Did the Putin Bots finally invade Lemmy?
From Disco Elysium:
Can we be better than twitter with these bullshit fallacy arguments.
Just FYI, not everyone sees “having everyone basic needs met” as bullshit.
They’re just people who are too weak and dumb to have real opinions and they just want to be in the in crowd
It must take such bravery to not be in the center, sir. How can I become this brave.
The Far Right: Purity testing for race and religion.
The Far Left: Purity testing for communist ideals and moral superiority.
Both are shills pushing russian propaganda.
The Neoliberals are the ones literally on Russian paychecks.
Neoliberalism is not a left wing ideology.
It’s always convenient and reassuring to know one’s own ideas, alone, are untainted by scary foreigners.
Too bad the left has never had power in the US
Neoliberals don’t want or allow things to improve
It’s because we lefties say completely justified mean things about so-called ‘centrists’, and criticizing the literal record of centrism is tantamount to insulting a centrist’s identity.
The centrists made up the term so they wouldn’t have to face the fact that they’re conservatives.
That’s right, the centrists are conservatives and the so-called “conservatives” are really regressives at best, plenty of them fascists.
We don’t just call everyone we don’t like fascists. But uh, them folks are fascists.
Many of the greatest political advancements in the history of humanity were achieved by people you’d call “centrists”.
Such as?
The post-WW2 transition to liberal democracy in Germany, Italy (Adenauer and De Gasperi), and in general European integration; ending apartheid in South Africa; 1991 economic reforms in India; Deng Xiaoping’s socialist market economy in China which lifted millions from destitution; Chile’s transition to democracy; the labor-capital compromise in Scandinavia which allows them to have very free markets and very strong welfare systems at the same time.
I could go on.
HA! Sure, buddy, sure, we’ll let you call that centrism. Do you need help finding your way back to the children’s table?
Point out which of these don’t have elements of “centrism” plz
“guns are necessary and pronouns are confusing so I’m pretty sure you’re both heading in the wrong direction”
You vote left because you want the best for the general good of society, you vote right because you want what’s best for yourself, in particular.
Plenty of people also vote right based on hate and fear. They’ll vote against there own best interests because of hate and fear.
They vote right because cable news told them it’s best for themselves. It’s not.
You vote right because you want the people you don’t like to suffer.
I don’t believe this. People may have multiple agendas. They may hate foreigners or cultures, but people’s allegiances are always first and foremost to their own, to keep living in the most comfortable way they can with the lowest possible eftort. It’s kind of game theoretical in some sense.
Game theory occupies itself with the adversary roles of generosity (a moral principle) and calculation (a purely rational one), and in some way you could say that in a system which only allows one of two outcomes, a lot of assumptions are subsumed under those two separate outcomes.
What if Candidate A is for lower taxes, higher immigration and Candidate B is for higher taxes and lower immigration?
What if both candidates agree on lower taxes and lower immigration, but one of them also proposes reinstating slavery, and the other one wants none of it but instead mandatory abortions?
In a two party state you don’t get enough fine grained resolution to deal with problems that require any complexity beyond perfectly white and perfectly black.
I guess you missed the “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting” thing the other year.
They’re not nice people. They will vote for the leopard and act surprised when it comes for them.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe they just dumb.
The sad thing is, that’s not even true.
Most poor world be better off under left wing ideals, yet they vote right wing anyway because they’re scared that brown people will steal their crumbs.
(But actually that guy in the middle doesn’t just have this plate full of cookies. He owns a huge vessel full of cookies)
But rich white men stealing their crumbs is fine because they aren’t brown
Better than than Jose over there, a hard working fine gentleman, getting his needs met
The funny bit is that sometimes José too is a conservative, which is how you see plenty of immigrants doing the whole “pull the ladder up once you’re in” and voting rightwing.
Good bars man
But rich white men stealing their crumbs is fine because they don’t realize it’s happening
ftfy
It is true for the general disposition. Do you vote in your own interests vs do you vote in the general best interest. Your motivations may be malicious or incompetent, a two party system doesn’t discern.
Hate to burst your bubble but far left sound and act like violent facists and helped pave the way for the far right. They do sound the same. It’s the moderates that actually want everybody’s needs met.
People are so forcefed bullshit from their echo chamber watering holes that they really do believe it’s just a right vs left war meanwhile billionaires are sipping their gold infused dom perignon on their yachts a few yards out to sea watching it all burn down.
That’s not far left IMO, that’s just left. This is a recurring problem we have in France too, where medias call “far left” parties that are just left. This is a slippery slope, the one on which Overton window slips towards the (far) right…
Far left is: “We’re going to destroy the very concept of private ownership and wealth accumulation”
“… to meet everyone’s basic needs”
“…”
“To meet everyone’s basic needs, right?”/AnakinAndPadmeMeme.jpg
Literally yes. Housing, employment, education, healthcare and pensions are guaranteed in Cuba, and were guaranteed in the USSR, both in theory and in practice. What are you exactly talking about?
