I want to draw attention to the elephant in the room.
Leading up to the election, and perhaps even more prominently now, we’ve been seeing droves of people on the internet displaying a series of traits in common.
- Claiming to be leftists
- Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
- Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
- Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
- Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
- Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
- Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
When you look at an aerial view of these behaviors in conjunction with one another, what they’re accomplishing is pretty plain to see, in my opinion. It’s a way of utilizing the moral scrupulousness of the left to cut our teeth out politically. We get so caught up in giving these arguments the benefit of the doubt and of making sure people who claim to be leftists have a platform that we’re missing ideological parasites in our midst.
This is not a good-faith discourse. This is not friendly disagreement. This is, largely, not even internal disagreement. It is infiltration, and it’s extremely effective.
Before attacking this argument as lacking proof, just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?
By refusing to ever question those who do nothing with their time in our spaces but try to drive a wedge between us, to take away our power and make us feel helpless and hopeless, we’re giving them exactly that vector. I am telling you, they are using it.
We need to stop letting them. We need to see it for what it is, get the word out, and remember, as the political left, how to use the tools that we have to change society. It starts with us between one another. It starts with what we do in the spaces that we inhabit. They know this, and it’s why they’re targeting us here.
Stop being an easy target. Stop feeding the cuckoo.
You must log in or register to comment.
Let’s just get a few facts out of the way:
- Genocide is the worst crime humanity is capable of
- The US has a direct hand in multiple genocides
- Record levels of homelessness in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Death from preventable illnesses in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Highest infant mortality in the western world in the richest nation on earth is unacceptable
- Democrats are not interested in changing the status quo
- Republicans want a return to chattel slavery
- Neither party is willing to help us, nor will they ever allow us to vote third party by adding ranked choice or anything like that
- Therefore, our best bet to break the cycle is to collectively vote for, say, the green party
You think leftists are unrealistic for being disgusted with Democrats? The genocide was live streamed to the world. Did you not see any of it? Did it not move you?
By the way, the Democratic party is not left-wing. It is right-wing. Please educate yourself.
Also, are we hopeless? Fuck no. Boycotts have been making progress. Noncompliance has accomplished a lot. Unionizing, if you can swing it, can accomplish a lot. Meshtastic can offer resiliant communications if Trump declares a national emergency. Democrats want you to panic. Leftists want you to organize.
I was with you but then you said vote green?
If you’re going to vote, vote against the Republican party. If you want change from status quo, the ballot box isn’t where it will happen
In my case, I’m in a deep blue state. Otherwise I would grit my teeth and vote for the “lesser” evil. But we really do need a new party.
The current US voting system does not allow for a 3rd party to have a chance. If you want a new party, then you either need to replace one of the main two, or change the electoral rules.
From the outside, it doesn’t seem like either option is likely to happen peacefully, so things will likely need to get way much worse before they get any better.
Oh, I know. But imagine, if you will, if enough people collectively decided to vote 3rd party. It’s a minority of Americans who even vote at all. If a third party received the majority of votes, they would have to be put in office – hypothetically at least.
if enough people collectively decided to vote 3rd party.
Then it would either become the 1st/2nd party, or disappear into oblivion. If it could became part of Congress, where it could look for alliances, then maybe… but based on current sentiment, it seems unlikely.
deleted by creator
voting Green is voting against Republicans
This post is beyond delusional. It’s like the meme about everything I don’t like is woke. The liberal version basically being everything I don’t like is a Russian/MAGA bot. Is it really that hard to believe that left leaning people don’t agree with the Democratic Party platform? You’re deeper in your bubble than you realize my friend.
Happy International Worker’s Day. Every single leader of emancipatory movements in the history of labor rights would disagree with you, having fought and been very vocal against the different flavors of oppression in order to get the liberal concessions that you seem to cherish today. Hopefully if you participate, you might find some leftists celebrating in the crowd. Please don’t get too angry at them for not defending genociders, I’m sure a lot of them ended up voting for Kamala anyway, but at least they got the confirmation that even opposing genocide is too great a hurdle for them.
I’m tired but I guess I’ll still address some of the traits you identified:
Claiming to be leftists
I’m a leftist
Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left
Okay that doesn’t sound like leftist behavior, you’re totally right. I just hope you don’t mean that “power possessed by the left” is the democratic party, but sure, that broadly sounds like liberals or feds.
Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
There’s a point to which you can push liberal concessions for damage control or for actually gaining some more concessions. I think criticizing voting is healthy since it’s still playing the capitalist’s game and a liberal “democracy” with almost no wiggle room anymore, but considering how little effort it takes to vote I’ll always advocate to both play their game and also assume that nothing will come out of it without actual pressure.
I’ve mostly seen people advocate for withholding their vote in the favor of some concession (please don’t do genocide), I’ve never seen someone say “don’t vote and also don’t do anything else”, but I’m sure they exist, you find all kinds of confused people online.
Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
Is genocide disqualifying for a political party or not? I’m asking you, specifically, if you think that a party that commits (funds, arms, protects, justifies, excuses, does constant propaganda for) a genocide in the face of their own atrocities, while actively silencing the voices within their own ranks that speak out, is worth defending? Again, I think the idea was to hopefully change the democratic party to the radical position of “anti genocide”. That failure is on them, not the people who threatened not to vote for them.
Not highlighting that issue is frankly criminal.
Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
Yeah that’s leftism, that’s always been leftism, but again I hope to god you don’t mean that “leftist political power” here represents the democratic party, so I’m gonna assume you mean more broadly what they call “purity politics” and constant division in the left. I think it’s fair to criticize people to the right of you, I’m to the right of anarchists and I welcome their criticism, even when I don’t agree with it. If I spent my time shitting on them I think they would be completely legitimate in calling me out for someone with ulterior motives, or a reactionary shithead.
Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
I want you to examine your own sentence just for a second. To disempower an attempt at legitimate engagement with the political system. Opposing genocide isn’t used as a moral cudgel against whatever 10 steps removed version of power this is (and I’m not criticizing the way you put it, quite the opposite), it’s used AGAINST GENOCIDE.
People are out in the streets and criticizing liberal complicity because we talk about GENOCIDE not some vague questionable US foreign policy.
Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
So that’s the democratic party, right? That’s why I’m confused because leftists are out in the street, even the most liberal ones with their “fight oligarchy” campaign, while the democrats are still out defending genocide, doing filibusters without a cause, and generally trailing so far behind the average population that it’s mind numbing. So I don’t know what you mean when you say “leftists”, because you seem to refer to two groups at the same time.
Anyway, voting goes both way, you can’t pretend to vote in a vacuum for the lesser evil without recognizing that you empower them and their genocidal endeavors.
And I’ll be a little more incisive: If you criticize a leftist of not caring about minorities (which I’ve seen a lot and is deeply ironic considering who did and didn’t vote for the dems) you open yourself to be criticized for having proudly voted and called on everyone else to vote for a party that does genocide, and having attacked the ones that tried to actually make a difference in shifting their position or using that moment to show what their true colors are.
and generally trailing so far behind the average population
I put it to you that this is a gerontocracy problem. It’s easy to fall behind where the general public is at when Congress is a grotesque take on Weekend at Bernie’s (no, not that Bernie, and yes, I’m aware of the irony).
I think that can often be a problem in political structures, but I don’t think this is the main issue. It might explain how their messaging is so terrible, but the republicans have clearly managed just fine and the average is almost exactly the same in both.
I think it’s primarily that they see support for Israel as an absolute necessity because it would (1) be another massive loss of support and political funding, and (2) a very difficult pill to swallow. Admitting to having supported a horrible genocide in full conscience and trying to convince that they have now learned their way might still look like a steeper hill to climb than the time-tested tradition of genocide denial.
It’d be great if it was the main issue though, I think you’re right in that at least they would have better messaging, unfortunately I don’t think the actual policies would be much different. In Europe for example fascist parties tend to be pretty young 🤷♂️
In Europe for example fascist parties tend to be pretty young
When you didn’t grow up with any exposure to people who lived through WWII, and then you’ve seen quality of life go down your entire life, it’s somewhat of a logical conclusion to go with “anything would be better than this.” Obviously not true, but the baseline is low.
I’m not an american (but anti-electoral nonetheless), and I do get the critique and think it is perfectly valid if one views things through liberal framework - vote for the lesser evil, minimize suffering, not voting is letting the bad candidate on getting the upper hand, etc.
However, this isn’t an objective position but an ideological one, as it operates within lesser-evilism, coalitionism within capitalist institutions and having a definition of “the left” that generalizes them to essentially having to be “pro-democracy somewhat progressive liberals”, and any deviation makes them into a troll or a right winger or something like that.
What is important to realize is that most leftists aren’t liberals - in fact, many leftists, particularly Marxists, view elections as:
-
A way to legitimize the class rule that leads into passivity among the working class who are being ruled over, essentially recognizing that this “tool that we are given” is just an illusion and leads to neutralization of worker power,
-
Enabling of ‘capitalist-tribalism’ in the form of “which capitalist manager do you support” which is seen in US through party loyalty and basically disarming the working class from realizing their own interests.
Essentially, their goal isn’t to just “vote for the lesser evil” or “achieve the maximum good through the means we’re given” but to abolish the system entirely, and electorialism/voting is counter-productive in that regard due to legitimizing effect that it has that I mentioned previously. This does go against the “liberal left” and their goals, and being on the same political wing does not automatically mean there’s an alliance or shared goals, nor does it mean that two positions aren’t going to have antagonistic goals.
Besides, why blame the left for the electoral failure who abstained from voting? Why not blame MAGA for voting in an enemy that goes against your interests (as in, people who have actually voted)?
EDIT: Reading some of the comments over here, and what the fuck. Automatically labeling people as bots or trolls for daring to commit the crime of ‘wrongthink’ is definitely dehumanizing and the most toxic I’ve seen beehaw be. It’s fine to disagree, it’s fine to choose not to engage, but making a post calling a certain somewhat niche political position out, having people such as myself try and explain that this position is more complicated, then going full on “nah I’m right, you’re wrong, everyone who disagrees is now blocked and also not human or Russian/Chinese agents” is genuinely loser behavior to put it bluntly, especially on a “Chat” community where discussion is expected.
There just isn’t that kind of leftist discourse in America. If there are communists here, I’ve never met one in real life, and I live in a very progressive region. Lemmy has been my first real exposure to anything further left of democratic socialism. I’m not sure why non-Americans are so continually surprised that we use “liberal” framework to discuss politics (that word means something completely different to us than it does to you). It would be great if the far right didn’t keep moving us to the right, but that’s the situation we live in. As capitalism fails, more people are waking up to the class struggle, but you can’t just change a whole country’s political paradigm overnight.
Honestly, this applies to EU too. There are still communists out there in real world (mostly found in university groups, labor unions or just some very niche book clubs), but way fewer than when compared to 20th century thanks to the efforts of red scare, the hellscape of “socialist” regimes, etc. There’s also the fact that if you want to be a communist, you need to go way out of your way to seek the theory and groups and actually study rather than having the ideology imposed onto you (but exceptions apply, like how Marxism-Leninism and Maoism can definitely be cultish).
Also, “liberal framework” in my comment was referring to viewing politics as choosing between good or bad, treating the system as being a fair, neutral arbiter, and it’s how majority view electorialism since that’s what is imposed onto us. Doesn’t really have to do anything with progressives being referred to as liberals in the US, but just taking liberal democracy at its face value.
