cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/72685299
I discovered this after upgrading our instance yesterday, which also upgraded all frontends to their latest versions as well. After I did, our Tesseract frontend stopped working and I noticed immediately as it’s been my primary for a while. Initially I thought it was an API version mismatch, but no, it was much worse.
Someone pointed out that the developer of the frontend added an explicit hidden and unmodifiably blacklist which includes any and all instances to the left of Kissinger. There’s a commit which also explains their specious reasoning about our instance specifically, as it seems we’ve been on their shit list for a bit longer than that.
This instance and its admin staff encourages identity politics, groupthink, mob mentality, and extremist solutions to societal problems. Users who advocate violence are not moderated so long as the admins agree with the target. Caution and critical thinking are advised when interacting with this instance or its users.
When you use tesseract to connect to one blacklisted such instance , you just get a message informing you that Tesseract is “incompatible with that instance” which leads one to think of a technical issue, like an API mismatch, rather than the dev being an opinionated coward.
Isn’t it funny how all the software developed by turbolibs, like Piefed and Tesseract, end up with hidden control mechanisms from developers who think they know better than everyone else? That they don’t just think they deserve to tell you what you should think, but they should manipulate you to think it? Isn’t it funny how libs go on about how bad it is to support lemmy due to the ideology of the devs behind it, and yet lemmy has 0 opinions as a software? It does make one think…
Anyway, I forked - it as one does - and disabled the blacklist, but since this is a massively ideologically compromised software, I’ll doubt I’ll keep this frontend up after Lemmy 1.0. I think we’ll bring up mlmym again now that someone’s maintaining it again.
I’m definitely biased as I’m a communist myself, but I’d argue this is more reflective of the politics of both sets of devs. Lemmy devs truly believe in the communist principles underlying the FOSS, federated project they have, while Piefed is unapologetically biased against that and towards liberalism. In other words, the principles speak for themselves in both projects.
That’s honestly probably a good point, yeah. Still amuses me.
Yep, one of those moments that feels pretty validating for my worldview, and proves the Lemmy approach to be correct.
Well fuck you. May all the people who died in the concentration camps, in famines, cultural purges, or just simply shot dead at the border crossings, haunt you tonight.
While excesses have been committed in socialist countries, they absolutely pale in comparison to the atrocities committed for capitalism and colonialism. I won’t weap for landlords, capitalists, and fascists that were killed or imprisoned for their crimes against the working classes, and I will celebrate the immense gains made by the working classes after successfully gaining political power.
Everywhere the working classes have taken power, life expectancies, literacy rates, housing rates, and more have all dramatically climbed, while food insecurity and poverty dramatically declined. Every single time. The sheer effectiveness of socialism in uplifting the people is undeniable, and while it’s unfortunate that this can only be successfully established via revolutionary and therefore violent means, this violence is a response to the daily brutalization of the working classes
Colonialism is colonialism. No matter the color.
Then weep for the workers who were denied education because they refused Leninism. Weep for those who has been sent to work in the uranium mines. Weep for those persecuted for their faith. Weep for those who has been put to a fucking jail for watching a Knight Rider on TV.
What you call a working class has never achieved political power. Only the chosen faithful families could ever get anywhere near the office desk, not even mentioning a political function. Without pledging you allegiance to a one of the worst dictators who ever lived, you were not even considered.
Yes. The toilet paper outages and bribes for the butcher so you can skip the line were certainly very uplifting.
And here we are. You’re openly advocating for death and destruction to follow some kind of a fairy-tale. You’re no better than an american soldiers leveling a primary school to the ground, or a russian soldier executing civilians in Butcha.
Open your fucking eyes. You can no longer see the real wold for the veil of victimization you have put upon yourself. There is no class.
And most importantly, stop scheming about some great revolution and CREATE the means of production!
