this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
20 points (91.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43895 readers
944 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Am I the only one who gets bunch of posts from leftist and even communist subs/circlejerks in their feed? It's kinda weird to see genzedong and similar popping up in hot/rising feed. This just hopefully some of the growing pains of a new platform.

top 47 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] normalmighty@programming.dev 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Unfortunately it seems really common for any new social media platform to lean way too hard into wither the far left or right, instead of finding a middle ground where a wider range of political views can coexist.

But hey, if we had to pick one extreme, then far left is a lot better than the far right nazi apps that crop up a lot.

[–] Dubois_arache@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They have been a lot of time here, they were here maybe one or two years before the reddit migration. In that scenery, apart from your own arguments against socialism, we can not oppose to that presence in the fediverse, they have been warm to welcome new people, and they are active part of community. We had to deal everyday with far-right in reddit, give yourself the opportunity to know something different.

[–] mister_monster@monero.town 3 points 1 year ago

One or two years? Communists built Lemmy from scratch dude.

Source: I was there.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

idk about that, both extremes end up with millions dead.

[–] frustbox@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are we really still "both siding" this?

You have one side stating that the current social and economic systems cause a lot of people to suffer and die in poverty - maybe we could change the those systems so that the world becomes more fair and fewer people suffer.

While the other side basically says: people we don't like shouldn't exist. Let's make their lives more miserable.

And you think those two positions are the same?

[–] normalmighty@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Let's be fair here, they're probably talking about the properly far extremes. The Nazis and the communists both killed millions and caused a lot of suffering last century. Horseshoe theory and all that.

Obviously the far left you typically encounter online doesn't tend to be authoritarian-communist-regime levels of far left, but I feel like people are being a little to hostile to the idea that extreme in general are pretty bad things.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We should always be suspicious when someone starts both-sides'ing Nazis and Communists. Only one side was killing Nazis, after all.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And yet events like the Katyn Massacre come to mind.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, war crimes are bad, but you are a sick puppy, or hopefully just very mistaken, if you think that or any other Soviet atrocities puts the USSR on par with Nazi Germany.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just because I only referenced on item doesn't mean there aren't millions more souls attributable to the USSR. The USSR easily cost more lives in Poland than Hitler/Nazi's did. Not just because of WW2... but because of the mass murder committed for the next 40 years under USSR rule.

I'm first generation American. My grandfather taught me exactly how it was under Communist rule. I'm far from mistaken and have literally dozens of phone numbers I can call to get a first hand account of it all going all the way back to WW2.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Uh huh, and how many of those "victims of communism" were actually some of the worst people in the world at the time, like Czarists and Nazis? Sorry your grandfather is bitter that he didn't get the dacha he wanted or whatever.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Considering that my grandfather was an officer in the polish navy... You're barking up the wrong tree buddy. He would have been "blessed" by the communist government to hold his position. He would be "privileged". And still holds the USSR as literally the worst thing he's had to live through. Imagine that.

But keep making assumptions about stuff you clearly know nothing about nor have lived through.

Edit: Forget the fact that even though my Grandfather would have been "privileged". Many of my family weren't... They were murdered and sent to Siberia to be forgotten. I literally have names... of people who were directly related to me. But come back and tell me they were the worst in the world... My family came from nothing and did nothing in the grand scheme.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry that your family had a bad time. It's still wild that you don't think the Nazis were incomparably worse.

[–] evh@lemmy.saik0.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You cannot use β€œincomparably” and β€œworse” in the same sentence. Worse designates a comparison between two things. Meaning one is inferior to the other. If by worse we are talking about murder (because this is what the conversation was pointed to), let’s look at the numbers: Hitler - roughly 20 mil including soviet civilians Stalin - Roughly 45 million Mao - Roughly 40 million (in a 4 year period) Ongoing Uyghur genocide in modern day Communist China - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-22278037 MINIMUM 500K in camps with an estimated 12 million persons who identify in that group. Obviously the government isn't going to actually disclose the REAL numbers.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can indeed describe something as incomparably worse when it is so bad that a comparison doesn't make sense or there's no point to making one. I really don't think I'm the one who's out of line here.

Anyway, the whole "victims of communism" trope you're invoking is just embarrassingly facile. The numbers are contrived and no consideration is ever given to the terrible conditions out of which the various revolutions came or the horrible forces they were subsequently up against, let alone comparative conditions in the so-called free world. Everyone who ever lived and died in a communist state is a crime against humanity, but whenever someone dies in the US because they had to choose between medicine and rent it's their own damn fault. Give me a break.

[–] evh@lemmy.saik0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All the deaths from labor camps and non-conforming parties is facile?

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The way the VOC people count them, yes. They include Nazis as victims for goodness sake. You can't take it seriously.

[–] evh@lemmy.saik0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just look at numbers. Once you start discounting certain human lives over others, it all becomes dangerous.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're the one discounting lives. The murder rate for the Holocaust was at least 1.25 million per year and they had plans to keep going. The dubious allegations in the Black Book of Communism don't even come close to that kind of efficiency and completely discount the lives saved by having defeated the Nazis, which would not have been possible without the USSR's incredible sacrifice. It's one thing to have resentment for communism. It's just incredibly messed up to say that it's as bad or worse than Nazism.

[–] evh@lemmy.saik0.com 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You do realize what side the USSR was on at the beginning of the war right? Stalin and Hitler wanted to be allies. I arbitrate they are equally horrible, yet you are defending a communist dictator.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 0 points 1 year ago

Calling the relationship between those countries an alliance is a big stretch. For all its leniency towards Germany during the interwar period, you'd have to call the US an ally to Germany as well, nevermind its infamously conciliatory treatment of the Nazis after the war (ie Operation Paperclip and the relatively rapid abandonment of denazification in West Germany). Furthermore, the US did not begin actually fighting the Nazis until after the USSR, and not until they were compelled by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Regardless, we know what the Nazis did while they were in power and, as I previously cited, we know what they were going to do if they had prevailed. The fact is that after about four decades of Soviet rule, the Poles and other Eastern European peoples still exist and have thrived in comparison to the ethnic cleansing and extermination they would have faced under a victorious Nazi regime. Anyone whose family actually had an unfairly difficult time under the USSR has my condolences, but at least you're still around to express your resentment!