Communism is just impossible to implement. It only takes one human’s greed to destroy the system. Center-left is far more plausible where the economy is capitalist with lots of checks and balances to counter extreme capitalists’ greed and the state having control over essential industries and important parts of the economy (energy, water supply, transportation, education, healthcare and stuff) while abolishing religious systems to nil the discrimination on that end.
The entire concept of life itself is very capitalist — You have to exploit all resources available to you so you can survive and thrive. Only some species share resources — that too if they are in abundance for them.
You claim communism is impossible to implement yet you have no issue in attempting to implement a democracy that capitalism won’t be able to pervert, despite one never having existed before and it being impossible for one to exist.
It sounds less like genuine rationality and more like rationalising a status quo bias. Even worse when people are claiming capitalism to be the natural order of life, despite existing for less than 0.0000001% of it and humans being egalitarian for far longer than they were capitalist.
Peak homoeconomus experiencing “capitalist realism.” They even colonised your dreams.
First level headed comment i think ive ever read on lemmy. People need to get out of black and white thinking. It has to be a blend.
We need libraries and fire stations. We also need some competition and industry so we can live comfortably and buy shit; thats just how it is.
We dont need billionaires.
Wait, if we can have capitalism with regulations why can’t we just have communism with regulations instead?
Capitalism literally encourages human greed to accumulate wealth and destroy the societal system. Even if you tax and regulate them that’s still what’s encouraged, as its literally the entire point of the system
And regarding “only some species share resources…” Yes. Us. That’s literally what society is. How do you think humans grew to become the most successful species on earth? If you win I do not lose. It’s not a zero-sum game. Cooperation is literally a win-win. Do you think technology and science would thrive and prosper in a cutthroat society where people kill and steal from each other over any tiny advantage they can get?
I am not saying capitalism is great.
You guys ignore the very fact that socialism and communism is a failed system because they are so extreme in its nature. You have to make people believe that the opposite is worse. Capitalism is failing today because it is going towards an extreme, both are the 2 sides of the same coin. Having the best of both worlds is what will create balance. The capitalism from 50 years ago and capitalism today are vastly different. Because earlier we were either centre-right or centre-left.
technology and science would thrive and prosper in a cutthroat society where people kill and steal from each other over any tiny advantage they can get?
It definitely didn’t thrive under socialism.
I agree with what you say except the last part about the entire concept of life being capitalist. It is not. All life in the natural world is in equilibrium. There is give and take but all work in tandem. Parasites are the capitalists, taking until there is nothing left to give and ultimately killing their host.
Ever wonder why there are fights over territories, mates, food, water? Even trees fight other trees for the groundwater. Even when pet dogs have abundant food supply, they still hoard as much as they can when they are given something to eat and not hungry. It is just unsaid in nature because obv there are no agreements, MoUs, or money involved. When a Tiger has control over a territory, most other Tigers agree to it until some other challenges it.
all work in tandem
It is the ecosystem that works in tandem when you zoom out from an individual living being level.
The entire concept of life itself is very capitalist — You have to exploit all resources available to you so you can survive and thrive. Only some species share resources — that too if they are in abundance for them.
This is an incredibly inaccurate way to describe nature and you feed into narratives that capitalism is “natural” that stop us from thinking critically both about nature and humanity when you frame things in this way.
Did I ever say capitalism is good? I am saying extreme ends of both economic systems are impossible if you want a free and thriving society.
I gave you a plethora of actual evidence of human rights in an actually existing socialist country, and you went with the “gommunism impossible because hooman greed”.
But please elaborate: why is the nationalization and collectivization of means of production so vulnerable to greed? A system in which power is distributed among all workers is actually less prone to greed issues than one in which a single human is in control of the whole company. The whole “human greed” argument is a hollow sophism without any actual analysis of everything.
How is it more sustainable to maintain an elite of wealthy company owners with interests opposed to those of the workers than to maintain a worker controlled state? You are witnessing with your own eyes the disintegration of the western capitalist system, the fascists entering power in USA, Italy, Finland, and probably soon Germany and France and Spain will follow, likely UK too. All the “center-left checks and balances” with strong union membership in the 1960s-1980s disappeared overnight when the threat of global communism disappeared in the 1990s and capitalism didn’t need to appear to be better anymore.
I gave you a plethora of actual evidence of human rights in an actually existing socialist country
Yeah, Cuba. Where everyone is poor w/o any major scientific and cultural influence in the world.
