreign leader. No matter what I say I support or oppose, it's not going to change the material world unless I take actions with the aim of achieving specific results. And it seems to me that my primary mechanism for affecting foreign politics is through the actions of my own government. Do I want my government to undermine Putin's government? No. Do I see Putin's government as worthy of emulation? Also no.
My position as a leftist is to focus on class interests. Both Ukraine and Russia are capitalist governments that do very little for the people, and who controls what will make little material difference to lives of ordinary people. What does make a difference is the war, in which people are being drafted and thrown into a meat grinder to fight over rubble. What's the point in dying to maintain a shitty system? Even if there was a point, it was probably inevitable that Ukraine would be unable to reclaim all it's territory, so the choice was always, "Accept territorial concessions now, or accept territorial concessions after a bunch of people have died." Of course, I don't support Russia's involvement either, but my government isn't funding Russia.
Meanwhile, of course, the US is massively overextended. Decades long conflicts in the Middle East, supporting genocide in Palestine, sabre rattling with China, and now fighting a proxy war with China. Had we been more cautious and restrained in the past, perhaps we would have enough diplomatic leverage to diplomatically isolate Russia and enforce sanctions effectively. Or, perhaps if we gave up on Ukraine, the government could've more effectively isolated China. But by taking on both simultaneously, they've been pushed together, and the US has thrown away the key asset that allowed it to win the Cold War: the Sino-Soviet split.
Even if the war was completely justified and black-and-white, we would still need to consider the practical and realistic questions about whether maintaining the territorial integrity of a country on the other side of the world that most people can't find on a map is really worth it, or even achievable. But liberals seem to really, really hate this kind of analysis, as if the world was a Saturday morning cartoon where the good guy always wins. The US is not Superman. We are dealing with all sorts of domestic issues which have given rise to the far-right, and that poses a much greater existential threat than control over Donbass.
How on earth can you accuse me of not being a leftist and being similar to the far-right for saying that we should spend more money on schools and hospitals and less money on bombs? What do left and right even mean to you?
Decent points to be honest. Maybe the US could have helped Ukraine negotiate something where they very reluctantly give up some land to Russia in return for proper security (with western backing) for the rest of Ukraine. Obviously not an ideal situation, but yes it could have prevented a lot of deaths. And maybe western countries would have realised that more investment in defence would be needed to properly protect the rest of Ukraine, and the rest of Europe, and other countries.
How on earth can you accuse me of not being a leftist and being similar to the far-right for saying that we should spend more money on schools and hospitals and less money on bombs?
It's just where you said "do you not believe the reasons they tell you?". I thought you were meaning that there are genuine reasons to support or like Putin's regime, and that I just wasn't believing those reasons.
Being anti-war is definitely a good position. Perhaps I shouldn't have generalised across all of Lemmy.ml and Hexbear to assume that everyone on those instances believes the same things. My perspective has just been based on intolerance I have seen from those instances in the past, e.g. Lemmy.ml mods labelling posts as US propaganda because those posts mentioned that Russia was the aggressor in the Ukraine war.
Horseshoe theory is just a holdout from the liberal notion of "3 pillars," Fascism, Communism, and Liberalism, as a way to justify Liberalism within the West. It doesn't actually make any sense and just leads to obfuscation of critical differences.
Sure there will be more political positions than just three. I just think that some people (not all) on the far-left seem to have authoritarian and/or intolerant views, which some people on the far-right also have.
What counts as "authoritarian?" I'd argue Liberals are quicker to support systems I would consider authoritarian than Leftists are. What views are they intolerant of? I think taking a firmer stance against fascism than Liberals do historically is a good thing, so I want to know an example you think is bad to be intolerant of that makes that an issue towards Leftists for you.
I just think it's interesting that the people who get referred to as "tankies" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Putin, a regime which is arguably fascist. I guess that's one reason why I think the far-left and far-right are pretty similar.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "terrorist sympathizers" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of the Taliban.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "terrorist sympathizers" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Saddam Hussein.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "terrorist sympathizers" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Momar Gaddafi.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "tankies" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Bashir Al Assad.
I wouldn't necessarily call myself a liberal, I guess I'm just somewhere in the middle, I dunno. And I definitely don't support wars. That's why I think Russia should never have invaded Ukraine.
We heard the same logic with "Assad shouldn't have attacked his people" or "Gaddafi shouldn't have attacked his people" or "Saddam shouldn't have attacked Kuwait".
Even if it's true in a vacuum, it's only being used to justify imperialism.