Of course colonialism is bad, you won’t get an argument from me in favor of it. That’s why I support countries like the former USSR, who were and are the biggest anti-colonial powers in history. Simply stating that “colonialism is bad, no matter what color” is a subjectivist truism that doesn’t prove one iota of colonialism from socialist countries. It’s the kind of substitution for an argument people who refuse to investigate how colonialism actually functions make, because otherwise you’d make a concrete claim against socialist countries.
As for “the workers denied an education for refusing Leninism,” etc, this is largely nonexistent. In socialist countries, education is typically free and universal, or exceptionally low-cost. Literacy rates went from ~30% to 99.9% in the USSR over the course of a couple decades. Either only .1% refused Marxism-Leninism, proving that acceptance of Marxism-Leninism was and is exceptionally popular in socialist countries, or that education was in fact free and universal, regardless of political views, assuming you weren’t a domestic terrorist. Either way, terrible point on your part.
Religious persecution is largely seen as a dogmatic error by early socialism, but is also overblown. Same for the idea that people were mass punished for participating in bourgeois culture.
I won’t weep for those who worked in tough working conditions out of necessity, instead I will salute them for taking on the difficult work. In many socialist countries, they were and are compensated in reduced working hours for the same pay, more pay for equal hours, or both. Such was common in the USSR for hazardous work.
As for the working classes gaining power, it’s happened many times, such as in the USSR, GDR, PRC, DPRK, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Office work is still work. Party membership is largely reserved for those exceptionally dedicated and competent among the working classes, and communist parties regularly purge corrupt or lazy officials, replenishing their ranks from the rest of the working classes. Those in administration were and are workers, they do not gain income from capital ownership but from their own labor.
As for the idea that commodity shortages are unique to socialism, this is absurd. Further, the abundance of commodities in western countries comes near exclusively from the spoils of international plunder, through imperialism, unequal exchange, and neocolonialism. The vast productive forces for agriculture in the US were created thanks to colonial relations securing vast amounts of steel and other resources, and yet despite having agricultural abundance Americans often go without eating to save money. The USSR, on the other hand, was found to have eaten more calories and more nutritionally complete diets compared to Americans.
I’m not advocating for revolution for a “fairy tale.” I’m advocating for revolution because I want to decolonize Turtle Island, and get the same gains of socialism for the people living on it. I want to end imperialism and neocolonialism. I want to end climate change and mitigate its effects. Comparing me to the US Empire is ludicrous and horrendously out of touch, considering the US Empire is all of the horrendous issues you accuse socialism of having, but far worse than even your accusations.
Saying that “there is no class” is an absurdity. Class is objectively defined and empirically understood. Class is relation to ownership of the means of production and distribution. Every single economist on the planet, no matter what ideology, agrees that workers and capitalists exist, that feudal lords and peasants exist, that slaves and slave owners exist. Even if you disagree with Marx’s analysis of class society, you cannot possibly deny the existence of class.
And most importantly, I am a worker. I do create the means of production and distribution, as do all workers. Capitalists do not. Revolution ends the massive contradiction between socialization of production and privatization of appropriation, where those who do no labor gain the vast majority of the wealth while those who do labor gain crumbs.
Well, that’s a new one on me. I’ve seen people argue that the earth is flat, but this is the first time I’ve seen somebody argue that being rich is the same as being poor. So, congrats on originality, I guess.
It’s like Charlie Kirk has risen from the dead
Are you really saying that there is no such thing as class? There is no proletariat and bourgeois?
Well, yeah. Those are among the groups you said you explicitly want to
massmurder. Why would you weep for them?Edit: he never said mass murder, my bad. I should have fact checked before saying anything. Come one, come all, see how fucking stupid I am. It’s alarmingly stupid, and I probably should just fuck off forever instead of being a fucking moron in public. I’m so sorry for inflicting myself on you all.
“Mass murder” is dishonest. Revolution is violent, but is a response to violence. It’s self-defense. Either way, those are the groups most harmed by socialism historically, so when someone tells me they wish these groups haunt me, I can only say that I won’t shed a tear for them. Same as the United Healthcare CEO that got Luigi’d.
