Skip Navigation

User banner

Cowbee [he/they]

@ Cowbee @lemmy.ml

Posts
1
Comments
1172
Joined
3 yr. ago

Actually, this town has more than enough room for the two of us

He/him or they/them, doesn't matter too much

Marxist-Leninist ☭

Interested in Marxism-Leninism, but don't know where to start? Check out my Marxist-Leninist study guides, both basic and advanced!

  • Locked

    Welcome ex-Redditors!

    Jump

  • Seems it already does, largely.

  • Locked

    Welcome ex-Redditors!

    Jump

  • I think a useful exercise would be to look at what, as you say, "looks good on paper." Where did you get that conception, from Marx, or people talking about Marx? Part of the Red Scare was blunting and twisting Marx, it wasn't just "Marx and Marxists eat babies" or overt misinformation easily dispelled, but often worked in subtle ways, and still does.

    I am not going to turn this into a lecture on Marxism (unless you want that, I can do that for hours because I am a fucking nerd). However, I do want to point out that Marx's prediction for Communism was of a fully publicly owned and planned economy over the world, where everyone shared equal ownership with all of industry. He predicted this because he watched Capitalist industry get larger and larger over time, and competition become less and less feasible as barriers to entry got more expensive.

    I think you have an idea of Marx in your head that envisions a horizontalist, decentralized economy, when Marx thought further centralization is a necessity of advancing industry in a more and more interconnected production process. We could spend days and years talking about what the PRC and former USSR gets right and wrong, but my point here is more about just how easy it is to misunderstand Marxism entirely from the get-go.

  • Locked

    Welcome ex-Redditors!

    Jump

  • Marx also described the State as the elements of government that entrench class distinctions like private property rights and armies, but that such a state could only wither away once all industry was publicly owned and controlled. Marx believed the workers needed to be armed and protect revolution.

    This has also been explained before, but one of the "revolutions" you defended was led by Nazis that were marking the doors of Jews and Communists, and had started lynching them.

  • Locked

    Welcome ex-Redditors!

    Jump

  • "Tankie" is a pejorative that basically looks like an exact replica of McCarthy's strawman of a Communist. The purpose of the term is to claim the accused that they genuinely hold those McCarthyian characteristics, regardless of reality. It shuts down conversation because it would be inconvenient to have those conversations, it's a thought-terminating cliché more than a real thing.

  • Locked

    Welcome ex-Redditors!

    Jump

  • I question the "Russian Bots" narrative pretty heavily, there's no evidence for that conspiracy theory nor would it make sense, Lemmy is too small to make an impact. Either way, I started reading Marxist theory a bit in college but more when I actually started working, and over the years I've read more theory and history.

  • Locked

    Welcome ex-Redditors!

    Jump

  • "Tankie Triad?" Really? This is just McCarthyian LARPing, you don't have to constantly saber-rattle towards the Marxist-friendly instances.

  • What if downvotes actually did something?

    Jump

  • Yep, and some instances have downvotes or even voting in general disabled.

  • What if downvotes actually did something?

    Jump

  • The purpose of up and down voting is to indicate how viewers feel about content. You aren't going to be able to combat "bad-faith actors" with a downvoting algorithm that wouldn't be better solved by outright blocking or banning temporarily or permanently. Lemmy is FOSS, you can't stop people from making an instance, but you can defederate.

    What instances are you referring to?

  • The /r/piracy link to lemmy /c/piracy hit the reddit frontpage with 7K+ updoots!

    Jump

  • Good, the Piracy community over on dbzer0 is much better than the subreddit anyways.

  • What is the origin of your username/nickname?

    Jump

  • It sounds cute.

  • Removed Locked

    Is there a "normie" or more mainstream instance for Lemmy?

    Jump

  • Appreciate the kind words! You're 100% correct in saying that snark isn't useful but is understandable. Many good people are being actively harmed and are out of patience in explaining how and why said harm exists, and how we can move beyond it. That isn't even mentioning the outright hostility many Leftists face in general, on a daily basis. Ultimately, what I've found is that most people aren't going to be convinced of something that seriously challenges their worldview in a single conversation, but through compatible life experiences make themselves more open to new ideas. Those are the ones that end up listening to others genuinely and taking to heart what the other person has to say.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • You did not, in fact, show large scale industrial production done in a horizontalist, cooperative manner. You have not convinced me that I should leaern about Agorism to begin with.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • You kept showing small scale cooperatives, then large scale digital cooperative functions, none of which proved the existence of large scale industrial cooperatives.

    Either way, I take the Marxist stance, that the way forward is full public ownership and democratization, so that all of humanity can work together along a common plan, not via competition. Mastering Capital will be Humanity's real first step into a new historic era.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • I'd like to see some numbers to back your claims, but I don't really think that's possible to gather accurately.

    Either way, defederation blocks your users from seeing their content. Pretty blatant censorship, at a broad scale. Now, I don't try to take the stance that all censorship is bad, I definitely think things like bigotry and misinformation should be censored, however I think trying to play semantic games regarding censorship just serves to obscure bias. That extends to defederating from Leftist instances like Hexbear.

    And yes, I do use Hexbear. I don't hide that, I made my Lemmy.ml account a year ago and made a Hexbear alt about 7 months ago so I could browse it locally when I wanted to take a break from the rest of the fediverse, as Hexbear takes a hardline stance against bigotry and there's not a constant fight between liberalism and leftism like there is on other instances. I'm especially curious about what makes Hexbear "bigoted" to you.

    I don't really think there's much point in continuing this conversation, however. I highly doubt we are going to come to an agreement, and you're already personally insulting me, so I'd rather disengage.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • You have not proven scalability of cooperativr, horizontalist large industry and the lack of necessity for violence in revolution, or threat of violence, at any stage.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • Do you think every user that likes Hexbear is a Hexbear user? Moreover, full defederation is the greatest act of censorship. I'm not equating sh.itjust.works to Hexbear, I generally have better experiences and run into far less bigotry on Hexbear. Your edgy monologue was funny, though, lol.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • You say they are enabling all of this rapid expansion, but they haven't, and there's no indication that they will.

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • What is hexbear?

    Jump

  • Equal condemnation for unequal sin minimizes the greater and exaggerates the lesser. That ceases to be an answer and becomes a cover for genocidal fascists against a national liberation movement.