An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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!
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] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage 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
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" (read: Dengists) (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.
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.
[a wide character looks smug with a wide smile]
Your ideology is wrong and can't work because "human nature" is to exploit others
[a thought bubble is connected to their head]
I really really want to exploit others, exploiting or being exploited is the only way I can picture society please God I play that you let me become an exploiter I dream of it every day
The one that gets me is "Without the profit motive, no one would innovate."
Like, my dude, have you ever met an innovative person? You can't pay them to stop. It's a compulsion. Working for money is only impeding their innovative capacity.
Or "Who would go through the years of training to be a doctor or engineer?". Uh, the good doctors and engineers who do it because it's their passion. I don't want to go to a doctor who only did it for the money.
Have they ever heard of github?
From the time of the Natufians, beginning around 13100 BC , up to the Early Bronze Age IIb around 3200 BC, there are only a handful of violent deaths indicated by skeletal remains:
Guess the Bronze Age Collapse never happened. The Sea Peoples never swept through coastal cities raiding and plundering in the Mediterranean. Egypt and Assyria never dominated their neighbors. All those books I read were wrong. Even in Egyptian tombs, the extensive records of wars are all wrong.
Listen up. New information. All reports of societies duking it out in ancient history didn't happen. It's time to realign our understanding of human nature. War is a modern concept. In fact, I'm gonna go even further and declare that until the USA and our genocidal partner attacked Iran this year, there had never been a war EVER. Tell your friends.
If those books told you the bronze age collapse happened between 13 thousand and 3 thousand BC then they were absolutely 100% wrong.
Right, surely you must question your assumptions when there are no violent deaths at all.
The kinds of injuries they're talking about cranial fractures, a blow to the head, multiple fractures, etc. surely are seen today in people who die on construction sites, or in car crashes or after falling off a building.
If you're not finding those kinds of remains, something else must be happening. Maybe there was a taboo against burying people who didn't have perfect bodies. Maybe anybody who died from violence or violent accident was given a "sky burial" or something.
I mean, put aside the idea that there was no war. Is it reasonable to think that in the bronze age, people aren't getting mauled by wild animals? They're not getting kicked in the head by their livestock? They're not falling off buildings?
Peace in the prehistory is kinda difficult to prove. But if we consider the fact that they only started to build fortifications when the egyptians invaded, its likely that they lived peacefully prior to the invasion.
Considering that we know that chimps engage in "war", and war has been part of recorded history since as long as there has been recorded history, it's pretty easy to assume that there has always been "war".
But humans also descended from the more peaceful Bonobos. If we were really warlike by default like the chimps we would be more than happy to engage in warfare no?
We didn't descend from either chimps or bonobos. Chimps, bonobos and humans all descended from a common ancestor.
In addition, bonobos do engage in violent conflicts. Much less often than chimps, but it does happen.
13100 BC , up to the Early Bronze Age IIb around 3200
Guess the Bronze Age Collapse never happened.
...And this, kids, is why "a little learning is a dangerous thing".
Lmao this guy believes the MSM. Iran isn't real lmao
But I need to excuse my bad behavior and shitty ideas with an intellectual lacuna that brooks no argument. Do you have some better alternative?
It might not be that the person wants to exploit others but that exploitation is the norm in their experience in life.
We’ve said the word exploit so many fucking times they’ve lost all damn meaning!
I apologize for the exploitives.
And must be excused by intellectual lacunae?
I mean. That's exactly why all these systems fail. The shitty people get ahead by exploitation or breaking the rules.
Right, and imo most people just want to get along. We just need a way to defend the commons from the shitty people rather than make them trillionaires.
Well, the serial killer problem became much less pronounced
Funny how they all just disappeared
Aka republicans
aka Democrats aka every career politician in existence They all serve capital in the end
Like, even if that was human nature, shouldn't we try to overcome it?
We should. And in an ideologically pure society we would. I honestly think people try.
But you don't have to be a manipulative person to see the value of this argument, like the comic is suggesting. You simply need to look at the world you want to make through a defensive lens. The truth is, even if we built a society where it was not the norm to be manipulative and exploitative, there would still be manipulative and exploitative people - and in such a society they would quickly climb to the top of the social hierarchy and reclaim power. And the world would decline back to what it was.
This is not an argument for inaction, imo. Its an argument for vigilance. But it also means we cannot consider ourselves "above" or "beyond" the undesirable traits of humanity, because that would make us victims of the cruel and the selfish. It also means the acceptance of checks and balances on power, which sadly... don't always stick around.
I think it's not that everyone wants to exploit, but if the opportunity exists and there are insufficient systems to discourage it, then some will. As demonstrated by [wide gesture at everything]
The best reason to have children is for the free labor on your farm. Don't live on a farm? Force them to make shit you can sell on Etsy. Gotta make a profit somehow.
Uh, NO, the best reason to have children is that the line must go up and the social security system is going to be partially unfunded within six years!
You can think something is human nature, but also think that you’re above that nature
I am above drinking, eating, and defecating.
I will proceed to live the rest of my life without doing any of those things.
You sure will!
Just other people. Obviously I'm better than them. Maybe better than the gods.
That's bullshit. Along with the seven deadly sins there are seven living virtues. You have free will and you decide what good or bad shit you get up to in life. Although there are exceptions to every rule. Sometimes we are shunted in specific directions towards the chute, just like cattle, and most choice goes out the window.
American leftists becoming addicted to extracting social capital this last decade kind of low-key has me thinking he might be right. Not that it's impossible to live that way but the will to power is just too strong for egalitarian notions to ever become a significant thing again.
We've got like a dormant virus in our souls that was just waiting for the internet to exist and for money to get low
What does extracting social capital mean?
Like using other people or their conditions in a social setting to benefit yourself. Think of like how desperate people on the internet are to be seen saying the correct things in front of the correct people.
Or the phenomenon of dunking. When you dunk on somebody on the internet you're extracting a social value from them. It isn't as easy of a thing to do IRL or before the internet age but here we're operating in a marketplace of attention. Capitalism has infiltrated our very social interactions so we act like capitalists even when there's no money involved.
How is this measured?
Vibes mostly. Tracking karma like reddit encouraged people to act like they're in a market but it wasn't a real measurement in any way other than affecting the sort of posts and comments. I suppose if you wanted to put a number on it it's probably the number of people a given interaction reaches. Or maybe the amount of time people spend engaging with it.
There's no thing like an American leftist because there's no left in the US.
And who thinks otherwise are just dumb mouth shitters who only had US propaganda for ~~meals~~ pasture all their lives.
Well, I thought you had an accurate take up until the tourettes goblin made you reply to yourself there. Something tells me your own ability to make anything good in the world might be a vestigial non-prority next to impotently talking shit on the internet. So at least we have that in common
Don't ever compare your greedy cynicism with my accurate take on such brain dead society divided between bleach drinkers and those who expect voting out genociders (to make other genociders take place).
~~"☹️ I'm not like other internet snark idiots. I fight people on the internet for real"~~
wait I think I just realized who you are. my bad, I enjoy reading you fight with other people but obviously couldn't take the heat myself. Carry on.