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Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't irrationally idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
Bigotry is a concept. Evil itself is a concept.
Bigotry and general evil as attributes of the bad guy in a tabletop rpg where such settings was communicated beforehand and your right to opt out at any point respected by all players and the dm.
If people do not express a concept in a way that harms people and overrules there consent then there is no harm at all.
Again in bdsm there even exists roleplay of force/rape. But with safewords to indicate real consent the expression of rape becomes harmless play. (I dont understand this btw but i a wont kinkshame and its an interesting social case)
One of my biggest gripes with capitalism (besides that i simply dislike the profit win game) is that it no longer appears optional, to provide for myself and my family i have to partake in it. My consent is overruled without option to not play the game and still survive in health.
I'm sure you consider bigotry and evil just fine in all contexts just like you do the worst of capitalism.
What the F hell, absolutely not! The current dystopia is literally killing me.
I am a genderfluid autist, you think i am ok living in this world that has been harmfull to me non stop?
I just also a philosopher and like to know how reality works and what i discovered is that “evil” is an emergent concept from how humans express themselves in ways that overruled others consent. From being forced to listen to insults by the boss to physical assault.
You could not have judged me more wrong friend(?).
Not op that you replied to, but i find it funny to read your comments. I distinctly remember as a kid that i was playing with lego and i then realised that things like "justice" and "evil" are just in the eye of the beholder.
The good guy wanted to "protect his people and slay evil" (very hero-ist of the king lol) while the bad guy wanted to "have justice for being exiled and have better living conditions". I realised they were both, essentially, the same thing. Both involved evil acts ( killing and fighting ).
So reading this chain of comments reminded me of that memory, and how true it is, at its core.
When we add factors like humans and power things gets vastly more complicated, but the core is the same.
Just like how current AI at its core, is interesting and super cool, but its been twisted and turned into something terrible because of humans, power and money
My autistic secret is i never stopped playing in my head. The ability to build words from fantasy with my drive for scientific realism allows me to experiment and study any idea or concept i encounter. I struggled a lot to understand my existence as a kid and it provided much more then school possible could.
But shh, dont tell anyone. People tend to find this weird (although i am getting the perception people are much more open to the action of daydreaming these days)
Huh, interesting. Im autistic myself and whenever i try to imagine a situation or place i kinda generate a world or scene in my head and apply what i know, or try to think of what could happen in that situation. In my day job this helps a lot to detect problems or make designs for things.
But i have never stood still to think that what you linked is what i might have, and is like a mature, overpowered version of what kids have. Thats flipping interresting
Dystopia exists in cyberpunk fiction, therefore it is harmless and you're fine.
Great point. A dystopia in science fiction is indeed harmless. Because its a game i cant actually be physically harmed so i fully enjoy giving my consent to playing it
Wait you where arguing against me. Are you saying we should ban violence and evil in games? I know this maybe common in orthodox religions but i can’t agree, media like cyberpunk are proving positive value by how they critique how concepts can be expressed as evil. Thats majorly important for the growth in society.
(Either the religious angle or you completely misunderstood my entire point, context is key. The way and when it is expressed is context)
You knew the context of the thread, and you chose to be like "um ackshully, all concepts are benign" as though the context in which we were speaking encompassed fiction and roleplay instead of actual harm to actual people. It belittled that harm for no reason.
I said the same thing about what was harming you, and now you have a problem.
I quote the context in which i was speaking.
The top comment states:
“Capitalism isn't bad. It's what humans do with them that is bad.“
My reply was to someone who failed to understand what this meant so i provide additional context.
If you don't understand that this conversation is literally about the differences between a concept and the context that makes it evil then i have nothing to tell you except you may want to work your reading comprehension.
Nothing i said says i find all concepts benign, the opposite is true they are all very interesting to think about. What i state they are not is inherently evil like its a cosmic fact written in the stars.
Also, i have not been attacking anyone merely engaged in friendly philosophy. Unlike you who suggested i am fine with bigotry.
This is a community for leftist thoughts, infighting makes us weaker.
If you have nothing more that is friendly to say, please don’t say nothing at all. Have a good day.
When the only context in which it's evil is "the world outside of games and fiction," then it's evil.
It sure is buddy. I will take your holy word for it.
:eyeroll:
As long as you can think of some convoluted circumstance in which it's ok, everything is fine.
It is believed that bigotry was beneficial in very primitive humanoids: If you don't know germ theory (or any biology tbh), bigotry helps against spread of diseases (while it might lead to incest... so you gotta balance it!)
Your immune system shows signs of heavy bigotry.
Evil is a category. Lion's survival is "evil" to a gazelle while it is "good" to its offsprings.
Look at this guy defending bigotry.
How can I make my text better so you see that I'm trying to show that concepts themselves are not evil and only how you use those concepts make them evil to some subset of living beings?
I thought making fun of incest was enough.
Your comment sounded like a defense of eugenics, dude.
Eugenics(humans) = Currently everyone(I'm here.) but some cults agree that it's bad.
Eugenics(animals) = We call it selective breeding/artificial selection and it's a multimillion dollar industry, which is considered good.
Eugenics(plants) = We call it agriculture, the backbone of any civilization.
edit: Bottomline in case you misunderstand me again: Concepts are not inherently evil, how you use them makes them evil to some living beings (or all in some cases).
We see what you’re trying to do, you’re just failing to convince anyone. There are some objectively bad concepts.
I don't know, most concepts are only bad when the recipient is human. We do unimaginable things to bacteria but we(including me) don't see those as atrocities. Murder is bad but sterilization(mass murder of a colony) of a medical tool is ok.