Queer✨Anarchist Anti-fascist
I run two APs, and a Unifi server running on a thin client linux server.
I have the U7, and the U6 extender that goes in a wall outlet
I have a few of their small poe powered ethernet switches, they’re great since I have a poe switch as a backbone I can put it near a group of devices in a room, like consoles, raspberry PIs, etc, and just not have to worry about much setup or powering yet another tiny device.
Highly recommend unifi devices
What makes it not an election issue?
Is it the fact that many people consider it the strongest motivation for not voting for biden?
Is it the fact that people are putting in a lot of time and effort to change the position of one of the candidates before the election?
Is it the fact that people protesting against this around election time makes you unhappy the reason you think it isn’t an election issue.
Shut the fuck up. Stop talking and stop spreading this braindead take that is begging to remain at the pro-genocide status quo. You don’t get to decide whether or not it is an election issue for everyone.
I’ve seen and been at protests against my congressmen, mayors, state houses, and governors. People have been doing these types of protests since October. Just because the current wave of protests is campus occupations.
Also, if you think this is solely a congressional issue, you fundamentally do not understand what the president can do in a situation like this.
If whataboutism is reframing the question in a different light that includes what we were talking about and not simply deflecting with a what-about, then I guess I did a textbook whataboutism. I guess I did the classic whataboutism bit where I said tiktok wasn’t censoring, even though I swear I said they were, and instead I said what why do we give social media the power to censor shit like that I was saying tiktok wasn’t censoring and whatabout other social media. 🙄
Whataboutism is when you don’t defend your point or argue against the original point and just change topic. Ex: “Oh you are saying that tiktok is censoring anti-ccp thought? What about facebook and twitter doing shit like banning XYZ political commentators???”
What I said is a bit more complicated than that, so I’ll boil down my points into something a bit more simple manner
Look man, you can’t claim someone is doing a fallacious argument tactic when they aren’t doing it. If someone argued something, fucking respond to it or don’t, it genuinely doesn’t matter. But if you are gonna just be a cunty smuglord instead, you’re a dick and I wish you the worst.
Now, i’m gonna disregard your shit-slinging and go back to taking your comments in good faith. I have a serious question for you. You seem to have a problem with my points, but what about it do you disagree with? I’m literally agreeing with you in a few places and just calling the framing flawed. If you’re gonna respond to that, don’t take me out of context.
If I could do an analysis like this, I would. But I don’t have the technical know-how to do so. Being like “Why don’t you do [complex activity] rather than comment on an existing study” is a shitty mindset that attempts to shut down conversation and doesn’t build upon it in any meaningful way.
Further, I think you completely missed the point of what I said. You presented an article that showed tiktok is biased towards CCP positions, and that isn’t really surprising. I said that I don’t think Instagram is any more trustworthy simply because it is American owned, and I think the framing of that view is flawed. I don’t think it invalidates the data, I just think it places a huge amount of trust in a social media company that has been in constant controversy for its entire existence. The point is why is the problem the fact that a social media company is using their power to promote CCP viewpoints, rather than the fact that social media companies have such power with such little oversight.
You seem to be claiming there’s a fire without even seeing any smoke while simultaneously ignoring the flames in front of your face.
I think you can only say that when you are intentionally misinterpreting what I said to the point I think you are trying to stuff me in some little box I don’t belong in. I acknowledge that TikTok is a problem. If the problem is algorithmic bias with social media, why are we stopping with the foreign company that has opposing interests? Why aren’t we angry that a single company can hold so much power and have such little accountability?
the only issue with Meta is how they refused to take down offensive stuff from high-profile conservatives due to political backlash
I wish I lived in a world that this was the only issue meta had.
I bet I’m missing a ton, but these things quickly came to mind.
I feel that.
Three years ago I moved to fedora and RHEL based distros like Rocky for my devices and servers because I’ve gotten suck of Canonical’s shit. Don’t regret it.
I skimmed the article and I see your concern, but my skepticism remains because of the inherent assumption that instagram is trustworthy and not already tinkering with their own algorithms. Just because the company is American owned doesn’t make it any more or less trustworthy in my opinion. I think the framing is flawed, but that doesn’t discount the concerns with things that are pro-taiwan having such a small presence
I do think a big reason why tiktok is now being held to the flame is the fact there is so much dissent on it. Younger Americans are becoming increasingly anti-israel and more critical of the US’s stance on foreign policy.
