this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to !shitreactionariessay@lemmygrad.ml

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

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[–] absentthereaper@lemmygrad.ml 95 points 1 year ago (2 children)

God that fuckin thread. Someone in there really straight-up pulled a "I honestly think the world is split into the greater and the lesser; and the latter exists to serve the former" and had the unmitigated settler gall to take offense when people compared him to a nazi/eugenicist.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago

me normally: amerikkka

me when there's confederate scum nearby: THE UNION FOREVER HURRAH BOYS HURRAH DOWN WITH THE TRAITORS UP WITH THE STARS

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[–] HornyOnMain@hexbear.net 91 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 57 points 1 year ago

"Those fucking Alderaanian refugees asking for food and a place to live. Maybe they shouldn't have played stupid games and won stupid prizes with the Galactic Empire. My Imperial treats arrive on time and that's all that matters." smuglord

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[–] combat_brandonism@hexbear.net 87 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] RyanGosling@hexbear.net 80 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Is OP stupid or living under a rock? We already have socialism in America. Joe Biden is a card carrying CCP member. Obama is the most influential Marxist after Lenin and Marx himself.

California and New York are the staunchest communist states we have.

The Democratic Party has always been socialist, and the GOP is loyal to Putin.

The US is the only successful socialist country. Period.

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[–] iie@hexbear.net 77 points 1 year ago (3 children)

no one ever seems to stop and think, "I don't actually know that much about socialism, or socialist countries, or socialist history."

Look, just because the most influential philosopher of the last thousand years spent his life explaining it and libraries of books have been written about his work with still more books written about those books, doesn't mean that they can be expected to know what it means. They need you to explain it and respond to all their dumbass questions

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[–] dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org 74 points 1 year ago (5 children)

OP in that thread has some real bangers in their comment history like "not going into debt is Marxist activism"

On the subject of Marxism, if people stopped getting into debt a lot less money would be flowing to the top. Banks would have fewer profits and their power would shrink. Therefore abstaining from debt could even be considered a kind of activism. The best kind of activism really, because it actually makes you wealthier.

Also they just straight up defend being a landlord insisting it's a ton of work lmao.

[–] roux@hexbear.net 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is why we can't have nice things. Like this is just an insult to the entirety of Marx's work.

[–] dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Back on Reddit I had an esoteric fascist argue to me that capitalism was something invented by Marxists and doesn't really exist, so I guess it could be worse.

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[–] emizeko@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago

the only way I'm arguing with this person is using a crowbar

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[–] NewLeaf@hexbear.net 69 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I don't think I can take much more of this. Everything is getting so watered down, even though there are fucking definitions and volumes of books written on everything.

Fucking EVERYTHING is up for grabs, words have no meaning, and you can twist literally anything to fit your agenda, and a bunch of braying jackasses will eat it up with a gigantic spoon.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

"Um, actually, language changes all the time so words mean whatever I want them to mean. That's why I am now a literal doctor of linguistics according to my own definitions of what 'doctor' and 'linguistics' mean." very-intelligent

[–] DoiDoi@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

being extremely obnoxious about linguistics (wikipedia pages and arguing over descriptive vs prescriptive only) was one of the defining characteristics of early reddit comment sections. That shit still sets off my alarm bells lol

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[–] DoiDoi@hexbear.net 65 points 1 year ago (3 children)

it's so weird to me how these types of people have absolutely no idea what they're talking about yet still do it all the fucking time. Why don't they just go talk about video games or whatever else it is they like to do?

[–] AcidSmiley@hexbear.net 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I fully, 100% expect their takes on video games to be incredibly shit as well.

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[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 51 points 1 year ago

Because they think they're smart

Smart people discuss politics

And of course, smart people always start political discussions with links to Wikipedia

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Dunning-kruger effect. The most ignorant like being very vocal, most do really just go and talk about video games.

[–] honeynut@lemm.ee 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The synthesis is that there are those who unironically think video games are political theory. I've had someone (IRL but talks about reddit all the time) explain to me how Bioshock proves that far left and far right are equally bad. What the fuck is up with libs and fiction? They just take it all at face value and do zero critical analysis.

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[–] Parzivus@hexbear.net 59 points 1 year ago

"define socialism"
has never read theory in their life

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Socialism is the transitionary stage of society between capitalism and communism.

Socialism begins when the proletariat seize power away from the bourgeoisie, ending the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and installing the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the meaningful point at which the transition between capitalism and communism has begun, the point at which the capitalists are not in power, but instead the working class.

All states that achieve this status are socialist states in practice. The varying unique conditions each country finds themselves in will define what economic and transitional policies they undertake, which will look very different depending on the strategy they're pushed into by the varying conditions.

