And yet, there's more greenery around this blocks than you'd see in a US city.
Lefty Memes
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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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!
Rules
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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
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.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
Imagine what "left wing architecture" looks like after we end manufactured scarcity...
Vast forest arcology-scapes.
Enough to increase the carrying capacity of earth past 300 trillion humans, with vast space enough to live in lush nature...
But no, we have to keep the polluting rents extraction to keep the little people down, to keep the billionaires on top, even if it means even the billionaires have vastly less than they could in egalitarian emancipatarian abundance. At least they have more than others. That's the most important measure. /s :-/
And pay no attention to the imminence of the bubble popping. ;D
Crazy how detached from reality, compassion, and morality, some are, that they pleep about aesthetics, preferring to keep millions destitute and homeless, to maintain their profiteering gamble.
Don't be an idiot. Leftist housing looks like mass manufactured concrete and gyprock, supplemented by packed earth where appropriate, and probably some cardboard/glass/LDPS. At least for the next half a millenia or so.
Wanting to be approximately decent doesn't overcome physics.
We can build a world where people live densly and affordably without inventing fantasy bullshit.
Don’t be an idiot. Leftist housing looks like mass manufactured concrete and gyprock, supplemented by packed earth where appropriate, and probably some cardboard/glass/LDPS. At least for the next half a millenia or so.
Wanting to be approximately decent doesn’t overcome physics.
We can build a world where people live densly and affordably without inventing fantasy bullshit.
Fun spray of fallacies there.
Starts with Ad-hominem (plausibly/presumably projection), proceeds through a lack of a constructive argument/engagement (ignoring what I said) with false dichotomy, appeal to status quo, appeal to authority, begging the question, circular argument, ... and seems like incurious arrogant naive realism, and lack of an educated mind (as in the expression "it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting or rejecting it).
You assert "Leftist housing looks" only one way. ... So anarchist or agrarian housing are not "leftist" in your meaning of "leftist" (like it's only the one type) are not "leftist"? Sounds like circular argument, appeal to definition, begging the question, a cherry picking lie of omission, a false dichotomy, appeal to cynicism, reification (new term to me). and whatever else I missed. Gets me wondering if this is a case of "received opinion" that's not been introspected upon and scrutinised.
Perhaps for a more constructive argument, you could elaborate on what specifics of "physics" you think refute the possibility specific to my thought experiment I invited readers to imagine. Otherwise it looks like handwaving an appeal to authority to close the argument.
"We can build a world" amuses me, for the open positivity opening, and the limitation of just "world", because much of the suppressed technology that avails such vast construction overlaps with the technology that avails all space to us (not limiting us to just a world). Though the amusement is short lived with the rest of that sentence falling to the false dichotomy, and the dismissive presumptive strawman for the ending portion of that false dichotomy.
I look forward to your elaboration on the physics aspect of your counter-argument. Or better yet, your entertaining the idea in curiosity, engaging in the thought experiment, leaving the incurious cynical presumption behind, getting constructive in a "how can we" rather than a "stupid cant".
[Edit: PS, just for a fun extension to this, bouncing off a piece of an llm's dubious analysis, that I looked at after hastily churning out ^,
capitalist/neoliberal housing also relies on specific materials and technologies, yet its limitations are rarely framed as "physics" but as market failures or policy choices. Funny how ‘physics’ only becomes an insurmountable obstacle when discussing leftist or egalitarian housing. When luxury skyscrapers or McMansions are built, we call it ‘innovation’ or ‘market demand’—not an immutable law of nature. Why the double standard?
reminds of a fun idea asserted emphatically as an invitation to entertain in the recentmost episode of derp with kurp that "if communism didn't exist, capitalism would have to invent it" (paraphrased from memory ~ works better in original context/video/wording). ~ (albeit apparently using the newspeakified definition of "communism", obviously not as originally coined by anarchists at least 5 years before Marx usurped it and handed it over to the tankies, authoritarians, totalitarians, fascists etc to wield as a means to abuse us by).]
Enough to increase the carrying capacity of earth past 300 trillion humans, with vast space enough to live in lush nature...
I want what you're smoking
Vast forest arcology-scapes.
Go build yourself a house that is a forest archology-scape, something with trees and other plants growing all over the building. Not only is that significantly harder and more expensive to build, but you also have significantly more water intrusion issues, meaning the building won't last nearly as long and will require horrifically expensive fixes on the regular.
end manufactured scarcity
Making everything a forest archology-scape is a great way to make housing even more scarce and expensive.
significantly harder and more expensive to build, but you also have significantly more water intrusion issues, meaning the building won’t last nearly as long and will require horrifically expensive fixes on the regular.
This sounds like the kind of argument I hear against spaceships for everybody, that's basically like "We can't have spaceships! Screen doors don't work in space!". Yeah, well, don't build them like that.
[Edit: Also sounds like people complaining about indoor plumbing, not understanding what that meant, imagining poop all over the place inside. No. We have tubes to manage where stuff goes. Ample dry clean space.]
Go build yourself a house that is a forest archology-scape,
:3
A house that is a forest arcology-scape... lol... just one house, going from horizon to horizon, with vast layers big enough to fit giant trees in... just a house? Seems more than a little opulent-overkill.