I agree with the concept that electoral politics will not bring us the change we want but disagree with the notion that it isn’t beneficial to vote for lesser evil.
We exist in both paradigms. The worse evil does directly impact our lives, this isn’t debatable especially with Trump, so it makes sense to vote for lesser evil. Leftists are correct the lesser evil voting does not change the status quo (ratchet theory) but I view it as incorrect for leftists to moralize the act of voting to the point that if you vote you are not a leftist
It’s a tool and revolution is easier when you aren’t under threat of being sent to a concentration camp. These are issues of tactics not virtue
In addition to that:
A proletariat that keeps disempowering itself is a proletariat unable to fight in an eventual revolution. And fascism is all about disempowering the masses.
So sometimes you need to bite into the sour apple and vote, even if this means voting in an absolute clown against someone who’s a clown and a fascist, and in the process playing along a system that is utterly corrupt and made to enforce the elites are kept in place.
-
I suppose it must make the world a lot simpler if you assume the US Democratic and Republican parties represent the full range of beliefs that exist in the world, and anyone who doesn’t neatly fit into those categories is simply lying.
Removed by mod
I’m not “spreading discord” nor “trolling.” I have no interest in disguising my beliefs.
Yes, I will defend the USSR. I will also “defend” just about any nation, if the claims being made about it are false, because my priority is the truth. For many people, the truth doesn’t matter so much as they feel this need to demonstrate that they’re part of an in-group or to communicate that they themselves aren’t going to revolt, and so they allow all kinds of lies spread and propagate them themselves. Because to counteract blatant misinformation about a country is to defend it.
As for democracy, I don’t believe in bourgeois “democracy” where the winner is decided by who has the most money and virtually every important decision is taken out of the sphere of public influence. I do not believe in a “democracy” where the people have to choose which face will be the one to commit genocide. That’s not really democracy though, is it?
I embrace the label “tankie,” mostly because it is thrown around so wantonly that it’s meaningless, and loses any punch it might have otherwise have. In practice, if you have a single positive thing to say about any self-described socialist state in history, for example, “Cuba’s literacy program was good,” then someone’s gonna call you a tankie.
Personally, I love that, because it turns it into this broad, all-inclusive term for any serious leftist, and papers over some differences. It’s kinda like the word “queer.” Whether you’re an Anarchist or a Marxist or whatever else, if the liberals are calling you “tankie” you’re probably a comrade, and if you’re throwing around the term yourself you’re probably a liberal. You Ain’t Done Nothing If You Ain’t Been Called A
RedTankieRemoved by mod
Socialism is when you ask nicely for the bourgeoisie to pretty please give up their wealth and stop exploiting people and the nicer you ask the more socialistier it is.
Classic. Assuming I’m against a socialist revolution despite me never having made this claim.
Edit: To be clear I am very much in favor of socialist revolutions. Unlike a certain someone else I am however not in favor of military dictatorships which pretend to be socialist,
Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction.
Fredrick Engles, famous non-socialist
How irrelevant. I’m talking about the end result of the revolution. You want to establish dictatorship. I want to establish worker democracy. I am a socialist. You are an authoritarian.
Edit: Never understood why tankies are so obsessed with quoting old dead authoritarians as if that somehow changes the present in some way. I don’t let auths redefine my words. Also how about quoting the anarchists they are so fond of murdering instead.
Removed by mod
Watch out for the following five fallacies, and the cuckoo is easy to spot:
- oversimplification: false dichotomy, ignoring relevant factors
- genetic fallacy: instead of focusing on what is being said, the cuckoo always focuses on who says it
- straw man: cuckoos are really eager to put words into your mouth, and try to force you to defend claims you never did in first place
- ignore refutation: if you prove without a shadow of doubt that the cuckoo’s claim is wrong, they’ll ignore your refutation and still use it to back up even dumber claims
- ad nauseam: same claim over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
Then as you spot the cuckoo, the rest is easier - for example, IMO a sensible approach is to point out what the cuckoo is doing, to whoever might be reading your comment, while disengaging so you aren’t giving the cuckoo further time to sing.
That’s quickly becoming my approach. Point it out and then immediately block them and stop engaging. Once you block them, they can’t keep following you around spamming the same noise.
Actually… they can. I got one today, they created a new account just to reply to the same comment, with an insult about having blocked them. They earned a stalking report, but I doubt it will stick.
I think it’s a very common belief amongst forums like these to look to logical fallacies to root out dishonest behavior, in the hopes that it’ll provide a nice and easy way to deduce when someone’s a grifter. That you can tell if someone’s a liar – or for that matter, real – by applying them sufficiently.
The problem is, humans are fallible. They fuck up. Innocently. Constantly. It’s normal to make fallacious arguments, and doing so should not cause you to be automatically marked off as a robot, troll or spy. Some examples for your given fallacies:
- Oversimplification can also occur if someone is tired and does not want to go into rigorous academic detail for their argument. Alternatively, they may simply not know the detail to begin with.
- Genetic fallacy can occur due to simple human anger; if someone feels that their interlocutor has made bad-faith arguments frequently before, they’re inclined to ignore what that individual has to say outright, likely without even reading it. (This one has happened in this thread, several times)
- Strawmen happen all the time and extremely easily, because people will inevitably end up making assumptions about the position of others based on previous discussions they’ve had. If you spend enough time arguing a point and getting response
X, you’re going to start assuming that the person you’re talking to about that is implyingX, even if they haven’t said it and never intended to. - Ignoring refutation happens plenty simply when people get defensive. Admitting you’re wrong is hard, and it’s much preferable to instead change the topic or find some other way of pretending you were never disproven of anything. This is inherently a logical leap, and that’s why it leads to often dumber positions.