And yeah, USSR. They did try to influence the world but its internal economy was so shit that it couldn’t even exist for 100 years and was a one party authoritarian regime. In the end it started to shift towards to capitalism. Also they supported the Nazis during Poland’s invasion. The population who was so frustrated with their country that they toppled the Berlin Wall when USSR was collapsing.
But please elaborate: why is the nationalization and collectivization of means of production so vulnerable to greed?
Because the very nature of life I explained to you earlier. Life evolved in such a way that it is the survival of fittest, which requires hogging up all the resources as much as you can. Greed is ingrained in every living being’s DNA.
Even you are greedy to want to divide all the wealth equally because for you it might be the only way to get richer than you currently are. It is not a matter of if being greedy is right or wrong, it is a matter of if your greed is so high that it destroys other people’s lives and where to draw that line as a civilized society.
All the “center-left checks and balances” with strong union membership in the 1960s-1980s disappeared overnight
They never existed in practice in the U.S after the collapse of the USSR because communism failed and thus the perception swayed towards the extreme capitalist way. Later the extreme lobbying by the wealthy and anti-left got rid of the whatever regulations of systems that didn’t allow them to be absurdly rich. It is called lobbying in the west while we call it corruption.
Before that when the governments didn’t used to only work for the wealthy, the system was performing better than any other one. Europe’s War Torn economy was improving, The US was in its golden economic age and all this while people overall had more rights and freedom than any socialist and communist regime. It started to go haywire when the extreme capitalists started to take over and the government stopped working for all the people but only for the rich.
There is no point in living in an extreme capitalist and a fascist country nor there is a point living in a poor socialist or communist country.
The way I see it, between left and far left the direction is roughly the same, that’s the means and end point that differ (i.e. revolution or not and how far we go into sharing resources). This is an important difference and they should thus not be mixed.
Also needs to be a clear distinction between democratic left and authoritarian left.
In a naive attempt to “meet everyone’s basic needs” sure, but in practice it would almost certainly end up enriching and entrenching a new ruling class, or collapsing under external pressure even if there are some early wins.
Many things sound simple from the outset. But tearing down and rebuilding an entire society isn’t something you do without significant (and often lethal) force and with plenty of intended and unintended casualties along the way (and there’s still a very good chance we’d screw it up).
If it’s not “the good guys” wielding overwhelming force, it’ll be “the bad guys” stepping in. Every political system ultimately rests on the realistic threat/application of force; the only question is who controls it and how accountable they are.
I’m not inclined to trust anyone waving guns in my face, nor encourage situations that make that more likely. So, things would have to get a lot worse for me (and I’d venture most people) to want violent overthrow of my current (far from perfect) political and social system. That said … at some point, for many people in many countries, it may be too late. Apathy isn’t appropriate either.
You guys are talking about basic capitalism, right? You all understand that, don’t you?
I may have got carried away in my response to a one line quip. 🤣
Look, nobody here knows what the fuck we’re doing anyway.
but in practice it would almost certainly end up enriching and entrenching a new ruling class
Damn, seems like real-world data contradicts your preconceived notions. Now, as a responsible adult, you’ll surely retract and reflect on why you’ve been misled to believe that communism perpetuates inequality, right?
Are you trying to say that communism leads to a failed authoritarian state resembling the US in terms of income inequality? Do you have the same stats for wealth inequality too?
Do you have the same stats for wealth inequality too?
I don’t but they’re irrelevant. The only possible way to get money in the USSR was through labor and income, since there was no capitalist accumulation or return rates on investment by design. The highest paid individuals in the USSR were actually highly trained professionals such as university professors, members of research institutions and high profile artists and media personalities.
Are you trying to say that communism leads to a failed authoritarian state resembling the US in terms of income inequality?
No, that’s what the end of communism leads to, to a return to capitalism. That was only possible because communism began in a 400-million pool of people in backwards and unindustrialized Eastern Europe, the cold war was uneven from the start.
I’d love to see a utopia, but I don’t see communism making any sustainable inroads anywhere in the world… that is, unless things get much much worse, to the point that your average man is willing to pick up a pitchfork (or other weapon of choice) and participate in overthrowing ruling class by force… but nowadays the masses are so divided and confused that they’ll probably start killing each other for scraps of food rather than the billionaires for a life of dignity. Even then, it’s just temporary until capitalism and/or authoritarianism takes hold again.
Except removing those rights is not required to meet everyone’s basic needs
Talking like a slavery apologist from 200BCE
How? I’m the one preserving peoples rights here. No one in my country is enslaved. Everyone has basic rights AND we have the freedom of ownership and democracy. Everything convincing point socialists have can be achieved in a capitalist system.
