this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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I fled Reddit due to the authoritarian mod craziness, but Lemmy.world seems infested with too much Communist craziness. I'm leftist, but communism is idiocy. Is there an instance that leans more democratic socialist but refrains from going off the deep end?

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

lemmy.world

is too communist for you?!?!?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Spamming emojis just makes you look ridiculous and like your opinions don't matter

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Replying uselessly to comments you don’t like just to defend a censorship-happy neoliberal hivemind hotbed makes you look like a petty, bored, very gullible person.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Guy, you need to get outside more. This person’s reaction matches about 95% of people in the world.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I am. I've traveled internationally some amount. I am sure it varies by country, but the people who have a notable reaction to China/USSR-style communism, from outside the US, have a much stronger hostility to it than the US people I know. Because generally they have more experience with it.

US people don't like socialism, and think it is "communism." That part is true, but that wasn't what I was talking about.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

The idea that so many of the people on Lemmy are communists is what led me to think you're an American. I am too, which is why I know the bias of the American political spectrum starts way more to the right than most of the world. So Americans tend to label ideas more left leaning than they really are.

The communists and tankies are about 90% on the lemmy.ml instance. The rest of Lemmy is left but most as are not communists.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

The communists and tankies are about 90% on the lemmy.ml instance. The rest of Lemmy is left but most as are not communists.

Yeah. In case it wasn't clear, I was talking about being able to encounter overt authoritarian communists at all on lemmy.world, not saying that most of the lemmy.world users themselves are communists. My reaction was very specifically to the word "communist" and not referring to the existence of anarchist / general working-class oriented stuff on Lemmy.

I think most of the lemmy.world users fall pretty much in the sensible region of opinion: Israel is bad, the CCP is bad, Russia's war in Ukraine is bad. Gay people are ok. Unions are good and the US state is oppressive. Just normal stuff (within my own personal Overton window). Of course a lot of US people would see that as some horrifying communism, but that's not at all what I was saying, although I can see maybe it came across that way.

Mostly I was saying that I can sympathize with this person coming to lemmy.world and seeing federated content that says "yay China, Tienanmen Square was exaggerated, all this stuff about North Korea is just giving them a bad rap because imperialism" and having this shocked reaction because of it. Whether or not it originates from lemmy.world, it's weird to see it on lemmy.world or on the modern internet at all. Usually the free exchange of ideas can educate people out of that pretty quickly. I think it's a symptom of (a) Lemmy having particular features which enable someone to create an echo chamber specifically for proliferating that stuff (b) the world as a whole has gotten more unhinged from reality and so it's easier for counterfactual stuff to find a solid footing.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I'm surprised you see a ton of that on lemmy.world, always found that instance rather tame and moderate, at least by lemmy standards. Certainly compared to Hexbear, ml and Lemmygrad. Are you sure those weren't federated posts from those instances? Anyway, lemm.ee is pretty neutral, lemmy.dbzer0.com leans more anarchist. But you could also just stay on .world and subscribe to communities that align with your views on whatever instance. Unless you have an issue with the moderation on .world specifically, it doesn't really matter.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

🤔

lemmy.dbzer0.com is anarchist and stongly hates all states, both USA and the Russia, China types.

lemmy world is neoliberal, I mean, tankies do post there, but the moderation is mostly neoliberal and are anti-violence absolutists, even if its directed towards nazis

lemmy.ml, lemmygrad.ml, and hexbear.net (now chapo.chat) are tankies, avoid those

Pretty much everyone else on lemmy are anti-authoritarian and pro- socialist policies, some are social democrats, others are democratic socialists, some are anarchists.

If you don't like tankies:

lemmy.dbzer0.com (we have [email protected] 😉)

sh.itjust.works

lemmy.ca

sopuli.xyz

piracy community is blocked on lemmy.world btw, so you might as well joine us, or any of my recommended ones.

TLDR: lemmy.world is not "communist", just just a few tankies that love to post thinnly veiled authoritarianism.

Edit: Also, you are probably seeing federated posts from lemmy.ml, I block most of those communities except like a few non-political ones like c/privacy

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago

Also Blåhaj. Seems to be pretty anarchist from what I've seen, and I'd say Blåhaj is perfect if you're queer, especially trans.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

.world is the most liberal place on the lemmy lmao. If they are too left for you idk what to tell you

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

There is nothing "left" about tankies.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Let's talk about this in a little more detail.

What do you consider going off the deep end? What do you consider leftist? Which ideas do you consider idiocy? What is your idea of a society worth living in?

I personally am open to any ideas that exclude discrimination of identity. For me the tolerance paradoxon applies.

I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (10 children)

I'm also looking for a place without edgy or crazy people.

For me its:

Democratic: yes

Socialism/social net/sharing/helping: yes

Dictatorial: no

Tankie: no

Undemocratic: no

China or CCCP/URSS worship: no

Soviet whitewashing: no

That's about it.

Edit: I was looking for a community not an instance (I have my own but I still uses .world as I had some trouble, time to migrate back home I guess :-) ) but thanks for all helpful comments!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago

Block the Lemmy.ml instance and there goes most of those people.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I think thats valid. You don't have to accept or look at everything.

Do you mind sharing what your ideal society looks like? I think a lot of folks share common ideas but have vastly different labels for them.

I'll go ahead:

I personally want to work. It can be fun. I want to do things I'm actually good at. I want to be able to afford food and housing. I want to know that i wont starve if I become sick or disabled. I want to be able to survive when I'm too old to work regularly. I want my family to be safe no matter what.

