What creates a socialist offline? Negative interaction with bosses? Landlords?
Create a culture online that will bring people into conflict with these things. Make it entertaining and fun, not overt communism.
Wait.
People that take this culture offline have conflict that radicalises them.
Become communists.
Provide explicitly communist spaces that radicalise them.
If I were going to pinpoint any one single space online that is achieving the correct culture to create these conditions I would say it's /r/antiwork, even now with its liberal infection. The one downside however is that it is explicitly NOT pushing people on to the stage 5 part, it is stopping short at "we need to make the workplace better" in direct conflict with its own "we should abolish work" ideology. A number of its mod team can not see how what they're doing is only going to achieve social democracy and is failing to radicalise people beyond that.
Before /r/antiwork it was /r/chapotraphouse that was VERY successful at creating the above situation and radicalising people further through /r/moretankiechapo and other spaces. 196 almost achieved the same thing too but fell short due to garbage anti-ML mods.
Hasan and a few other streamers are achieving this stuff off reddit.
I have not yet seen anyone particularly successful at creating this setup on Twitter but I think it's possible.
TikTok is extremely good at doing this but MLs are scared of video cameras making them too small a minority on the platform.
And lastly -- the biggest longterm priority for harming the fascists is the removal of the communities that they use to create reactionary culture spaces online. 4chan being number 1. It won't solve anything instantly but would be a significant setback 10 and 20 years from now.
I'm doing my part of manufacturing consent on 196 and showing people that muh evil tankies aren't always (and in fact the majority of the time) aren't hyper reactionary ass holes (though they usually are quite progressive assholes).
I've actually gradually built up a clique of something like 50 gay ML sympathisers (and a few porn bots for some reason) who I occasionally call liberals.
I have no idea how you've done that without getting endlessly attacked and/or banned. Method?
My attempt to have any impact there was a huge waste of time, just got called a red fascist repeatedly and eventually banned.
If you can cut through the anti-tankie culture and create enough of a core clique that defend it then you can probably do a sort of culture flip and turn it in correct direction. If it had MLs running it in the first place it would have taken over where CTH left off very easily.
It's basically just like talking to liberals normally, except you can be more progressive: make a pretence of political neutrality (between MLs and ancoms that is) and that you're mostly agree with them and you're just pointing out corrections, don't be overly aggressive unless you feel like you can definitely flip the argument in your favour, don't outright state support for the USSR or China or North Korea, also if you write out a semi long post that counters the anti-communist lies just vaguely mention some books you read that you're drawing from as sources. I also sometimes when its relevant throw out the fact that my aunt lived in the USSR for over a decade and saw its collapse first hand as it happened while she was living in Moscow (also she knew someone who won the Hero of the Soviet Union medal for bravery in ww2, it's not really relevant but it's a cool fact), it basically stops anyone from going "well actually I read this western fed infested pro-establishment 'anarchist' newsletter that said that the USSR was fascist so I know better than the person who gave you personal descriptions of seeing union leaders beaten in the streets after Yeltsin got in" without them looking like a complete asshole and further legitimising your point. Also don't mention Holodomor or the Uyghurs because redditors have kneejerk reactions to those subjects.
I think it also helps that I've got decent karma on the sub for all the shit memes I post there and the occasional funny joke I make in the comments so the mods see that and are pretty certain that I'm not a troll.
This unfortunately maintains the status quo of the space being anti-tankie and deliberately NOT pushing people onto any spaces that would further radicalise them though. It's absolutely necessary to eliminate the anti-tankie narrative and have a culture where further radicalising yourself by going deeper and deeper is a virtue. All these spaces doing anti-tankie stuff are trying to radicalise people to X point and then NO FURTHER. They're aiming for socdem outcomes by doing it.
the point isn't to convert them to MLs instantly or even to show them ML spaces immediately, because even if they were to find them if they're still in the mindset of "Tankies are evil genocidal bastards" they'll just take it as further proof of that idea, instead you just have force a crack in the world view by showing that there are for instance nuanced takes that aren't just "the USSR was either ontologically evil or good and there's no inbetween" (and you'd be surprised how much you can get away with if you start with "As a disclaimer I'm under no illusion that the USSR was perfect but to claim that it had no benefit for the rights of workers / women / minorities [etcetera]" and then just list of loads and loads of positive things they did and then like two or three complaints from an actually socialist perspective - as long as you don't say "overall the soviet union was a good thing" at the end and instead leave them to come to the conclusion that they were good for that issue on their own then they'll think it's a mostly unideological discussion and won't dismiss you out of hand as a tankie).
Essentially, you can lead a liberal brainwormed anarchist to the trough of ML ideology but you can't get them to eat out of it if they still think it's poisonous
Sure but that's what makes the spaces not quite what they need to be in order to create this pipe properly. They reach up to a certain point and then they abruptly stop, the hope is that somewhere outside of that space will pick up the slack but if millions of people are carrying off the anti-tankie culture into other spaces too then what you're getting is a spread of the "don't radicalise yourself any further" mindset.
The single most important part of the culture to create is to make radicalisation a virtue and to encourage people to radicalise more and more and more. That's what is needed.
yeah I know, but for now any individual can only do so much and just keep picking away at slowly moving people away from the anti-tankie idea and maybe showing how it's similar to how Orwell informed on communists in the cold war.
The only real alternative seems to be to start a coordinated astro-turfing project in 196 with alts and maybe bots to sway the conversation.
I do wonder if it might be feasible to become a famous and well-liked poweruser in the community and then reveal being a tankie without completely nuking reputation built up, thus creating a platform from which to be listened to and direct behaviour in the space. The idea is however extremely time consuming to the point of only being possible if unemployed or otherwise online 24/7.
I think we should learn from it.
What creates a socialist offline? Negative interaction with bosses? Landlords?
If I were going to pinpoint any one single space online that is achieving the correct culture to create these conditions I would say it's /r/antiwork, even now with its liberal infection. The one downside however is that it is explicitly NOT pushing people on to the stage 5 part, it is stopping short at "we need to make the workplace better" in direct conflict with its own "we should abolish work" ideology. A number of its mod team can not see how what they're doing is only going to achieve social democracy and is failing to radicalise people beyond that.
Before /r/antiwork it was /r/chapotraphouse that was VERY successful at creating the above situation and radicalising people further through /r/moretankiechapo and other spaces. 196 almost achieved the same thing too but fell short due to garbage anti-ML mods.
Hasan and a few other streamers are achieving this stuff off reddit.
I have not yet seen anyone particularly successful at creating this setup on Twitter but I think it's possible.
TikTok is extremely good at doing this but MLs are scared of video cameras making them too small a minority on the platform.
And lastly -- the biggest longterm priority for harming the fascists is the removal of the communities that they use to create reactionary culture spaces online. 4chan being number 1. It won't solve anything instantly but would be a significant setback 10 and 20 years from now.
I'm doing my part of manufacturing consent on 196 and showing people that muh evil tankies aren't always (and in fact the majority of the time) aren't hyper reactionary ass holes (though they usually are quite progressive assholes).
I've actually gradually built up a clique of something like 50 gay ML sympathisers (and a few porn bots for some reason) who I occasionally call liberals.
I have no idea how you've done that without getting endlessly attacked and/or banned. Method?
My attempt to have any impact there was a huge waste of time, just got called a red fascist repeatedly and eventually banned.
If you can cut through the anti-tankie culture and create enough of a core clique that defend it then you can probably do a sort of culture flip and turn it in correct direction. If it had MLs running it in the first place it would have taken over where CTH left off very easily.
It's basically just like talking to liberals normally, except you can be more progressive: make a pretence of political neutrality (between MLs and ancoms that is) and that you're mostly agree with them and you're just pointing out corrections, don't be overly aggressive unless you feel like you can definitely flip the argument in your favour, don't outright state support for the USSR or China or North Korea, also if you write out a semi long post that counters the anti-communist lies just vaguely mention some books you read that you're drawing from as sources. I also sometimes when its relevant throw out the fact that my aunt lived in the USSR for over a decade and saw its collapse first hand as it happened while she was living in Moscow (also she knew someone who won the Hero of the Soviet Union medal for bravery in ww2, it's not really relevant but it's a cool fact), it basically stops anyone from going "well actually I read this western fed infested pro-establishment 'anarchist' newsletter that said that the USSR was fascist so I know better than the person who gave you personal descriptions of seeing union leaders beaten in the streets after Yeltsin got in" without them looking like a complete asshole and further legitimising your point. Also don't mention Holodomor or the Uyghurs because redditors have kneejerk reactions to those subjects.
I think it also helps that I've got decent karma on the sub for all the shit memes I post there and the occasional funny joke I make in the comments so the mods see that and are pretty certain that I'm not a troll.
This unfortunately maintains the status quo of the space being anti-tankie and deliberately NOT pushing people onto any spaces that would further radicalise them though. It's absolutely necessary to eliminate the anti-tankie narrative and have a culture where further radicalising yourself by going deeper and deeper is a virtue. All these spaces doing anti-tankie stuff are trying to radicalise people to X point and then NO FURTHER. They're aiming for socdem outcomes by doing it.
the point isn't to convert them to MLs instantly or even to show them ML spaces immediately, because even if they were to find them if they're still in the mindset of "Tankies are evil genocidal bastards" they'll just take it as further proof of that idea, instead you just have force a crack in the world view by showing that there are for instance nuanced takes that aren't just "the USSR was either ontologically evil or good and there's no inbetween" (and you'd be surprised how much you can get away with if you start with "As a disclaimer I'm under no illusion that the USSR was perfect but to claim that it had no benefit for the rights of workers / women / minorities [etcetera]" and then just list of loads and loads of positive things they did and then like two or three complaints from an actually socialist perspective - as long as you don't say "overall the soviet union was a good thing" at the end and instead leave them to come to the conclusion that they were good for that issue on their own then they'll think it's a mostly unideological discussion and won't dismiss you out of hand as a tankie).
Essentially, you can lead a liberal brainwormed anarchist to the trough of ML ideology but you can't get them to eat out of it if they still think it's poisonous
Sure but that's what makes the spaces not quite what they need to be in order to create this pipe properly. They reach up to a certain point and then they abruptly stop, the hope is that somewhere outside of that space will pick up the slack but if millions of people are carrying off the anti-tankie culture into other spaces too then what you're getting is a spread of the "don't radicalise yourself any further" mindset.
The single most important part of the culture to create is to make radicalisation a virtue and to encourage people to radicalise more and more and more. That's what is needed.
yeah I know, but for now any individual can only do so much and just keep picking away at slowly moving people away from the anti-tankie idea and maybe showing how it's similar to how Orwell informed on communists in the cold war.
The only real alternative seems to be to start a coordinated astro-turfing project in 196 with alts and maybe bots to sway the conversation.
I do wonder if it might be feasible to become a famous and well-liked poweruser in the community and then reveal being a tankie without completely nuking reputation built up, thus creating a platform from which to be listened to and direct behaviour in the space. The idea is however extremely time consuming to the point of only being possible if unemployed or otherwise online 24/7.