Instead of reacting hastily and banning tiktok I think a better action would be placing the same criticisms on domestic companies. Instead, I think we should make companies much more transparent in how they use their algorithms and filter content. Instead of getting upset that one company is censoring, and making them sell to a US company, we should instead prevent censorship more broadly.
edit: made point a bit more clear
100%
Let’s not forget that the Leviathan was the justification for the divine right of kings over democratic systems.
To explain away the man-made horrors of the world as being “human nature” is taking the easy route by avoiding questioning what causes the worst things to happen in the world and coming to a shitty catch-all conclusion.
It’s also super defeatist and can stop discussions on how to fix the crimes of those before us.
These are some pretty good questions, and ones that are not particularly uncommon. (I also promise this will be the last long post I make lmao, you are absolutely right about this being an empty room to speak in)
but why do these [anarchist/libertarian socialist] values not seem to take hold on a larger scale?
Depends on what you mean by a larger scale. There’s nothing at the scale of a large country like the US in the current day, or at the current population. but, as detailed in “The Dawn of Everything” by anthropologist David Graeber and David Wengrow, pre-colonial america has some very anarchistic organizational structures that were successful in their right.
There are also currently some anarchistic projects. While they’re technically not pure anarchism, the Zapatista and Rojava experiments are ongoing, and have some solid achievements (they consider themselves a different libertarian socialist branch that is very similar to anarchism, being neozapitismo and social ecology respectively). One interesting thing I’d love to point out is that these experiments are actually closer to socialism (and I’d arguably say are close to achieving it in both cases) compared to supposedly socialist/communist countries such as the USSR, the CCP, and Cuba. Here are two videos summarizing the two movements.
It feels like that need for hierarchy is built into us as a species as it seems to be the default through much of history.
First and foremost, the necessity of hierarchy being built into us would only be true if there was no horizontal (non-hierarchical) society in the past, but there have been many, as mentioned in “The Dawn of Everything”.
I mean, it might feel like that considering we live in a world where we don’t really see any alternative to the status quo. There’s this concept of “Capitalist realism,” where it becomes increasingly difficult to consider a world where there is no capitalism. We are told we live in “The End of History”, where “There is no alternative”, as put by Fukuyama and Thatcher. The same can be said for hierarchy, as we live in a hierarchic world that is simply “the way things are” as a social construct. But what says we can’t tear it down? For many years there was the natural hierarchy of the divine monarch at the top and the peasant suffering under their boot. To the peasant, there was no alternative; the monarch had to be there. But in reality the monarch didn’t have to be there.
Anarchists do have an answer for this (Well, there’s quite a few, but I find this one simplest), which is the theory of practice. Essentially, many things are learned by people, including societal norms. Take a highly hierarchic culture like south korea, where the hierarchies enforced by their version of Confucianism is dominant. There is no organ in the human body that forces humans to be hierarchic in accordance to Confucianism from birth. Instead, people are taught that it is" the natural order", then practice said hierarchic order, making it reality. By the practice of said hierarchies, it becomes real. However, if you are raised in such a society, it would be difficult to see an alternative, unless you begin to practice a different hierarchic order.
On the other hand, what if we begin making a society that isn’t hierarchic? What if instead of instilling the values of obedience, we tell people obedience is not a virtue? What if we tell people that there is no natural reason to live under such a hierarchy, and that they could set themselves free? What if we instill values of self-governance, and let people practice self governance.
This is why anarchists often approach spreading anarchy in what might not seem an intuitive way. You might see an anarchist organizing a union, or creating a mutual aid group, or making a chapter of Food Not Bombs. If we consider the fact that practice influences the way you think, then it only makes sense that creating a non-hierarchic structure such as an anarchistic union, mutual aid group, etc. When non-anarchists participate in these structures, they begin to practice anarchism, and dreaming of a non-hierarchic world becomes much easier. Unfortunately it’s kinda hard to get people to participate in some of these structures under the increasingly individualist modes of capitalism, but it is still a viable path that will need to adapt to the changing times.
Wrapping my head around all the -isms has been a lot of work. You need to learn what they are in both historical and modern context, and that varies from person to person as it is, so it can be hard to get what everyone is always advocating even if they use the same words.
I’ve had a fun experience talking with someone at a protest, and we were agreeing with many things broadly speaking. He eventually was like “What type of communist are you”, and I just said “Oh, I’m an anarchist” and he, a trot, was disappointed. I’ve also had a discussion with a different random person who was on board with literally everything I said in a discussion, barring a few implementation details. He then decried the communists and anarchists for their radical ideas 🤦♂️.
