Hey everyone, I’m new to Lemmy and just starting to figure this site out. I mainly moved here because of the censorship on Reddit where they didn’t publish posts that included the slightest word not allowed by their filter and they removed/blocked lots of content. I wonder if it will be somewhat better here (on the official site it says “Censorship resistant - By hosting your own server, you can be in full control of your content.”).
The weird thing I saw with Lemmy was when I wanted to sign-up on the “lemmy.ml” server instance that according to the official Lemmy Servers listing page is a “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers”.
So I thought I try that one when it’s from Lemmy’s own developers. When I wanted to sign-up it required an application that you needed to fill out with one of the requirements being having to copy a sentence from the link provided which links to some article called “The Principles of Communism” which I thought was very odd for a site to do. I’ve never seen a site like this promoting some ideology that directly where it’s part of the sign-up process to almost pledge to some political or religious ideology.
This seemed very sketchy to me. Does anyone know something about this?
Main Lemmy devs are communist and aren’t shy to enforce their views, which gets reflected in their instance, lemmy.ml, which is considered to be fairly tankie.
However, as Lemmy is federated, you can join any other instance and view whatever interests you without having to recite political literature to sign up.
In fact, the most popular instance is actually lemmy.world, which is not politically affiliated; although it defederated from certain instances, which might make you feel limited. I found lemmy.today as a way to be connected with anything and everything, from Hexbear to Beehaw, to, well, Lemmy.world
Their evil enforcement, our righteous peace keeping.
Being “apolitical” just means they’re neoliberal. Which tbh sounds perfect for OP.
Nah, I take similar issue with liberals who scream about their views everywhere, asked or not, and do their best to turn Lemmy into a place where politics (and, especially, American politics, as if it’s a country with 99% of Earth’s population) is everywhere. If Lemmy.world would ask people to recite Adam Smith, I’d absolutely be pissed.
For the record, I am communist, I just don’t want to be bombarded with politics at every corner and I refuse to analyze crochet through the prism of the class theory. It is possible to abstain from politics on .world, but it is often hard to escape on .ml (thankfully, Linux communities are generally neutral), or Hexbear (although it tries) or, Marx forbid, Lemmygrad, latter being a straight up shithole where politics is everything, people are as politically uniform as clones, and you can be banned for saying Stalin could be wrong in some of his decisions (I’m serious, it happened).
People need to have a place to relax and unwind, and endless political circlejerk is not a good environment for that. Politics is important, but not really when people just proclaim the same things over and over again as a form of leisure.
I doubt that; otherwise you’d be screaming at everyone, all of the time. Politics are life, life is politics; ESPECIALLY if you’re not white-- this whole bullshit sounds like exactly why I don’t organize with white “leftists”; 'cause you ain’t no damn comrade of mine with a take like that. I don’t get to just “opt out”. I walk down the street, it’s side-eyes from settlers over the melanin in my skin, side-eyes from settlers over the coarseness of my hair, side-eyes from settlers over the size of my lips and nose, side-eyes from settlers over why I’m even in their space when I lived here half my fuckin life.
I don’t get to opt out, so neither do fuckin you.
Well, believe it or not, I do take issue with this liberal pseudo-left everywhere. Big part of the reason I stopped following politics on Lemmy is because it’s mostly a uniform blob of liberals that consider themselves “the left”, and the actual left “tankies” and dangerous psycho radicals because most of their kin of “left” are American exceptionalists who really believe not being a fascist means you’re left now. And that took me a LOT of filter rules, not just unsubbing politics-related communities, to finally silence that shitflow.
We all are victims of the current political situation - some more, some less. Even trans folks, which are probably under the heaviest of fires right now, often prefer NOT to immerse themselves in the political debates and news more than it is required to merely survive - and that’s totally understandable, because when politics hits you heavy every day, some people need to take a breather. Don’t deny them that.
And me being white male doesn’t mean I’m free from any oppression. While you may experience more of it due to additional traits, such as you being black, that’s not alpha and omega of it, and the more we split, the less effective we are at uniting where we can and where it is equally if not more important - to fight for the working class. A black billionaire lives an infinitely better life than I do, and he does it by exploiting us all - white, black, male, female, nonbinary, cis and trans. That’s not to say racism isn’t real or some shit - a white billionaire would do even better - but there are many axis of oppression, and it’s not like you’re oppressed and I am not. Besides, I’m all for the demolition of racism, and while I could be less vigilant, I’m not much more tolerant to it.