The only lever we have is the one that sends more bombs to Ukraine, each of which is a bad day for someone, statistically mostly civilians. The US's objective isn't to help the people of Ukraine, it's to create the biggest blood bath possible and acquire cheap resources and labor from Ukraine. This happens every single time.
But are we engaging with political ideas in good faith if we evaluate them based on the behaviour of specific people whose actions don't really line up with those ideas?
I'm not dismissing all of leftism, I'm just referring to so-called "tankies": e.g. people from Hexbear who themselves absolutely do not engage with political ideas "in good faith".
I think I have in the past. Then I had people from Hexbear just being total cunts in their replies. They were very intolerant of different views, rather than engaging with those views in good faith.
Maybe I shouldn't generalise across Lemmy.ml and Hexbear though - maybe some people on those instances are decent.
Have you considered that they may also have a past experience of people being total cunts as well? Why should they engage with your views in good faith if you don't engage with theirs?
IMO the conspiracy theory culture is to the point where some folks will believe anything but what is presented as mainstream truth. It's the "I'm smarter than that" mentality that started with right wing AM radio in the 80's. It's reached into all parts of the political spectrum
You're right, we should focus on Lemmy.ml instead.
I sure have lol
Their memes instance crashed and burned. Since then I don't see the big deal.
They are not as extreme, but you cannot realistically have a civilized discussion on their servers. Unfortunately they are much more established with several big communities which are hesitant to move to more reasonable servers so while hexbear was an easy insta-ban for me and most other Lemmy users, we're stuck individually blocking ml users for now.
But hopefully because of the idiotic choice of the ml domain, they will eventually go the way of hexbear.
IMO they're just more subtle about it because they don't want a larger call for defed to happen, I'm sure they all have alts on Hex/Grad where they let out their..."restraints".
They're very quick to deride .world as nothing but a "Reddit 2.0 CIA front propaganda machine" and yet won't defed from it themselves....
Wasn't the whole .ml domain an issue way back during the reddit migration too, cause its the domain for Mali? I remember it being an issue when I came over to Lemmy, which was back during that migration. When Reddit locked down its api and a bunch of redditors (me included) did a "blackout" to protest.
Yes it was. That's exactly what I was referring to.
How come nothing came of that?
Cyberspace colonialism.
I blocked the entire instance and I'm doing just fine.
That doesn't really help retain newcomers any if we all just bury our heads in the sand
I mean, it's better than nothing I guess
I did too but I still see the users. It just blocks all their communities.
I'm glad you're using lemmy the way you want and not being weird and expecting the admission to block things for you. Take care, peace.
Don't talk to me.
Welcome to a tutorial on how to block .ml on your personal account.
In the top right corner of the top of the page, there are 3 horizontal white bars. Click it.
This will open up a drop down menu. At the bottom of that menu, you will see your username. Click it.
This will open another drop down menu with 3 options. Click "Settings".
At the top of your screen you will see 2 tabs. Click the one that says "Blocks".
Here you will see "Block user" "Block community" and "Block instance". Click the down arrow below "Block instance".
This will open up a search bar. Type "lemmy.ml" and click it after it shows up.
That's it! You've blocked .ml and will never see content from the instance. Now you don't need to make a feud post every day complaining about .ml and other instances you disapprove of. Think of all the time you will save!
But wait, we aren't done yet in this menu. Click the down arrow under "Block user". Now type "UltraGiGaGigantic" Make sure you select my .ml account as the other ones I no longer use. Thanks, appreciate it.
Based
This whole instance-tribalism seems very self-defeating to me. Why be decentralised if everyone ends up so boxed off that there are just a handful of isolated instance-clusters talking amongst themselves? It's like how email (SMTP) is decentralised but the mega-hosts act like a cabal, gatekeeping so strongly (and virtually doing blocklist-by-default for unrecognised servers - even of good standing) ultimately capturing the user-base by undermining the decentralisation. Luckily with DKIM/SPF/DMARC/ARC/etc and stronger anti-trust regulations email seems to be slowly climbing back out of that hole. Unfortunately with all the banal tribalism it feels like much of the new Activitypub based tech users are willfully climbing into that same hole, without even being corralled there by mega-hosts.
I'm pretty sure if we're excluding instances with troll farms or hosting illegal material, the map of Lemmy instances is still kind of a single amorphous blob, with nearly all connected instances being just 1 connection away from their blocked instances. These can't be defined as isolated instance-clusters. Lemmy.world users seem to always know what hexbear users are up to because of their federated neighbors, lol.
