this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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This is the crux of it: where once there was some kind of definition, now it's just a snarl word for "leftist who makes points I can't refute."
Yep, it's Lemmy's Red Scare.
I am curious if there is going to be a schizm between .world aligned instances and Hexbear/grad/.ml aligned instances, where .world sees an eventual gradual exodus of leftists as they recieve a steady influx of liberals from Reddit.
Lemmy's own multipolar world.
I just don't see the point of using lemmy unless they're a leftist in the first place.
Reddit already exists, and has a much bigger userbase that's already pro-US and heavily anti-communist.
If it's just because reddit took away the app treats, that's kind of a sad reason to use an explicitly anti-corporate software, but I'm sure there's a chunk of ppl on lemmy don't think much past that.
Let's analyze it.
Reddit is declining in a way liberals can't deny. The more ideological among these liberals attempt to leave, but without theory, without knowledge of Marxism, or even Anarchism, without a firm understanding of Historical and Dialectical Materialism, their world view is framed in a manner that casts Capitalism as bad, in an almost Ultraleftist manner, but Red Scare propaganda still makes Marxism spooky.
They occupy a space that considers Capitalist countries with pure nuance and critical support, but only judge leftist movements as though they are Ultras, and nothing is satisfactory.
From there, Liberals seek a replacement, and further still they don't quite accept federation, so they go to the largest generalist instance. This is Lemmy.world, so they get to have a space filled with ex-redditors kicked out by Capitalism's failings, but unwilling to embrace any actual alternative, occupying a weird middle ground.
Therefore, Lemmy.world appeals to radical, theoryless liberals, with no specific or niche interests, and creates an echo-chamber around that specific anti-specificity.
Just my 2 cents.
Dialectically, I believe eventually .world will defed from .ml, or vice-versa, from some unimportant inciting incident, creating a multi-polar Lemmy, so to speak, but that's a bit odd to say directly to you. Either way, I see a contradiction that appears to be growing, so Dialectically there will likely be a shift from the quantitative to qualitative, so to speak.
That makes sense. lemmy.ml won't be the one to defed from any of the larger servers, because we want to promote an interconnected fediverse, even if it does mean a lot of cross interaction and potential fights between pro and anti-communists.
Other servers are free to defederate if they wish, obvi its up to a server-owner to run their server how they see best. Even if there's more rifts in the fediverse, I'm not too worried... the long-term trend though will be towards instances that connect with the most people, and don't shut themselves out.
I agree with promoting inter-connectedness, I am on Lemmy.ml as opposed to grad or hexbear precisely because I believe in fostering that connection. I do think it's more likely .world defeds, but currently they want to maintain that same vision of interconnectedness. I can see .world putting it to a vote and letting users defed, to save face, eventually.
I agree, if there does become a multi-polar Lemmy, there will be healthier growth from the more open instances.
the radlib/ultra/maoist overlaps are a source of fascination for me.
IMO it stems from a reaction to Red Scare Propaganda, a counter to it, combined with Marx himself being thoroughly de-fanged into being "good, but outdated." Marxists are harmless, or even have a few good points, but Capitalism won!
They believe Red Scare Propaganda was purely about Marx himself and not leftist movements, they realize America is Imperialist but also believe their propaganda to be true.
It's a weird and likely unique overlap that will simply no longer exist as time goes on and we move beyond the Red Scare ever further, and Capitalism continues to decline.
If there is to be a shift from the quantitative to the qualitative, then I think that—whatever of the proximate cause that breaks the camel’s back—this US election will be the ultimate cause.
That's a good point, and I'm inclined to agree. I hadn't actually put 2 and 2 together there, haha, but it makes a lot of sense.
We will see if the saber rattling actually goes anywhere this time, but it won't be gone for long if it doesn't.
Fwiw, a lot of us were ready to leave it anyway. Reddit used to be a place for left-leaning people, though I would guess more of the progressive liberal-relative-to-center variety, due to it being started from within the USA (I joined it quite late so not totally sure).
Its downhill slide was long and convoluted and not evenly distributed across all subs. There were pockets of resistance, and probably some niche communities remain even now that are halfway tolerable. Anything worth doing takes real effort to build, and some people have put in those efforts and held on tenaciously. And, to be very clear, morally as well: e.g. places that try to reach the maximum audience possible to combat misinformation, or suicidal or similar behaviors - those places NEED to be on Reddit, yes and even Twitter/X, and 🤮 Facebook too, to achieve their aims of maximal outreach (at which point they could do dual duty to funnel people to the real places too:-).
For those of us that want deeper discourse, Reddit was not meeting that need, but Lemmy/Mbin very much does:-). Btw fascinating related article: https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb.
So that's one category of people, and another is the set of those who just needed to be awakened in order to realize what was going on. Maybe they were busy with children irl or some such and didn't notice Reddit's slide. I am glad that we can provide a home to them as well - it enriches us all to have more people here (mostly).