axont [comrade/them, they/them]

Yeah this is why I didn’t do great with programming in college. I didn’t find any part of it interesting.

Ok first I’m gonna point out that I don’t wanna re-litigate any of this and I’m not interested in conversation about the content, but rather how the conversations normally go. I’m honestly not an expert on this stuff and it’s really tiring constantly talking about them. The main things that end up being fierce discussions right now are issues with China (namely Xinjiang and the 1989 Tienanmen square incident), and sometimes issues with the USSR (namely the 1930s Ukranian famines).

it seems like that no matter how much discussion is had on this stuff, nothing budges, no one comes away with different ideas and none of it matters. It always devolves down into shit-flinging, because the conversations themselves are proxies for current unresolved political contests. I don’t think the historical content of the stuff even matters anymore. Furthermore even scholars on these subjects are divided. There isn’t a consensus among historians on if the Soviet Union is responsible for genocide, there are nuanced stances on Tienanmen square, and there’s a vast gulf of stances on how Xinjiang is talked about. And that’s because it’s all still part of the same proxy for political competition. These historical incidents are not yet resolved as unanimous because there is still an ongoing worldwide conflict between powers that could broadly be described as capitalist/western/wealthy and another set broadly described as socialist/unaffiliated/poor.

so even in civil spheres like international diplomacy and academics, talking about genocide or the nature of historical events can be highly politicized. There’s also a lot to be said about admitting certain deaths occurred without ascribing certain political motivations to them. That seems to be a massive point of contention specifically. For instance, I might say that the events of Tienanmen square did occur, but the way they’re talked about is misinformed or that the conflict is presented in an incorrect framework, which is the standard kind of Marxist view of the event. Liberal frameworks might say it was a conflict between value systems, between freedom and tyranny, whereas a Marxist might say something more like it was an event caused by social dissatisfaction with the Chinese market reforms started in the 70s, and this dissatisfaction came from both a working class socialist perspective and a more wealthy liberal perspective.

To some people this is unthinkable, to present it in a different framework is to deny accepted events entirely, and I don’t think that’s true. Scholars are constantly redrawing the frameworks for why events occurred, and all history is going to be seen differently by people of different class perspectives.

yeah as much as I comment on stuff like this, it really doesn’t go anywhere. I fundamentally do not understand where the intensity is coming from or why people are so upset

the only thing I know to recommend is that if a user is not having an enjoyable time online, or if they’re still thinking about forum arguments for days/weeks, they should take a leave of absence from the internet entirely. Maybe it would be difficult but I think perhaps moderation should look for people who seem to be using these websites in an unhealthy way and send them a DM asking if they’re ok. Ask them how their experience with the site is going and ask if they’re becoming obsessive or find themselves often feeling angry or tense. If that’s the case then the best thing is to recommend taking a break from being online for a while

What am I supposed to do when I see political content I agree with? Am I supposed to avoid interacting with it? If I see something I find disagreeable, am I also supposed to ignore it? How am I supposed to interact with political content? We’re not doing any kind of malicious manipulation. You make it sound like we’re hackers unfairly using the website and that’s not happening. We upvote things we see that we like. We can’t downvote, since our admins disabled downvoting. We comment on political stuff we don’t like.

Am I just not supposed to be here at all?

Why were you called a fascist? Almost everyone I know on hexbear who uses that term knows what it means and the implications of it. So why were you called that?

i hope I don’t come across as too aggressive when I say all this, because I genuinely do like most of the interactions I’ve had on the extended lemmy-verse and I’ve been pleasantly engaged with a lot of folk here. hope we can stay federated and lots of y’all are cool as hell

So i’m personally biased here but I’ve noticed a lot of folk outside of Hexbear take internet discussion way, way too seriously. It’s treated as if we’re academics writing papers in an institution, or we’re politicians being moderated in a debate. People get very, needlessly upset over frankly harmless personal insults, like being called stupid or childish or whatever. Outright bigotry and slurs shouldn’t be used, of course, and that shit should get banned ruthlessly. But calling someone stupid or a baby? Or being shown an emoji of shit? Come on now, grow up. It’s not something to think about for days or weeks afterwards. Go outside. It’s not a big deal, it’s just a web forum, it’s not senate and nothing we’re doing here is genuinely changing politics or the world by posting. It’s just a forum to pass the time and relax. The most impact I’ve seen is when we do mutual aid like the recent indigenous fundraiser that comrade @Nakoichi@hexbear.net has been doing. Sometimes we’ll add stuff to online discourse, but that’s about it, but that’s fine. It’s not shameful to just be an internet forum.

It’s very strange to me especially since I’ve been on the internet for decades now and just gotten used to it. People online will insult you, they often won’t take you seriously, and they don’t have to either unless they feel like it.