- With regard to ad nauseam: If someone finds a particular point very convincing and easy to understand for themselves, they may find it confusing as to why you don’t agree on it. This can lead to them repeatedly trying to explain it more thoroughly and in different words under the assumption that the way they said it was why you didn’t get it. I’ve done this a lot in my past.
With those examples out of the way, I just want to emphasize the fact that you should never pretend the presence of logical fallacies is a guarantee of bad faith, much less use it to dehumanize others. If we let ourselves do that, we’ll all tear each other apart under the mistaken assumption that we’re rooting out an evil that has no promise of even being present at all. To err is human.
Just to be clear:
I am not proposing to categorically label anyone using those five fallacies a cuckoo. I said that it’s easy to spot the cuckoo when you look for those fallacies. Because cuckoos rely on those fallacies to convey their “As A Leftist®, I say we should disempower ourselves!” discourse.
In that case, I contend that is is not easy to spot a cuckoo, and believing that is leaves one dangerously prone to overconfidence. So while I appreciate that you don’t see these fallacies as de facto proof of disingenuous behavior, I still feel that you’re running the risk of false positives.
Fallacies are useful for evaluating the validity of arguments and positions, not for evaluating people themselves. Solitary comments can never let you evaluate a whole person, because no whole person fits in a text box.
In that case, I contend […]
When answering your earlier comment, I wasn’t sure if you were
- Speaking on general grounds, without noticing that context made your comment imply that I said what I did not; OR
- Assuming=bullshitting that I said what I did not. e.g. that I’d not be taking into account that humans are fallible, or that I would be dehumanising others.
In doubt, I answered it with a simple clarification. However, that “in that case” confirms it’s #2, so I’ll readdress your earlier comment: cut off the crap.
Avoiding fallacies is not “academic rigour” dammit, it’s basic human decency. Decent human beings avoid bringing unnecessary harm to other human beings, and irrationalities (like fallacies) harm people. Doubly so in this context (politics), because that fallacy means people supporting people/entities/policies that should they not support. (Look at Gaza for a prime example of that. It’s literally people being killed because people give a thumbs up to an oversimplification, so a genocide looks like self-defence.)
“If someone is tired”, “simple human anger”, “when people get defensive” - people under those situations should not be discussing politics (mind the context!) on first place.
And no, it is neither logically nor morally acceptable to assume the others’ views, as you said under “strawmen”. It’s piece of shit behaviour of people who don’t mind blaming others for what they did not say or do not support.
Now, addressing this comment:
In that case, I contend that is is not easy to spot a cuckoo
In the context? Yes, it is. If someone is babbling “As A Leftist®, I say we should not fight back” and you smell those fallacies, the first thing you should look for is a brood parasite.
Fallacies are useful for evaluating the validity of arguments and positions, not for evaluating people themselves.
It’s useful for both.
While brainfarts happen, and people should be lenient towards small mistakes, someone who doesn’t even try to avoid fallacies is a harmful individual and should be treated as such.
I still feel that you’re running the risk of false positives.
Not a problem in the light of the proposed solution. (Point out and disengage)
Solitary comments can never let you evaluate a whole person, because no whole person fits in a text box.
In line with what you did in the earlier comment, now you’re implying that I would have claimed that solitary comments let you evaluate a whole person. I did not; please stop implying otherwise, this is at the very least disingenuous, if not worse.
The whole thing with the cuckoo is that it’s a useful label for people engaging into a certain political behaviour dammit. This is clear by context, if you actually bother to read the OP.
[In the line of what I proposed, I am disengaging. While the user above is not behaving like a cuckoo, I have little to no patience towards assumers putting words into the others’ mouths.]
Jesus Christ. I said what I said in the worry that you were suggesting fallacies were clear verdicts, and responded in order to defuse that possibility for both yourself (if it was indeed there) and, crucially, for anyone else reading. I wasn’t trying to annihilate your character.
But I don’t think anything I can do here anymore is worth doing, now. If this is what I get for trying to encourage sympathetic behavior, I’m just not going to participate at all.
This is incredibly hurtful. Goodbye.
Great points! Now that the election is over, let’s focus on revamping the Dem party instead of huffing copium by blaming 3rd party leftists for not being conservative enough to vote for a rightwing party!
- Claiming to be leftists
- Encouraging leftists not to vote or to vote for third party candidates
- Highlighting issues with the Democratic party as being disqualifying while ignoring the objectively worse positions held by the Republican party
- Attacking anyone who promotes defending leftist political power by claiming they are centrists and that the attacker is “to the left of them”
- Using US foreign policy as a moral cudgel to disempower any attempt at legitimate engagement with the US political system
- Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism
Except for the one example you listed that I omitted here, you’ve just described, like, at least 1/3 of Lemmy, maybe more.
The obvious ones I blocked long ago. There were some I didn’t block, but a good chunk of those up and disappeared right after the election in November, so that was not suspicious at all.
Frankly, I’m just about done with anything “political” on social media and am just going to start employing keyword filters. I’ll just have to find some other void to shout into when I need an outlet lol.
Yep. It’s a damn mess.
I don’t claim to know how to make them be honest about their motivations or, in the case of those few who are genuinely being taken in by this garbage, wake the hell up and realize what they’re throwing away. But I know that having the idea out there in the open in a digestible way can at least help some people get a better view of what’s going on. Maybe they’ll follow suit and block some of the worst ones. Maybe they’ll rely less on social media for their perspectives on the world and realize that Lemmy isn’t the exception to its toxicity just because it’s open source.
We need to be more aware of them than we have been, though, because it’s getting worse.
I just don’t know a good way to deal with that, TBH. I wish I did.
how to make them be honest about their motivations
It’s tough. If I get a funny feeling about an account and think they might be a concern troll (I think that’s the term that applies here; if not, someone please correct me. I think “false ally” is a sub-class of that, but I’m shooting from the hip here),
I’ll typically look back through their history, try to put things in context, and get a feel from there. The ones I blocked were pretty much all one-trick ponies, so that was easy (though tedious as it took a while “vetting” each one).
