bearboiblake

D8 down, are HHC and THCP standing strong in Texas?

Love this, be careful though, if there's a transphobic lemmy.world administrator, they may take this as a death threat and defederate blahaj.zone :p

“No, it’s more complicated than that, you’re not listening.”

"Oh, I'm sorry if I misunderstood, can you explain what I missed?" should avoid arguments. Try not to get personally offended if someone says "you're not listening" or something: just demonstrate that you actually are.

Capitalism is a very complicated machine with many moving parts, so explaining how society changes as a function of capitalism in a written medium requires quite a lot of words, but just for you, I'll try to summarize:

The more money you have, the easier it is to make yet more money.
Money = Power.
Power corrupts.
Those with power want to keep it.
Best way to keep power is to avoid blame for your bad behavior.
Best way to avoid blame for bad things is to attribute it to someone else.
People have an innate bias against those different from them.
Result: The ruling class (the most wealthy and powerful people) blame minorities for the problems in society instead of accepting the blame themselves, because they don't want to give up any of their wealth or power, and they use various tools including the media to shape the popular zeitgeist and lobbying to keep politicians on their side.

pro tip: when someone asks "do you understand", instead of simply confirming you do, it helps a lot to give a short summary of what they were just talking about - it helps them to feel listened to so they'll feel more comfortable continuing, or if there's a detail you missed that's critical or if you got something wrong, you can fix it immediately rather than after it causes confusion!

for bonus points, also validate the feelings/emotions of your interlocutor. If what they experienced sounds sad, or frustrating, or if it makes you happy, let them know!

The Metropolitan Police has designated Whitehall, Parliament Square and Trafalgar Square for a far-right demonstration led by Tommy Robinson on May 16, while refusing the Palestine Coalition its requested route for a Nakba commemoration planned for the same day.

Sounds like a Minecraft Mod waiting to happen.

Lechecraft allows you to milk all mammal mobs, turn milk into three different preparations, and assemble those milk products in any way you want. The goal? To leche like no one has ever leched before!

Compatible with all good automation mods!

My bad, I'm autistic and struggle to tell sometimes! Sorry for preaching to the converted :p

The media are owned and controlled by the ruling class - the same class of people who also own and control for-profit prisons, and also own and control elected politicians through lobbying.

As I always say, under capitalism, democracy means the power of the state is auctioned off to the highest bidder.

How does capitalism inevitably lead to fascism?

Basically, the issue with capitalism is that the more wealth you have, the easier it is for you to make more money. And since money can be used to buy goods, services and influence, there is always a way to use money to gain more political and social power. With that political and social power, you can push society and the legal system in the direction you want to go. So you can use your wealth to gain power, and then you can use your power to change laws and society so that you can make even more wealth and power. It’s a positive feedback loop.
Obviously, though, if the billionaires and ruling class are accumulating more and more of our society’s wealth, that inevitably means that there’s less for everyone else to go around - therefore, working class people feel poorer and poorer. Meanwhile, the economy is going absolutely great for rich people, so inflation continues to go up - everything gets more expensive, but wages don’t increase. The wealthy just keep more and more of the wealth for themselves. To accumulate more and more wealth, they change the laws so that they can avoid paying taxes, so public services collapse. Politicians are lobbied to ensure that public funds are diverted away from where it is most needed - housing, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure - and instead into industries where their class interests most benefit from it, such as weapons manufacturing and extractive industries such as fossil fuels and mining.
The working class are bound to notice that their lives are getting shittier and shittier, and if that situation is left unchecked, the working class would realize that the ruling class are fucking them over, rise up, and overthrow their rulers. Obviously, the ruling class need to do something about this, but there’s no solution that the ruling class can offer. They’re causing all of the problems, to fix them they’d have to give up some of their wealth and power - and that’s not something they’re going to do. So they need to find someone else to blame the problems we have in society on. Unfortunately, though, no matter who they blame the problems on, and no matter what they do to “fix” it, the issue will continue to persist, because the material conditions underlying the issues are, very intentionally, never addressed.
So, the conundrum returns: The ruling class said that minority A caused all of the problems, minority A is persecuted and oppressed, but society doesn’t actually get any better. Either the problem wasn’t minority A, or minority A just hasn’t been oppressed enough yet. So the ruling class can either escalate the oppression, or they can shift the focus to another minority group. The division continues to escalate in terms of how vitriolic and extreme it is, and it also continues to divide the working class into smaller and smaller groups.
To get the working class to buy into this hateful message, they need to take advantage of our worst instincts, and one of those instincts is the in-group bias. The majority are manipulated into being suspicious, then intolerant, then hateful, then violent, then genocidal, towards whatever the targeted minority of the day is. Anything that can be used to divide the working class - sexuality, nationality, immigration status, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, age, all of these will be used as wedges to keep the working class split apart and not working together, because they know that if the working class actually unite against them, they are completely and truly fucked.
That’s exactly how fascism manifests. It’s because it’s possible for people to accumulate power through wealth. This is why capitalism must be abolished. If we do not abolish capitalism, fascism will always return. It’s just a matter of time.