As far as current and historic context, check out “Means and Ends” by Zoe Baker. I’ve not gotten to reading it yet but a wonderful lady at my local Anarchist bookfair told me it was not only a good starting place for historical context to the movement, but it is also wonderfully written. Also, you’ll be pleased to know that the differences between old and modern anarchism isn’t too drastic. It’s more refined than changed. There’s some splinters and splits, but even the biggest differences are smaller when compared to how other leftist thought has developed.
As far as -isms, I totally get that. -isms are often used as an insult, such as when trump tried to insult all the cool people, which tends to devalue the fact that in many cases there is a huge amount of philosophy behind the idea (not that it makes the philosophy or the ideology good) and conversely elevates more mainstream politics by turning alternatives into an ideological insult, even if their philosophy and ideologies are kinda trash.
So I’m not against most of the Lemmy Left in concept, I’d just rather see helpful post and comments like you and I are having than what feels like a leftist version of a FOX News comments section of everybody complaining, but not bringing anything useful to the party. We all need to vent and all, but it feels like that’s the bulk of what I see on here now
First, thanks :)
I think you are right, but probably in a way you weren’t thinking. When I watch FOX I always feel like I’m missing some context even though I am seeing a story beginning to end. I don’t see this on mainstream lemmy, but interestingly I do sometimes see it on Hexbear. I think that’s because I’m immersed in leftist culture, and there is a shared cultural understanding that I share with the left in general that the average conservative would share with FOX. I’m not a Marxist-Leninist, and sometimes I’ll see a take on hexbear that catches me off guard, since I lack the ML viewpoint and shared culture. And just like FOX, I don’t think that the average lemmy user will have the most nuanced and carefully examined takes (myself included, though I am getting better at discussing some topics after actually doing it more often) that makes their political discussion uneasy, but at least most of them lack the bigotry.
I dont really remember it being that way 9 months ago when I first hopped over here with everyone else
I remember occasionally seeing it. But not at this level. I think a lot of people are getting radicalized by the genocide and seeing the two genocide lovers on a ballot and are having a justifiably angry reaction. Also, election season is in full swing, so the internet will be infested with political discourse for a little while, and not the kind that is fun, pleasant, or interesting.
I was raised conservative until I got to know some people who acted much like you are here that helped me to gain a better perspective and to see the things that I valued weren’t being supported by those I thought I was supposed to trust
Me too. I was born in a deeply christian family, and I identified as a conservative libertarian after becoming politically active. IDK how I’d be doing right now if I was still conservative. Now, I’m queer, and while I still suffer the unfortunate position of having to be in the closet to prevent my family from exploding, having that feeling of shame and regret consume myself from the inside out would be 100x worse if my politics and religion made me objectively bad for it.
Thankfully I talked with some of my friends I had in a political science class I took in high school around the time Bernie started campaigning. At this time I was having some doubts about capitalism that I never shook off from seeing some good critiques of capitalism itself, and my libertarian ideology. I was pulled further left, and eventually surpassed them on my journey to becoming a socialist with a libertarian edge. I haven’t looked back.
Granted, I’ve only really reconsidered politics recently when evaluating the absolute shitshow that’s been american politics. While I was becoming increasingly anarchistic when studying theory, I can definitely say that I was radicalized by the ongoing genocide. The mechanisms that worked to justify the existence of an apartheid state, to justify the ongoing genocide, and to execute it are fueled by the state to further it’s positions, which doesn’t exactly give the it a good look. Once again, I went on this journey with a friend who was also becoming more radical.
Thanks! 🖤
If you like Behind the Bastards, you should check out Margaret Killjoy’s “Cool People who did Cool Stuff”, it’s excellent, and similar in the sense it is the opposite of the podcast. Rather than focusing on shitty people who do shitty things, it talks about its namesake. If you aren’t a big fan of what else I say, I can say with confidence that you will at least like this.
I can see your dislike and/or dissatisfaction with lemmy leftists on this, but as someone who is not exactly an advocate for electoralism I understand theirs too. To briefly explain that, many people on the far left, such as myself, do not see electoralism as a viable means of change for many reasons. But I feel that some people take it to a silly conclusion of non-voting. I get the sentiment that you will never get a mainstream candidate that supports your views. But at a local level, one that isn’t gridlocked by congress, the likelihood that your vote could be the difference between a trans person having access to gender affirming care is much higher. Even in a congressional election there could be a chance that you help a non-republican win the seat.
In general, I feel that a better take on electoralism is, it will never lead to positive change, but can lead to negative change. You can never dismantle the master’s house with his own tools, after all. But the master can still build a new oppressive structure with them. All successful movements that sought to improve the conditions of the marginalized, be it the slave revolts and the civil war, the civil rights movement, the feminist/suffragette movement, and the LGBTQ+ rights movement, can thank direct action for their victories. But if the reactionary forces have their way, mounting such a movement will be more difficult, even though having the liberals in power won’t help that much (See MLK’s letter from a birmingham jail, and various Malcom X speeches).