I think those are pretty understandable goals. I want to live in a world where this applies to as many people as possible.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

many instances, like mine, are 'generic on-ramps'. their 'main' purpose is to provide unfettered access to all other instances.

in this way you curate your own feeds by subscribing to what you want.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

lemmy.dbzer0.com - anarchist, hates all states, both USA and Russia/China types

Other non-tankie options are

sh.itjust.works - shhhh... 🤫 it... just works... 😉

lemmy.ca - Canadian 🇨🇦

sopuli.xyz - Run by a Finn 🇫🇮

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

.world is hardly the home of the tankie, what you see might be posts from lemmy.ml

There are two other places known as lemmygrad and hexbear that are outright communist/tankie that you'll see occasionally brigade when someone posts anything positive about the USA.

This and most others are pretty sane. One that comes to mind for what you're asking particularly might be https://slrpnk.net/signup who seem kind of left but not Stalin left.

Otherwise there's the join Lemmy link at the bottom of any given instance to look through.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

As someone similar to you, blocking and stuff seems the right approach vs. trying to find a specific instance.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Bingo. Making a new account somewhere else likely won't help. The only way it would is if all the content OP objects to comes from a single instance and they find another instances that's defederated frrom that source instance.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (19 children)

You should use Hexbear. There aren't any communists there. Just posers who think communism means supporting dictatorships.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I’m leftist, but

classic lol

.world is about as anticommunist as you can expect, if that's not enough for you maybe you could relocate to one of the Nazi servers

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

says the .ml person commenting on .world. it does not matter what any particular places people is like unless they defederate from each other. @[email protected] is talking about his experience and is likely not seperating out where users come from. in addition anyone can make a user on any open instance. I actually would like to see more closed instances that are about a particular local groups like sci fi conventions or makerspaces and such.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

Nah, .world is anti-tankie, but since you are a known Tankie it's unsurprising you would conflate the 2

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

If the de facto gatekeepers of the genocidal liberal death cult status quo on the fediverse aren’t liberal enough for you, I think you’d feel right at home at https://shitlib.cuck/

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago

Username checks out

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Lemmy.world is actively opposed to Marxism and Communism (from moderator and admin POV).

As a side-note, all Communists support democracy, "democratic socialism" is usually ill-defined and meaningless, to one person it means the Nordics and to others it means Marxism without revolution, it only really hurts description.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

They're not opposed to communism. Just tankies like yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

Lol Cowbee is a well known Tankie, .world is anti-tankie, which are authoritarian "communists"

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

i'd like to hear your take on "communism is idiocy".

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They're almost certainly conflating communism with the authoritarian flavor so enjoyed by the tankies of .ml/hex/grad

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

OP didn't respond so I will take a shot. My understanding is that under communism, the economy has to be planned by the government. Under capitalism, the price of shoes (for example) is usually determined by the demand for shoes and the amount of shoes that can be manufactured. If demand falls, the price falls. If manufacturing capacity increases, the price falls more, etc. This mechanism has feedback loops that make it efficient. In theory, companies never make more shoes than they can sell, because if they do make too many, they can sell the excess by cutting prices. Under communism there is no free market, so the mechanics of supply and demand don't work. Some communist bureaucrat conducts a study and estimates that the country will need 100k pairs of shoes next quarter. The government then makes those shoes in a state-owned factory. Suppose, though, that it turns out that the country needed more. With no free market, there is no competitor to step in and meet the demand for shoes - now you have a shortage. Similarly, you can have considerable waste if you grow too many apples or whatever. In true communism, there is no price to adjust - you either have an apple voucher or you don't. Thus there is generally more problems meeting demand efficiently. This is, in fact, exactly what we saw under the Soviet Union - the stores were often stuffed with unwanted items while long lines developed for items that were in high demand. Without any consideration of authoritarianism etc., this is an often-cited reason for the failure of communism.

I am not a political theorist or an economist, so please correct me if I am wrong.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

You've got the general critique from Mises right, but that's an extremely outdated critique that has long been debunked. The article Prices in a Planned Economy helps show how prices in a fully publicly owned economy could be planned, including what you are describing as "price signals." The fact is, the USSR's economy did work, and worked rather well, but issues like having to spend a huge portion of GDP on the defense industry just to keep up with the US starved the rest of the economy for growth, and the Soviets planned by hand rather than by computer. Neither of these issues need to be taken by any Socialist state going forward.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago

i was as naive as OP back in the day, it's alright bro you'll get there

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I'm not an academically trained scholar regarding left-wing theory, but I'd assume that communists and social democrats are still part of the same group, with one naming themselves after a shorter-term goal-state, and the other naming themselves after a longer-term goal-state.

When we talk about state models such as republic, democracy, autocracy, we're either describing a current status, or a model we might want to follow or avoid. When we talk about ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, communism, feminism, etc.) they assert specific values and presumptions that might or might not be true or workable. For instance, in the communist ideal, every participant has exactly the same amount of political and material power; influence is perfectly distributed. But we have no idea how a state like that would look, or work, or if we could ever get there.

Every model and every ideology has problems and concessions we don't understand and have to correct for. The one-person = one-vote thing seems intuitive for democracy, but has terrible side effects, and we're still sorting out alternative election models that might work better.

All this is to say it's a really bad idea to treat any one of them as a racehorse or football team or a banner under which to rally and consolidate political power. None of the models or ideals we have are perfect or absolute, and we have to be prepared to adjust them on the fly, especially as we contend with corruption and bad actors who exploit vulnerabilities.

I suspect everyone on the left ultimately seeks a society in which everyone is materially provided for, in which liberties are as extensive as possible while providing for protections and considering human biases towards certain abberant behavior (e.g. drunk driving) in which there are as few social strata as possible and power is as well distributed as possible. The models that accommodate all these, even to partial degrees, are still very fuzzy. (Western civilization has been working on them for only three hundred years or so.)

So we're at least in the same book, if not on the same page.

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