Thanks, that was a helpful reply. I am not exactly a tankie, but I am actively trying to avoid the more right wing pockets of the internet that are actively avoiding reddit. The venn diagram is small, I think.

From a practical standpoint, there is a karma system on this site, it just is not implemented - every comment and post has upvotes. That those upvotes arent recorded on the user level is a choice.

It is always a balance of features. I dont necessarily agree with your framing, but even if I did, the community needs to ask itself if the goal is to be a tiny, uncompetitive alternative to reddit, or do we want to be relevant and deal with the consequences of more diverse participation? Incentives like the possibility of notoriety can motivate positive contributions as well. Some people want to be recognized for their meaningful contributions as much as people do not want to be downvoted for unhelpful contributions.

Wild take.

This site is just way too diffuse and has too few real people actively participating. It is also missing some very basic things that would accelerate engagement. Right now, your profile doesnt tally your upvotes. This should be a pretty simple fix and would promote visibility into who the top contributors are and the perceived quality of their upvotes.

Organized events would also keep momentum going. I remember back when reddit had AMAs that were actually interesting and fun instead of thinly veiled opportunities to plug a recent project while talking to someone’s PR manager.

The aesthetic could also use a revamp. Nothing tailored to smartphone usage (blech), but maybe something that fills the screen by default, and improves readability? Comment sections are less easy to follow than on pre-IPO reddit. Native hoverzoom would also be nice. Is there anywhere to actually have an exchange with the people running Lemmy?

If it makes you feel better, not enough people who saw that movie recognize that the protagonists are the bad guys. So, it sort of comes out in the wash?

I am totally with you. I fully agree with everything you have said here. To your point about brown people and LGBTQ+ people deserving the same standard of living as white people, I fully agree, and I fully agree without caveat.

The question I have for you is: given the current political landscape, and in recognition of the history of the struggle for social justice, can you and I agree that this struggle exists alongside a struggle for economic justice that can be advocated for in its own terms?

I do not want to throw anyone under the bus - and I explicitly reject the prevailing narrative that it was trans issues that cost the dems election (as if the dems represent anything other than their own interests or needed help losing). My main concern here is that, without a bulletproof political coalition, you need to make progress where you can.

It is my contention that right now the forces of dominance and oppression are effectively mobilizing the ignorant and the poor against each other along lines of social construction and we could form a broader coalition unified around economic and labor issues. And I say this in full admission that this will not solve our social justice problems. It will not solve racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+, xenophobia, or other bigotries and systemic injustices of those kinds. However, it is possible that by securing things like universal healthcare, universal childcare, minimum wage increases, rent controls, etc. that the lives of everyone gets better. And if everyone’s life gets better, it is easier to mobilize against systemic injustice and harder to blame the ‘other’ for why your life sucks.

If you aren’t armed and prepared to defend yourself and your community, you are just gathering resources and slaves for the people that are armed and want your stuff and want to turn you into slaves or corpses.

I hear you but unless you already have a bullet proof political movement (the left does not), then you need to find it in your heart to look at the deplorables and find commonalities and build on them. This is the real benefit of class solidarity and economic essentialism. Our identitarian differences can be used against a movement to divide it, but we are all workers under capitalism. We all have bills. We all need to put food on the table. And yeah, securing labor rights, housing, and healthcare will not solve racism, sexism, and other bigotries BUT it will be much easier to advocate for social justice issues if people arent just fighting for survival.

The people you are angry with deserve your ire, but they are as much a product of their environments and circumstances as everyone else. Barring the rapture, they arent going anywhere so our political solutions need to include these people. There simply is not enough political power in everyone else to overturn their political relevance.

If you have a company in a small town and everything is paid for and the size of the town isnt growing or changing, you actually do not need to grow. There is a company in Leadville, Colorado called “Melanzana”. They make technical hoodies - they’re pretty good. They actively shrank their business by closing their online storefront to reduce demand and reduce the burden of keeping up with that demand.

HOWEVER, if you have a business that is plugged into a larger marketplace and you have investors or have growing rents, etc. your investors expect a return on their investment and your growing costs need to be addressed so the only option is to grow to keep up.

Super interesting topic when you contextualize within a closed, limited, physical space. And by “super interesting” I mean dystopian.

If your heart is set on finding reasons to hate everyone else, you are always going to find them but successful political movements are built on solidarity and compassion.

Have you seen people’s algorithmic bubbles? The corporations that control these algorithms do not want to increase access to accurate and helpful information. Blaming millions of people instead of the systems that keep them oppressed is morally questionable, strategically ineffective, and psychologically isolating.

How…do you have internet? Van life seems so appealing but also so scary.

I dont know why this is relevant. Either he prevented from running, in which case this doesnt matter; OR he IS running in violation of the law, in which case this doesnt batter because if he is willing to break an established precent and law then he would not leave his third term open to chance by having free or fair elections.

I do not want to be seen as defending fascists or being obscurantist but I regularly encounter normal people who literally never learned how to identify a fascist. To them, it vaguely means authoritarian and imperialistic and deploying it in conversations within an american context seems unnecessarily inflammatory. The average person has neither the time nor the inclination be as plugged into politics as we are. Words actually do mean things…just different things to different people.

These people, man. They just do not hear themselves. How embarrassing.

The capital gains tax is hilarious. I wish some public figure would put out a public service announcement where they explain it “Bruh, if you buy $100 worth of stock, and then you sell it for $200, then you get to keep $185 (netting $85 in profit). If you think this is a problem, you are either a demon or a moron.”

I suppose it really depends on what freedoms you consider important and how much you weigh things. It is true, in china, you cant be openly critical of the regime. FWIW, that is increasingly true in the US.

However, in china, you are free to not be killed by violence. You are free to get affordable healthcare. You are free to get affordable high quality food. You are free to get affordable housing (outside of Beijing and a few other financial centers). You are free to get an affordable high quality education. I dunno. There are tradeoffs. The US is increasingly offering less and less by way of substantive freedoms and is becoming more and more authoritarian.

Also, have you actually been to china? How much of what you know about china is based in outdated information from 30 years ago or might just be straight up propaganda? I have been in the last 10 years and it blew my mind and changed a lot about how viewed the country.

In the presence of hierarchy, there will always be those in the underclasses who will betray anyone to secure their place as “first of the least”. It is why white women vote republican in such large numbers. It is why so many among the working class clamor to defend billionaires. ‘Notice me, senpai’ as ideology.

They arent cops but they do derive their authority the same way cops do: the govt imbues them with that authority.