Nah, they think they know what hexbear users are up to because random folk make shit up and nobody calls them on it, because they're defederated.
I see you also know about PugJesus.
PJ is kind of interesting, in that being anti-communist is a massive part of their reason to be on the fediverse, as a mod for 2 anti-communist communities and a prolific anti-communist poster. They denounce the Black Panther Party for being "violent" and supporting AES, but will uphold the Nazi-aligned Hungarian revolt, where Jewish people and Communists had their doors marked and were being lynched, as an example of "real revolution against the Soviets."
I once left a reasonable and non-hostile response to a post on tankiejerk and they removed it and permabanned me for being "tankie," lol.
The stuff random folk "make up" perfectly aligns with the experiences I had before I blocked them, so I have no reason to call them on it.
People usually don't see site wide bans on lemmy.ml in a very good light: https://feddit.nl/post/16246531
Tribalism has always been a thing but seems to be having a big resurgence lately. i think when the state of the world makes people feel small they crave more validation from echo chambers.
You would think so. But .world cannot help themselves from slinging their shit over the fence.
Their mods remove posts critical of .world for "harassment" but gladly leave up blanket insults against instances more left wing than them.
Lemmy.world seem to be more middle-of-the-road on many things while Lemmy.ml and Hexbear seem pretty intolerant to me
I think it was on Lemmy.ml that I saw someone have their posts deleted allegedly for spreading US propaganda or some reason like that, when all they had said was that the war in Ukraine was started by Russia invading Ukraine in 2014 (I'm pretty sure this is factually true and Ukraine didn't invade any of Russia until 2024)
.world has a Zionist rating website (mbfc) as their "allowed sources" list. Tolerance is very subjective.
It's always helpful when you "criticism of Zionism is antisemitism" types go mask off sooner rather than later.
pfft I didn't bring up zionists. they did.
accurate name tho.
For someone using a text based medium, one would think you would have better reading comprehension skills.
I picked this handle for one reason: idiots make exactly the kind of comment you just made and feel very clever for it. This helps separate the wheat from the chaff, showing who is worth taking seriously and who might find tasks like tying shoeslaces to be particularly vexing.
I recommend this brand, by the way: https://www.amazon.de/LaceHype-Shoelaces-shoelaces-childrens-Reflective/dp/B09W3XL6LV/
Anti-zionism is not Antisemitism. Zionism is not Judaism nor is it representative of Jewish people. Your conflation of the two is genuinely antisemitic.
Zionism is anti-Semitic at it's core, it other-izes Jewish people, and justifies the violent settler colonialim of Israel as in the defense of all Jewish people, which only serves to further fuel genuine Antisemitism at the expense of Jewish people globally. Zionism is also an inherently fascist ideology. The ethnic cleansing of the native people of Palestine has always been fundamental since it's inception as a colonialist movement. Adi Callai, an Israeli, does a great analysis of how Antisemitism has been weaponized by Zionism during its history.
It's wildly antisemetic to equate zionists with jews; you're just doing blood libel with extra steps.
What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to stop conflating Jewish people with Zionists, because Zionists are literally committing genocide and have specifically targeted children.
Btw to anybody who comes across this user is a .ml Tankie, so anything not a tankie is right-wing to them
And Tankies = Authoritarian "communists" so basically, they're pro-CCP, pro-Russia/Putin and neither can do no wrong in their eyes or it's just CIA propaganda.
Anything critical of either, no matter how factual, historical or deserving it is is swiftly removed under their favorite catch-all "Rule 1 bigotry" on .ml
boy you have an entire conspiracy theory worked up already.
wow
It happened to me when I called out the moderators for censoring comments pointing out the role of the DNC in the genocide of Palestinians, so I'd say it isn't wrong.
I think communities similar to reddit and lemmy are doomed. The site was never the biggest issue, it was the people.
Hexbear is also just straight up dead rn, can't see their shit til they secure a new domain
Hexbear can't federate but you can see their content at: https://chapo.chat/
Lol
Regardless of whether you're politically left or right, I feel like the hexbear crowd is just tremendously unfriendly. Even when I agree with them, I usually feel bad reading what they have to say. Being unwelcoming is not a good strategy for proliferating one's politics.
