John Oliver discusses a week that saw the Republican National Convention, a horrific series of shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a strike in professional ...
Why do you we putting our products (leftism, workers rights, housing guarantees, universal healthcare, etc…) in rightwing packaging or try to market it with rightwing rhetoric? I think we’re the reason why our views are marginalized.
Comrade I don't think anyone on this website is a prospective leftist; and even if they were - I think they'd be able to tell the difference between "John Oliver is a liberal still lol" and actual right-wing rhetoric like "Hell yeah anyone who runs over protesters is a badass in my book."
Okay but you realize that the way we communicate here affects how we communicate out there. If we keep being assholes here, we end up being assholes out there. You can look at yourself and think of an example of not being an asshole and decide im wrong but the way we communicate isn't "one statement" its the culmination of all the different ways we communicate.
We are here playing with the most important ideas in the history of humankind and yet we won't even try hard enough to come up with an effective strategy to communicate them. Social media is negative gaslighting and we all fell for it. I'm done. I'm only going to say things I care about. I'm going to try to be more positive and I'm going to keep trying harder and harder to get other people to see that cooperating is more effective than competing. I'm personally trying to use more cooperative communication. Thanks for chatting. Stay safe and have a good one.
I understand what you're saying - and while I think your intentions and overall point are good - I don't agree with it 100%.
Does the Left need an actual communication strategy & role models that we can point to when people decry communism or anarchism as violent, reactionary, or whatever other bullshit they're spewing? Absolutely; the history books could always use more truly amazing people like Brown, Debs, Guevara, and Sankara.
But does that mean that every leftist ought to essentially act as speech police to each-other over innocuous things like using 'liberal' as an insult on an explicitly leftist forum? Hell no. Anyone who stumbles their way here from a reddit comment or whatnot is either probably already somewhat left of center and interested - or a wrecker. Whenever we start hosting Chapo Direct Action Food Drives or whatever, then yeah, I think then it might be time to collectively talk about how we use the word 'liberal' lol.
Stay safe as well! We'll need you in the fight against fascism. :red-fist:
speech police to each-other over innocuous things like using ‘liberal’
see this is the false dichotomy that i think social media deliberately created. im not policing or attacking you because i disagree or because I told you i disagreed. Nothing actually happened to you. I couldn't have hurt you with my words so how could I be the police? Those fuckers have guns, i got a keyboard. Social media is based off engineering that does not differentiate between positive and negative engagement but in real life humans actually prefer positive engagement. I think if we all just act like Leftist Steve Bannon then we all are Leftist Steve Bannon. We can organize massive campaigns just by tweeting A LOT and being as clever and nice as he was clever and evil.
I think it takes private equity to sell negativity and politics and tech had a whole lotta finance money to sell that shitty product. Virality for negative shit requires funding and tactics and on social media the mechanism they used was to create an algorithm that gave loving something and hating it the same value.. It was top down authoritarianism just like every non-tech version of it throughout history. The answer to that is spreading the positive aspects of good ideas that can neutralize those negative feedback cycles. I don't need a backer like Bannon did because I don't want to walk in front of anyone. I want us all to walk together.
Isn't this kinda fun? Trying to frame our problems as solvable and niceness as more effective than meanness isn't delusional, its just the most effective strategy for community organization.
Again; I get what you're saying - but I just wanna point out that perhaps policing wasn't the best word choice because "you're policing/attacking me" wasn't what I meant lol.
Honestly with what you're trying to drive home, I'd recommend you focus on more of the 'X gets the wall' talk and less on the 'haha liberal' comments.
‘X gets the wall’ talk and less on the ‘haha liberal’ comments.
Damn if you're not 100% right. Thanks for helping me. I'm really not good at starting messages/conversations. They come out accusatory which makes people, quite understandably, defensive. But I kinda think I learned it from 20 years of internet pop culture. Something clicked in my brain and now I want to change its hard to unlearn the habit. Seriously, thanks.
I completely get that haha. It was definitely a habit for me too that I still sometimes struggle with to the point where I don't even really like to quote-reply sections of peoples' comments because I feel like it is immediately read/seen as negatively argumentative. Obsessively posting on GameFaqs, SomethingAwful, and IGN forums as a pre-teen definitely ruined me forever - and whats worse is that, at least for Gamefaqs and SA, I can actually go back and read my cringe comments from 2007 and really fall into that pit of self-loathing.
I think the fact that you recognize those flaws in your interactions online speaks volumes about your intentions being good overall and I respect that. Although, personally, it is my belief that just as we need our level-headed and kind comrades to help educate & draw people in - we also need the people who tap into their anger when they're at protests or public events and are probably more likely to tell someone to "pick up a fucking book" when asked a question.
You're probably right about framing our problems as solvable things and approaching the general community who are unaligned with us politically with niceness is probably a better way to organize - but I think the same can be said about just denouncing capitalism and anyone who earnestly supports those who are at the top. I'm sure I'll regret it in a few years when Zuckerberg hands over a ready-made list of every even slightly left of center profile to the FBI, but I have kept my Facebook for the last couple of years solely just to mock people like my old boss who post shitty boomer memes that talk about 'getting a job' and whatnot; and surprisingly I've had at least 3-4 people reach out to me privately, who have seen me just posting shit like a "shut the fuck up, centrist" meme to every three paragraph long response in a 50 comment thread where I've already explained something like wage theft, asking to know more or for clarification on a point raised. That's when I try to engage them respectfully & nicely.