“…and to achive that, you will do the job we pick for you, you will work the hour we decided, you will be paid not in money but in basic needs, and any excess you have will be confiscated.”
Let’s not pretend we didn’t have the example for far left.
you will do the job we pick for you
Literally making this up. By the 1970s in the USSR, 1 in 10 positions in the economy were open, and people were completely free to change their jobs and move to others without having the threat of unemployment. The only restriction I’ve seen to that, is that university graduates, as a payment back to society (university, as of all education in the USSR, was free and actually included accommodation and upkeep), had to work for a few years on a state-mandated position in their field of study. I’m a Spaniard physicist and 9 in 10 of my friends are unhappy fucks who are either unemployed or hating their lives in consulting.
you will be paid not in money
Tell me one socialist state that hasn’t paid their workers in money. I can tell you that my girlfriend’s mom, in a capitalist country, once got paid in juice boxes because the company didn’t have money for her salary.
any excess you have will be confiscated
Again literally untrue. You’re mistaking capital (private property used to produce goods and services in order to extract surplus value from workers) with personal property (the things you use on your own for your own shit, like your house or your toothbrush).
Have you ever actually talked with a Marxist, or are you just going off what you heard on FOX news?
I must admit i don’t talk with Marxists nor do i know what is FOX news, and i do exaggerated my point, but lets not pretend Mao Zedong and North Korea didn’t exists, whatever you mentioned above is no way closer to far left. Socialism is practiced everywhere, but that doesn’t make them far left.
You’re mistaking capital (private property used to produce goods and services in order to extract surplus value from workers) with personal property (the things you use on your own for your own shit, like your house or your toothbrush).
Literally the excess i’m talking about.
You don’t know what Fox News is?
The excess in your opinion is forbidding rich people from exploiting the poor. There were plenty of people making the same point against abolition of slavery in 200BCE that you’re making right now.
lets not pretend Mao Zedong and North Korea didn’t exist
Under Mao Zedong, China’s life expectancy went from 23 years of age to almost 60, more than doubling. Apply this to 1 billion Chinese, and you get that communism in China saved hundreds of millions of people. China in the early 1900s was a western colony much like India, and it had similar levels of industrialization and economical progress. Comparing the development of India and China since communism, the only possible conclusion is that communism uplifted a billion people from destitute poverty, gave them healthcare, education, pensions, jobs and housing. Mistakes were made during Mao? For sure they were. The balance is still overwhelmingly positive by any metric you want to apply.
As for North Korea, maybe if the USA hadn’t bombed the country using more explosives than in the entire Pacific theater of WW2, and destroyed literally 85% of the buildings in the entire country, North-Koreans wouldn’t have had such an extreme policy of international isolation and self-defense.
typical
We’re talking about the ultra wealthy sharing the stockpiles of resources they have stolen and enslaved to gather, and the first spin is that they “aren’t allowed to have private things” and “we aren’t allowed to accumulate wealth”
eat shit
Yeah, this thread is full of people who have lived their lives under absolute capitalist doctrine and cannot see an alternative and have never considered the underlying philosophy and morality of that system and can’t even imagine another, so they backfill the blanks and rationalize what they have so they don’t have to deal with actually thinking about it deeper because that would require effort and discomfort.
Politicalmemes? Yep, another right wing breeding ground, it always is.
Yeah. Somehow, every morally just ideology that liberals/democrats ever had suddenly became the sole property of the far left when they decided to label everything even slightly right of Stalin as “bLuEMaGa”.
Each and every one of them now sit at the dead center of a their own little circle, where they try very hard to entertain themselves, and one another- by attempting to smugly out enrage everyone with edgy memes.
It’s pretty fucking entertaining if you ask me.
Who are “they”? Your comment has more pronouns than a Tumblr thread
They both lie and fail to achieve what they promise. Niether actually wants to do what they promise, they just want to use the promise and some symbolic actions to gain influence, money, and power. So yeah, in a lot of ways, they are the same. Neither is helping the people they are supposed to be serving.
I was actually thinking about this yesterday. I’m something of a centrist.
Fascists want to exterminate their enemies, and the problem is that they are pretty good at it once they get into power.
Communists want to feed everyone, and the problem is that they’re pretty bad at it once they get into power.
Both have caused plenty of deaths and misery, and both are in that way horrible, but I’d say that it’s always better that your intention are good even if your ideas practically suck – just as long as your intentions don’t include fascist-adjacent harrowing shit like “let’s kill all rich people and generally anyone who disagrees with us”. There’s at least a distinct possibility that at some point something can be improved in the way communism is implemented.
But obviously for fascists, there’s no potential good ever. The only way fascism improves is when it becomes less fascist.
I do believe these “” have fallen from around the word centrists