Depends, if you're a Communist or an Anarchist and aren't being sectarian (except against, like, Gonzaloists that support Gonzalo and defend Pol Pot), it's very friendly. By not allowing liberalism, it ends up stopping endless arguments between leftists and liberals before they can even start.
they will quite literally tear you up if you so much as do an outside think, i posted one comment, and got banned immediately.
hahaha, for those who like to play along, it's always fun to check the moderation history of the user under the comment with the three dot menu when someone complains about bans. I actually lol'd when I saw the ban from lemmy.ml/c/chess.
Ok, some of these mod responses are gold:
Am I taking crazy pills? Last I heard hexbear doesn't even exist anymore.
Are yall so laser focused on feudposting you missed that piece of news?
I had to check but hexbear currently redirects to chapo.chat so I assume they have the domain for now.
Which says a lot about the manufactured outrage. Nobody even has a clue what is going on over at hexbear, but somehow their Lemmy experience is ruined by it.
Not for me it doesn't, I can access it fine.
Clear your cache, the Hexbear domain is up for auction and (as it has for days now) will redirect to chapo.chat, their old domain that they still-owned.
It's wild how much a game of telephone happens even within what you'd expect to be the closest circle of association
Hexbear exists, the domain is changing names and federation is broken for now but posting is still happening on chapo.chat.
Check again, it's right there.
In the sense that Twitter doesn't exist anymore, yes.
Hmm, I was wondering why I didn't see them (last I knew, my instance didn't defederate them). What happened?
They forgot to renew their domain 😂
The former admins still have control of the domain and can't be reached. Stop saying shit when you haven't done any investigation.
Okay now that's hilarious
Aren't world the wokes/libs/whatever is the current pejorative
Nah world is full of liberals but they get real uppity when you start going after liberalism from the left
This is partly why I've chosen a different instance other than .world. I can control what is and isn't in my feed, and it's not like contemporary American centrist liberals have the best ideas when it comes to the current political landscape.
Compared to the rest of Lemmy they're not very woke
Well the auth instances hate their wokeness
Nope, Tankie is very clearly defined as "Authoritarian Communists"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
Little too close for comfort huh
liberal is the tankie version of screaming woke at everything.
Source: you
That's a dilemma, how to know if someone yelling everything they don't like is lib & woke is either a maga or a tankie
Tankies don't scream woke, they only scream lib. Hope that helps
They don't scream woke but they still hate discussions about marginalized communities because they are all privileged white class reductionists.
But it makes sense once you think about it. The patriarchy is about ten or twenty times as old as capitalism (depending on the definition). Of cause it will disappear once capitalism is abolished. Racism is about twice as old as capitalism. How could it function without capitalism once again?
But tbf hexbear does have a sizable trans community
It was more of a rhetorical question, no need to differentiate, synonyms and analogous terms can live in the same bucket
You know how nazis always complain that people call them nazis and that it's losing any meaning?
Yeah, same thing.
You know how Nazis always complain about woke stuff which does not exist in their life but they only read about?
Yeah, same thing.
American republicans have less than zero political literacy, and you are going off their understanding of liberal. Here's a 300 page book going through what liberalism meant to every major liberal philosopher and how they dealt with the contradictions over the last 250 years or so. Guess which definition is used in any serious political work in the last 250 years?
You're not wrong, communists do have issues with effective communication. It's not trivial due to definitions and framing propagated by liberal institutions being designed, sometimes intentionally, to make it more difficult to communicate our ideas.
They're the reddit users that think reddit 2024 is too left wing.
They're the reddit users that believe the only thing wrong with reddit is too many ads.
They're the reddit users that think voting is an effective measure in a captured kakistocracy.
They're the reddit users that believe Biden is most left wing president in US history.
In short, yes.
They're the reddit users that think voting is all you can do to end fascism.
They're the reddit users that think if you question authority you must love the other party's authority.
They're the reddit users that think anything to the left of them must be ignored, and anything to the right of them is just misunderstood.
.world has more insufferable people than any other community, it has the most spots on my blocklist. I'd block the entire thing if it didn't cripple my hobby communities and some of the few good ones from it.
It's funny that the lemming above you is downvoted, while you're upvoted lmao
I don't understand it. Sometimes you agree with someone, you get downvoted and they get upvoted. Or vice versa. Or you're downvoted like crazy, you come back after a few hours, the tallies are swapped.
I don't get lemmy sometimes.
Commies always have huge block lists. It's like their own private little gulag for thought crimes.
I'm glad you're not the majority.
This is bizarrely funny to me.
Tankies shit my pants.
I've seen "hexbear" but have no idea what it is, so clearly it's not ruining anything for me.