And, by myself? :3 If I had the resources, I would not do it just for myself.
Also, I did draft a small example (and even 1000 variations) of a largely self-sustaining house, using environmentally friendly materials, that would strengthen over time, and as intended to be lived in would increase in capacity to produce food and energy over time, and I was enslaved to do this design work while at my worst health, under promise I'd be put in it, if I'd only design a house fit for my needs, then, after much blackmail, slavery, and torture, they defrauded me, and built a design that inverted every key design element for my health, turning a healing home into a torture box, and what's worse, it cost them at least twice as much. ... I still don't really know why they did that. Can only presume some kind of sadistic narcissistic Munchhausen-by-proxy. Gets me wondering how much more human potential is being squandered for utterly insane reasons. By this worse-than-Sisyphusian task, I have envied Gregor Samsa. ... And I shall recover enough health, and build it properly, and more, yet.
Making everything a forest archology-scape is a great way to make housing even more scarce and expensive.
You're kidding, right? That's insanely farcical. Not even funny. If we've availed the means to build forest arcologyscapes, you think this makes housing building more scarce and expensive? I would love to hear your reasoning behind that, correct or incorrect. I wonder where your're presuming screen doors. Like... concrete? LOL. Or perhaps unimaginatively in cognitive dissonance presuming aspects of the current economic paradigm would persist along side the deployed ability to construct vast linked forest arcologies...?
Also, just the same as we don't have to increase the carrying capacity of earth into the hundreds of trillions, nor fill that capacity, and that's just an example to illustrate some of the headroom we have with proper resource management, we don't have to make everything on earth a forest arcologyscape.
Anyhoo, please don't be put off by my reflexively scoffing incredulity, and do elaborate on how "Making everything a forest archology-scape is a great way to make housing even more scarce and expensive". You might be right. I wouldn't want to be barking up the wrong tree. (Pun not intended, noticed, and did nothing to avoid.)
Ok, but we have to agree that Soviet blocks are systematic government slop that destroy individuality and make people miserable.
[citation needed]
They are designed with productivity in mind, much like capitalist architecture, they aren't designed to be liveable.
I would like evidence supporting
systematic government slop that destroy individuality and make people miserable.
I was under the impression they were centrally planned, modern brutalist buildings that didn't meet all expectations as 2was typical of modernist project of the time (c.f. le corbusier's projects).
Not some darstardly unliveable conspiricy.
Why did they leave so much room for light and green space?
I can see some of that given the uniformity, but suburbia isn't exactly all that diverse. So ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, I know. But these are exclusive to America and the underdeveloped world, and we're not defending that. It also has similarities with it. Europe has good housing (Though unaffordable) that isn't suburbia, but modern day commie blocks aren't exactly affordable in Russia either.
Yeah, they're both pretty crap compared to what they could be
Funny story, suburbia is systemic government slop that destroys individuality, too.
No, we don't have to agree to that. The abolition of homelessness didn't make people miserable, guaranteed housing made people thrive.
We're talking of a country that in 1929 was a preindustrial feudal backwater nation with 85% of the workforce being peasants who, with a bit of luck, worked their landlord's land with a horse, and without luck they worked it with their bodies. These people lived in poverty conditions without running water, electricity or more heating than a simple fireplace.
By 1970, even after suffering catastrophic destruction at the hands of the Nazism they heroically defeated, it was a fully industrialized country with a majority of the workforce in cities. People, for the first time, enjoyed access to commodities such as running clean water, central heating and electricity. This was literally a revolution for most. This housing was guaranteed, most people accessed it through their work union, and its rent costed a meager 3% of monthly income on average.
The USSR didn't have the 200 year long process of industrialization that the UK, Germany, France or the USA enjoyed. They literally had to build new, modern housing for a hundred million people in a few decades. The only way possible to do this was with industialized panel construction. Since unemployment was abolished and jobs were guaranteed, everyone was employed in the country. It was literally impossible to build more housing.
This housing was not only guaranteed, it was also designed in walkable neighborhoods with easy access by foot to public transit, basic services such as childcare, shopping and medical attention, and there was a wide variety of cultural centres, sports facilities and other public activities. The socialist country created social people.
I know this, I used to live in a Stalin era house in Moscow. But Stalin's Russia had a big problem with housing, only Khrucshev fixed it. All of these things may come as a shocker to an American, but they're quite common in Europe. And it wasn't that easy to get a house, you had to wait in line for half your life and the system didn't work with a bit of corruption, like centralized systems always do. Comparing the USSR to western countries is especially bad, because western countries had no regard towards workers, and if we look at the same timeframe we could say they advanced their housing capabilities equally.
I loved to hate these buildings, but behind those grey boxes there was planning. Lots of nurseries, kindergarten, schools, playground, pharmacies, shops, and parks in-between, and public transportation. Whereas modern construction is all for maximizing profit, "luxury residence" everywhere, putting the most of sq meters in every plot, and f.ck the rest.
Also: the size layout of the flats is really good, not like the 39.5sqm random polygons of a modern buildding.