You explicitly told me you support using the power of the state to kill all fascists, landlords, slavers, capitalists, and etc though? I’m not saying you should weep for them mind, just that it was a weird thing to bring up.
No? I said I support using the state to suppress them. That can include killing them, but it does not necessitate it. The working classes should have full authority over the state, and be able to use it to forcibly appropriate property from the owning classes. Those that violently resist, the working classes should be able to respond in kind.
You have a clearly dishonest view of what I said. Are you imagining a state just killing landlords for fun? Why resort to violence when unnecessary?
Maybe I misunderstood you then. I reviewed what you said again, and you did just say state sponsored murder was a good thing, I must have added the mass in my head. I still vehemently disagree, but I attacked you for something you didn’t say. That’s my bad, I’ll not harass you about it again.
I have never said “state sponsored murder is a good thing.” I’d love to see a link, but either way, I guarantee it was a response in a similar context, stating that killing violent fascists and the like to protect the gains of socialism is a necessary measure. I never said “kill all owning classes,” such a dogmatic and reductive stance is wrong. You cannot kill your way to a collectivized economy, you have to develop into one. You still have to protect socialism, but making it state policy to kill all owning classes is a reductive take.
I’m no expert, but it sounds like they were killed by authoritarianism, not communism. I don’t think communism requires concentration camps, famines, or cultural purges.
Deafboy dramatically and intentionally misrepresented the point, but all states are monopolies on violence, all are “authoritarian.” The excesses committed in socialist States are genuine excesses of socialism.
That being said, “concentration camps” is a bit disingenuous. No socialist state has had industrialized mass murder like the Nazis, UK, US, etc. Most deaths in prisons in the Soviet Union, for example, happened due to starvation during World War II, after the Nazis took Ukraine, the USSR’s breadbasket.
Contributing famine to socialism is even more disingenuous. In all instances of famine in socialist countries, these have been in countries historically food insecure with common famine, and the socialists were the ones to end the cycle of famine. Socialism did not cause the famines, weather disaster and underdeveloped agricultural forces did. Mismanagement often played a part, but not in a way intrinsic to socialism nor in a manner that would have made capitalism preferable.
As for cultural purges, this is more vague. The cultural revolution in China, for example, is recognized as a mistake by the CPC. This is all I can really think of, though, when it comes to “cultural purges.”
As established in the other thread here, state-wide communism can only be achieved by the violent means.
What needs to follow is for the people to willingly forget some of what they know, uninvent the market, money, and give up every possesion that’s of any significant value. That is not going to happen without violence either.
And to keep the society in this state, you need an aparatus that will constantly keep them in fear, or ar least apply some kind of double-think. A dictatorship is the only way to do that.
This is how the soviet style communism has been brought to my city:
Communism is inherently authoritarian.
And to that I say: Authoritarians of the world, gurgle my balls!
Socialists do not “uninvent the market,” or “require people to willingly forget what they know,” and certainly not “give up any possession of value.” Socialists solve the contradiction between socialized production, which markets are great at establishing, and private appropriation of the spoils of production, which creates the tiny and wealthy capitalist class. This is not an “un-invention” of the productive forces created by markets, but a solution to markets that have already fulfilled their historic role in creating socialized production.
Those that have their property appropriated are the owning classes, the capitalists, landlords, etc. This isn’t “anything of value,” it’s specifically the means of production and distribution, to create a better society for everyone based on the labor they actually perform and contribute to society.
Further still, socialism is democratic. Capitalism cannot be. Those kept in fear in socialism and deprived of power are the formerly and present owning classes. For the proletariat, the workers, socialism is the first taste of actual democracy. Violent, revolutionary means are necessary to gain this democracy and end the oppression of capitalism, which keeps workers in fear and dictatorial control.
States are inherently monopolies on violence. Either capitalists control the state, or the working classes do. Either there’s capitalism, or socialism. Only once class has been abolished can the state wither away.