Longtime Lemmy Users: aside from sheer size, do you feel like the site has changed since the influx of reddit refugees, and if so, how?
I've not been here long, but I'm curious how users who were present before the reddit drama feel about any potential changes to the content and tone of discussions.
Vanguard ideology is the weakest point of Leninism. It always attracts those seeking power. But there’s nothing stopping a leftist group from owning a lemmy instance and banning everyone that disagrees with their flavor of leftism.
I have never once met a person who talks like this who has also made a good faith effort to under Marxist thought. Why are you so confident? We've been around for hundreds of years, we have a lively and robust intellectual landscape, and calling us red fash without even making an attempt to hear us out hurts you more than it hurts us.
Try going to any "scientific socialist" community and tell them you don't believe what Trotsky said about the Kronstadt sailors.
Watch criticism of party structures and leaders get flattened into base-anticommunism.
I've read and listened to plenty of Marxists, enough for me to trust in their analysis, and not their ability to talk to people who don't know how, or don't want to learn how to walk on your eggshells.
I'm dying. This is my favorite comment of yours by far. I'm amazed that you realize that you have some deficiencies in the intelligence department. Fuckin brilliant
A leftist safe zone still exists, they have their own instance.
Liberals not realizing that liberalism is also an ideology and not just "default way of being". What we really need is a liberal safe zone so that y'all can have your own instance.
Have you ever made an effort to try to understand why us tankies believe what we do, or even what we actually believe? I'd be happy to talk with you about it if you're curious.
"Democratic" and "Authoritarian" are extremely loaded here. The tankie line, that I believe, is that modern Marxist nations face ruthless ideological attacks from both without (imperialism, foreign influence, infiltration, demands to liberalize, war) and within (vestiges of the former bourgeoisie). Two schools of thought exist in how to go about implementing socialism: the friendly, open process that allows external and internal forces to collude and infiltrate and institute genocide, pain, and destitution (Sukarno's Indonesia, Allende's Chile, Revolutionary Catalonia, Iran, anywhere touched by Operation Condor...) and the more aggressive form of socialism that clamps down tightly on dissent and develops socialism with ideological protection and close management (Vietnam, Cuba, the USSR). Nations in the category of the former invariably see mass death, starvation, and the ultimate repurposing into a state managed by imperialist powers (Suharto, Pinochet, Hitler...). States in the latter category (verify this information for yourself, I don't want you taking what I say as gospel) invariably see world-best ascents in literacy, employment, public health, GDP, life expectancy, gender equality, income equality, and more.
This terrifies the imperialist powers. These actually existing socialism (AES) countries demonstrate an ability to thrive despite America's and the west's interests and attempts at destabilization. So what can be done? You lie about them. There is absolutely precedent for the US lying to its people about their enemies, in fact there is no precedent for the US not lying about their enemies. So us tankies decide that the truth exists somewhere between the US state line that Stalin is more evil than Hitler, and that the Soviet Union was a Utopian paradise. It is just as foolish to go with one side as it is the other. The only thing we know for sure is that the US has a long track record of genocide, torture, propaganda, imperialism, and lying about all of it, so why would we trust them?
So to sum it up, if I were to believe the line that reactionary insurrection is "Democratic" like the US state line says, and if I believe that AES states are "Authoritarian" and forcing policy on the people without consent like the US state line also says, then no, I don't support bringing in the tanks. I also believe it never really happens like that. I believe that AES countries make lots of mistakes, and I've never met a tankie who doesn't, but I believe that countries that are hard on reaction are better for it.
btw, thanks for engaging in good faith discourse. It's super hard on this topic and while I don't like your framing I recognize that it's not because you're trying to antagonize me, it's because you're faithfully portraying your beliefs.
Eh... Instances are like countries and federations are like Alliances. A leftist safe zone still exist and they federate only with like minded instances.
I prefer to think of this as the liberal safe zone and the rest of lemmy as leftist, as it has been for years before lemmy.world exploded from the massive influx of reddit refugees
My experience is that most extremely ideologically driven communities tend to devolve into the same heavy-handed moderation tactics. I think this happens because it’s easier to imagine that the ends justify the means, and because small minority communities that are far from the larger consensus viewpoints are going to have issues with relatively large number of outside users coming in and wanting to debate or denigrate the fringe ideology.
Because it's not a "leftist space." It's a federated Web platform with many communities. If any of you identipols want a safe space go setup some password protected forum somewhere.