But can't capitalism can be reformed?

While, of course, some laws to reform capitalism can be passed, and would definitely alleviate the worst harm caused, over the long term, capitalism cannot be reformed.
Any attempts to reform, democratize or socialize capitalism may yield short term improvements to quality of life of the working class, but if capitalism is not abolished, it will always reassert itself, and capitalism inevitably leads towards fascism.
The New Deal prevented the US from sliding into fascism in the 20th century, so that’s ultimately a good thing, but it did not go far enough, and that’s why we have the resurgence of fascism in the 21st century America.

This is gonna sound really terrible, but... I generally don't recognize people by name so much... maybe something dyslexia related? I think there are a couple of rare exceptions, like the user with two letters and then four numbers in their name.

I recognize lots of avatars, as I scroll around, but I don't generally register the names or even descriptions of the images, just kind of like... my brain just remembers purplish-blob shape, red glowy circle, monochromatic goblet.

Oh, and dancing banana, and blue name furry. I actually remember his, it's Kolanki I think

All of you users with no avatar, go get one so I remember you all please! It's an accessability aid in a way :p

Flying Squid was an auto-block for me, as soon as I made my account. He always used to ban me because he couldn't win arguments with me in the comments.

Edit to spill the tea:

Hello Lemmy.world admin team, I am writing to complain about the conduct of the moderator FlyingSquid.
On two occasions I have had negative interactions with FlyingSquid on the /world community, both times he has used, or threatened to use, his moderator powers against me, because of his personal disagreements with me.
I am happy to refer you to both conversations:
link 1
In this conversation, we had a long conversation about laws and politics. Personally, I feel he acted in bad faith on several occasions throughout our conversation, in my opinion, he was trying to bait me into getting upset so he could righteously ban me.
And your silly prediction is wrong. I am not going to ban you for this despite the incivility rule violation. I am just going to stop talking to you.
But you have just earned yourself the eye of a moderator who will not tolerate your rule-breaking with anyone else. Including if I see any in your recent history.
More recently, we had a conversation today:
link 2
Again, in this conversation, he was, in my opinion, highly rude, dismissive and arguing in bad faith. He even admitted as much. I said I wasn’t interested in talking with him, he continued to push me for an answer, and then said:
You didn’t let me down, because I knew you didn’t actually have an answer
I completely understand that sometimes people get heated or struggle to deal with arguments where they care about the topic, so I am totally willing to look past that. However, I am not willing to look past his abuse of power.
What a bullshit cop-out. I have asked you multiple times what the next step is and you're now claiming I'm not interested?
That's two lies you've told about me now. That is coming close to trolling. This is seemingly a pattern for FlyingSquid - goading people he disagrees with into becoming frustrated with his bad-faith arguments, then accusing them of “trolling” when the people he experiences push-back, and using that as an excuse to ban someone he disagrees with.
I was writing a response to his post pointing out that he was arguing in bad faith when I accidentally submitted it half-way through, when he suspended me for “trolling”.
I do not believe that he has the disposition to be a moderator if he gets so upset at a polite discussion that he feels compelled to use moderator powers to silence dissent. I go out of my way to be as polite, kind and compassionate as possible and to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I do not believe we should allow those in a position of trust or power to use that to settle their personal disputes. I know there has been some issues with that recently regarding the vegan community so I am hopeful that you will do the right thing and either remove his moderator powers or at the very least let him know that his abuse of powers is not tolerated.
I would prefer not to make a community spectacle out of this, hence the email.
Thanks and all the best,

This is why we have trade protectionism - tariffs, "made in X" laws, etc. - to ensure capitalists can continue to generate maximized profits, rather than having to compete with Chinese-made cars.