I do recognize and agree with the sentiment of those living in a heavily gerrymandered district, or one with voter suppression though. Like it or not, in some area there is no hope of change at even the local level (at least, there is no hope without a movement behind it).
IMHO the sentiment on the presidential vote being unimportant is somewhat accurate. I dont mean that who the current president is has no impact. I do mean that the hope of having any lasting beneficial impact is essentially nil.
In action, it seems like a ratcheting effect where each step backwards is met with little effort to fix or undo past damage. Any victories done by the last democrat is undone before the next republican is up for reelection, but it will take a full 8 years to undo the damage done by a republican over a single term. And voting harder will not change that.
I’ve previously mentioned my gripes with the EC and FPTP voting, and their impact on the presidential election, but my cynicism is furthered by my disenfranchisement with Biden. I voted for him in 2020, foolishly believing that “we can push him left” and I was ecstatic to see him walk into office after the inauguration. But I feel betrayed to a huge degree, and since then I’ve ben pulled further left as I read more about politics.
For me, his bizarre stances are a gut punch. I can half forgive him for his student loans forgiveness from being shot down, though I feel like he quit real early on it and failed to approach it from another angle. I hate his border policy, as it is continuing what trump was planning with the wall while claiming otherwise, and then he tries his best to look tough on the border, a problem that only exists for electioneering’s sake. Well, there is a problem at the border, but it isn’t what the framing of the discussion is about (See No Wall They Can Build by Crimethinc, its a wonderful free book and audiobook/podcast). His current and historic positions on crime is barbaric. Tough on crime is, for the most part, a racist dogwhistle that many people either fail to see or callously ignore when they realize that americans are having a moment and need to be reassured that crime is bad and they oppose it, even though there is no surge in crime. His active stance aiding and abetting genocide while trying to appear like he is pushing back on Israel fills me with such disgust that I could never see myself supporting him again.
I’ve heard similar thoughts quite a few times from other people on the left, notably Anark and FD Signifire, and their opinions on Obama, which are very sturdy takes IMHO.
Finally, I think that we are really seeing how the american liberal democracy will continue to operate, and how it cannot fix itself. The separation of powers is flimsier than the founding fathers intended, and power is entrenched in such a way that the levers of power cannot be pushed or pulled in another direction. It would take a lifetime of work to grease the gears enough to make the levers movable, but that’s not feasible with the climate-collapse shaped cliff we are set to drive off, unless we kick the elephant and jackass out of the car asap. Anyone who advocates a hierarchical system like this one will inevitably create the same scenario for our great-grandchildren to deal with.
This is because this is the endpoint of any hierarchic system. Any hierarchical system will attract the worst people to it, be it the fascist, or the person supporting fascism a few countries over, since attaining power requires a single victory. A single won election, legitimate or illegitimate, will result in significant damage. If you combine this with the motivations of capitalism empowering those who take the worst actions possible, a capitalist democracy does seem like the worst combination possible. No matter how secure the controls on power is, it will be misused, legally or not. Enough lawyers working for enough time will find necessary loopholes to crack things wide open, even if their theories hold as much power as unitary executive theory.
/vent
Once again, direct action is the answer. If you plan your actions with means that match your ends, and carefully consider your praxis, you can begin to make an impact. Considering the big problem stems from hierarchical power structures, you need to make your structures non-hierarchical (AKA horizontal) if you want to prevent it from suffering the flaws of hierarchy, or remaking it in the end. With a lot of hard work, you can begin to create the new in the shell of the old, a democratic system that is empowered by the people to carry out their needs, not controlled by unaccountable politicians who claim to support you.
“We live in capitalism - its power can seem inescapable. But so did the divine right of kings.”
- Ursula K Le Guin
I’m not sure if you’ve heard this take/direction of argument before, but if you haven’t, check out libertarian socialism, and its submovements. I promise it isn’t cringe like the conservative libertarians who stole our label >:( (fuck you murray rothbard, i hope your company with reagan, kissinger, and thatcher in the pits of hell is eternally uncomfortable)
Crimethinc has a good intro book “From Democracy to Freedom” that summarizes my takes, as an anarchist. It’s quite short, but even if you don’t find anarchism your cup of tea, it will certainly be an interesting read. If you find the anarchist label scary, at least give the book a try because the common conception of anarchists is inaccurate, and it usually just finds itself being an insult levied by hierarchs who don’t want to cede ground. For the most part we are just your local activists who are feeding the needy, setting up community centers, or organizing your labor unions, easing the suffering under capitalism while dreaming and acting towards a better future. And we have vegan/freegan cookies.
