this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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Anarchism
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Discuss anarchist praxis and philosophy. Don't take yourselves too seriously.
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I'm not sure I really agree with your first point, I think finding a way to find allys in all leftists would be worth it, even if it has a dark history. Things can be better.
But holy shit their reaction was intense. And the idea that their arguments were in defense of left unity was pretty silly... 99% of it was just "anarchists wrong and evil", and there is wild amounts of sectarianism going on just within hexbear that I'm sure lent energy to this.
I respect how you reacted under pressure. I really respect any admin of a website that can show that much restraint when dealing with personal attacks and people you explicitly disagree with.
But yeah the lethality of leftist infighting is maybe a topic that deserves more delicate conversations than memes.
Thanks for your kind words. I will admit I did get snappy towards the end of the day as I was getting tired and they had gone to straight up brigading tactics with half a dozen hexbears shitposting random replies, so there wasn't even any point to reply anymore. It had just become a classic pile on situation because I hurt their feelings.
I’m not sure I really agree with your first point, I think finding a way to find allys in all leftists would be worth it, even if it has a dark history. Things can be better.
I'm not here to stop anyone. MLs can be allies when they act like anarchists, which they tend to do when they're not in power. But you have to be cognizant who you're getting in bed with.
I think finding a way to find allys in all leftists would be worth it
I am really fine working with all leftists when we go against nazis. When the goal is the same, the methods are the same or complement each other and they don't try to take control of "my" space/group, I can work with MLs
And then there are the leftists who call anyone who disagrees with them a Nazi.
I mean... They all just proved your point. Can't trust those folks going crazy over historical facts
Hey so I think you're pretty rad person who's obviously investing a lot of effort in setting up cool communities and making tools to keep them safe.
I also think you got unfairly dogpiled in a pretty frustrating way.
But further, it seemed to me you were not trying to de-escalate there. I know the hexbear dogpile can be a bit ridiculous (honestly that place confuses me, I see both the absolute sanest and most unhinged posts coming out of hexbear users) but at this point you are definitely feeding the trolls.
I get that this might be fun for you, but it does use up a lot of bandwidth in the community and I worry it harms the quality of conversations we might be able to have in the future.
Once again I want to be clear that this remark comes from a place of respect, you obviously care about fostering online community and hence this last couple of days is confusing to me.
It's understand the concern. This is just how I deal with this stuff myself. I can absorb a lot off abusive behaviour but I have to blow off some steam somehow, and this is my way.
Unlike what hexbears might say, I'm not trying to goad them. Notice that I never went out of my way to invite their dogpiles.
You kicked the extremist groupthink hornet's nest by mentioning them. Whenever I give one of them shit, 10 more show up out of the woodwork.
Yeah idk you defs don't want spaces dominated by the norms of whoever is the most annoying. I've wasted far too much time at meetings with certain pot stirrers interjecting with their own little axe at every chance.
I'm just very weary of fostering tribalism and shit slinging in a time when the left is roundly loosing in the majority of the most powerful countries.
Eh the death of the left has been greatly exaggerated. Sure parliamentary left is "losing" but parliamentary left was worse than useless anyway. Spare no tears for that. Struggle breeds radicalization and if you are looking you will see that the embers are already flaming.
Anyway I'm not trying to do tribalism. I could have easily followed the trend and defederated if that was my goal. I actually like the chance to be criticized from the left. I'm not perfect. But I do have some strong convictions as well.
I could have easily followed the trend and defederated if that was my goal.
This is very awesome of you I must say. I was hoping some real friendship from both sides could happen here.
I chose a good instance.
Are we finally getting the hexbear defederatiom that I've wanted for so long?
Please? They're almost worse than lemmygrad.
Why?
Just look at how they brigaded this thread. They seek out critics and dogpile them.
I mean, people who have never read something in their lives making fun of them based on propaganda from decades ago (Communism bad) and treating them in a very poorly.
I would like to see real discussion instead of offensive memes.
Hopefully, especially since the instance blocking promised in lemmy 0.19 will not filter out users from said instance. Also the fact that none of Lemmy's blocking systems (except bans and defederation) prevent malicious users from interaction with the blocking user, which is a problem because for users who were blocked for harassing the user they can continue harassing just without the other person seeing, may not sound like a problem but if they are spreading misinformation or encouraging other people to harass the person then it is a problem.