Hexbear, grad and .ml are the Tankie Triad, .world defed's from Hex and grad because Hex is the worst, Grad is runner up. .ml tends to be more subtle about it and has largely avoided a more mass defederation movement like what happened with hex and grad
Cal xi winnie and see how sublte .ml are :D
LMAO tru tru, but unfortunately the tankie admins and mods of .ml are quick to enforce the subtlety by censoring (the irony for a group that is quick to accuse others of it lmao) those kinds of posts under their catch-all "RULE1"
.ml is not subtle, they just circlejerk within their sub a shit ton, rather than infesting other communities. Usually the idiots tend to congregate it seems.
It's a Communist/Anarchist instance, Lemmy.world defederated from it before they had a chance to federate.
Wait, what do you mean .World isn't Federated???
With hexbear specifically
Ah, thank you.
Some people still aren't clear on the whole "federated" concept. But lack of understanding has never stopped anyone from posting opinions.
This thread brought out a ton of tone police lol
Yeah, I have "All" filter turned on and I don't see any Hexbear posts. Now that I think about maybe that those who complain about Hexbear intentionally go there?
You're on lemmy.world, which has been defederated from hexbear.net for ages. So yeah, somebody on your instance would have to go there so see their content, because your admin essentially blocked them for you. Anecdotally, I saw them on lemm.ee's All fairly frequently before I blocked them, and I still see their comments on posts on other instances fairly frequently.
Plus, more recently hexbear has had to change domains and apparently because of this federation with hexbear isn't working at all for anybody at the moment
That's why the folks really worried about tankies make alt accounts to go hunting for bad takes to share with the unfederated.
World is federated, just not with absolute junk instances.
The point is that Lemmy.world defederated from Hexbear, so the complaints about Hexbear coming from Lemmy.world users frequently are based on second-hand information.
I got permabanned from Hexbear for simply denouncing ageism. Apparently not falling for the divisive labels they stick on every generation so they can blame each other is not tolerated.
90% of the time these assertions are BS, so evidence or it didn’t happen.
scroll through my post history sorting by hexbear lmao
Wow, IDK who that other person is. Not only more attacks saying I'm a liar but also that I'm using an alt account.
Great mindset. I really liked Hexbear and still visit, it has great post and info. But if this is the tactics people defending it and not owning up to their mistakes/actions use it should be a surprise I got banned in the first place.
Lol, the pro China, pro putin folks who let pedo-Don win the election are woke?
The only people who let Trump win the election are the democrats. We spent years telling them what they need to do to win, instead they chose to end covid protections, divert covid funds to the police, build Trump's wall, facilitate genocide, and other extremely unpopular policy.
They knew these policies were unpopular among everyone who might vote democrat, they chose to do it anyway.
You keep yelling at them to do what you want. But if you're such a formidable power to influence the elections, you could've done it already, in a way that was clearly presented to you.
You didn't.
That means that either you overestimate the number of people that think like you, or all of you don't know or care how to participate in democracy.
Both of those options mean you know jack shit about what to do to win the elections, and can only yell on social media.
That by the way says nothing about the validity of your claims, you could be morally correct and advocate for objectively good things, but if they aren't getting you in power, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter how people think, left policy is overwhelmingly popular and republican policy is only popular with republicans!
How the hell are you arguing that the democrats did the right thing, when they lost. They chose policies that they knew would decrease turnout with their base to appeal to "moderate republicans", and once again, the "moderate republicans" voted for republicans.
We've tried every thing in our power to influence the democrats. When we protest, they send police to silence us.
Maybe I'm misreading that link of yours, but it shows that four specific policies have popular support. It certainly doesn't show that all of the Democrat Party policies have overwhelming support. The recent election proved that about as definitively as is possible in American election history.
You have zero idea how popular progressive ideas among voters, because you motherfuchers don't vote. Random polls means nothing if they aren't followed by votes, and they aren't.
Last time they run they were running much more conservative campaign with an old white dude woth much more conservative platform and they won. That's also not the whoe story of course, but this explanation fit more precisely than yours.
Oh my. Have you tried voting for the candidate you like? Bernie lost popular vote (I repeat, popular vote) (I repeat again, popular vote) twice when he was nominating. Have you and your hoards of silent majority, tried sending a fucking mail twice in a decade?
Again, if you all did, that's an indication that there is not enough of you and US is a conservative shithole where most of the people want monstrous policies.
If you didn't, that means you aren't citizens, and your opinion doesn't matter for the purposes of the government, you're children and should be treated as such.
I don't know which is worse.