I’m glad you are taking that person in good faith, but I’d like to just quickly jump in and add that the electoral college does make some locations impossible to change. If you live in a deeply one-sided state like I do, you end up not really caring for the presidential election because there is nothing you can do besides dumping your entire life into campaigning for the minority candidate to improve their odds of winning by a negligible amount, albeit less negligible than voting alone. And I don’t think I could live with myself if I campaigned for biden daily 🙃.
I get that you bring up the fact that the EC and FPTP systems are shit, but voting because it’s the system we have won’t make the system suddenly work in a way that it is outside of the scope of what it is designed to do. Voting harder won’t do anything besides make the poll workers concerned.
I’ll be surprised if my state’s voting habit changes, but I think the odds of that happening is similar to getting struck by lightning when buying a winning lotto.
If you are in a swing state, voting will actually have a much more material impact. But millions don’t live in swing states.
Since I can’t impact the election in my state, I’m moreso going to the polls for the state representatives and other state/local positions, since those have a much more material impact on my life, and the lives of others. If biden wins and my state senate is full of fascists, things won’t be looking too good for anyone living in my state.
The biggest issue I have with your post is that voting isn’t the only choices we have, and the alternative option is often much more impactful albeit at a local scale. Direct action has been the backbone of every movement that has gotten results in the US. You should join some activist groups for damage control if trump wins, especially mutual aid groups. Having a network of solidarity and mutual aid will lessen the blow of giving that shitrag another 4 years, and it can be lifesaving to poc and lgbtq+ folk, as well as those who will face state repression or poverty/houselessness. Even if biden wins, it will still be invaluable to the most vulnerable people in your area. I recommend Food Not Bombs, and Heaterbloc if you live in an area that gets cold. Both orgs are found all over the US. Those groups are often a great place to find other local groups that are more specific to your locale. But even if you are unlucky and find none there still should be a local(ish) DSA chapter, as aimless as they are. Or you could start your own org!
If you want an example of people using mutual aid and solidarity to survive the hellhole of Mississippi, see “Jackson Rising” or the newer “Redux” version by Cooperation Jackson. It’s an excellent book that I can’t wait to finish.
Its worse in the best way IMO.
The main reason I buy vinyl is for the other reasons you mentioned, but the imperfections of vinyl gives it a less robotic and sterile feel. It’s like listening to digital drums vs acoustic drums.
There’s also the ritual of playing vinyl that’s real satisfying
Yeah, I agree. But saying that it happened over the course of decades kinda misses the scope of the problem by a bit.
The ability to have powerful, unaccountable people, in or outside of government that is the problem. It’s allowing these hierarchies to exist in the first place that’s the problem, and is it not the same source of the problem we had with the divine right of kings?
My local coffee roaster also sells loose leaf teas from a local company, and their tea is excellent. I grab some tea when I refill on coffee.
I wouldn’t say trigger a witch hunt since one has been ongoing, albeit with some breaks (such as the all hands on deck for insurrectionaries after Jan 6th).
Even the most pacifist vegan-anarchist orgs that simply feed the needy and unhoused get surveilled under suspicion of ecoterrorism. https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2016/mar/25/fbi-files-food-not-bombs/
Hopefully other mutual aid organizations don’t catch the extremist label for being made by and composed of anarchists, but that might be too optimistic
Linux passwords can be set to expire. A non-expiring password is sometimes just set to expire so far in the future that it will not be reached by the user (such as 100 or 200 years). A really broken clock could surpass that and cause expiry.
Wait, people trust corporate benchmarks?
The blocking of peaceful, democratic means to get things done fully justifies more violent direct action to work towards those ends.
Considering the IDF will be training the Atlanta PD in the complex, I really hope the protestors and activists manage to stop cop city.
I hope more machinery burns.
Dominos is outrageously expensive if you don’t shop the deals.
When I was in college, I’d get dominos with my roommates when they had the 20$ special, which would be about 30$ after tip and delivery. The special had 2 medium pizzas, garlic knots, cinnamon twists, and soda.
After I moved back home, I learned my local dominos doesn’t always have that deal. I’d get something similar to what you got and I’d be upset that I got less food for a bit more…
Now what really pisses me off is the high end neopolitan place near me is cheaper on their dinner special days, where you can get 2 personal pizzas that taste so good I’d accept it as proof that god is real for about 25$ including tips and gas money.