Tankies would never hurt a leftist. Everyone they attack is actually a lib. Or so I've heard
Yes, of course they're the only real leftists and if you disagree you're a libnazi.
A conflict fit for a middle school parking lot?
Is anyone gonna explain "tankie"? I've got a kind of mental image but I'm certain imagery doesn't really align from person to person.
It gets misused a lot, but basically any socialist that supports authoritarian systems, or at least is on the "every criticism of the USSR is psyop" end of things.
So if they're simping for Stalin, probably a tankie.
Hardcore Marxist-Leninists. The type that says "Stalin did nothing wrong"
Was Marx about authoritarian government?
Funny you should ask, Bakunin had a lot of arguments with Marx about this subject. I suggest you check those out.
Supporters of the Authoritarian left, those who want a dictatorship.
r u ok?
It's glorious innit? I must live rent-free in their head.
this isn't supposed to be a quip i'm just genuinely concerned for everyone's mental health
Well, if you were to believe hexbears, I'm currently rage-crying while shitting my pants.
But I'm good, no worries :) Thanks for asking.
As someone who made a hobby of bullying defenseless but very dangerous conservatives a few years ago to blow off steam for a while, externalizing anguish kind of indicates some internal anguish. That was my case. It was fun and I'm not guilty about making fools of racists and Q-anon lunatics in a way beyond their ability to comprehend, but you have to realize it's not productive and eventually doing nothing but attacking morons can subvert the initial relief. That being the case, I was a lot meaner and a lot more aggressive than I'm seeing you have been so there was more toxicity to poison myself with (along with the toxicity being thrown at me by scores of users). You may or may not relate to this, but I would have been better off if I knew this sooner rather than later about what I was doing so I figured I'd toss you my unsolicited two bits anyway. Regardless, I like what you've been building here and have been enjoying seeing your stuff here and on Beehaw.
Much appreciated. Reminder however that I didn't set out to troll anyone. I'm just playing the hand I've been dealt 😁
Love Anarchist philosophy, I think it's literally radical as hell, but holy shit Anarchists are just as whiny as Tankies sometimes.
Rather than posting infighting memes or debating online, try to educate and learn more yourself, build up your community, actually do something. These memes are just cringe.
That's the funny thing to me about commies or anarchists arguing with each other online, I feel like most serious people in both groups don't even bother with that bs, and work together IRL at actions without thinking about it.
Yes, it's either the terminally online, or the people that have managed to actually make it far enough that it even matters. In the west, it absolutely doesn't matter, except perhaps in revolutionary strategy, ie Anarcho-Syndicalism vs Vanguardism vs etc.
Day to day, the same exact praxis persists: educate yourself, improve your life and understanding, advocate for positive change, unionize, build up your community, and educate others. It doesn't matter what leftist tendency you personally prefer, the praxis on a day to day level is the same.
why_not_both.jpg
Because if you're not advocating and actually doing praxis, then you should be spending time on yourself and enjoying life, or working to support yourself and those around you. Infighting memes are just cringe.
There are too few hours in the day to spend any time with infighting memes, lmao
Thanks for the post. These bring out the active hexbears and make them easy to block.
But you're good with Lemmy, why not build a tool that parses their user list and then adds them all to one's personal Blocklist? That would be far more effective and I'm sure more than a few people would appreciate it.
I mean, if I was to do that, I could just defederate them
I am an anarchist, I mostly agree with your points on left unity but I am glad this instance is federated with hexbear. There is a strong distinction between commies and anarchists historically but I'm not sure if it is as relevant today, and the capitalist forces have developed to such a point that I really feel there isn't much room for division between socialist groups. But of course you gotta watch out for authoritarian tendencies. Whether or not we should be united it's good to remain in communication, I think the discourse helps members of both groups find what works for them personally.
Don't know why you're federated with them in the first place given that their existence is anathema to this instance and the rules you created.
You could, but that doesn't help on other instances. Blocking them at the personal Blocklist level silences them everywhere.
Also a tool let's people choose if they want to use it or not. Defederation is a choice made for them.
Just shower thoughts (literally).
Uh oh. You hurt their feelings. Up against the wall for you, buddy.