trafguy

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Thought it might be helpful to compare the USSR to Wikipedia's definitions of fascism and communism. These definitions can be wrong or could be different than what they were at the height of the USSR, but perhaps it'll help with finding common definitions. I'll admit that my knowledge of USSR culture/governance is limited, so feel free to critique/refute any of my interpretations.

Fascism:

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 and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

Checklist (hidden for brevity)

  1. +Dictatorial leader: Stalin wasn't exactly a democratic ruler. Check.
  2. ?Centralized autocracy: AKA: One person has final say over any government decision. Probably, but maybe not depending on your definition?
  3. +Militarism: Definitely had a significant military focus. Check.
  4. +Forcible suppression of opposition: Yeah, that sounds par for the course for modern Russian government.
  5. ?Belief in natural social hierarchy: Does semi-deliberate wealth disparity and nationalistic superiority complex count?
  6. ?Subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race: Sounds likely, but not 100% sure.
  7. +Strong regimentation of society and the economy: Pretty sure the USSR had a planned centralized economy.

It hits 4/7 pretty firmly and the remaining 3 are plausible.

Communism:

is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology... whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

Checklist (hidden for brevity)

  1. XCommon ownership of the means of production of goods/services: Weren't these state-owned?
  2. XCommon ownership of the means of distribution of goods/services: ^
  3. XCommon ownership of the means of exchange of goods/services: ^^
  4. ?Allocates products to everyone in the society based on need: Wasn't there significant poverty while others' were well-fed? If distribution wasn't tied to labor, then it could be argued this fits, if somewhat imperfectly.
  5. XAbsence of private property: Oligarchs don't exactly scream "lack of private property"
  6. XAbsence of social classes: Again, oligarchs and poverty
  7. ?Absence of money: Can't comment on this one
  8. XAbsence of the state: There was 100% an overarching state

Hits 2/8 at best, but I would be surprised to learn there wasn't money in the USSR.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

For more on this concept, try reading about "labor share" - It's a measure of how much money goes to workers versus management and other areas.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (6 children)

Same as Vyvanse (lisdexamphetamine, IIRC?)? There will likely be some generics in the US in a few months since their patent/exclusive rights are about to expire. Not sure if it might be similar in other parts of the world, but it may be worth looking into if you're paying much out of pocket. With some pretty decent insurance I'm paying $50 each time I get a refill, without insurance here it's something like $400

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

Are you concerned that might happen? Exclusionary behavior is not common among the left, and where you find it is generally a protection against manipulative or violent ideology. As long as you are tolerant of other's unique circumstances, beliefs, and mannerisms, you'll be welcomed. The goal is not to flip the hierarchy, but to remove it entirely.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I haven't been around here too long either, but it feels like something interesting is happening for sure. There's tons of memes, but there's definitely also some interesting non-meme content. It's shaping up to be a replacement for the core of what made Reddit work, hopefully while learning what not to do along the way. I know of at least 1-2 new apps on the way from seasoned 3rd party Reddit devs. Sync ([email protected]) will likely become my app of choice when it's available.

The biggest issue I'm seeing right now is the amount of data we're asking server admins to store as far as long-term sustainability. In a Lemmy Support community, I saw one admin saying their 1k-user instance was gobbling up an extra GB of disk space daily. I wonder if the devs could overhaul the content distribution system to reduce the number of copies of data stored? Maybe clusters where each cluster is a "core federation" inner circle that shares/mirrors content with each other (basically a pact to distribute seeding the network), then more loosely federated servers that are allowed to view/share data without fully mirroring all relevant content.

