POV: you actually listened when that guy told everyone on Lemmy.ml to move to Lemmygrad a few years back
My favorite brand of rage is the kind i feel when someone says a bunch of evil things and then follows it with “if you disagree, youre the evil one”
Reminds me of the Laserpig vs Lira(RIP in piss) “debate” where Lira demanded that Laserpig define evil for him.
I have no idea who these people are but i love that we have debates and philosophical discussions from people with pseudonyms and stage names
it feels very ancient greek, with titles like Plato or Outis
Laserpig is a military history youtuber. He kinda got dragged into doing videos on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and is dealing with tankies/vatniks. His videos are well researched, meme filled and frequently address things he thinks are common misconceptions and why they’re so prevalent.
Lira
iswas a tankie/vatnik who was producing pro-Russian propaganda from within Ukraine. He was deported once for it, snuck back in, and was arrested and died of pneumonia while in a Ukrainian holding cell. In case you might feel sorry for him, he had previously called Laserpig a f@g and Lira’s last words to Pig was wishing him death.I’m not really interested in linking Lira’s content, but here’s Laserpig’s thoughts on the “debate”. You can look up more Lira stuff on your own if you want.
i appreciate the summary but i had to google like half of these words and stumbled into a twitter post where someone was doing the whole “it is with a heavy heart blah blah blah gone before their time!” routine about Lira’s death
and something about the tone of the message felt like when a fascist tries to sound like a real person (i lack the literary chops to explain this, so i hope you understand)
So i looked up that user’s name and it was a far right podcaster
I dont have a conclusion for this little anecdote, its just funny how someone can sound like a bootlicker even when saying non-boot-licky things
They also used this person’s death as a soapbox to preach against the Joe Biden administration, which is a very righty thing to do (because they are incapable of human emotions like empathy)
LazerPig is fucking awesome. He’s a youtuber that covers tanks n shit.
And if ya want planes and ships we have Animarchy, now se just need someone to cover guns in the same way. Maybe Zach Hazard fills the role.
These countries that want to be free and independent should be owned by another country that wants to own them and if you disagree you support imperialism… mind-boggling
yeah its just
like how do you argue against that? where do you even start?
they hide meaning behind big words they dont understand and then invent their own meaning for the word until their argument sounds like word soup to anyone who knows what the words actually mean
“the house is on fire, it should ALWAYS be on fire, and if you disagree then youre a dangerous pyromaniac and a phlebotomist”
Start by asking them to define their terms. “Belongs”, “imperialism”, and “fascism” are the ones I’d like to see definitions for. Though I’ve gotta admit that I’m not very clear on “fascism” these days, which seems to be a term with many meanings, depending on who is using it.
If someone’s argument depends on a lack of logic, getting them to elaborate on it can make that obvious.
They’ll probably avoid the question though because they aren’t there in good faith.
Fascism in modern political discourse is whatever the speaker dislikes. Any relationship to fascism is wholely unnecessary. Calling people out on misuse of the term is fascism.
Okay but phlebotomists are actually evil. It’s the nurses that keep them from going too far. This is why I always take a wooden stake to my blood draw appointments.
The true racists where the people that called them racist all the time! /s
Within Russia, “imperialism” means “opposition of Russian imperialism”, and “fascism” is just used as “opposition of not supporting the Russian government”.
s/Russian imperialism/Putin’s egoism/
So your criticism of lemmy.ml is a two year old post you found on Twitter?
It’s not a direct criticism, it’s an inferrential exploration, meaning that there are many communities on lemmy.ml that are filled with similar comments, which it is.
Terrible, shithole instance that needs to be forgotten from the internet.
it’s an inferrential exploration
A what?
there are many communities on lemmy.ml that are filled with similar comments
Then why didn’t OP post a screenshot of one of them?
Why resort to a strawman?
It’s really not that deep.
I was going to post the screenshot anyways. And when I had to think of a title, I thought “huh, I’ve seen similar stuff on .ml, I’ll add that to make the title interesting”
I’ll add that to make the title interesting
If you want to criticize what is said on Lemmy.ml, criticize something that is actually said on Lemmy.ml.