The oft-quoted argument is "well, we need to protect jobs" - well, tax the rich and subsidize it then, if those jobs are so important. Why should the working class pay the cost of protecting jobs (ensuring ongoing production for the benefit of the ruling class) in industries where capitalists continue to maximize profit?

Oh my god, I am extremely over explaining this again and again.

No, I'm telling you that it doesn't matter how much you scream, cry, shame, judge, rant and rave, it literally doesn't matter one single iota if you're right and those people are lazy and shit.

THEY WILL CONTINUE TO NOT VOTE UNLESS YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO VOTE FOR.

DEAL WITH REALITY, OR LOSE.

Again, ignoring the question.

I literally just said that this image is a zionist psy-op and you came in here accusing me of being anti-semitic. In my experience, someone calling you anti-semitic the moment you criticize Israel or zionism, is 99% of the time, a zionist.

Have I ever defended anyone saying "Kill all zionists?" No. I literally said the exact opposite of kill all zionists. I don't believe ANYONE on db0 unironically believes that all zionists should be murdered. I think a certain user just had an edgy username, and that user stepped down from the admin team and changed their name.

There is literally ZERO issue here. It's complete bullshit pearl-clutching, and it's coming from people who are defending the settler colonial fascist zionist ethnostate known as Israel, which is currently conducting genocide and ethnic cleansing campaigns. Zionists are responsible for the deaths of upwards of 60,000 innocent civillians in Gaza AT LEAST. Many of them INTENTIONALLY TARGETED. They've blown up schools, places of worship, hospitals. Entire cities, completely levelled. And you're mad that someone had an edgy username, probably venting their anger at such a disgustingly genocidal regime?

Now, once again: do you believe Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza, killing over 60,000 people including many innocent civillians, and also is now ethnically cleansing Lebanon?

I can imagine that you feel some kind of way about it - but you're intentionally avoiding telling us how you feel, and just vagueposting, letting us infer and project what we want.

On the other hand, my positions are clear, consistent, backed with quotes going back weeks and months, clearly disproving all of your wild accusations. An apology would be appreciated. I don't enjoy being compared to a neo-nazi.

I notice that you continue avoiding the term "genocide". Do you deny that it is a genocide?

If you agree that Israel is responsible for ethnic cleansing, why are you here calling out anarchists for principled anti-zionism? Is protecting Israel from criticism more important to you than advocating against genocide and ethnic cleansing? Do you want the alt-right leading the fight against zionism? Do you think that's a good idea?

If you are so concerned with acts of murder against innocent people, you'd be anti-zionist, too. And yet, here you are, fighting against someone who is a principled anti-zionist, who consistently argues against anti-semitism.

Are you saying that the lemmy.world admin team will somehow prevent me from migrating my account to another instance?

No, no, not at all - I'm just saying that if you were pro-Zionist, you don't need to move to begin with, basically

I notice you dodged my question.

Again, anyone looking through my comments can confirm that I advocate against the death penalty, even for Zionist Nazis, and I have never urged for the death or murder of any zionists (except maybe for IDF soldiers to be killed by resistance forces in combat situations):

De-nazification obviously shouldn’t be death - except perhaps for people like Bibi himself, and other leaders - but truth and reconciliation campaigns, cult deprogramming, re-education initiatives, and laws against zionists holding positions of power in the new nation formed.

I will ask again: do you believe Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza, killing over 60,000 people including many innocent civillians, and also is now ethnically cleansing Lebanon?

Anyone looking through my comments can see that I am absolutely no anti-semite:

you should make a distinction between Jews and zionists/the state of Israel, remember that not all Jews are zionists, there are many anti-zionist Jews who oppose Israel and their genocide.

I don’t know how serious you’re being, but please remember that there are plenty of Jewish people who are also anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, don’t let some bad, loud voices persuade you otherwise <3

I suspect you, on the other hand, may be a zionist.

Do you believe Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza, killing over 60,000 people including many innocent civillians, and also is now ethnically cleansing Lebanon?

I don't think this is real, I had a look around and I can't find anything like it. Even if it is real, making some shit up like this is classic nazi behavior.

I feel like it is extremely likely that this is a pro-zionist, far-right psyop.

Zionists are basically fascists. For those of you who remember, the internet in the early 2010s had lots of crypto-fascists, who would pretend not to be fascist, and communicate through dog whistles. They would always act with "civility", and when they were called out as fascist, they'd be like "woah woah woah, that's some dangerous rhetoric there, bud. not everyone you disagree with is a fascist"

Zionists are operating using the exact same playbook. Do not fall for their bullshit.