The "TL;DR" version of below is that it is not bad to have opinions of how other places do things. I agree with you. It is stupid to demand that other places do things while the place making those demands can't even make good on those same things. I like that I have a right to free speech and many other rights. But it is also very true that the people and orgs with the real powers in the US give zero fucks about violating those rights. So pretending that we are "number one" while others are completely evil is stupid.

Hardest part I run into is trying to just simply get more of my liberal/progressive friends/co-workers to see the self-traps they set for anything changing (outside of "vote blue and stop trying to make it easier for the Republicans!"). I both catch the shit about how "evil the CeeCeePee" is and the Russia of it all. I don't really care about what they are doing in the way that those I know do. They see me as being brainwashed (more or less even if they don't say it out loud) for "always defending them." But what they misunderstand is that I am not "defending" and just try to point out how they don't really attempt to even see the other side and how they are not questioning why our outlets seem to sync up on shit. How those outlets treat similar things done by any AES or post-socialist nations vs the US or other Western nations. I am not in those nations and just really want for those friends/co-workers to simply get out of the headspace of being binary about it all. At which point I do find the post-9/11 push for war as a good point of reference as to how most of the US was super for it up until they weren't.

I have plenty of things I don't agree with or support in China/Russia/etc, but I also think that the US is the only nation I have any real reason to change. As it is the nation I live in, and it is not our place to be the sole voice of what everyone should do because we say so. We can somehow send so much money and weapons to "help" everywhere, but we can't find fucking resources to fix our own home. Even if for some reason another nation did want us to "nation build" them. It would be a farce from the jump, as the poor and houseless in the US would be pissed off to see us make that other nation in any way better than the poorest part of the US. So it means that our efforts need to be in putting our home in order, and try to help out and work with other nations (when they actually ask for it and not by force) after. Having opinions are fine and can be helpful, but they don't if they are just "they need to do it our way or no way."

There will always be things that one place does that other places will dislike. The best way to deal with many of those things requires that we unlearn the idea that we can only "fix" it by force. To be the best examples of how we would like to be treated by how we treat others. Which are nice words that lots of people of the whole class spectrum say in some form to appeal to their populaces (while most certainly acting otherwise). I think that socialism/communism are the most realistic ways to actually put those words into practice (though I will be fair to say that many real revolutionary anarchists do truly wish for this as well even with real differences in how to do it). While also requiring the most effort from each person to be alert enough to keep watch for regressions and bad faith actors that try to use the revolutions for greed.

Would certainly be much better to go super fast with as little time to freak out. Rather than to be sitting in the dark trying to not wast air on panic attacks while waiting to even be found (let alone rescued). Would suck to know you were found, but then run out of air before you could reach the surface. Though I am glad that they didn't also implode into the actual wreak. Still super close.

From the little I know (which is admittedly not a lot) China did seem to be sliding towards revisionism during the late 90's through the aughts (I think the aughts were maybe the bigger issue). In that there was so much deep corruption at all levels. Which is certainly something Xi has made a point to both acknowledge and began dealing with. I read somewhere last year or so, that it really caught the US intelligence agencies with their guards down when Chinese intelligence agents were starting to do things to show off that they knew who was in the pockets of the US and the West. I think that the issue with what has become known as "Dengism" is that the push to allow a bit of bourgeois stage of development for catching up with modern industrialism and whatnot was given too much freedom. Which allowed for folks to claim that China is socialist in name only (I really didn't mean for that to be a pun so sorry for that). It is awesome to see that the party and the current leadership is being so focused on correcting the mistakes. While also making sure to keep pushing for advancements as China is getting closer and closer in closing the remaining gaps in technical and industrial processes.

I just personally hope that they are able to push for getting the 996 stuff removed. I know they did rule that it isn't constitutional, but it is still (from what I can gather) a thing that is a mindset and just kind of expected in various industries. Which being fair to China isn't just a them thing, as it is in Japanese and Korean cultures too. But that is all just my opinion and I am not Chinese, and haven't been there or worked there. So I am willing to yield to being super wrong on that and really all the above.

I have thought about it, and I like that you agree that it could be helpful. Though I am not sure I can handle being a mod. Though I guess it would be more of an issue if it got high traffic. lol

Didn't mean to write so much and rant. But the main point of agreement with you is the first paragraph.

You are likely correct on the fact that normie users are pissed off. One of my co-workers (that always reminds me he doesn't use Reddit aside from if he needs to sell or trade PC parts) wouldn't stfu about how it was stupid and "all just about some power-tripping mods" all because HardwareSwap was considering going longer and he was trying to list some parts (due to a different freakout reaction over needing to downsize his PC to have money in savings after a mass purge of some leaders at work). He was mildly okay with it at first because the automods thing being impacted by the new API stuff. All that "okayness" was completely right out the window after that specific thing was adjusted by Reddit.

So while he isn't a normal day to day viewer of the site, I imagine that most of the "I don't pay attention to politics/policies" users (which I think of as the bulk "normie" mainstream users) are not far behind his sentiment. I did ask if he tried other options, like big Discord servers like LTT/GN or other big PC based YT channel fan servers. Or even forums of those channels/sites. He just wanted to removed about the amount of users being so low. Which I also reminded him that r/HardwareSwap was tiny at some point too and there were smaller subs that he could at least try as they would have higher traffic while the big ones were down.

Protests are supposed to make people frustrated and cause normal operations to be messed up. But in the US, we are just taught to hate anyone or groups that dare protest in ways that impact daily functions. We are told that the only "correct" protests are to be in a pre-selected spot out of the way of everyone else. Or maybe a one-off march with speakers just saying how things are wrong and have people cheer and then leave. And reactionaries are supposed to be the ones that everyone supports because they are (like the majority of people/users) "not hear for politics and don't care." They are also the main thing stopping new unions from forming. Which does seem to line up with how much Lenin was correct in speaking about no revolutions are going to win if those folks can't be won over. Which requires being fully ready and willing to be lashed out at, and stand firm in keeping up the effort and care about them no matter what.

Thanks for this post! It also now makes me wish that Lemmygrad (and really all instances of Lemmy) had an "OutOfTheLoop" community. It has been a big favorite subreddit of mine for awhile. Even if lots of the topics are drama things, but they are still weirdly interesting to read.

The old "hate the sin and not the sinner" bullshit. This shit is the Russian equivalent to "MAGA Communism". Such utter support of conservatism and "traditionalism" has no place in the revolution. This perversion that claims to be a "communist party" would be purged if comrade Lenin were alive today. They are just as much the enemy as capitalists, fascists, and monarchs. Right wing shit like this belongs with Nazbols. If I remember correctly, one of the top CPRF leaders literally wanted the Russian Federation flag to be changed back to the flag of the USSR. Just because they claimed "things were better with that flag" or something like that. Not because people had equality or any of the actual shit that made those better times. Just wanted to use the imagery of socialism/communism to paint over the bad shit and act like everything is good. I'll see if I can find that article and reply to this with the link.

I am happy to hear that you did join and have been on-boarded! Your first paragraph sums up how things have been in my own experience. The org being a broad spectrum of the anti-capitalist left (imo) makes it a good place to meet and respectfully interact with comrades and learn more stuff you might not otherwise have.

My chapter primarily uses Signal for our primary communications and working groups. Though we have used Discord for chapter meetings (we have also used other options to see how well they handle video and audio). The real annoyance with Signal is that it can't do sub-chats/rooms like Discord or Slack. You can only "pin" like four group chats to the top. So as more working groups are made it becomes a "which chats should be pinned" issue.