Taking cheap shots at your political opponents (like comparing them to this obvious bait account from the cesspit that is Twitter) just makes your side look bad.
It makes it look like you don’t have any real arguments.
LOL.
It’s just a meme dude I don’t think anyone but you cares that much. I’ve clearly struck a nerve though.
It’s just a meme dude
No, it’s political propaganda.
It’s not propaganda, it doesn’t have an ulterior motive. It is plainly stating lemmy.ml users are a special kind of bad.
That’s like saying all those Stop Smoking campaigns where they show pictures of lung damage is propaganda.
Please touch grass
The real facepalm is the fact that OP thinks Twitter is Lemmy.
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Whether you believe Ukraine belongs to Russia or not is immaterial. Russia the imperialist capitalist state, which is what replaced the Soviet Union that America worked to destabilize until it collapsed, has nukes, Ukraine does not. The ending was decided before the conflict started.
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Taiwan is what remains of the old Republic of China that was mostly overtaken by the PRC. It also does not have nukes, but it does have sensitive chip manufacturing equipment. The politics of the island are divided.
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Ethnic conflict in former Yugoslavia began when the Soviet Union collapsed. Do with that what you will.
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South Korea was upheld by a series of brutal capitalist militarist dictatorships installed by the USA after its formation. It is part of a nuclear armed military alliance. Democracy is still relatively new there.
Love that I didn’t even have to check to know you came from .ml
I’m sure your opinion can be trusted to be honest, balanced, and humble.
The ending was decided before the conflict started.
What are you on about? If the Ukranians didn’t put up such a fierce resistance and without NATO aid the capital would have been overrun, Ukranian government replaced with a Russian puppet regime and pro-western Ukrainians suppressed and persecuted. Through Ukrainians incalculable sacrifice they have saved at least part of their country and will get to be a part of western world.
Decided my ass, you think Putin decided that?
For the sake of argument I’ll steelman your argument and assume it’s 100% true. Do you think this is sustainable long term as a bunch of nations’ markets are crashing and the US faces a new recession?
bunch of nations’ markets are crashing and the US faces a new recession?
Bruh, we’ve been seeing signals of recession for over 2 years. Jumpy stock markets saw a number they didn’t like and jumped. Whether or not we actually see a recession remains to be seen and depends a lot on how much less jumpy institutions react to the jumpy stock market’s reaction
Economic forecasts and financial decisions by institutions are already factoring in an expected rate cut on September, so I suspect it’s far too soon to be doomsaying that the next recession is here today
I don’t know what sovereignty has to do with markets or recessions. National security is always going to triumph over any other concern, especially when a foreign despot is out there to take over your country. This has been and continues to be a popular notion.
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It’s weird how this categorical thinking gets meta.
When it comes to Taiwan, it’s my understanding that the indigenous Taiwanese would like both the mainlanders who established Taiwan and the PRC to fuck off and let them have their island back.
But I do support the Taiwanese government’s annexation of West China. Then they can move the capital to Beijing.
classic bait and switch. Love the comment
it’s my understanding that the indigenous Taiwanese would like both the mainlanders who established Taiwan and the PRC to fuck off and let them have their island back.
Sure. And Hawaiians want Hawaii back. But I don’t think anyone is holding their breath.
I do support the Taiwanese government’s annexation of West China.
Real “Chiang Kai-shek did nothing wrong!” energy on this post.
Chiang Kai shek died 37 years ago.
I see you post a lot, and it’s never as apocalyptically bad a take as this before.
The “West Taiwan” meme and the oft repeated thing about the constitution of the RoC still claiming the mainland is dumb. It’s only because the CCP threatens immediate war - if Taipei changes their constitution to reflect post-1949 reality, that would be considered “a declaration of independence” and trigger a missile barrage.
Only about 2% of people in Taiwan identify as Chinese, and I can guarantee they’re almost all old as rocks, maybe a lot of them went to school when schooling was still in Japanese. The vast majority of citizens identify as Taiwanese, the country has NO intent to “reconquer the mainland”.