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[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Socialism is when the goverment does stuff, the more it does the more socialist it is. If it does a whole lotta of stuff, its communism.

[–] FlakesBongler@hexbear.net 51 points 1 year ago

I'm not moving to Nazi

-Lemmy.world brain genius

[–] Elon_Musk@hexbear.net 48 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Link it you absolute lib https://lemmy.world/post/6238022

Shouts out to @Dkarma@lemmy.world -27 "Just Google it u lazy little shit"

Oh boy what a thread. Amazing to see all that Finland talk, I so wish those people do choose to come to the Nordics.

Let them come without knowing the language. Tbf if poor and unemployed they can never even get in. If no language = no job so poverty and working for 9€/day mandatorily for your unemployment is your life very fast. Can also clean toilets/pick vegetables for such a small pay it won't even be enough to house you.

Also no real healthcare unless rich.

They will see the true colours of these socdem fascist shitholes decorated with niceness real fast.

[–] whodoctor11@lemmy.ml 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

This per si is a very individualistic/liberal way to see the matter! I would love to live in Cuba, for example, since I understand Spanish pretty well, yet, if I am a true socialist, it means that I want mankind to live in socialism and after, communism. The best way to do it is to fight for revolution in my country.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[–] aaaaaaadjsf@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Let's define what socialism is

Even asking this question amongst well read leftists will give you 500 different answers lol.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 24 points 1 year ago

They only adopted the struggle session. We were born into it.

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[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Hello yes, my brain works as a semi-sentient wikipedia article and that's why I'm always correct.

Would you like to learn about the non-nazi waffen ss? Just ask me, I'll tell you everything you'd possibly need to know.

[–] SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net 34 points 1 year ago

most politically educated liberal

[–] nicklewound@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago

Aww. The baby brain liberals are struggling again.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 32 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Where's the wikipedia stormfront emoji. dangit?

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[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yet another meme became straight up reality with them, "socialism is when capitalism".

Bad month for Onion.

[–] quarrk@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago

please read. Be better. Read and think first. Comment later.

Can this possibly be more condescending? Especially coming from someone who clearly has barely read about the thing they’re pontificating about. Jesus.

[–] Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net 30 points 1 year ago

If by "socialism" you mean [Not Socialism], then no. If by "socialism" you mean [Also Not Socialism], then yes.

[–] Runcible@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago

"We have Nazis at home"

[–] ferristriangle@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

The problem with language is that the only thing required for a definition to be "correct" is for that definition to be in common use. That's just how language works.

You can try to fight against that, and lead a never ending struggle to halt the conversation and say, "no no, the Real definition is this!" every time someone uses a definition that conflicts with the definition you use. But at some point fighting against semantic drift and taking a stubbornly prescriptivist stance on how words should be defined is a fruitless battle that doesn't actually help you communicate those ideas more clearly. Instead, you should adopt a different communication strategy that is less prone to misunderstandings.

There are so many different and contradictory understandings of what it means to be "progressive" "leftist" "liberal" "socialist" "communist" and so on that it's impossible to create a definition that everyone agrees on. Even if you correctly incorporate things like historical origin, first recorded use, and the context in which a world was popularized when evaluating how you define those terms, those things don't actually help communicate your thoughts more clearly. Which should ideally be the mechanical function that language facilitates.

Part of the issue is that those words are very broad and general, and encompass a wide variety of competing schools of thought who all nonetheless identify themselves using these umbrella terms. Of course some of the disagreement over definitions comes from bad actors deliberately mischaracterizing these things for propagandistic/rhetorical purposes, but even if that wasn't the case umbrella terms such as these are inherently more prone to semantic drift over time.

A better strategy for communicating political ideas is to use terms that are much more specific in context, such as Marxism. Of course, Marxism has the same problem of bad actors intentionally mischaracterizing what Marxism is, but because Marxism is a much more specific thing it is much easier to resolve disputes over contradictory definitions. This is because there is an authoritative source you can refer back to in order to resolve conflicts and disagreements over definitions. Because Marxism is defined by the collected body of work authored by Marx (as well as those who contributed to that body of work and expanded upon that work over the years), it is much easier to have a conversation with agreed upon definitions by referencing that body of work.

Edit: But to get back on topic and define socialism, "Socialism is when the government does stuff."

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can look at any existing socialist country - if you don’t want to call them socialist, call them whatever you want. Post capitalist- whatever, I don’t care. Call them camels or window shades, it doesn’t matter as long as we know the countries we’re talking about.

Parenti, from that "the revolution that feeds the children has my support" quote.

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[–] wombat@hexbear.net 27 points 1 year ago

social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism

[–] Maoo@hexbear.net 25 points 1 year ago

This is why lemmy.world is scared of hexbear. Its users might learn one or two things about socialism.

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