this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Yeah 100% When I joined I saw so much weird pro China and Russia comments, veiled but there. And no one would disagree! To me it felt like trying to influence newcomers and it was more insidious the way it was presented. Nothing like the dumb trolls I was used to seeing on reddit.
Yeah it's such a weird vibe here, and honestly, if it doesn't change, I think it's going to be what dooms the platform. This version of it, at least.
It's this super far left melting pot of western progressive talking points that are also somehow pro Russia and China.
Not saying that these are necessarily mutually exclusive views, but to most Western audiences, you're holding views that are (again within a Western frame of reference) simultaneously far right and far left...which is most likely to be polarizing enough to just annoy or piss off most casual users.
That's what was so fucking confusing to me. How can you go so far left that you are now praising current existing authoritarian governments that are hurting their own citizens and spreading it farther? Ukraine, Hong Kong, those are very fucking recent but even more shit happened in a lot of living memory with these countries.
Then I realized. They just chose the name far left. It sure as shit has nothing in common with what I believe a lot of us consider being left as; putting the well being of a citizen and social/environmental/etc progress above profit.
I had someone go off on me recently because I talked about how I never see the term "tankie" anywhere but on Lemmy.
I blocked them because they just became so fucking unhinged it wasn't worth responding to anymore.
I actually tried to find it in your history because I wanted to see how unhinged they got.
I am just going to gently say this, tankie rhetoric isn't really "politics" in the same way things can be in the west. They are praising, defending, and supporting governments that are hurting their own people to this day with authoritarian control and having citizens report their neighbors for any anti government speech or behavior.
I understand this is not a subject that everyone is aware of, especially with any nuance, so no judgement or anything I just wanted to elaborate in a kinder way than what you had. It isn't weird at all you have only seen tankie on here so far, and of course you're free to still be annoyed by it but please understand the context of why people are passionate about it! That's all. I am sorry you weren't treated with more tolerance though.
To some, it would sort of be like saying I don't care what isis is doing or that girls in the middle east can't go to school and honor killings are a thing in some places, cuz that's politics.
Wait. How is it not politics when it has to do with governments? Is there some kind of language barrier going on with the the term "politics"?
Yeah I didn't think it was weird either. But I don't appreciate sharing with people to have them throw it in my face.
so that's politics but not the tankie stuff that has to do with governments? This is the part that is like, really odd to me.
Hmm I think you misunderstood me! I was giving an example of other things that might also be interpreted a certain way if it was being discussed and you said you're not into politics.
So, I mean yes, literally all that is politics. In a casual conversational sense though people usually mean they don't follow the smaller stuff, elections and bills in congress and what the president is up to etc. Almost EVERYTHING is politics to some degree; gay marriage, education, drug use, mental health, wages, osha, privacy protection, healthcare, etc. When the context is about human rights violations/disenfranchise people it can come off cold and callous to say you don't care about politics, essentially that you don't care about people hurting. Especially online where the person you're talking to could not have the luxury to not care because it impacts them or someone they love. It may be more accurate to say you don't follow politics and so you were unaware.
I hope that clarifies my explanation better!
Yeah, there seems to be different definitions of politics going on here.
Yeah cause one is what it means literally and the other is what it means within the context of a social situation.
If we were in the middle of ww2 before America joined and you said you don't care about politics when the subject of the war and holocaust was happening people could naturally be upset and offended by that.
I mean, do you have any opinion at all on roe v wade being overturned?
yeah I wasn't a fan of that happening.
Me either. In fact I would be pretty confused and angry if I was having a conversation about how much it sucks and then someone chimed in that they don't care about politics. Confused and angry because don't they know people who this hurts? Realize that it's hurting children? AFAB who endured SA, including children??? Etc.
Now if someone said I don't pay attention to politics so I wasn't aware of it and I'm not aware of any nuance of why it's bad, that's more understandable. Ignorance vs potential lack of empathy. That's the difference between the two phrases and if you do care about some of these issues that happen to be political crosshairs rn, maybe now you can understand how that statement can be interpreted different ways based on context of the conversation and why you might want to adjust your phrasing if that is not the message you intended.
Does it make sense now?
I don't care anymore.
I'm sorry I was such a burden to you trying to answer your question that it warranted such a rude response.
This is especially bad due to certain instances. It wasn’t so bad on Reddit where they usually limited themselves to a few subreddits, but it’s really off putting to see the nonstop propaganda they spew. So glad LW defederated with that instance.