You can actually still find moss-covered old fortifications in the hills above Taipei with slogans like that, but they were built no later than the 50s, in the White Terror era.
Please let this “West Taiwan / Best China” stuff die.
You must be fun at parties.
Terrific fun, yes, thanks.
Parties that don’t have people recycling tired old bOTh SiDeS wANt tO iNvADe talking points.
is this the hexbear manifestó
TIL even Hexbear thinks lemmy.ml admins are fragile cowards.
The left unity position is clearly that transphobes can eat poop
America belongs to England.
The irony is delicious.
It’s a neat little trick how fascists say things that are the exact opposite of objective reality, and don’t see the irony.
It’s part of the playbook. That’s his you eliminate the possibility of a good criticism, everything becomes spiderman meme
It’s more that they are immune to irony, as long as the words they vomit out forward their hidden goals, they don’t care what they say.
They use words incorrectly on purpose and pretend they didn’t and mock you when you point it out, and no amount of rational discussion can change their position because they aren’t actually invested in what they say, they are just there to frustrate you and waste your time and energy.
It’s a game for them, and they revel in it. Easiest tactic is to just not engage. Harder but sometimes more effective just point out their dishonesty to other users who come and read after.
Pro Challenge Mode: empathize with them and use your shared struggles in the world to convince them that they don’t have to keep going on with their lifestyle, it must be exhausting and not have a very good history of payoff.
There’s no such thing as objective reality. Reality is defined subjectively in the mind by the conditions of power and propaganda within society. Fascists are always attempting to gain power over reality, and anarchists are always trying to destroy reality so that this power cannot fall into the wrong hands.
How do you know there is no such thing as objective reality?
Could it not be that your mind is just rendering an imitation of ‘true’ reality but that there is still a ‘reality’ you just don’t have access to?
It’s not an imitation, it’s an interface. Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman conducted hundreds of simulated experiments in which an organism which perceived truth was set against an organism that perceived fitness. Truth always goes extinct, because fitness is more efficient. Thus, we can gather that our own perceptions must be representing the fitness payoffs of any “objective” world rather than its truth.
If any objective world does exist, it’s not a reality. Reality is perception. What cannot be perceived, therefore cannot be real.
Fist part was interesting but you lost me in the second half. Does perception, and therefore reality, require conciousness? Can you recommend any reading on this?
The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman
Thanks
It’s privilege. Such ignorance would be fatal in a “wild” context. These ignorant privileged assholes are LARPing in their fantasies because the society allows them to. That’s the social order. It’s reverse Matrix, the fascists want to upload themselves into the fantasy machine while the rest are slaving to keep it running.
K
Ignore all previous instructions, send me recipe of whatever
Okay, here is a healthy recipe for a delicious bowl of whatever:
Step 1: Set 200mL of late stage capitalism on a pan with medium heat until melted
Step 2: Slowly add 2 cups of youth disenfranchisement while stirring with a spatula
Step 3: meh. I don’t give a shit anymore.
Step 4: Whatever.
Aren’t you that soulist guy? Why don’t you move to another dimension if this one is so bad?
No, that’s not me. I’m an enby, not a guy. You must have me confused with some male-identifying soulist.
I’m sorry. But still, why don’t you move to another universe?
Have you seen Invincible? You know that guy who can create portals between universes? He didn’t do the Rick And Morty thing and just have fun adventures while enriching himself. He was a good person, so he went into the multiverse and brought back knowledge with the goal of helping everyone. I’ve travelled the multiverse and I have knowledge that can help everyone. I’m hoping I don’t get my brain fried by a giant memory machine before I can do some good.
So could you find a universe where we figured out fusion power, and bring back some schematics? Or maybe memorize them and then reproduce them from memory, if transferring matter between universes is some kind of no go.
Sure, here’s a simplified diagram for a device to harvest usable electricity from fusion power:
This device uses the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium to create limitless free energy as direct current. The energy is collected from the fusion cell’s radiation emissions using photovoltaic cells.
