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Cake day: November 30th, 2020

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  • thoro@lemmy.mltoAnnouncements@lemmy.mlLemmy needs more donations
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    1 month ago

    They literally created the platform. They can moderate their instance however they like. That’s the point of the platform.

    And being “authoritarian” is when you moderate your own server how you see fit, like banning the equivalent of bad faith spamming of My Lai, Tulsa Riot, or the 1985 MOVE Bombing Wikipedia articles and pictures in obvious attempts at anti communism and stirring shit.

    It’s not like they’re putting demands on .world to tone down the liberalism.








  • Libertarian and RFK votes would have very likely gone to Trump if those candidates are removed. Your argument literally doesn’t sum up to reality. There is no state where leftist parties prevented a Harris win.

    Your candidate(s) were bad. Your party hasn’t had an actually popular candidate since Obama, who ran on a progressive message but governed as a neoliberal. His actual policies produced both a reaction and disillusionment to your party because they didn’t actually offer “hope and change” following Bush and the financial crisis. The man and party didn’t officially support even the benign issue of gay marriage until it was overwhelmingly politically expedient.

    Oh well there is Bernie, but your party establishment would rather ensure his campaign and those like it are crushed, even as “centrist” campaigns continue to lose. Because your party answers to Capital.

    Liberal half measures and means testing policies poison the message and strength of actual leftism. They do not and cannot affect the root causes of real issues because as capitalists parties they do not and cannot attack the institutions of private property and market dogmatism. Their policy failures (Obamacare is literally a Heritage Foundation based subsidy to private insurance) are then used against “leftism” by fascists and conservatives against populations too overworked, propagandized, and poorly educated to see through them. Trump came into power by running against Clinton on NAFTA, a literal neoliberal (e.g. Reaganist/Thatcherist) policy proudly pushed through and supported by Democrats. He had a populist message that appealed to people distrustful of elites both times in a county where the major institutions are becoming less popular by the year. The dog whistles and appeals to evangelicals got the R base, but the rest pushed him over the line. Because people want change and action.

    Your party’s weakness and ineffectual policies are far more to blame for the rise of fascism in this country than leftists, who have never been in power. That’s ignoring that this country has been reactionary since its founding, with Madison himself arguing during the constitutional convention that the purpose of government is to “protect the minority of the opulent from the majority”.

    Have you ever read or studied actual leftist (i.e. socialist) theory or criticism?









  • Nah, I just find amusement in someone who ostensibly considers themselves political (volunteers for the Dems!) being affronted when accurately told that being leftist entails more than what talk about on NPR and NYT. Even the Wikipedia summary of leftism states the modern left is anti-capitalist and liberalism is “center-left” at best. It’s just an example of the allowed spectrum of opinion and an example of how much the politico class ignores political theory outside that spectrum.

    And we push back on it because allowing the right wing, mainstream media, and liberal parties to define liberalism as the left is exactly what helps push the Overton window to the right.

    Instead of running away when confronted with that fact and creating a space for centrists to feel more comfortable, maybe y’all could listen instead.


  • No. My point was that as Reddit became more mainstream, it became more conservative. As it became more conservative, more conservative spaces were created like the Donald and gamergate subs. And people and ideas from those spaces ended up seeping into other “non political” subs, like technology, gaming, movies, etc.

    The amount of xenophobia, transphobia, anti-feminism, etc. I saw in general purpose subs grew post Digg migration, especially in gamer subs as gamergate happened in 2014.

    Conservatism and centrist liberalism are the dominant political beliefs in the US, UK, and seemingly most of Europe too. Those voices will outnumber and browbeat leftist voices over time if they join an online platform en masse, in my experience.


  • No one is going to change the world by posting. Very few people have the time or energy to discuss or debate every day. I’d rather just not deal with an entire host of opinions and takes that I already deal with every day in real life.

    What I’ve learned over my time using sites like Digg and Reddit is that allowing conservative views to fester and form their communities on a platform allows them to organize and grow and seep into other “non political” spaces. The Donald, gamergate, transphobia, general reaction, whatever.

    And the “anti-politics” enlightened centrist types are enablers that allow this.

    If people come here and go “wow they sure are critical of Israel, America, Trump, and billionaires. I hate this”, then they’re self selecting themselves from joining and I just don’t think that’s a loss.

    The measurement of a platform to me is the quality of the users, not the quantity.


  • Lol @ “who volunteered for the Democrats”. Ain’t that a microcosm of every American politico (especially Democrats) ignorant of actual political theory.

    Imagine getting upset that someone accurately described “leftism” to you. I can only imagine it’s major cognitive dissonance after a lifetime of consuming mainstream political media calling liberalism “leftist” and pushing the overton window right.

    Lemmy.world already is the “normie” instance catering to liberalism. Your friend either ran into the more progressive parts of that instance or an actual leftist from a federated one. Either way, they got told an accurate take.

    Anyway, can we please stop all the attempts to make this place comfortable for conservative and right wing views in the name of “growth”? Have y’all actually been on a default subreddit in the last 15 years? Would that be worth it here?