Biden barely scraped by the skin of his ass, and my experience phone-banking in 2020, half the voters I talked to thought Biden was for free healthcare, cannabis, defunding the police, freeing the ICE camps, and free college because he was the democratic candidate.
Meanwhile Kamala said the only thing that would be different from Biden's administration is that she would appoint a republican to the cabinet and ran on building Trump's wall. The dem messaging went right of 2020 on trans people, crime, foreign policy, economic policy.
The average voter is very low information when it comes to politics, but they know healthcare is too expensive, they know college is too expensive, they know locking migrants in cages is bad.
Left policy is popular because it materially improves people's immediate conditions. It doesn't matter whether someone has conservative ideas or not when their livelihood depends on a specific policy. When you weaken it or add a bunch of means-testing and complicated rules, your supporters will care less, and your opposition will continue to oppose you.
You had the choice between satan and a random jerk, you chose to abstain.
I live in SC, my vote had no effect on the outcome of the election. The only possible thing I could do to affect the outcome of the election was telling dems to stop doing things that decreased turnout, such as facilitating genocide and pretending to be powerless, and do things that would increase turnout such as legalizing cannabis, putting Trump in prison, facilitating women's healthcare.
Instead the democrats called us antisemites and BlueMAGA dipshits like you assured everyone that the democrats could win by maintaining the course.
That didn't happen. You should have been next to us screaming at the democrats to stop driving us over the cliff, but instead you criticize people who were literally powerless to affect the outcome of the election for not being silent as the democrats drove the bus off the cliff.
Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. It's because you deeply don't understand anything about how US government works and what plays to your elections. Simultaneously you claim that you know what strategy Democratic party should adopt to win.
I'm not american but, are the "democrates" and "BlueMaga" (now what the fuck is this??) in the room with us right now? Did you vote, really?
hahahahaaa your genocide friends made it happen. Tonedeaf horrible people. you want people with a conscience to vote for genociders?
the palestiniens and the rest of world is owned.
Jeez AFAIK there is somewhat of a ceasefire and all Gaza was destroyed and 10000's killed under Genocide Joe. And the world is a better place with the orange clown destroying the US imperialist from within. You're completely ignorant. Let me guess, algerian-french uncle Tom?
Stupid, racist, arrogant and under-educated, no doubt you're american.
What I think is that your selfish privilege under-educated americans who are the stupidest people on the planet but believe to be the smartest. For the entire world, you and maga are exaclty the same stupid people, who are threatning the very survival of the specie. You chose a a nazi pedophile to own the libs, you will have the dictator you deserve, good luck lol.
LOL genocide party supporter still coping with losing
I'm now even american you idiot. I'm from one of the country your pedophile-president wants to annex lol.
Palestine thank you for letting bilionaires-nazis take the power! Now they lost their land and an ethical genocide is on the way but you and your friends will soon get the chance to go get a bigmac in gaza!!!! How exiting for colonialist privilege white ass like you, writing from mom basement!!!!
LOL try to learn English before calling someone uneducated. I can hardly make sense from your word salad. I'm banning you, you're too dumb and boring
Try being human.
C'est toi l'imbécile qui est incapable d'apprendre plus d'une langue.... Moi j'en parlais déjà trois à dix ans. Oh, et ta maman a appelé, il n'y avait plus a captn crunch, elle à pris des frootloops.
I mean, if bots are now claiming that putin is a POS dictator and that China doesn't care about human rights, then LET THERE BE BOTS!!
Thanks Eglin airforce base
No solutions other than offering a solution.
You're literally using a communist platform right now. Owned and run by "the workers", and free to use.
In my view, horseshoe theory is pretty accurate
For example, people in the middle recognise that Ukraine was the victim of an invasion, but people on the far-right and far-left both insist that Russia is the real victim for some reason
Maybe it's because both the far-right and far-left envy the state power that Putin has?
It just that with one dimension all you can measure is linear distance. Everything is a point on a line. Politics is a higher dimensional surface.
Basically it's Flatland.
It actually looks more like this
Worth noting that neither axis is labeled, and that the graph itself doesn't make an effort to understand anything "tankies" support or denounce. It's just vibes-based analysis.
Fair enough. I'm definitely not saying everyone on the left is the same as the far-right, I don't believe that at all.
It just seems to me there's a segment of people who consider themselves on the far-left (posters from Lemmy.ml and Hexbear sometimes) who hold positions which can be quite similar to the far-right. Another position that both segments sometimes hold is that Israel shouldn't exist. I definitely disagree a lot with the current Israeli government but if someone says Israel shouldn't exist then you may as well say that no country should exist.