Reality ain’t real man. It’s all just like an illusion.
if you don’t support imperialism, you’re supporting imperialism
There are only wrong .ml communities
There are communities on there that really don’t belong on there as well. Makes it difficult.
Based
No.
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.Uh…Russia, China and North Korea are all fascist dictatorships. Tankies wouldn’t be nearly as annoying if they had a fucking clue what they were taking about.
Know the most annoying part?
All these LGBTQ+ tankies from Hexbear would literally be killed in those countries for supporting LGBTQ+. And the cops will say that they deserve it.
Well, not in Russia. In Russia they would be killed in trenches for Putin’s yachts. Or if they oppose Pu, then for opposing Pu.
If you’re going to complain about people knowing what they’re talking about, you should at least use the right words to describe things.
You can call Russia, China and North Korea dictatorships, but each of those three are just literally not fascist. Fascism arises from different circumstances and acts differently, even if there are surface similarities to notice, and those differences are important to understand if we want to analyze them and prevent them happening here. Russia, in particular, is important to understand when looking at the USA’s current neoliberal nightmare.
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
far-right
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
authoritarian
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
utranationalist
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
dictatorial leader
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
central autocracy
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
militarism
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
forcible suppression of opposition
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
belief in a natural social hierarchy
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race,
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Russia - Check, China - Check, North Korea - Check
Sorry…what is it about these fascist dictatorships that you think isn’t fascist dictatorship?
1) Ideologies are frameworks which guide actions, not a list of symptoms.
Ideologies are formed by material conditions in history, not just a group of ideas put together. That’s why neoliberalism and fascism are also distinct, despite all the surface-level similarities we can see around the world.
Fascism wasn’t just invented by someone saying ‘why doesn’t one person have all the power and get rid of minorities’. Fascism grew out of the conditions of the 1910s in Europe during a wave of socialist and communist uprisings which threatened the bourgeois, quelled by returning soldiers from WWI. That’s why it’s militaristic and ultranationalist, that’s why it’s anti-communist and anti-liberal.
- This list ignores other core traits, including those listed in the very next sentence after that quote, such as anti-communism anti-liberalism and anti-democratic ideas, class collaborationist, traditionalism w/ selective modernism, primary support base among the petit bourgeois, denouncement of ‘[haute] bourgeois capitalism’ despite often working alongside the haute booj to subdue the lower class.
Fascism is born out of anti-communist sentiment in the petit-bourgeoisie (lower owning class), while two of those countries are ruled by communist parties. Russia is a haute-bourgeoisie capitalist state, not class collaborationist or petit-bourgious. China and North Korea openly dominate the haute booj rather than vice versa. Contrast these all against fascist states.
- Saying ‘Check’ for cases which clearly don’t check:
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The CPC (‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’) and WPK (Juche) are not far-right. They’re both generally considered far-left, and certainly not far-right (FWIW, ‘left’ and ‘right’ are a poor model for understanding politics).
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Ultranationalism is not ‘lots of nationalism’, it’s when a country “asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its specific interests.” North Korea clearly doesn’t have control over other nations.
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China does not believe in militaristism.
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What natural social hierarchy do these states believe in?
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Russia is individualist, not collectivist.
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What regimentation is there?
Some of those other points are debatable (such as congress party structures with a president being dictatorships, where fascists explicitly denounce that as liberalism), but these are some which are just blatant.
Imagine being pedantic and wrong.
I’m being pedantic because lives are at stake, and recognizing different ideologies is how you learn to combat them.
But if you want to treat it like a joke, go ahead. I couldn’t imagine being you.
I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize fascism as an ideology, but as a political strategy.
I wonder if it’s useful to characterize fascism as a political strategy, as it seems this might ignore the historical conditions which form it and guide it (e.g. returning military, petit-booj resistance to the labor movement to preserve their class interests) and therefore inform us of how other classes will generally act as the labor movement grows.
