An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" (read: Dengists) (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
6. Don't irrationally idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
Or they'll blame you for roping them into this exploitative shitshow with a side of climate apocalypse, and they'll be correct.
I say stop having kids to wholly avert the undeserved and nonconsensual suffering that is inherent to a sentient life and suffering across sentient lives should be minimized
Buddhists hate this one weird trick.
There was a christian sect that managed to be so sucessful at this, it went extinct.
Better than the enthusiastic nihilism in this thread, tbh.
You mind expanding a bit more on that? Not trying to take a jab at you. I really want to understand.
Just a joke about practicing what you preach, I suppose.
I think we all write our own stories, for ourselves and humanity at large. If we're able to turn this ship around, it won't be because of the attitudes in this thread. It will be in spite of them.
Kids are great. Life is challenging but worth living and worth fighting for.
Positive perspective is valuable, and cynicism is just lazy counterproductive nonsense without it.
I believe you used Nihilism wrong in your previous comment based on what you've written here. I think more fitting words are hopelessness, pessimism, or defeatism.
Nihilism is simply refutation of meaning within the world. You can still think kids are great and that life is worth living while believing that there is no meaning to life or any of the other nihilistic assertions. You can even choose to attribute new meaning to your life, as Nietzsche's Übermensch does. See also Absurdism.
I did not. I was referring to a specific premise involved, which includes "extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence." Which is relevant and appropriate. In short. But philosophy 101 is always enjoyable to discuss.
Yes, there is philosophical pessimism and skepticism within nihilism, but those can be mostly or entirely separated from the philosophical stances espoused by nihilists.
I would argue that most of the comments we see in this thread actually show is more of David Benatar's antinatalist argument which is apart of philosophical pessimism. You don't have to be a nihilist to agree with what he is arguing in it.
But yet, they do
Oh yeah, the world will be so much better off when only the stupidest people are having kids.
Although if you take your advice from a meme, I suppose nothing of value would be lost.
Neither my nonexistent kids nor I owe a world with shmucks like you, jack shit.
That’s the problem isn’t it? You parasites who think they owe the world nothing and can just take whenever they want without giving back.
Nobody asked us if we consented to existing but just like with pit bulls, the solution is to stop breeding, not to kill them off. I owe nobody anything and I'm actually being very kind not to demand wha this owed to me by my parents since I do understand they didn't know any better.
Oh, just fuck right off. If you don't want children, just don't have children and shut up about it instead of making yourself feel superior by making it a moral thing. And if you're actually just concerned about them ending up in the meat grinder of exploitation, get organized to rid the world of the capitalists and save all the children from that fate. Stop whining about how terrible the world is and start making it better.
Antinatalism was huge with techbros on Reddit, sad to see it’s here too.
Why would not having kids punish men?
No fucking clue either. Some kind of random misogyny most likely
*Misandry?
No, I'm saying that the idea of women punishing men by not being good little brood mares is misogyny.
Suuuuuuure buddy