The problem there is, yes, you’ve identified that person. But everyone else needs to do the same legwork and come to the same conclusion. You can’t just put up a sign that says “Troll” lol. Depending on the community/instance, you could report them, but that often puts mods in a sticky situation because they usually don’t want to suppress anyone’s viewpoint as long as it’s not violating any rules.
or, in the case of those few who are genuinely being taken in by this garbage
That’s even tougher. First, you have to figure out if they’re the troll or the one who was trolled (troll-ee lol?) . And one, very rightfully, can’t /shouldn’t just start calling people trolls or shills. For one, they might be the troll-ee; going out of the gate with name-calling and accusations is definitely not the way to convince them to re-evaluate their views. For another, it just sets a bad tone and gives the impression that “everyone who disagrees with me is a troll”.
But sometimes they are. What do you do then?
Wish I had an answer that didn’t involve writing multiple theses on a number of topics as they try to sealion me into submission lol.
So, everyone actually doesn’t have to do the same legwork. If most of the posters in a community block someone, that person won’t be able to post in most of the threads in that community and won’t get the engagement they’re looking for.
Whether they’re trolls or whether they’re useful idiots, I say block them. Not only that, actively encourage others to do the same. If we take to blocking these people on sight the moment they start spouting this bullshit, they very quickly will see threads full of “# additional responses” that they can’t actually see or respond to.
In some cases it might actually be worth reporting them, too. A lot of them go well beyond the rules of the communities they’re engaging with, but I’ve also seen at least one instance where a very prominent cuckoo-poster got chased off the instance by the staff. He was basically told to knock it off or leave and he chose the latter. Good riddance.
Don’t the people you block still see your posts?
I’m under the impression that they can’t reply to them directly.
They can still reply, you just won’t see them or get a notification.
So there is a bit of FOMO to get over when blocking, but it’s not too bad. Kind of like realizing you have no control over what people say behind your back. I’m just like, “If I cared what they had to say, I wouldn’t have blocked them in the first place”
Oh. Welp. At least it reduces their engagement.
There are an awful lot of unsubstantiated claims being made in this thread, especially wrt what these supposed maga-bot/trolls all claim or do.
If the post contained any actual examples of comments that OP believes are either bots or trolls, it might be possible to actually analyze whether their assumptions and claims have validity.
As it stands, however, making broad insinuations about the ill intentions of anyone who disagrees with you is not very Nice, and is certainly not Assuming Good Faith.
The mods here are very active, and very capable. We don’t need people starting witch hunts here to “root out the fake Leftists”, and based on OP and some others’ reactions in this thread, that’s clearly what’s happening here.
I’m specifically talking about an exploitable vector that can be taken advantage by any number of people or organizations, so it’s not really about particular users. There are examples, to be sure, but pointing them out or accusing them of working for anyone in particular would be counter-productive. Not only would it distract from the subject at hand, but they can literally make an infinite number of sock-puppets so it doesn’t really matter unless you feel like playing an absolutely exhausting and fruitless game of whack-a-mole.
I’m seeking to illustrate the behavioral pattern, the weakness that it exploits, and the damage it can do, which I expect to have much more efficacious results.
This is not talking about an attack vector in the abstract. You and Philip directly asserted that users in this post are part of this group, and even went on a little self-congratulatory rabbit-hole trek deciding that they’re probably AI as well.
There are examples, to be sure, but pointing them out or accusing them of working for anyone in particular would be counter-productive.
You already did that, the second you asserted that some people here in this thread are part of this group. Hiding behind, “oh, I’ll say they’re here in this thread, which means their usernames are here to see and speculate upon, but I won’t explicitly name them in my comment, so I can pretend that this is only abstract discussion” is just being evasive.
I’m seeking to illustrate the behavioral pattern, the weakness that it exploits, and the damage it can do, which I expect to have much more efficacious results.
You’re using terms like “behavioral pattern” to lend your post an air of scientific truth, but this is literally nothing more than rank aspersion. The list of behavior you laid out is rife with strawman positions and imprecise, improvable propositions.
How precisely do you define “Dedicating most of their posting to dismantling any power possessed by the left”. “Most” is a vague, moving target. What qualifies as “dismantling… power possessed by the left”? That’s an assertion of outcome, so are you asserting that you have some evidence tying posts here to a reduction in Leftist political power? Obviously not, but it’s a useful claim to use for attacks since you’re now working off a much worse impact than just political disagreement.
You haven’t shown any damage, but you certainly seem happy to use the mere claim of damage and “abstract discussion”, to call for direct exclusion or expulsion of people from Left spaces.
That’s why this is a witch hunt, and not an appeal for moderation rule changes.
What this thread demonstrates to me,
notmore and more clearly, is:https://www.theroot.com/in-his-own-words-martin-luther-king-jr-on-white-privi-1831933703
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
It applies to third party voters and our valid criticisms of the Democratic party, as well.
I think that leftists generally have a hard time calling out people who argue in bad faith
We should genuinely be banning all tankies and accelerationists on sight. Allowing them to poison the debate to the extent they do really is our greatest flaw and the only real “leftist infighting” I’ve ever really come across.
Pretty sure leftist infighting is just a tankie dogwhistle at this point.
the only real “leftist infighting” I’ve ever really come across.
gestures wildly at the thread we’re in
I don’t think it’s just tankies doing it!
No. They’re all tankies or okay with tankies, which is more or less being a tankie. I recognize some of these users and many of them literally don’t believe in democracy and do stuff like defend the USSR etc. No leftist infighting here as usual, just people trying to push us to support their shitty little military regimes.
that has been my thought for years now, i feel like basically all the annoying and divisive things you see are just outright astroturfing
Stupid thing is that it’s the humanity and empathy of the left that is both the draw and the weakness of the movement.
