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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)BH
barrbaric [he/him] @ barrbaric @hexbear.net
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5 yr. ago

  • The fediverse isn't a political organization that's going to enact change in the real world, so those concerns largely aren't relevant. Admins (and devs) generally speaking do hold a monopoly of power but that's the standard for the internet.

    1. lemmy's two main developers are marxist-leninists
    2. the largest and most active instance prior to the reddit exodus was hexbear, which is a "big tent" of revolutionary leftism, featuring mostly communists and some anarchists
    3. lemmygrad, an explicitly marxist-leninist instance, is also relatively large
  • Before I begin, let me just say that this comment is in good faith.

    All communists want to achieve a stateless, classless, moneyless society, but the key question is: how is a stateless, classless, moneyless society to be achieved? As history has shown, the instant a communist/socialist/anarchist/whathaveyou takes power, they are immediately put under brutal sanctions by the capitalist powers if not replaced in a coup or outright invaded. This would suggest that capitalist and communist societies cannot coexist, thus the achievement of a stateless, classless, moneyless society requires first the defeat or collapse of all the world's capitalist powers. In the meantime until capitalism collapses, what are the communists to do if they seize power? The answer is what has happened historically: a transitional socialist state is formed, whereby the communist party is in charge of society as a proxy for the working class, replacing the bourgeoisie. When world socialism has been achieved (or possibly when the premier world power is socialist), then a transition to communism can begin.

    There is much room for criticism of these socialist states, such as whether the party bureaucrats would ever actually follow through on the transition to communism when they have gained personal power, but the paths they have laid out are, if taken in good faith, at least plausible.

  • Communism killed 100 million in Europe alone and 300-400 million in China. Count other parts of the world and the number easily reaches a billion.

    What's your source for this? Where did the other 500 million people die due to communism outside of the USSR and China? Did Fidel Castro kill every person in Cuba 50 times?

  • Okay, sure, it's a greatsword made of pure blackness named "Soulripper", and yeah, you constantly hear faint screaming when it's within line of sight, and maybe it tried to consume Dave's barbarian when he picked it up, but it's also a +6 greatsword with flametongue and dragonbane! It's not like we can sell it, so I might as well use it!

  • To clarify my stance, I want the war to end as soon as possible so that all the people on the ground can stop killing each other for no reason. I also agree that Russia invading was, in addition to being wrong because war is bad, incredibly stupid and needlessly damaging to their own position (I was one of the people saying they wouldn't launch an invasion because it seemed like it would backfire). We'll see how the economic and geo-political damage ends up shaking out in a decade or so, I imagine. And of course it's understandable for Ukrainians to take up arms to defend their land, though it will likely only prolong the suffering, especially if we agree that life on the ground under the Ukrainian state would be little better than living under the Russian one. I also recognize that Putin claiming the war was necessary for de-nazification etc was the equivalent of pretending to care about human rights to sell the war to the populace; yes there are nazis and the far right is a huge problem in Ukraine, but that isn't something Russia actually cares about (beyond a potential insurgency, anyway).

    However, the point of my comment was not to condemn Ukraine. Instead, it was to point out that the US is not interested in helping Ukrainians (something we clearly agree on), and that in fact they are more than willing to sacrifice them in a conflict to achieve their own ends, namely isolating/weakening Russia and opening up Ukraine to even more voracious imperial extraction.

  • Well, BRICS isn't really a formal alliance but if it were? Yeah, joining a hostile alliance while sharing a border with the US is asking for trouble, and the US has committed all matter of atrocities in latin america. I do think an outright invasion would be less likely than their usual method of military coups and death squads.

  • At a 2008 summit, NATO stated that it would attempt to expand to include Georgia and Ukraine, despite Russia having stated that NATO membership for those countries was a red line for them. Georgia was immediately invaded by Russia in response. Imo this makes it clear that NATO membership for either of those countries was so unacceptable that Russia would rather invade.

    If we assume that Russia (and Putin in particular) is acting violently and irrationally like a wild animal, why did NATO continue to agitate Russia when the only possible outcome would be violence? Surely a neutral or even Russia-aligned Ukraine would be preferable to a war-torn Ukraine? This is proof that the US and NATO don't care about the average person actually living in Ukraine, and indeed don't care about the Ukrainian state beyond it being a useful (and profitable) proxy against a geo-political rival.

    To be clear, I'm not excusing Russia here, but geo-politics aren't about what's "fair" or "right", and if they were, the US would be a global pariah.

  • The ban was allegedly for "promoting hate", but in reality it was just to quash such a large leftwing sub. It's worth noting that they were only "promoting hate" against slaveowners, who are in my mind a completely fair target. When the sub was first quarantined, the mods made a series of posts over a week or so outlining their attempts to contact the admin team so that they could address the issues that had lead to said quarantining. The admins were non-communicative, and provided no real examples justifying the quarantine, nor possible actions the mods could take to undo the quarantine.