Maybe I’m an interloper in a specific kind of posting culture I was never involved with. I never posted on reddit at all, but nothing about my time on Hexbear has felt any different than the countless other forums or IRC channels I’ve been on in the past. But from comments around other instances, you’d think we’re feral goblins spraying shit absolutely everywhere, only speaking in strings of random gibberish spam and death threats. You’d think we’re some malicious group of hackers or a coordinated culture jamming effort rather than just…a bunch of disaffected leftists using an insular web-forum in a tale as old as the internet. The only real difference between hexbear and other forums I’ve been on have been: There are more users, there’s more of a hardline ban on bigotry (transphobia, racism, etc), and it’s stuck around for a lot longer and there’s more of a chill, cooperative vibe.

The accusation of trolling and lying about our beliefs is the most confusing thing to me. Y’all don’t think there are leftists out there? You think it’s unthinkable to have genuine admiration for places like China or North Korea? Well there’s a big wide world out there with people of every stripe, every single conceivable opinion is held by someone out there, and some stuff is a lot more popular than you’d expect. You don’t have to respect Marxism or whatever, I don’t honestly care, but you probably should admit that it’s a real political ideology with real supporters in the world. Don’t automatically assume someone is being dishonest or trolling just because they have a political stance that’s inconceivable to you. Like I don’t respect liberalism or fascism, but I do acknowledge there are a lot of liberals and fascists who are earnest in their views.

in any case I hope we can all stay federated because I do like that aspect of the internet, wide interactions with people who want to interact

why would we give a good faith argument if we see someone saying something stupid? If I see someone saying something aggressively stupid, or they’re being transphobic, racist, or whatever, why would I engage them as a serious person? At that point I just want to have a laugh because I don’t respect them and have no faith they’ll ever change unless subject to public embarrassment.

if someone approaches in good faith I’ll talk with them but at a certain point you gotta realize some people enjoy being clueless and they deserve mockery until such point they decide they’d rather be more well-informed

There are people who say things like “I don’t know what this is and would like to talk about it.” That’s not being stupid and shouldn’t be mocked. That’s good faith. Then there are people who go “I don’t know what this is, but I’ll act like an expert anyway and refuse to be corrected.” That’s aggressively stupid and doesn’t deserve a respectful argument.

A good rule of thumb is this: If you spend more than like 10 to 15 minutes writing a forum post, especially if you’re trying to win an argument, try to ask yourself what you’re doing with your time. Try to see if you can be doing something better for yourself.

You collected over 40 screenshots of people on a forum you don’t like and made a huge post of multiple paragraphs with citations.

I want to say this in the most polite way possible. This isn’t healthy at all. If you’re not having a good time on a forum, just don’t talk to people who you vehemently disagree with. Or just go outside. You shouldn’t be obsessing over internet arguments for days or weeks.

You’re just going to have live with the fact some people disagree with you and you’re not able to change everyone’s mind.

Hey, Star Trek is good sometimes :(

I’m still confused on what constitutes Kremlin propaganda though. The world is a multifaceted place and I personally like to think I came to my opinions through studying, learning with other people, visiting places, reading history, working for a boss, paying rent to a landlord, etc… I’m an American and I’ve never read a word of Russian, and as far as I know I haven’t engaged with Russian troll farms or whatever, and even if I have, my political opinions don’t come solely from forums or twitter.

I don’t think it’s fair to us or yourself to dismiss political opinions you find distasteful as trolling or Russian state-funded propaganda. There are a lot of people in the world, you know? There are all sorts of people like socialists in Africa who might have a very positive opinion of China and things like the Belt and Road Initiative. There are a lot of Chinese socialists who have a positive opinion of China too. There are communists all over the world who don’t necessarily share the same immediate distaste for socialist projects of the past or present. Are they all just wrong or disqualified from analysis or what? I’m saying this as a genuine question and I don’t mean to sound sarcastic, but I know tones are hard to impart over text like this.

Are they all parroting propaganda when they’re stating their point of view? That’s where I get lost. I’ve been accused a few times now from other instances of parroting Russian propaganda when I don’t think I’ve done anything of the sort. Do I have to put a disclaimer in every post I make about how modern Russia is a bourgeois nation built on oil money that I don’t admire? Because I can say that, but it’s gonna get tedious.

Also I am a non-binary queer person and I can’t really say much about the socialist countries I admire in terms of LGBTQ rights, since I’ve never lived there. But I have visited one socialist country (China) and it seemed alright, I guess. Maybe living there would be different, but I did bring up being non-binary to several people there and no one gave a shit. Also saw a bunch of gay bars in Shenzhen, like, everywhere. Anecdotal experience I know, but it is always gonna color my perception of this.

At first I thought the accusations of bigotry were because of the jokes we make about Italians or our criticisms of the state of Israel. Turns out that wasn’t it.

Currently I’m still very confused, because it seems like any positive claim about the USSR or any discussion of Russia outside of a pro-NATO lens can be considered bigotry. This is where I’m lost, because I truly don’t get it.

I’m welcome to temper how much I talk about China and Russia on other instances, because I realize they’re contentious topics and honestly I’d much rather discuss political stuff closer to me anyway. But I really don’t understand how I’m supposed to discuss things that fall outside of a typical western perception of socialist countries, or anti-imperialism, or modern Russia. Should I just avoid those topics entirely? Should I not say anything unless I’m saying the consensus western liberal opinion? Because that doesn’t feel right.