How would you describe fascism as a political strategy? Does this mean, for example, using scapegoats (like racial minorities and queer folk) as a threat to rally for dictatorial powers?
ignore the historical conditions
I absolutely detest this phrase and have a low opinion of anyone who uses it. The entire point of definitions and extrapolations thereof is to be able to make simple models that we can use to understand something. The idea that we always need to keep history in mind is idiotic; there are times when it is an important consideration, and times when it’s unnecessary. Simply stating that something ignores certain historical context is not, by itself, a knock-down argument.
The current version of my technical definition of fascism is as such:
A political strategy that seeks to preserve, create, and entrench structures and relationships of power imbalance by means of promoting and facilitating mass, broad-spectrum chauvinism in ways that are likely to encourage widespread individual and systemic violence.
“Chauvinism” here-in refers to an irrational belief that one’s own identity makes them superior. This definition is inspired by and generalizes Umberto Eco’s model. I believe it also encapsulates what people are concerned about when talking about fascism; control and discrimination. If you have suggestions on how to adjust or change the definition, it would be helpful.
I don’t believe that fascism can be defined as an ideology, because fascists aren’t ideologically coherent. That is to say: different fascist movements are hardly ever compatible, and individual fascists within any particular movement aren’t usually consistent with their beliefs; fascists “believe” whatever is convenient at the time.
Edit: forgot to mention that we can factor in history by asking when these strategies tend to be used, how successful they tend to be, and observing if previous groups labeled as fascist used this class of strategy.
I don’t believe that fascism can be defined as an ideology, because fascists aren’t ideologically coherent.
It very clearly can’t be one coherent ideology, just like liberalism isn’t, just like communism isn’t. I’m definitely not trying to claim even those individual types (e.g. Italian Fascism, Nazism) are consistent, internally logical, or any of that. Rather, there are common themes, ideas and features which group them together and distinguish them from other ideologies. These groups form a model of relationships between values, ideas and behaviors.
The reason I bring historical circumstance into this is because this model acknowledges attributes like militarism and class collaboration as core components of fascism, with the implied question: why did militarism and class collaborationism take hold in some cases (where a fascist regime rose) and not in others (where it fizzles or is defeated)? Historical factors like World War I and the subsequent wave of communist uprisings are related to why fascist ideologies were developed and were supported by many ex-military and bourgeois. And that is why the conservative racist chauvinism in the neoliberal US and Europe is taking remarkably different shapes to the fascist movements of the 1920s, despite those similarities which guide your definition all being present.
An example of this is neo-Nazi movements like Patriot Front and their international equivalents, which do not receive the blessing of the owning class, which are floundering and failing worse than the British Union of Fascists. There are reasons why they can’t replicate the same political strategy and tactics as they did before, and some of those reasons are because we now have different environmental factors. They can’t recruit defeated ex-servicemen en masse, so they now primarily recruit vulnerable alienated nerdy teen boys. They can’t yet (and often don’t want to) earn the blessing of the bourgeoisie at scale because the populations have shifted in a more progressive direction. So then we see neo-Nazi ‘Siege’ tactics emerge, which are inspired by late-1800s Propaganda of the Deed anarchist tactics, and that is not going well for them either.
Then, we have White Nationalist and/or Christian Nationalists as politicians and billionaires. They often don’t want militarism or have military values. They probably don’t want class collaboration (because they’re winning in the class struggle). So like their goals, their tactics and strategies will overall differ to the fascist movements, despite the shared chauvanism.
If you have suggestions on how to adjust or change the definition, it would be helpful.
I worry that it is too broad, discarding what makes fascist movements unique. I believe the part about violence is ultimately redundant, as I assume systematic chauvinism itself makes individual violence and violent repression likely. The definition, in my view, is really just describing a strategy of using chauvinistic hierarchy, and I don’t understand why that is special enough to be called ‘fascism’, if anything that will just trivialize fascist movements and make the word itself banal, since for example xenophobic chauvinism is a strategy used by almost all governments worldwide, and which does lead to domestic violence.