You're so close.
Also, would you have said the same of people saying Nazi Germany shouldn't exist during WW2?
So no countries should exist? Sometimes I wonder how a single world government would work. But maybe it's not worth thinking about too much since it's not a realistic prospect currently.
Perhaps it's reasonable to say that a peaceful and non-genocidal Germany can exist (today's Germany I think fits into that description). So maybe the same applies to Israel.
When the ICC issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas, I thought that made sense, because both sides killed civilians. Both sets of leaders should probably face trials. Maybe in the future Israel and Palestine can both be led by peaceful governments.
Not who you were replying to, but I think this is a good point to jump in. A world Socialist government is necessary as production advances, it's a process and not a decision someone can make.
Either way, Israel only exists through Settler-Colonialism and genocide of Palestinians. Hamas is a reaction to Israel's genocide of Palestinians, condemning both the oppressor and the oppressed due to both "using violence" just serves to preserve the status quo. I think you'd benefit greatly from reading Frantz Fanon. The "two-state" solution isn't a solution, it just entrenches the genocide of Palestinians. A single, secular state (the solution commonly supported by Palestinian experts) is the only way to stop the genocide.
Nearly everyone outside of the enlightened rational centrists has soured on this whole idea of "benevolent interventionism," with very good reason. We've seen how our leaders used lies and deception time and time again to get involved in pointless, destructive wars for their own interests. People look back at Iraq and Afghanistan, and Vietnam, etc, and say they were obviously unjustified, but at the time people supported them, and everyone was immersed in propaganda. Of course, in every war, those who push back for any reason are always accused of treason and supporting the other side, whether the specific term is pinko, terrorist sympathizer, or tankie.
It's really no mystery why a bunch of disparate political groups oppose a conflict halfway around the world under the same leadership and media that led us into Iraq and Afghanistan, the mystery is why liberals are so willing to trust them again.
I'm not saying I support western intervention in Ukraine necessarily. I wish there was no war at all over there. I'm just saying that between Ukraine and Russia, Russia has been the aggressor. Also I've definitely seen some Lemmy leftists (but definitely not all leftists out there) who are in favour of Putin's regime, for unknown reasons.
You're basically proving my point by admitting that you do have a very similar view to the far-right.
Have you tried asking? Or do you not believe the reasons they tell you?
"Wow, both the far-right and the far-left distrust the US government, therefore they must be exactly the same." This is such a childish analysis. I could just as easily say that both liberals and fascists dislike communism, therefore liberals and fascists are the same. Or fascists could say that both liberals and communists dislike fascism and are therefore the same. It's such a nonsense point that it's hardly worth a response.
So you are you in favour of Putin's regime? In which case I don't see how you can think of yourself as a leftist. If you actually do support Putin's regime then you have a lot in common with the far-right who also do.
If Putin's regime was in the US then many people would call such a regime fascism.
Not particularly, no, but I suppose it depends on what it means to "support" a foreign leader. No matter what I say I support or oppose, it's not going to change the material world unless I take actions with the aim of achieving specific results. And it seems to me that my primary mechanism for affecting foreign politics is through the actions of my own government. Do I want my government to undermine Putin's government? No. Do I see Putin's government as worthy of emulation? Also no.
My position as a leftist is to focus on class interests. Both Ukraine and Russia are capitalist governments that do very little for the people, and who controls what will make little material difference to lives of ordinary people. What does make a difference is the war, in which people are being drafted and thrown into a meat grinder to fight over rubble. What's the point in dying to maintain a shitty system? Even if there was a point, it was probably inevitable that Ukraine would be unable to reclaim all it's territory, so the choice was always, "Accept territorial concessions now, or accept territorial concessions after a bunch of people have died." Of course, I don't support Russia's involvement either, but my government isn't funding Russia.
Meanwhile, of course, the US is massively overextended. Decades long conflicts in the Middle East, supporting genocide in Palestine, sabre rattling with China, and now fighting a proxy war with China. Had we been more cautious and restrained in the past, perhaps we would have enough diplomatic leverage to diplomatically isolate Russia and enforce sanctions effectively. Or, perhaps if we gave up on Ukraine, the government could've more effectively isolated China. But by taking on both simultaneously, they've been pushed together, and the US has thrown away the key asset that allowed it to win the Cold War: the Sino-Soviet split.