Conservatives can come into leftist discourse spaces and either pose as the extreme leftists you describe, or even just the more reasonable end of the conservatives (non facist/maga types, rare as they are any more) an they’ll be engaged with in good faith. Since they’re ultimately not there for a proper discussion though it results in nothing more than creating chaos and arguments
Liberal/leftists who walk into conservative spaces are greeted with scorn and derision, treated as lunatics from the start not worth listening to. Since the left would generally be coming in with honest intent though at best they waste their time shouting into an established echo chamber, or worse get convinced that there’s a good middle ground to work towards.
Absolutely. Conservatives have, unfortunately, sailed straight past us on political effectiveness in recent years. We’re spending our time wringing our hands about doing the right thing and cajoling one another into doing the same. Unfortunately in a lot of cases modern leftism favors atomizing based on who a particular segment sees as having sufficient moral purity over solidarity. Meanwhile, conservatives don’t really care about much of anything other than maintaining a socially conservative status quo. They’ll even let people they hate pretend to be part of the club if they debase themselves enough to be politically useful. At the same time, they’ll viciously attack anyone who isn’t politically useful to them.
I’m not saying we ought to abandon our principles or start viciously attacking anyone who doesn’t toe the line of being politically useful, but we need to remember how to build coalitions and think strategically.
Since the left would generally be coming in with honest intent though at best they waste their time shouting into an established echo chamber, or worse get convinced that there’s a good middle ground to work towards.
I tried going to conservative spaces on Lemmy. The liberals wouldn’t allow any dialogue. Not the conservatives, the liberals.
liberals are conservatives. What we call conservatives are regressives.
I’d need some examples to get what you mean here. My experiences, both personal and simply observed, is that you can you can roughly split both conservatives and liberals into two sub-groups, although the distinction on the liberal side is a lot more fuzzy.
There’s the emotive/moralizing side that fight based on what they feel rather than any concrete justification. What’s right is decided simply by an assumption of how the world should work, either collaboratively or selfishly looking out for yourself only.
Then there are the logical logical arguments. On the conservative side these end up being a lot more in the form of ‘I am right, you need to prove otherwise’ while liberals (myself guilty of it as well) will go through these elaborate deliberations backing one point with another and somehow hoping to convince these people who have already decided they’re right of their error.
If you’ve ever tried beating your head into a brick wall you might recognize the feeling that last one, but it’s hardly an obstruction to dialogue, just a frustration of trying to engage rationally with largely irrational beings.
deleted by creator
I’ve deleted my comment because I’m not willing to search “third party” and “Democrats” and post threads. I drove the friend in bad health to do some errands in their car, and after arguing with them about it until mid-afternoon, drove them to the ER, and they are now in ICU so I’m pretty much ignoring things I could and/or should be doing while sort-of processing this in the bg, and awaiting further information. Believe what you want.
I had more I wanted to say on this topic when I first read it, but at the time I also had more energy. Had I not had other obligations, I would’ve written out my more detailed thoughts then. As it is, however, I’ll have to settle for the (relative) shortform, as I find this thread exhausting from the outset and the sheer quantity of incredibly angry back-and-forth here has only made it worse.
To suffice the ideas of mine that I still remember, then:
- I have a feeling that while you may not consider me specifically to be a “cuckoo,” that this post was still partially aimed at people like myself, since I’ve spent a fair chunk of time arguing to the immense faults of the Democrat Party, some of which was in discussion with you.
- If the above is true, I feel dehumanized and find this topic incredibly depressing.
- Regardless of the above, I find jumping to assumptions of bad faith on the part of those with whom you disagree on this topic understandable, but needlessly conspiratorial.
But to end my comment, I’d like to point out an area on which you and I can find common ground: Your point of “Seemingly doing nothing to actually mount resistance against authoritarianism” suggests you feel that the people arguing against voting / the Democrat Party are doing a poor job of offering alternative solutions. On this, I agree. Solutions for that scenario are hard to come by and often complicated, and where people do have things to suggest a portion of them are very flawed; voting Green, not voting, and the occasional implicit suggestion for violence, etc. All of those have huge problems that I know I don’t need to explain to you.
For that, all I can say is that I agree that leftists can do better and should. I’ve seen the good suggestions before. Things like mutual aid, education, organizing, joining events — all of these are very useful things that are significantly more important than one vote in a broken electoral system. Unfortunately, as you’ve noticed, frustrated and angry people tend to be bad at mentioning these things.
I only ask that you consider that these people are frustrated, angry, and restless, rather than actively fake.
just do a little thought experiment with me. If there is a vector that allows authoritarians to dismantle all progress made by the left, to demotivate us and to detract from our ability to form coalitions and build solidarity, do you really think they wouldn’t take advantage of it?
This is the same kind of argument that the tankies use to dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as a CIA plant. At least they name the CIA, you seem to be pointing to an even more ambiguous “they” that are out to get us. This is a conspiracy theory, dress it up all you want but your pointing to some ambiguous “they” and blaming them for your problems with no proof.
Occams razor is that they are leftists who hate the democratic party. They critique them more then the Republicans because the liberal side of lemmy covers that pretty well already, half the front page is shitting on trump right now. That’s good but at a certain point your beating a dead horse, everyone here already hates trump and thinks he’s bad, no point in reinforcing that past a point. A lot of people on here still have loyalty to the democratic party though that far exceeds the democrats loyalty to the left, so pointing that out can be effective and help change people’s minds instead of posting/commenting trump is hitler for the millionth time.
Your interpretation of Occam’s razor is that no one ever lies? Do you really think all human beings being honest about everything they say requires the least number of assumptions?
In a sense yes, people generally tell the truth more than they lie so the default assumption should be that someone is telling the truth, otherwise you enter into paranoia. That assumption can be broken when there is a clear gain from lying. Eg. You catch a thief outside the store they robbed they have a very clear reason to lie and say they were just walking by.
You’re explanation on why they’re lying isn’t very clear. First off, you fail to name who these people are and leave it ambiguous to let the person reading fill it in with their enemy (maga, nazis, russians etc.) just like every other conspiracy theory. Since the subject isn’t clear neither is the motive, you just sort of fill that in with "they hate the left, why do they hate the left? What are they gaining from convincing maybe a couple dozen liberals that the democrats suck on a very marginal social media? This isn’t the politburo for the comintern, there is barely any power on here to diffuse, so why put effort into doing so when there are far larger platforms to influence.
I’d like to draw a parallel to data security. Why make a strong password if nobody’s out there trying to break into accounts? Why secure your server’s ports if nobody’s going to attack them? Why take precautions against malicious collection of data to sell to third parties if we’re not sure who or how that data would be used?
These are behaviors that we don’t know the specific motivations for, we don’t know the individual bad actors in question or who they’re working for or what their specific plans are. But we know that if someone calls you claiming to be Geeksquad and tells you to go buy a bunch of gift cards to read to them over the phone, you’re being scammed. We know that if someone pretends to be a representative of a company and comes asking for your password, you shouldn’t trust them. We know that if certain kinds of traffic are spamming your ports looking for vulnerabilities, they don’t mean well.
Why? Because we are aware of the threat vector and can move to protect it before knowing the details of who in particular is planning on exploiting it. I don’t need to know specifically which hacker wants to break into my server to limit open ports. I don’t need to know who wants to steal my Steam account to know setting up 2fA is worthwhile.
Assuming good faith in bad actors is a vulnerability. The exploit vector is an attack on the political power of the left. I don’t need to know specifically who is behind it. I could speculate. Maybe it’s MAGA, maybe it’s Russia, maybe it’s some foreign bot-farm being hired by some other authoritarian regime, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that allowing the threat vector to remain open disempowers the left.
Why Lemmy? Why a small niche leftist platform rather than a larger platform?
Let’s say you’re a time traveler who hates punk music. What would be more effective to stop it before it starts? Sabotaging the planning for the Warped Tour in the 90s, or burning down CBGB in 1973?
CBGB was a small club at the time, barely notable at all. The Warped Tour, on the other hand, was a massive endeavor involving dozens of bands and thousands upon thousands of punk and ska fans. But if you know your history, you know that CBGB was a small venue with a massive impact on the American punk scene. It was a place where a lot of the bands that we know today got their start and came up. The Warped Tour, on the other hand, while probably influential on 90s teenagers who got to go see 20 bands in person for 20 bucks, was mostly just riding the wave of punk’s popularity and capitalizing it.
Targeting leftist spaces, especially small leftist spaces, could potentially be much more effective than targeting more general spaces. Lemmy in particular selects not only for leftists, but for anti-corporate, anti-establishment people with enough of an interest in tech and enough social media presence to jump on the bandwagon of a relatively unknown protocol just so they don’t have to rely on corporate social media. It has a barrier for entry that most of the public find to be either too daunting to bother to surmount, or that involves enough obscurity that they’re not even aware of it to begin with.
Beehaw in particular has human-vetted signups and even has a history of defederating with instances that have open sign-ups in order to be able to deal with moderation. A lot of that moderation is literally just contending with social conservatives who show up spouting racism, queerphobia, sexism, and ablism.
In other words, we are a small space that caters to a particular crowd of people well outside the mainstream politically, socially, and technologically. Small, niche spaces have a tremendous potential for resulting in wider-spread influence.
It’s not about convincing us that democrats suck. Most of us aren’t particularly happy with the democratic establishment anyway. It’s about demotivating us and frustrating our internal communications. It’s about trying to sabotage a potential locus for resistance.
And it isn’t just Lemmy. It isn’t even just the left that’s being targeted. We know social media is being used to pollute discourse and manipulate politics. We know there’s an artificial rightward push going on, and we know that it isn’t just the United States that’s being targeted with it. But anyone who wants to advance this artificial rightward push has a strong motivation to exploit any vulnerabilities that can be found in the US because of our position globally. Now that that position is crumbling, they have a strong motivation to make sure it doesn’t recover.
We have a responsibility to address that threat vector no matter who those parties are.
This isn’t data security though. In a cyber security context, yes paranoia is a valuable attribute. It can let you catch threats before they happen which is good.
In a political context though, paranoia, especially directed within the organization, is a corrosive and reactionary attribute. It divides and causes factionalism in political organization and brings energy away from making positive change and fighting the actual oppressors and puts that energy toward testing and purging your “allies”.
If a group out of power gives into paranoia and conspiracies they just divide into smaller and smaller factions who don’t trust each other and can’t work together to gain power. If a group in power gives in to paranoia, the majority group tends to start purging whoever they can claim are “fakes” conveniently along with everyone else they disagree with.
I can’t think of a single time in history where paranoia directed at secret enemies within has ever helped a progressive cause. Meanwhile I can name tons of instances where it destroyed a progressive cause, or at least it’s credibility and popularity: the reign of terror, stalins purges, mao’s cultural revolution, even in modern day Maduro loves to claim the CIA is out to get him.
It never helps the cause, it is just used as a way for the leaders of the group to offload any anger directed at the people in charge of the organization towards some, often imagined, sabotoeurs. Collectivization failing and causing mass starvation? Is it stalins fault?, no it’s the kulaks and the trotskyists sabotaging the revolution.
The democrats have failed us, twice now. Instead of recognizing there failure and changing tack they’re trying to direct anger at the enemy within, progressives and Palestinian activists who they claim are sabotaging the democratic chances and are probably agents of russia. Pelosi literally told a group of pro-palestinian activists protesting on her lawn to “go back to russia”.