So many subs got shut down, and some definitely were questionable at best, but in it, Reddit organic feel and freedom

While I agree that deplatforming should be very cautiously and judiciously approached, I will say that there is some content that should be blocked for the sake of preservation of tolerance. I don't care whether the topic of discussion is legal, I care if it's ethical. Hate speech has, and does, encourage real violence against innocent parties. When the goal post keeps moving for the sake of attracting investors or silence activism, rather than focusing solely on user experience, we start to see unreasonable restrictions on free communication. With federation and open source software, there's no way to stop neonazis from setting up their own network, provided DNS is willing to point to them, but that doesn't mean we should assist in growing their ideology/platform.

Not to mention moderation was being done by a shrinking number of people and it seemed the echo chamber in each individual sub got worse.

I wonder if this might be a reflection on increasingly difficult times for many people as cost of living exceeds income? Moderation takes real work. It's unpaid and generally quite thankless. If would-be mods are bogged down with real-world problems, they'll have less energy to devote to volunteering.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

If we end up triggering a self-sustaining feedback loop, that's how I understand it, yeah. We still do have some very high risk strategies we could implement, like solar shielding to reduce total light reaching the earth, or bioengineering plants that suck up carbon super efficiently, but it's hard to say what the impacts of those would be

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Reminds me of this discussion of how a scene/subculture grows and evetnaully dies: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

Feels like federated social networks are creating a new fresh scene, and there's now an influx of new users (including myself)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Sounds good to me, as long as there's a way for instances/users to disable those filters. Since they're more in-depth/granular, I suspect engagement with them would be lower, so there's a higher risk of a smaller minority using it to dictate the conversation. But I'd definitely be interested in seeing that in action. It could be really helpful for giving people tools to shape their feed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I generally agree with you. I don't know that it matters so much whether articles are posted, it matters more that people continue to speak against the ideology and don't allow fascists to take the stage. Seeing others' support a cause lends it credence. Seeing that a cause exists lends some, but not as much as active support would. Seeing people voice disapproval helps to take away that credibility.

That said, the principle generally makes sense that spreading an ideology's message helps that ideology spread. The impact of posting an article on Lemmy is likely to be small, but non-zero. It's a matter of providing access to a fresh audience. Fox's viewers are thoroughly saturated with hateful rhetoric already, so there aren't many left to radicalize who can be reached by that message. Exposing a fresh audience to the content expands its reach and potentially radicalizes new people. Plus, exposure to new hateful messages can deepen the entrenchment of those who are already caught in the web.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

It isn't exactly a matter of wanting or not wanting to see it. You know the addage "any news is good news?" By posting content that keeps a person and their commentary in the forefront of people's minds, that person gains an audience. That audience will contain people who can be swayed by the snake oil, but who would otherwise be reasonable. Or in short, posting their content facilitates radicalization.

That said, while content from harmful influential people needs to be approached with caution, I don't see this as promoting Trump's action/behaviors. To me it reads more like a "not the onion" headline. I'd be disappointed if anyone felt that the death penalty was warranted for late tax filing, but I suppose it's possible.

Does Lemmy have a way to filter keywords? It would be helpful for people to be able to blacklist keywords so a user could choose to avoid seeing, for example, news about Trump or content with sensitive topics.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

Yeah, I agree with kobra. It's a mix. The Alt Right Playbook video series gives some interesting thoughts on the matter. Conservatives and further right tend to be hyper hierarchical and tend to demand respect for the chain of authority, even to their own detriment (as long as it hurts someone else more). Rejecting an authority figure is a bigger deal on the right than the left due to the whole "control how people think" angle.

So it hasn't gone far enough to alienate the ones that are still on board. Some refuse to hear the negative and just bury their head in the sand. Some are convinced by emotionally charged rhetoric that "the other side is even worse." And some already agreed with them secretly. For most, it's probably a mix of these various techniques for contorting to fit the shape demanded of them by their authority figures--some being more bigoted than others after all. For the pro-hierarchical people, their place in the hierarchy is a piece of their self-identity and it's really hard to fight that instinct.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I think you're right, thanks for the ID! I've seen monarchs and silver spotted skippers around, but I don't think I've seen this type hanging around too much

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