Even if the war was completely justified and black-and-white, we would still need to consider the practical and realistic questions about whether maintaining the territorial integrity of a country on the other side of the world that most people can't find on a map is really worth it, or even achievable. But liberals seem to really, really hate this kind of analysis, as if the world was a Saturday morning cartoon where the good guy always wins. The US is not Superman. We are dealing with all sorts of domestic issues which have given rise to the far-right, and that poses a much greater existential threat than control over Donbass.
How on earth can you accuse me of not being a leftist and being similar to the far-right for saying that we should spend more money on schools and hospitals and less money on bombs? What do left and right even mean to you?
Decent points to be honest. Maybe the US could have helped Ukraine negotiate something where they very reluctantly give up some land to Russia in return for proper security (with western backing) for the rest of Ukraine. Obviously not an ideal situation, but yes it could have prevented a lot of deaths. And maybe western countries would have realised that more investment in defence would be needed to properly protect the rest of Ukraine, and the rest of Europe, and other countries.
It's just where you said "do you not believe the reasons they tell you?". I thought you were meaning that there are genuine reasons to support or like Putin's regime, and that I just wasn't believing those reasons.
Being anti-war is definitely a good position. Perhaps I shouldn't have generalised across all of Lemmy.ml and Hexbear to assume that everyone on those instances believes the same things. My perspective has just been based on intolerance I have seen from those instances in the past, e.g. Lemmy.ml mods labelling posts as US propaganda because those posts mentioned that Russia was the aggressor in the Ukraine war.
Horseshoe theory is just a holdout from the liberal notion of "3 pillars," Fascism, Communism, and Liberalism, as a way to justify Liberalism within the West. It doesn't actually make any sense and just leads to obfuscation of critical differences.
Sure there will be more political positions than just three. I just think that some people (not all) on the far-left seem to have authoritarian and/or intolerant views, which some people on the far-right also have.
What counts as "authoritarian?" I'd argue Liberals are quicker to support systems I would consider authoritarian than Leftists are. What views are they intolerant of? I think taking a firmer stance against fascism than Liberals do historically is a good thing, so I want to know an example you think is bad to be intolerant of that makes that an issue towards Leftists for you.
It's not a horseshoe, it's merely authoritarianism
I just think it's interesting that the people who get referred to as "tankies" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Putin, a regime which is arguably fascist. I guess that's one reason why I think the far-left and far-right are pretty similar.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "terrorist sympathizers" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of the Taliban.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "terrorist sympathizers" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Saddam Hussein.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "terrorist sympathizers" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Momar Gaddafi.
I think it's interesting that people who get referred to as "tankies" claim to be on the left, but they often support the regime of Bashir Al Assad.
Liberals oppose every war except the current one.
I wouldn't necessarily call myself a liberal, I guess I'm just somewhere in the middle, I dunno. And I definitely don't support wars. That's why I think Russia should never have invaded Ukraine.
We heard the same logic with "Assad shouldn't have attacked his people" or "Gaddafi shouldn't have attacked his people" or "Saddam shouldn't have attacked Kuwait".
Even if it's true in a vacuum, it's only being used to justify imperialism.
The only lever we have is the one that sends more bombs to Ukraine, each of which is a bad day for someone, statistically mostly civilians. The US's objective isn't to help the people of Ukraine, it's to create the biggest blood bath possible and acquire cheap resources and labor from Ukraine. This happens every single time.
Russia also being bad doesn't change this.
But are we engaging with political ideas in good faith if we evaluate them based on the behaviour of specific people whose actions don't really line up with those ideas?
I'm not dismissing all of leftism, I'm just referring to so-called "tankies": e.g. people from Hexbear who themselves absolutely do not engage with political ideas "in good faith".
It's not like you engaged with their political ideas in good faith though.
I think I have in the past. Then I had people from Hexbear just being total cunts in their replies. They were very intolerant of different views, rather than engaging with those views in good faith.
Maybe I shouldn't generalise across Lemmy.ml and Hexbear though - maybe some people on those instances are decent.
Have you considered that they may also have a past experience of people being total cunts as well? Why should they engage with your views in good faith if you don't engage with theirs?
You're right about that, I just think the idea of horseshoe theory only works in practice if hypocrisy is a valid political idea.
IMO the conspiracy theory culture is to the point where some folks will believe anything but what is presented as mainstream truth. It's the "I'm smarter than that" mentality that started with right wing AM radio in the 80's. It's reached into all parts of the political spectrum
Maybe reality is just too depressing so people invent narratives that they prefer.