We need to stop focusing on finding the “Russian assets in our midst” and focus on reforming the democratic party and defeating trumpism with a positive plan for change.
One disagreement. Dems have been failing us since FDR left office.
Voluntarily disenfranchising yourself is complying in advance.
A broken tool still has its uses. A bent screwdriver can still be a prybar. A rusty sword can still kill, so don’t ask people to drop it before have something better. It is possible to explore and acknowledge the failures and limitations of a system – and to reduce overreliance on it – without abdicating all influence over it.
The Democratic Party is a disappointment. They follow popular (polled) opinion rather than sticking to principles, and that makes them vulnerable to Overton shifts. As public opinion towards trans people has been poisoned by the Jugendverderber libel, Democrats have largely thrown trans people under the bus instead of fighting back. Likewise, Democrats stick closely to corporate interests because money is power. These issues may never be fixable.
The solution to this is not to capitulate and discard what political influence we still hold.
The first half of the solution is to primary the hell out of Democrats. A left-wing caucus within the party could easily tilt things in our favor, just like the Freedom Caucus tilted the RNC in the opposite direction once before. Bernie Sanders (link) and David Hogg (link) are now spearheading multiple campaigns to do exactly that. Even if you have no faith in your ability to change the norms of the party, just think how much impact your resistance could have if you held an office, even a low one, even for just a week. Do you have any idea how much trouble a county clerk can make?
The second half of the solution is to build solidarity-based power structures outside government to reduce overreliance on a broken system. Economic desperation, social isolation, and cultural “other”-ing make people easy to exploit and oppress regardless of the type of government, so attack those problems directly. Unions, mutual aid networks, churches, you know the drill. Put in the legwork to find them in your area or your profession.
Embrace nuance. Embrace diversity – even political diversity. Political beliefs are not sacred, but the lives under those political systems are. Don’t try to reduce the vast complexity of politics to 120 characters. Don’t treat the ongoing wellbeing of human beings flippantly. If you think the problem is the existence of a state, then say so, but make your case for why making the state worse makes conditions for its subjects better. If you think voting third-party will teach the Democrats a lesson and drag them leftwards, then make your case and acknowledge the risks of what happens if you’re wrong.
Don’t just ridicule every positive effort you see. Doomer trolls (or cuckoos, if we’re going with that) are pithy, but reductive, and their criticism is never constructive.
This all day.
I think one if the big things that people miss is that while it may be the most prominent fights in the headlines, there are countless little fights going on all the time and they have a huge impact. They don’t make national news or sometimes even local news, but they still matter. It’s easy to dismiss them, but they still move the overton window and they still have a substantial impact on the day to day lives of people across the country. Every union steward in some small retail chain standing up to management makes an impact. Every judge who stands up for the rights of marginalized people makes an impact. Every city councilor who votes to fund programs for people in need. Every volunteer who shows up day after day to soup kitchens and food banks. Everybody who stops to give a few bucks to a person on the street. Everyone who sees someone struggling and takes the time to try to lift them up. Every advocate who spends their time helping people who are trying to find a way out of horrible situations.
The less visible stuff is much more wide-spread and makes a huge difference, maybe even more of a difference in many cases, than the big visible stuff.
It honestly drives me up a wall when people who seem like they never go out and connect with the real world around them spend so much time ranting about how everyone’s screwed and nobody’s doing anything about it. All they have to do is look outside or step outside themselves and lend someone, anyone a hand.
All they have to do is look outside or step outside themselves and lend someone, anyone a hand.
Touch grass, if you will.
I remember years ago watching a video – I desperately wish I could remember the channel – where the author shared his experience with depression and the early days of 4chan anime forums. He found it easier to browse forums about anime than to go out and actually watch them. Then the negativity piled in. That anime you like? “It’s shit.” Any hint of optimism or passion was an opportunity to get a rise out of someone or smugly ridicule them. The only unassailable belief was to doubt everything. The only winning move was not to care.
I’ve been thinking about that video a lot recently.
Online activism has led to a handful of noteworthy victories. But the ease of online activism has also made people (myself included) rely too much on it, and get disillusioned by it, as if we’ve forgotten that online activism is pointless unless it leads to real-world resistance.
I don’t believe doomer trolls are right-wing plants (though I acknowledge it’s a potential avenue of attack in the future). I don’t think they usually have ulterior accelerationist motives (though I have spoken with a few). I think for the most part, they’re just people who’ve given up, or otherwise mistaken cynicism for maturity, and seeing anyone else expressing optimism or trying to organize real-world resistance just pisses them off.
I don’t believe doomer trolls are right-wing plants (though I acknowledge it’s a potential avenue of attack in the future). I don’t think they usually have ulterior accelerationist motives (though I have spoken with a few). I think for the most part, they’re just people who’ve given up, or otherwise mistaken cynicism for maturity, and seeing anyone else expressing optimism or trying to organize real-world resistance just pisses them off.
This is the attitude I want to see. Believing people are psy-ops, or bots, or being evil on purpose — none of that is necessary and almost all of it is conspiratorial thinking. It’s the kind of thing the right thrives on, and it’s gross.
But this? Saying there are people who have real issues and real grief, and that it’s driving them to bad but genuinely held beliefs? That’s sympathetic, it’s understanding, and above all else it does not divide us. This is what we need more of.
This is just Lemmy and the whole “leftist” influencer sphere (read: people who watch Hasan Piker and take him seriously).
I completely agree with everything you mention here but you’re going to make a lot of Lemmies very mad.
They aren’t open to real discourse and will literally ally with Republicans if it means they can take down Democrats.
I’m not sure about that. But we will absolutely vote third, if they offer a platform that doesn’t vote status quo or having no view record, advance a platform that offers us something tangible. If they betray us, we remember.
David Pacman?