There is no coming together with the settler when it is the settler in the way of my people’s liberation; and it’s frankly contemptuous that you think there somehow is. The state of race relations in this country is so positively abysmal that I would sooner put my faith in the Chinese than ever consider white Americans worth the time or effort expended. There is no ‘coming together’ with you and yours as long as we are unreparated and unliberated. You may as well just come out with it and say you feel you’re entitled to my camaraderie rather than trying to orate yourself around that particular elephant in the room; there’d be more dignity in it.
No, I’d rather say you have an extreme case of “race/gender over everything” mentality that permeates so many pretentiously left liberals among others.
I’m not a “settler”, I live where I was born, and I never (at least knowingly) discriminated against anyone on the basis of race. You seem to suggest that I owe you something for other people, for the severe oppression of the black people back in the days neither of us was even born, and for the milder (although very real) forms of it permeating today to which I hold no relation. I don’t have to reparate you anything, and I refuse to give you some special status you seem to feel entitled to; but if someone actively discriminates black people (or hispanic, or even whites for that matter - that is a thing in certain societies, world doesn’t end outside America), I am willing to take the side of the oppressed, and more people could join black liberation movement if you yourself wouldn’t piss everyone off.
If you, however, still want to be treated in some special way, I don’t need such camaraderie. You are either a comrade, an equal fighting alongside me (and me alongside you), or you’re not. And the most I can hope for is your realization that we have issues we both struggle with, and end this splintering of the left that makes us weak and useless, infighting over fighting our common enemy. At least the right are ready to unite, so…here we are. Enjoy the fruits of your personal liberation.
You really hit the settler-leftist bingo with this one, no free space necessary. Every last thing you’ve said reeks of uninvestigated white supremacy; and I’d suggest self-crit if I believed for a half a second in your bonafides.
That said, thank you for justifying why I put more faith in AES than white leftism, justifying why I consider there to be no revolutionary potential in the western settler, and justifying why I will only ever organize with Black formations. You, and everyone like you can’t even bear to cop to the thread of history which your story is sewn in, let alone figure out how to rectify that state. This is exactly why I have no time, faith, or camaraderie for the white ‘left’.
As usual, we’ll have to get it our own damn selves, with you people constantly in our way. What I get for discoursing with people John Brown would’ve turned into a speed loader. And no, that you consider true, fully-reparated Black liberation to be 'Black supremacy exactly the same as the white variety", I fucking spit on you; and have no further interest humoring your eurofascist ass. I hope when they find you, it’s in shrapnel-studded pieces.
https://readsettlers.org
If you suggest we have to somehow “rectify” the mistakes of our ancestors (ours even?) beyond promoting equality of all people, I regret to inform you that “historic justice” is a component of fascist rhetoric.
The only good response to inequality in the past is struggling for equality in the present. Otherwise you promote the same discrimination, just the kind that benefits you, based in part on history you personally never got to experience. And if that’s the case, I’m double disgusted.
We should put much more resources to improving conditions in predominantly black neighborhoods - precisely because they are far worse than white ones on average. We should heavily invest in providing decent quality of life in Africa, where most black people live, despite everyone only seemingly caring about blacks in the Western world. We should drop the perception of black people as dangerous gangstas holding pistols in the pockets - all while promoting conditions that would foster better living standards and security. We should ensure everyone is truly equal in the face of law. We should ensure people of any origin have equal access to job opportunities, education, healthcare, proper accommodation. I stand for that. But the moment you suggest we should somehow “rectify” mistakes done by other people in other times, what do you even mean? Should we build a black supremacist world to “compensate” for the injustice of the past? If yes, you’re a black supremacist scumbag that is not an iota better than white ones. If no, I welcome you to explain what you mean.
Oh and - in case this will add some context to what I say - I am not American. I live on the land that was originally an empty swamp. Through series of wars, it was occupied by the Vikings, Finns, Swedes, and Russians, with local population counting in, like, hundreds, all white and European, of various ethnicities. So, it was never a colony to begin with, more of a barren cold land with some outcasts that only possessed strategic value due to access to the sea that wasn’t completely frozen during the winter. This led to the formation of first Swedish and Russian fortresses that eventually, just 300 or do years ago, have been widely populated and turned into cities.
Damn, you’re not just a cracker but a dumbass too
Oh yeah, typical Internet “left”. Could you elaborate instead of swearing all over?
eat your hands you worthless fucking asshole
Quite a civil and reasonable response.
Any elaboration on what I got wrong?
There’s a list on GitHub of instances by most federation. It’s where I found mine.
Good option! Could you please share the link to the list if you still have one?
Sure, I’ll PM you.
For anyone else, it’s easy to find by search, but it feels like one of those things that could be ruined if it got too well-known.