An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
Or they'll blame you for roping them into this exploitative shitshow with a side of climate apocalypse, and they'll be correct.
I say stop having kids to wholly avert the undeserved and nonconsensual suffering that is inherent to a sentient life and suffering across sentient lives should be minimized
Buddhists hate this one weird trick.
There was a christian sect that managed to be so sucessful at this, it went extinct.
What if the reason I got sterilized is that I don’t want to deal with raising them, knowing full well the burden would fall to me and I can’t even manage to keep myself fed most of the time (effort, not availability) and it just works in everyone’s favor?
I can feed my cats twice a day and clean their boxes once, and they manage themselves otherwise if that’s all I have the energy for. That’s called neglect with children.
Makes more sense than either in the meme. Carry on, friend.
Not having kids cuz I'm not especially fond of the idea of throwing the poor little shits into the dumpsterfire we've made our world. That and I don't want to pitch my offspring as ammo into a breeding war against the Nazis/cultists/idiots. They can have it.
I don't trust humanity with my offspring. Especially not the people who demand more people in this world. They have to be sadists.
Why would not having kids punish men?
It's part of the "no sex, no marriage, no kids" platform that focuses on bodily and personal autonomy for women by withholding sex from men and ensuring they'll never be tied down in any form.
women and men both surprised that neither needs the other all that much, but somehow, both are equally mad about it
No fucking clue either. Some kind of random misogyny most likely
*Misandry?
No, I'm saying that the idea of women punishing men by not being good little brood mares is misogyny.
Tell that to the feminist movement in South Korea that came up with it.
Korea and Asia in large is not that much of an example for womens rights, on any front.
Hence the feminist movement that spawned the initial thing that made this meme.
The rich can only stay in power when there is a constant new supply of naive workers
Existence is when capitalism.
Having kids seems like the punishment to me
I hate this so much as a leftist talking point. If the working class has no more kids all that happens is that we slowly phase out the peasants for the inevitable shift to fully automated labor, without even attempting revolution.
Just total submission to our neofeudal masters, allowing them to effectively kill us when we are no longer needed. Like cattle.
Have kids, if only so you have proper motivation to fight for a better tomorrow instead of this defeatist crap
If you need your own offspring to have motivation to fix things you are definitely in it for bad reasons. I mean if you want to raise the next generation of human cattle, the machine always needs more.
Automation would be great, actually, if we shifted society to one where your ability to survive wasn’t tied to your ability to generate profit for the wealthy, and made the whole of society based on renewable resources.
Oh yeah, the world will be so much better off when only the stupidest people are having kids.
Although if you take your advice from a meme, I suppose nothing of value would be lost.
Neither my nonexistent kids nor I owe a world with shmucks like you, jack shit.
That’s the problem isn’t it? You parasites who think they owe the world nothing and can just take whenever they want without giving back.
It seems like you're saying that the only way to give back to society is by having children. So people who don't want kids or who can't have kids are parasites?
Sounds like a white supremacist talking point to me.
Oh fuck off.
Literally no one has made this about race except you.
Nobody asked us if we consented to existing but just like with pit bulls, the solution is to stop breeding, not to kill them off. I owe nobody anything and I'm actually being very kind not to demand wha this owed to me by my parents since I do understand they didn't know any better.
Eugenics is bad science, that includes the myth smart people have smart kids or dumb people have dumb kids.
Sure, but chances are low that uneducated people are going to great lengths to make sure their children are well educated.
One of the most horrifying things I've encountered in my career as a teacher was a father who insisted that his incredibly bright high school senior not accept a college scholarship because, and I quote: "I didn't go to college, and you're not better than me."
It's usually the opposite, as long as the uneducated parent isn't financially successful. If they are then your anecdote does tend to happen, and is generally a good thing in the US and other despotic hell holes as making money is far more important than education.
My non-educated family all insisted that I go to college. As of now, I am the only one of my grandparents' descendents who has a university degree. And that includes the generation after mine (my cousins' children).
My experience as a teacher has given me a glimpse into other people's lives that shows me how very fortunate I was to have a supportive family.
You don't have to believe my anecdotal evidence, but my time working with low-income students has shown me that a surprising number of parents are absolutely dead-set against higher education for their kids. It doesn't make sense, but a lot of things in the US don't make sense right now.
at least they won't be mine and I won't have wasted my life raising them. They can go ahead and ruin it all for themselves.
I intend on adopting (in a distant future if I'm ever financially and psychologically stable). Lots of kids who have already been born could use a loving family.
I just don't want anyone new to come to this atrocious world.
Oh, just fuck right off. If you don't want children, just don't have children and shut up about it instead of making yourself feel superior by making it a moral thing. And if you're actually just concerned about them ending up in the meat grinder of exploitation, get organized to rid the world of the capitalists and save all the children from that fate. Stop whining about how terrible the world is and start making it better.
The likes of musk are breeding like crazy though, arguing against a "population collapse". But idk if the rest of the little musks would be willing to fill in the white collar jobs that made daddy rich in the first place.
I'm not having kids because I am a man. Where do I fit on the scale?
its like i found my people. while also against pro-creating, i'm pro-abortion too. if we could cause extinction, we could be heroes.
God, would then be forced to create a world worth living in. unless we stop him from doing this to us, we will be forced to return.
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again...