Just different strokes for different folks, you know? Thanks for coming to my Tedx Talk :admiral-biderman:
Comrade I don't think anyone on this website is a prospective leftist; and even if they were - I think they'd be able to tell the difference between "John Oliver is a liberal still lol" and actual right-wing rhetoric like "Hell yeah anyone who runs over protesters is a badass in my book."
Okay but you realize that the way we communicate here affects how we communicate out there. If we keep being assholes here, we end up being assholes out there. You can look at yourself and think of an example of not being an asshole and decide im wrong but the way we communicate isn't "one statement" its the culmination of all the different ways we communicate.
We are here playing with the most important ideas in the history of humankind and yet we won't even try hard enough to come up with an effective strategy to communicate them. Social media is negative gaslighting and we all fell for it. I'm done. I'm only going to say things I care about. I'm going to try to be more positive and I'm going to keep trying harder and harder to get other people to see that cooperating is more effective than competing. I'm personally trying to use more cooperative communication. Thanks for chatting. Stay safe and have a good one.
I understand what you're saying - and while I think your intentions and overall point are good - I don't agree with it 100%.
Does the Left need an actual communication strategy & role models that we can point to when people decry communism or anarchism as violent, reactionary, or whatever other bullshit they're spewing? Absolutely; the history books could always use more truly amazing people like Brown, Debs, Guevara, and Sankara.
But does that mean that every leftist ought to essentially act as speech police to each-other over innocuous things like using 'liberal' as an insult on an explicitly leftist forum? Hell no. Anyone who stumbles their way here from a reddit comment or whatnot is either probably already somewhat left of center and interested - or a wrecker. Whenever we start hosting Chapo Direct Action Food Drives or whatever, then yeah, I think then it might be time to collectively talk about how we use the word 'liberal' lol.
Stay safe as well! We'll need you in the fight against fascism. :red-fist:
see this is the false dichotomy that i think social media deliberately created. im not policing or attacking you because i disagree or because I told you i disagreed. Nothing actually happened to you. I couldn't have hurt you with my words so how could I be the police? Those fuckers have guns, i got a keyboard. Social media is based off engineering that does not differentiate between positive and negative engagement but in real life humans actually prefer positive engagement. I think if we all just act like Leftist Steve Bannon then we all are Leftist Steve Bannon. We can organize massive campaigns just by tweeting A LOT and being as clever and nice as he was clever and evil.
I think it takes private equity to sell negativity and politics and tech had a whole lotta finance money to sell that shitty product. Virality for negative shit requires funding and tactics and on social media the mechanism they used was to create an algorithm that gave loving something and hating it the same value.. It was top down authoritarianism just like every non-tech version of it throughout history. The answer to that is spreading the positive aspects of good ideas that can neutralize those negative feedback cycles. I don't need a backer like Bannon did because I don't want to walk in front of anyone. I want us all to walk together.
Isn't this kinda fun? Trying to frame our problems as solvable and niceness as more effective than meanness isn't delusional, its just the most effective strategy for community organization.
Again; I get what you're saying - but I just wanna point out that perhaps policing wasn't the best word choice because "you're policing/attacking me" wasn't what I meant lol.
Honestly with what you're trying to drive home, I'd recommend you focus on more of the 'X gets the wall' talk and less on the 'haha liberal' comments.
Damn if you're not 100% right. Thanks for helping me. I'm really not good at starting messages/conversations. They come out accusatory which makes people, quite understandably, defensive. But I kinda think I learned it from 20 years of internet pop culture. Something clicked in my brain and now I want to change its hard to unlearn the habit. Seriously, thanks.
I completely get that haha. It was definitely a habit for me too that I still sometimes struggle with to the point where I don't even really like to quote-reply sections of peoples' comments because I feel like it is immediately read/seen as negatively argumentative. Obsessively posting on GameFaqs, SomethingAwful, and IGN forums as a pre-teen definitely ruined me forever - and whats worse is that, at least for Gamefaqs and SA, I can actually go back and read my cringe comments from 2007 and really fall into that pit of self-loathing.
I think the fact that you recognize those flaws in your interactions online speaks volumes about your intentions being good overall and I respect that. Although, personally, it is my belief that just as we need our level-headed and kind comrades to help educate & draw people in - we also need the people who tap into their anger when they're at protests or public events and are probably more likely to tell someone to "pick up a fucking book" when asked a question.
You're probably right about framing our problems as solvable things and approaching the general community who are unaligned with us politically with niceness is probably a better way to organize - but I think the same can be said about just denouncing capitalism and anyone who earnestly supports those who are at the top. I'm sure I'll regret it in a few years when Zuckerberg hands over a ready-made list of every even slightly left of center profile to the FBI, but I have kept my Facebook for the last couple of years solely just to mock people like my old boss who post shitty boomer memes that talk about 'getting a job' and whatnot; and surprisingly I've had at least 3-4 people reach out to me privately, who have seen me just posting shit like a "shut the fuck up, centrist" meme to every three paragraph long response in a 50 comment thread where I've already explained something like wage theft, asking to know more or for clarification on a point raised. That's when I try to engage them respectfully & nicely.
Just different strokes for different folks, you know? Thanks for coming to my Tedx Talk :admiral-biderman: