In the marketplace of ideas, rightwing thoughts will be mocked, as they always should been…
Lemmy feels a lot more authentic to real life. If I started talking about tinfoil hat conspiracies, my friends would ridicule me to no end.
As they should.
Same here.
If I start talking to random people in a bar odds are I won’t meet a single one who will start calling me a Nazi because I believe in the Uyghur genocide…
True, I’d expect pretty wild conspiracies like flat earth and chemtrails to be laughed at here, but a disturbing number of lemmings and even progressives in general follow a set of less outlandish - but more insidious - conspiracies that usually fall into the “collusion and malice” type. I could say that General Motors et al. killed most of the US passenger rail and streetcar systems, and most people here would accept that as a fact. Case closed, capitalism is evil and should be abolished, every bad thing is cause by someone with I’ll intentions making it worse.
I, however, tend to be suspicious of those sorts of takes in general. Returning to the alleged “streetcar conspiracy”I’ve actually done quite a lot of research into this and can decidedly say that the primary cause of the decline of mass transit in the US was… There were at least 5 primary causes, none of which were shadowy groups deliberately working to destroy it. Rather it was killed by a changing urban environment, failures to adapt to modal shifts, legacy streetcar systems just generally sucking, and local governments taking transit for granted and assuming that they can hold streetcar companies to exacting standards while expecting them to remain solvent, all while not considering it their problem.
I could go on, and can send some sources and references (maybe not direct links though) if you’d like to learn more. But my main point is that far too many people assume there’s a nefarious actor pulling the strings the whole time when it’s usually several factors lining up all the holes in the Swiss cheese and creating a negative externality we still talk about to this day.
There (usually) isn’t a conspiracy, and if there is it’s unlikely to be anywhere near as all-encompassing as you think. People say there is because it gives them someone to blame, helps channel their anger at something tangible, and just makes a good story.
And there are no conservative ideas that aren’t tinfoil hat conspiracies, I guess
Honestly, this place is full of communists. I’m not the biggest fan of communists, to be frank. There is a lot of backwards ideas that get accepted as “leftist,” when they’re really statist. Particularly revisionist history statist. If a communist party said it, you gotta defend it kinda thing.
I don’t identify as a communist. I just don’t want life to be unreasonably difficult for people. Thats it. I just what the promise of what labor was supposed to be. I want it to free us from the shackles of work or die. Guess that is extreme left now even with tankies around the corner from us.
Exactly. We have 50 years of computer driven exponential growth and not a fucking thing is better for us. We don’t work less, travel more, be richer, live a better life, or have a better future for the planet. It should make everyone anti-capitalist.
This. When I was younger I considered myself pretty centrist, generally people would agree. My views never really changed, but the Overton window has shot so far right I now get called a commie (I guess here I’m a tankie? Still dunno wtf that’s about except a slur for ‘left of Biden’) because I think a 40 hour work week should put a basic roof over your head, whether an efficency on your own or a roomie in a nicer spot.
Not extreme left but it’s socialist and isn’t consistent with American ideals. You can bitch about that shit if you want but we’re in the decay phase after a gluttonous society and you think the answer is communism? You do, you think everyone and everything should be “fair” but life and this country don’t work like that.
There is a lot of backwards ideas that get accepted as “leftist,” when they’re really statist.
This is my objection too.
All too many people here don’t seem to even begin to understand the inherent threats of institutionalized authority, so in their rush to head off the recreation of the Third Reich, they’re basically advocating for the recreation of the Khmer Rouge instead.
Define ‘full of communists’… cause it sounds like such an american phrase and perspective. To me, it’s just a more leftwing centered space. The real communists are a minority. At least on the biggest Lemmy servers.
Go for a walk in Hexbear and Lemmygrad communities, these are Lemmy’s communists…
Lol I’m not crying “SOCIALISM!” because someone recommended taking care of poor people. And maybe it’s just the communities on lemm.ee, maybe it’s because I interact with the communities more because I can’t bite my tongue. But I come across way more communist communities than anything else. Your instance matters. I see a lot of communist communities. As an anarchist, the prevalence of communism on lemmy is troubling to me because I see huge flaws in the thinking and i want to see the left not follow down a doomed hierarchical road that has proven to be a failure over and over and over again.
Tell that to Voat, or Gab. There’s plenty of offshoot free speech platforms that got flooded with actual racists and Nazis the same way that Lemmy got flooded with actual communists and anarchists.
It’s because when you have a new platform, a lot of your first users will be the worst kinds of people to exist on the internet. It’s why “”“free speech absolutist”“” spaces quickly devolve into nazi hellscapes that repel all but the most equally toxic and revolting people unless they cut their claim to absolute free speech.
Ah, Voat. Come for the freedom of speech, decide not to stay because ABSOLUTE freedom of speech inevitably becomes racist.
There aren’t a lot of anarchists here, going by the anarchist communities I’ve seen.
A heel dragging regressive policy opinion should always be met as such. The world will never go back to the Wild West with gun laws, whites owning everything, women are property etc; to have a political viewpoint desiring these things and feel that it is correct is laughable.
What free market? All I have ever known is corporate socialism. Subsidize business with taxpayer dollars. Regulatory capture to prevent competitors from entering the market.
Somehow it’s not socialist when you prop up corporate entities with billion dollar handouts a few times a decade everytime they fuck up but a single mom getting $100 only usable for food because she was let go from her job of 5 years with 10 minutes notice is a communist plot single handedly destroying America.
Hence why our economy is going to shit.
We need to eliminate the corruption and return to free market principles, not add even more buerocracy that only benefits the Oligarchs.
Dipping my dick into a vat of acid is the greatest pleasure to ever exist.
You see all these people out here suffering and still say this? Where in the world can I get what you are taking because I’d love to be able to tune out everything that hard.
It’s not that capitalism doesn’t have flaws. It’s that all the other systems so far have had worse and bigger flaws. Regulated capitalism with welfare is the least bad system by a wide margin.
It’s the best at creating rampant consumerism and waste in the name of fake numbers going up at the cost of human happiness and fulfillment.
If you have a better system for the future, let’s hear it.
And no, a reboot of communism doesn’t count. Fresh ideas please.
What makes you say that? As a random example, leaded gasoline existed for 50 years longer than it should have. We’ve known lead was toxic since the Roman empire, and the only reason it was invented was to increase profits.
Pretty much the whole world used leaded gasoline and capitalist countries were the first to phase it out. US phased it out relatively early compared to others, Japan was afaik the first to outright ban it in 86. My ex-eastern bloc country only fully banned it in 2002.
Romans died from lead in the aqueducts by the tens of thousands in Pompeii so saying they “knew” is misrepresentative to say the least. They didn’t know why. Do you really need hyperbole to make your point?
