The killing of Brian Thompson revealed just how frustrated the general public has become with the lack of meaningful change to our predatory healthcare system. I do not recommend that more people go out and kill health insurance CEOs, because that is a very individualistic approach to a problem that requires systemic change. That doesn’t mean I’m going to shed any tears over the death of someone who is responsible for an astronomical amount of suffering, and I do believe that defending Luigi Mangione’s rights is important not just for protecting the rights themselves, but also for demonstrating solidarity and instilling class consciousness.

Let’s stop talking around the issue. I’m referring to union organizing, general strikes, boycotts, mutual aid, direct action, etc. Would you consider those things “steering the ship into rocks?” Do you really think our only viable course of action is to do nothing except show up to vote on election days? We have to organize, and the Democratic leadership is uninterested in helping. Grassroots liberal progressive groups like MoveOn and Indivisible have been doing that work for them, and the Democratic leadership has been actively hostile towards them.

I’m not really even arguing that people should give up working within the system, just that it very clearly isn’t enough. If you haven’t noticed, we’re losing big. Even when the Democrats win, can’t you see how little they are able to accomplish? When you play a game that’s rigged against you, you have to get creative and look for solutions that are outside the bounds of the rules that have been set before us.

Your misplaced faith in the Democratic party is blinding you to the reality of our situation. Even within the party we have lost ground to the oligarchs, meaning our access to political power has been compromised. To take it back will require us to fight on two fronts, both within and outside the system.

So yes, you can, but people aren’t, because people are idiots.

Stop this. You have become jaded and cynical, which is understandable, but it’s causing you to accept a very dangerous premise. We didn’t get here because people are just idiots, the ruling class out-organized us. To believe that people are simply too stupid to fight back is to accept defeat.

We can’t outspend the health insurance industry, especially not in the long run. Legislators will always side with those who can continually give large donations and pay full-time lobbyists. It is incredibly naive - bordering on delusional - to think we can take on even just one sector of the oligarchy by working within their captured system.

Now is the time to apply pressure from the outside, organize and build our own mechanisms for affecting change. This will require solidarity, and for people to make collective and coordinated use of their agency with regards to their labor and spending.

Then that would be an issue with lemmy.ml, not lemmy as a whole, no?

Yep, I’m a total hypocrite for defending a left-wing social media platform from your sealioning and concern trolling while the majority of platforms are undergoing a fascist takeover. If you want more diversity of opinion on lemmy then let it grow and the diversity will grow with it. Just don’t be surprised when a consensus forms among those who are fleeing fascist platforms.

What is it exactly that you’re proposing lemmy mods do differently then? Do you believe that moderate alternative views are being broadly censored across lemmy? If not, and it’s just downvotes and “groupthink” you’re complaining about, then just state your “reasonable and moderate” disagreements and let the votes fall where they may. Your alternative views are not entitled to approval, and downvotes are not censorship.

Except the moment you have orbital dominance over a planet then no amount of ground or atmosphere based weaponry matters whatsoever. All they would have to do is drop some mass from orbit and they can cause destruction far beyond even the most powerful nuclear weapons.

What you forget is that weapons are just an application of the sciences. Superior science = superior weaponry, even if the aliens haven’t bothered to “spec into” weapons research.

The technology we create takes the form of the incentives that drive its’ creation. If we create technology for the exploitation of others we shouldn’t be surprised that people use it for the exploitation of others.

Thank you, this looks great! Permaculture is exactly the purpose I intend to use the software for so this seems like it could be the right fit.

Thank you, this is a great resource. Some of these look promising.

You’ve given me a lot to think about but I do want to clarify my personal views a bit. I’m not anti-Marxist, I don’t believe authoritarianism is inherent to marxism, just that those tendencies are present. From my perspective authoritarian communism is to my right, so I don’t see it as left-punching, but I think the left-right metaphor is reaching the limits of its’ usefulness here.

Vladimir Lenin referring to “left-wing” communism as an infantile disorder is more in the ballpark of what I mean when I refer to authoritarian communism.

“left” anti-leftism

I mean, that sounds like your referring to anarchists criticizing authoritarian communism, which is certainly not something slrpnk admins and mods would have any interest in “cleaning up” given they are anarchists themselves. If you meant liberals then I did say that we tolerate them there, at least on the memes community. We believe in outreach.

I think an issue with Solarpunk is that ultimately it’s an aesthetic, not an actual strain of Socialism or anything, so it’s easy to coopt

That’s fair. Solarpunk is primarily an artistic movement, so it is vulnerable to co-optation in the same way that any artistic movement is. IMO socialists are in desperate need of a strong modern artistic movement and if we don’t want it to be co-opted we should be embracing it.

Again, typically blocking Hexbear and Grad is a negative when it comes to the ideas held by the userbase of an instance in my personal experience.

Perhaps it was an overreaction, I can’t say for sure because I think most of that drama played out before I joined lemmy. I have also never personally experienced right-wing anti-leftism on slrpnk.net so I might assume that we have cleaned that up.

I think the guy’s heart is in the right place though, I think he just hasn’t done the legwork yet on studying how modern socialist states are moving on lgbt issues and why they’re doing so.

If the guy needs to study political movements in foreign countries in order to acknowledge LGBTQ rights then his heart is not in the right place. His head may have been in the right place if he’s sympathetic to socialism but his heart is clearly holding his head back.

instances that block Hexbear or Grad tend to be home to the most right-wing individuals on Lemmy.

Don’t take this as a hard rule. My instance blocks hexbear and we’re a bunch of anarchists, we just saw the inter-instance drama and don’t want all that noise. Our memes community is often a target of derision for lemmy.world liberals. We tolerate liberals there but we absolutely don’t tolerate right-wingers.

Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. This is just typical liberal progression.

Also very reactionary of him to be bent out of shape over the whole “biological men competing in women’s sports” thing. Wonder what he thinks of the fact he shares that opinion with fascists?

Why can’t my state be near the top of a good list for once.

For starters, all liberals have Reddit and Lemmy.world, which are large. Where do leftists have?

I agree that lemmy.world is a primarily liberal instance, but I haven’t seen the same level of censorship on lemmy.world as I have on hexbear, though I’m open to evidence to the contrary. You can create a space for a specific ideology without resorting to such an extreme level of censorship and lemmy.world is proof of that. Also see my home instance slrpnk.net, we’re a primarily anarchist instance and we haven’t had to resort to extreme censorship to achieve that.

Secondly, this comment is indistinguishable from concern-trolling. I’d have to read through your post history or go back and forth with you to know if you were an honest actor or just a troll.

By what method do you distinguish concern-trolling from legitimate concern? Concern-trolls generally want to shut down discussion, and the whole reason for my concern is that censorship shuts down discussion.

Thirdly, most of us know your views, and have rejected them.

They’re not my views, did you miss the part of my comment where I said I disagree with the comments that got them banned?

We don’t live in a tame world, lots of people have deeply problematic viewpoints. When someone who expresses such viewpoints is otherwise well-intentioned it’s better to address them directly and potentially change some minds (or at least plant the seed) than to shun them and further entrench them into a problematic worldview.