How reasonable of you. Critical thinking skills provide a person the ability to hold two competing notions in their head. One does not need to win out for critical thoughts of the other to remain. I get annoyed that everyone wants things to be black and white (e.g. Dems good GOP bad). It’s not that simple and we need to stop trying to reduce it to such polar language. The left also has corruption. The corruption in the left has also lead us to this precise point in history. The democratic party was heavily dishonest with primaries during the last Clinton campaign. They intentionally squashed and targeted other democratic candidates.

I wish we would stop ignoring all the problems just because it doesn’t suit a narrative that one side is good and the other is bad. It’s not that simple. One is absolutely worst than the other, but they both need each other to exist. People need to stop pretending like left shit don’t stink. It does because it is also shit. The left is not at all exempt from corruption. All humans are susceptible to corruption, especially humans in positions of power. Views taken to any extreme are almost always bad.

[–] Kurt@lemmy.one 18 points 1 year ago

Is this something you really want to "both sides"? Only one side kills Nazis.

I agree, and as other comment mentioned: foss seems to appeal more to the left leaning. It'll probably get more balanced with time, though not like I want more rightwing circlejerks but that the extremes would get kinda buried under the masses of sane people.

[–] Toma@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It seems like FOSS apps just appeal more to the far left than any other political group. And that's coherent with all their other beliefs so it's only logical. The same thing happens on Mastodon, though it's less extreme. Could find some accounts of regional branches of the major left-wing party in my country, none center or right-wing.

[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago

The simple reality is, left wing views get minimised, distorted or outright censored in standard media like reddit. It's mostly just false flag stuff on reddit like calling liberals leftists or socialists. The only place to talk freely would be some tiny place in the middle of nowhere like a lemmy instance. Which makes supporting FOSS even more important.

Righties like to cry censorship, but its almost purely when they foam at the mouth and "accidentally" get too abusive, forcing the platform to save face and ban them. Standard corporate media will megaphone right wing views and give them free reign to be open nazis unless they go a step too far as I mentioned before.

[–] arthur@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago

Corporate interest IMO favors and spreads the far-right content. The only "big" far-right player I know on this space is Trump's truth-social (that used Mastodon code to have a fast Twitter clone, and they defederated themselves).

That will be interesting to watch: how much the far-right will appeal and spread in this more-leveled plainfield, without Big Tech help.

[–] purahna@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hi! I'm a dirty communist from a dirty communist instance. Consider that these things aren't circlejerks, consider instead that generally we have the opinions that we do for a reason and when we discuss things, it might be a good faith discussion but your guard may (possibly for warranted reasons) be up. Please grant us the faith that it's not a circlejerk. I'm also open to answering any questions that might alleviate your (or anyone else reading's) notions that we are a circlejerk.

[–] Darc@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I said I was a capitalist and a 70% tax was absurd - nothing else - and the next three comments direct to me had the most horrific insults and threats of physical violence against me and my family, the server owners removed them. If you’re level-headed and want to debate the merits of each system, you’re by far the exception.

[–] GuyDudeman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I don’t think the average terminally-online Marxist-Leninist revolutionary larper is representative of all communists.

I myself am a communist, and will gladly discuss these issues, without threats.

[–] hsl@wayfarershaven.eu 13 points 1 year ago

I'm going to remove this thread under rule #2. The topic is inherently political and some of the comments are getting rough.

Go to 4chan troll.

[–] Steinsprut@szmer.info 12 points 1 year ago

exploding-heads is this way, and truth social is that way, sir

[–] borlax@lemmy.borlax.com 8 points 1 year ago

Let me guess, you are a centrist who leans left on the softball social issues, but conservative in the fiscal ones.

[–] nuke@yah.lol 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You can change what instance you use to one that defederates with the places you don't want to participate with. Also, some apps allow you to hide specific instances through a UI option.

I'm not a fan of idea of completely getting cut out from parts of the fediverse because of ideological differences. Imo that just promotes further polarization. Though I might look into blocking couple instances if and when I get annoyed enough lol

[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Just unsubscribe / block those communities and posters.

I do it for all political content.

[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Can you give some examples? Different people have very different definitions of leftists, communists etc.

[–] youthinkyouknowme@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I swapped instances a couple of times because of federation with political instances. Highly recommend it.

[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I love how that aspect works here. I'd like to see that really improve over time as people spread out.

[–] RustedSwitch@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Im seeing this stuff just now. The timing of the posts is the same as the system compromise over the last 8 hours. My instinct says they are related.

[–] hal_5700X@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Reddit exodus didn't help things.

[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

From my understanding, lemmy practically started out heavily left leaning and got progressively more regressive as redditfolk migrated over.

[–] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

While I don’t agree with either extremes, I’m much more comfortable with hard left than hard right. Hard left isn’t actively established and trying to foment genocide in real time.

[–] Darc@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yep, noticed that

[–] bdiddy@lemmy.one -1 points 1 year ago

GOP is busy listening to pod casts that's how they get all their information. They only know how to use their phones so it makes sense that they can't actually explore the web and open their minds.

Hence letting the religious fruitcakes take over and continue to push wild conspiracy theories and ignore science as their main party platform.

What you are seeing is literally because the people you identify with are mostly fucking idiots. You should be so proud!

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί