Hey folks
I have been receiving a lot of messages every single day about federation with hexbear. Some of our users are vehemently against it, others are in full support. The conversation does not seem to be dying down, rather, the volume of messages I receive about it seems to be increasing, so I am opening this public space where we can openly discuss the topic.
I am going to write a wall of text about my own thoughts on the situation, I’m sorry, but no tl;dr this time, and I ask anybody participating in this thread to first read through this post before commenting.
Before I go any further, I want to be clear that for anybody who participates here, it is required to focus on the quality of your posts. That means:
- Be kind to each other, even if you disagree
- Use arguments rather than calling people names
- Realize that this is a divisive topic, so your comments should be even more thoughtful than usual
With that out of the way, there are a few things I want to cover.
On defederation in general
First of all, I am a firm believer that defederation must be reserved only for cases where all other methods have failed. If defederation is used liberally, then a small group of malicious users can effectively completely shut down the federated network, by simply creating the type of drama between instances which would inevitably result in defederation. In my view, federation is the biggest strength of Lemmy compared to any centralized discussion forum, so naturally I think maintaining federation by default is an important goal in general.
I am also a believer in the value of deplatforming hateful content, but I think defederation is not the best way to do this. Banning individual users, banning communities and establishing a culture of mutual support between mods and admins of different instances should be the first line of defense against such content. There are some further steps that can be taken before defederation as well, but these are not really documented anywhere (in order to prevent circumvention). The point is: for myself, defederation is the absolute last resort, only to be used when it is completely clear that other methods are ineffective.
Finally, I am wary of creating a false expectation among lemm.ee users that lemm.ee admins endorse all users and communities and content on instances we are federated with. Here at lemm.ee, we use a blocklist for federation, which means our default apporach is to federate with all new instances. We do not have the resources (manpower, skills and knowledge) necessary to pass judgement on all instances which exist out there, as a result, users on lemm.ee are expected to curate their own content to quite a high degree. In addition to downvoting and/or reporting as necessary, individual lemm.ee users are also able to block specific users and communities, and the ability to block entire instances is coming very soon as well.
Having said all that, in a situation where all other methods do indeed fail, defederation is not out of the question. Making such a call is up to the discretion of lemm.ee admins, and doing it as a last resort is completely in line with our federation policy.
Regarding hexbear
Hexbear is an established Lemmy instance, focused on many flavors of leftism. They have quite a large userbase who are very active on Lemmy (often so active that they leave the impression brigading all popular Lemmy posts). One important thing to note is that while some forms of bigotry seem to be quite accepted by many hexbear users (but seemingly not by mods - more on that below), they at least are very protective of LGBT rights (and yes, I am quite certain that they are not just pretending to do this, as many users seem to believe). Additionally, while I have noticed quite high quality posts from hexbear users, there are also several users there who seem to really enjoy trolling and baiting (very reminiscent of 4chan-type “for the lulz” posting), and it’s important to note that this kind of posting is in general allowed on hexbear itself.
The reason this whole topic is important to so many people right now (despite hexbear being a relatively old instance), is that hexbear only recently enabled federation. A combination of their volume of posts, their strong convictions, the excitement about federation, and the aforementioned trolling has made them very visible to almost all Lemmy users, and this has sparked discussions about the value of federation with hexbear on a lot of Lemmy instances.
My own experience with hexbear
I want to write down my own experience with interacting with hexbear users, mods, and admins over the past few days. I believe this experience will highlight why I am hesitant to advocate for immediate full defederation from hexbear at this point in time, and am for now still more in favor of taking action on a more individual user basis. Please read and see how you feel about the situation afterwards.
Background
My first real contact with hexbear users was in the comments section of a post in this meta community requesting defederation from hexbear by @glimpythegoblin@lemm.ee. That post is now locked, because several hexbear users very quickly started doing the aforementioned “for the lulz” type spamming of meme images in the comments (these are actually just emojis, but they are rendered as full-size images on all instances other than the source instance, due to a current Lemmy bug).
I did not want to take further actions in that thread in general (for archival purposes), but I did take one action, which in retrospect was a mistake: I removed a comment which contained the hammer and sickle symbol. I ignorantly associated this symbolism with Kremlin propaganda, and the atrocities my own people suffered at the hands of the soviet union during the previous century. Many users (including hexbear users) correctly (and politely) pointed out to me in DMs that the symbol has a much broader use than just as the symbol of the USSR, and people elsewhere in the world may not associate it with the USSR at all. I am grateful for users who pointed this out to me without resorting to personal attacks.
Let me be clear here: while I do not have anything against leftism or communist ideas in general (in fact in today’s world, I think discussion of such ideas is quite necessary), Kremlin propaganda has no place on lemm.ee. Any dehumanizing talking points of the Kremlin on lemm.ee are treated as any other bigotry, and if communist symbolism is used in context of Kremlin propaganda (that is the context in which I have been exposed to it throughout my whole life), then it will still be removed. But there is no blanket ban on communist symbolism in general on lemm.ee, and discussing and advocating for leftist and communist topics (as distinct from the imperialist and dehumanizing policies of the Kremlin) is certainly allowed on lemm.ee.
Hexbear user response
Coming back to the events of the past few days: soon after my removal of the comment containing the symbol from the meta thread, two posts popped up on hexbear. One was focused on insulting and spreading lies about me personally. Another was focused on diminishing the horrors of the soviet occupation in my country. In the comments under both of these posts (and in a few other threads on hexbear), I noticed some seriously disturbing bigotry against my people. There were comments which reflected the anti-Estonian propaganda of the current Russian state, things like:
- Suggesting that my people has no right to exist
- Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
- Claiming that anybody critical of both nazi and soviet occupations is themselves a nazi and a holocaust denier
I expect to hear such statements from the Russian state - here in Estonia, we are subjected to this and other kinds of bigotry constantly from Russian media - but to see it spread openly in non-Russian channels is extremely disturbing. Such bigotry is completely against lemm.ee rules in general. Additionally, my identity is public information, because I feel it’s important for the integrity of lemm.ee that I don’t hide behind anonymity. Considering this, I’m sure you can understand why I am very worried about my own safety when people leave comments in many unrelated threads (where my original posts are not even visible), baselessly calling me a nazi and a holocaust denier.
Note that the goal of this post is not to start a new debate in the comments about the the repressions of the soviet union in Estonia or other occupied territories, but if the topic interests any users, I can recommend the 2006 documentary The Singing Revolution (imdb). The trailer is a bit cheesy, but the actual film contains lots of historical footage from the soviet occupation, and also many interviews with people who experienced it, who share stories which are deeply familiar to all Estonians. If anybody is interested in further discussion, then I suggest making a post about it in the Estonian community here: !eesti@lemm.ee.
Hexbear admin response
After the above events had played out, I reached out to hexbear admins for clarification on their moderation policies and how they handle such cases. I was actually very happy with their response:
- They immediately removed the personal attacks and dehumanizing comments containing Kremlin propaganda from Hexbear, and assured me that such content is always handled by mods
- They told me that while there are all kinds of leftists on hexbear, Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods
- They implemented some additional rules on hexbear to try and reduce the trolling experienced by many other instances, including ours: https://hexbear.net/post/352119
My personal take-aways
Let me play the devil’s advocate here and employ some “self-whataboutism”: among all users that have been banned on lemm.ee for bigotry, the majority were actually not users from other instances, and in fact people with lemm.ee accounts. If we judge any larger instance only by bigoted posts that some of its users make, then we might as well declare all instances as cesspools and close down Lemmy completely. I believe it’s far more useful to judge instances based on moderation in response to such content. Just as we remove bigoted content from lemm.ee, I have also witnessed bigoted content being removed from hexbear.
At the same time, I am aware of some internal conflict between hexbear users over the more strict moderation they are now starting to employ, and I am definitely keeping an eye on that situation and how admins handle it.
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don't have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
Where thing stand right now
I am not convinced that we are currently at a point where the “last resort” of defederation is necessary. This is based on the presumption that our moderation workload at lemm.ee will not get out of hand just due to users from that particular instance. My current expectation is that as the excitement of federation calms down (and as new rules on hexbear go into effect), the currently relatively high volume of low effort trolling will be replaced by more thoughtful posts. If this is not the case then we will certainly need to re-evaluate things.
Additionally, nothing is changing about our own rules regarding bigotry. Especially relevant in the context of Kremlin propaganda, I want to say that dehumanizing anybody is not allowed on lemm.ee (hopefully I do not have to spell it out, but this of course includes Ukrainians, LGBT folks, and others that the Kremlin despises), and action will be taken against any users who do this, regardless of what instance they are posting from.
Finally, I am very interested to hear thoughts and responses from our own users. I am super grateful to anybody who actually took the time to read through this massive dump of my own thoughts, and I am very interested to get a proper understanding of how our users feel about what I’ve written here. Please share any thoughts in the comments.
Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
As a member of Hexbear for 3+ years I just want to say that this isn't acceptable over here and would land people with a very serious reprimand or a permaban if they don't admit to being in the wrong for this. The use of "subhuman" in particular is fascist behaviour and I'd assume it is wreckers rather than longstanding members, it's not language that socialists are fond of.
The only other thing I will say is that I genuinely appreciate that you're building this community with your userbase and having these conversations, it's the correct way to create a unique community culture and have people care about the space.
The use of "subhuman" in particular is fascist behaviour and I'd assume it is wreckers rather than longstanding members, it's not language that socialists are fond of.
That's not true at all. Look at any post about landlords or Zelenskyy or "bourgeoisie". Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
I've already personally blocked the whole instance because it's not worth arguing with people over and over.
Edit: you can see from the comments below what I'm talking about. I don't care who these people think "deserve" the label of "subhuman". I don't want to interact with people who talk like that or think like that. That's why I block them all.
I don't know if defederation is the answer, but this instance is clearly a haven for these people. So I have already taken action.
There is a difference between calling someone subhuman which is the rhetoric of people that believe that various races of humanity are more human than others(fascist master race rhetoric) vs calls to eat the rich through the use of guillotine memes. The latter is just radical and militant activism. The former is fascist rhetoric. The latter also has a place in mainstream society already as something that is regularly the centerpiece of art.
The fact that you're here in our meta thread for our users to discuss the situation arguing the really doesn't help with the image of Hexbear users brigading other communities.
I can literally see the post on my feed. It's not brigading.
Show
Also the admin hasn't said that this is an exclusive thread for lemm.ee users so we have the right to defend ourselves against accusations some of which are false.
I would be upset if people in our instance started spamming random shit here with no intention to engage in a conversation and agree that they should be reprimanded by the servers admins/mods.
It said in the post to read the admins whole message, and to only participate earnestly/ not be rude and stay on topic
So, we are. Why is that an issue?
I was already having a conversation with Sun over PM when he made the post. Which is why I was one of the first here. We've been talking for several days and generally having a nice time.
there's no such thing as brigading on lemmy, this post pops up at the top of our feed by default
there have been half a dozen hex users in this comment section so this accusation doesnt feel warranted
there are more of us and we post more than you, thats it
It's like moving to hawaii and being surprised to run into so many beaches
You should see how we are when we're at each others throats, then you'd know how mellow this turnout is comparatively
Lols, people will literally think you're one of them too mate. You have your pronouns there. I was confused for a second when I saw your complaint.
i liked the initiative and reasoning and wouldnt mind it being normalised on the fediverse at large, as opposed to just hexbear
If you're going to cry about "brigading" like a redditor then you don't understand what federation is and should go back to reddit.
It appears posting memes about assassinating people for ideology is something that both extreme left and extreme right tend to do, and that's something that non-extreme people, unsurprisingly, don't seem to be fond of.
What are you talking about? Liberals post about the people they want to die all the time, you've just normalised them. Go mention homeless people in the San Francisco subreddit and watch all the liberals turn into hitler in seconds. Don't get me started on what happens when you mention Roma people to european liberals. Or what happens in literally every single thread on China.
Besides, we're not talking about assassinating people. We'll put the billionaires through our courts beforehand just like you guys put poor people through your courts don't worry.
In the case of Putin it would be in the hope of stopping its invasion war. It's similar to wanting to assassinate Hitler during WWII, I don't think you would oppose that.
If you mean assassinating or letting die the lower classes, that would a very small percentage of liberal extremists, similarly to right and left extremists.
Not everyone is extreme in their ideology, most people doubt and are ready to discuss with other moderate people to build compromises.
Awoo has already noted some important refutations, but I want to unpack something here.
Landlords and Bourgeoisie are class identities. Importantly, these are not the result of things outside of your control (i.e. ethnic origin, nation, etc.) but instead determined by actions in the world. While one can't say that one is subhuman because of where they are from, isn't being a landlord (and thus extracting rent from people for shelter) a behavior? A series of actions and choices? And can't we characterize a behavior or action as evil/immoral? Basically, when I say "landlords are evil and deserve to die or surrender their assets to the collective" what I'm describing is a particular set of actions. It's not different from having an opinion on if murderers deserve capital punishment.
Btw, I believe in rehabilitative punishment. However, if we're going to talk about people who deserve to die, I think capitalists and landlords are up there. A person who kills someone else -- either due to mental illness or a crime of passion -- is far less damaging to our social fabric than people who, through institutions, contribute to the death of our world and the immiseration of many. For instance, how many unhoused people have gone hungry/died because of the executives at Starbucks who decide that food thrown out should be covered in coffee grounds to be inedible? We don't have the numbers, but shouldn't we call this behavior subhuman/evil? I think you're missing the distinction between saying the executive who designed that policy deserves the gulag -- a specific inhuman action that deserves a specific response -- and calling all insert ethnicity/nationality here subhuman.
This is highly offtopic flamebait that will trigger a protracted argument of little substance.
Further, how you've casually slipped into a debate about capital punishment for enormous swathes of population is disturbing and disgusting. This is the lack of self awareness that others have mentioned here.
Clearly you missed the "or"? Or is the choice to redistribute resources (rather than having billionaires like Bezos accumulating wealth by theft) odious to you on the merits? I don't mind if Bezos were to turn Amazon into a worker-collective, for instance, rather than accumulate wealth extracted from his workers. Indeed, I would prefer this outcome (and it is in fact the original Marxist approach - the dialectical aufhebung of capitalism into communism).
Why are you still going on about this, it is so off-topic for the thread it hurts. You have completely deflected and warped the conversation, not even talking the OP, from which this is worlds apart but even from this single comment thread. And yet somehow you are +15 on upvotes despite this sort of behaviour being the reason this thread even exists.
Not brigading my ass.
This is why noone wants to interact with hexbear outside of your instance, this is why world got rid of you, this is why I block every single hexbear comm the second i see it in all and why I hope to god ml will have this conversation as well.
This is highly offtopic flamebait that will trigger a protracted argument of little substance.
lots of big words there sir that don't really have relevance besides dictionary waving
This is the kind of thing I really hate to see. It's the reason I'm going to be leaving. You guys make a blanket statement like all landlords are evil because they extract rent for shelter. You don't give any further reasoning. I'm sure you've collectively decided that through some illogical conversations on your home instance but you fail to make a valid point in the wild.
For example:
where are you expecting people to live?
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than "evil landlords must die and be redistributed"
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
Why don't you go build your own house? Why aren't you giving these unfortunate souls your own place?
To cap it all- you follow each other around in groups and rather than actually discussing you strawman, point people to communist propaganda, and generally troll anyone who disagrees with you. No one wants to join your club, no one wants to read your Marxism books etc. If you have a point- state it. Don't point elsewhere and act like you won because we arent interested in your echochamber
This is the kind of thing I really hate to see. It's the reason I'm going to be leaving
I'm sorry. I do hope you come around to at least tolerating leftist perspectives before you leave for an echo chamber. That all wealth is created by labor is one of the core leftist beliefs, you'll find anarchists, communists, democratic socialists, etc all agree on that.
where are you expecting people to live?
In houses. There's dozens of vacant homes for every homeless person. Just as capitalism requires some people be hungry to maximize profit of food, it requires some people be homeless to maximize profit of landlords.
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
The people who build houses deserve to be compensated for their labor. Owning a house on the other hand, is not labor.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Rent isn't compensation for the construction of a home, otherwise the renter would own the home after 20 years of renting paid off the mortgage.
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
I'd categorize the parasitic relationship as evil, but as for judging individual people for the poverty and homelessness caused by that relationship, it's more complicated as we live under capitalism.
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than "evil landlords must die and be redistributed"
Are you talking about the description of the cultural revolution in that one province in China people post? In the context of generations of peasants seeing their children die of starvation-related disease or conscripted never to return, the people were more merciful and practical than just. It's easy to criticize any change if you ignore the violence of the status quo. To quote Mark Twain:
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
It's not.
My partner and I should have a 50 percent equity in the apartment she rented for 10 years. Instead we were unceremoniously kicked out last year because the landlord's son wanted to make more money.
I'd categorize the parasitic relationship as evil, but as for judging individual people for the poverty and homelessness caused by that relationship, it's more complicated as we live under capitalism.
I accept this nuanced revision to my more angry framing. I have a personal vendetta, and this is actually the correct take.
What in the world makes you think you deserve 50% equity? Did you pay half the down payment? Did you pay half the mortgage and interest to the bank? Did you pay half the property taxes? Did you pay half the maintenance? Did you make any agreement woth the owner up front that this is what you would get? No? Did someone mention communism to you and you haven't thought twice since?
The amount it appreciated while we were paying the rent that whole time is how I got that 50 percent. Also, the property actually tripled in value 100k to 300k.
The total maintenance the owner did over the entire time we were there was 1000 dollars. One month's rent. Add painting and new carpet, ok, that's like 5k? We paid more than 100k in rent over that time.
It was pure profit extraction. The owner actually sent us the numbers to justify kicking us out. , His mother made more than him because of property tax, but after reassessing property taxes, he would have _only_been making 300 a month profit off of us. That's pure profit after everything. He was mad he couldn't raise our rent by 500 dollars all at once and instead had to do it yearly.
This is a good post, but I think the person you're replying to is trying to bait a ton of belief statements out of you so that they can then piss you off by contradicting each one with effortless status-quo normalizing, and use that as a justification to defederate Hexbear. That, or they're just going to dig their heels in and you'll have wasted your time.
Buddy I'm replying to the things he's saying. If it hurts your brain that I'm detailing why the things he say make no sense that's on you. If hexbear is all people like you- that's on them.
I am new to lemmy and would prefer actual discussion- if certain groups brigade and shitpost in lieu of discussing- that's on them.
I could give you the benefice of the doubt. However, this is the calibre of argument you're throwing at us :
Did you pay half the down payment? Did you pay half the mortgage and interest to the bank? Did you pay half the property taxes? Did you pay half the maintenance?
The obvious answer is that yes, the tenant pays for all these things, because that's why the landlord charges rent to begin with. This is such an obvious thing, irrespective of any political beliefs, that the mere fact of you having asked it makes you suspect. I'm not even trying to be mean to you here, I'm just describing the situation as I see it.
Please respect hexbear user pronounsIronically an issue of pronouns, since you're directly replying to a he/him but it's unclear who the antecedent in the first sentence is. I'm gonna trust that you're not intentionally doing it tho, thanks.
I'm not leaving for an echo chamber. I'm just leaving. It's your echo chambers I'm exiting.
All these empty houses aren't producing rent are they? You can go buy one and give it away if you want. Oh what's that? You don't want to do that?
What's the difference if I hammered the nail myself to build the house or if I buy it from the guy who did the hammering. This is the insanity that permeates your argument. I've done both by the way- either way that home is owned by someone and rented to someone else.
When did I say rent was compensation for building a home? You say that- and you are wrong for bringing it up. I built a thing- someone wants to use said thing- we make an agreement that we both agree to.
I characterize this insane rationality as evil. You want a thing to be given away for free without compensation. It's crazy to think this investment I've made is somehow going to magically fix something if I just transform it into some other thing you aren't all brigading over. If it wasn't a house- it'd be a restaurant, or a clothing business, or whatever. And you'd eventually get up in arms about that too. What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven't done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
All these empty houses aren't producing rent are they? You can go buy one and give it away if you want. Oh what's that? You don't want to do that?
Personal charity is not a solution to a systemic problem! This will not actually get rid of the problem, it will palliate it! Also, I literally can't because I personally don't have the money that would be needed to buy a rental property off of someone who can afford to leave such properties empty, since if we assume they are willing to sell, it's a high price, but more likely they just won't because an apartment on the fourth floor of an eight-floor complex being someone else's property seems like a litigation nightmare if there's literally any type of water damage or anything of the sort that occurs after the sale.
Right. So because you can't afford it- it should be given to you for free? What have you bought recently? Am I entitled to that? How about you loan it to me for a set fee over time? Which makes more sense?
You want a thing to be given away for free without compensation.
Except I do want you to be compensated, for the labor of building the home. Everything beyond that is theft.
What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven't done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
You are the one expecting others to work for free. You are demanding a greater amount of wealth from the renter than you've produced.
To put it another way, construction and property management are forms of labor and deserve compensation for the wealth they've created. Landlord is not.
Cool- then buy my house and I'll just reinvest in something else for profit- which you will then move on to claiming is for everyone. And the cycle will continue.
What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven't done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
A core belief most of us have is that workers are very literally not being given what they've earned. But we also believe that all humans deserve food, shelter, and care. If you think that's evil, there's not much more of a discussion to have.
That's fine. That's not what you have been saying though. What you've been saying is take my stuff and redistributed because I'm evil.
Way more effective to actually say the things you mean because we didn't all buy into your Marxism and discuss it internally- so we don't know what that you mean y when you say x.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Amazing logic. I worked so hard to buy this minigun, surely it's perfectly ok to unload it into a crowd. Don't tell me what to do with MY money!
Your post is far better than mine comrade. Much funnier example.
Yeah, I just had to give props though, it's such a good example, way better than my lame one t.t
This is the strawmanning I referenced earlier. Goodjob being true to your roots.
It would be strawmanning if here was a point to make. But here was only only a bunch of cliches to make fun of.
Most of those questions are full of tacit assumptions, but I'd like to answer the general question "Why do you commies dislike landlords so much?" You may restate any of those questions or present new ones if you feel them to be relevant in response.
You complain about people citing Marxist literature, so let's try citing the central figure of classical liberal economics, Adam Smith:
Wealth of Nations, Chpt 11 -- Excerpts
Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing, whatever part of its price is over and above this share, he naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of somewhat less than this portion; and sometimes too, though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more, or to content himself with somewhat less than the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally meant that land should for the most part be let.
The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own.
. . . The rent of the land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give.
Obviously, Smith here is discussing a different type of landlord here, one who rents land for farming (etc.) rather than just habitation, but this contrast is largely to the detriment of the modern landlord as they leave it up to the geographic location of the rented property (i.e. availability of jobs within commuting distance) rather than have the possibility of issuing improvements to the farmland or otherwise assuring that rent can be paid by that individual.
The apologetics around landlords would have a chance if not for the basic fact that they operate on the principle of monopoly, as all of the land has been "accounted for," it is all publicly or privately owned, and there are extensive efforts to keep people from sleeping on public land. There's often no camping in a tent, there are specific "public awareness" campaigns encouraging private citizens to report those for destruction, and the settlements that remain are at any time liable to be cleared out by a police squad for the crime of existing. Sleeping on benches, when the benches aren't specifically designed to prevent this, is "loitering" or "trespassing" (many public sites are officially considered to be closed at night), and in any case is immensely dangerous even if one only considers things like precipitation. Landlords make their profit from the fact that renting land and buying land are the only possible options for someone who doesn't want to die of exposure or state violence. If there was land open for grabs and it wasn't being bought up by land sharks, there would be very few homeless because they could at least have little shacks on such land.
Without the power of monopoly, rent would be drastically less, in proportion to the actual maintenance and management labor performed by the owner (or their property manager). We communists have nothing against paying for maintenance or management, but merely owning a vital resource that is monopolized is not a job.
Hey comrade, I'm on Memmy and the excerpt from Adam Smith won't render, might want to check that out. I'm guessing it's the one about landlords seeking wealth from land which they never toiled or something like that? There were a couple times he talked about the problems of landlords and rentier capitalism.
I put it as a spoiler, so you should be able to see it by clicking on it, but anyway I took it from here:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-adam/works/wealth-of-nations/book01/ch11.htm
Paragraphs 1, 2, and 5. There are probably better passages to talk about, but that one was usable and tbh I was being a bit lazy.
Ah thanks for the clarification.
No yeah it says literally after I click the spoiler "For some reason Memmy cannot render this" :/
Did you just miss that the entire argument rests on unimproved land? By definition a home is on improved land.
Besides I really don't care what smith or anyone else says- I'm not giving you the things I've paid for for free. If you want to use it- you can make an offer. But I'm not evil for not giving you something I worked for. You are for wanting it from me for free.
Did you just miss that the entire argument rests on unimproved land? By definition a home is on improved land.
Smith accounts for both, but says rent is not based on improvement of land but on the highest level of rent the tenant can sustain. Improvement of land would be expected to raise that amount, but unimproved land would still have a cost all the same. It's not the main element, though I think it actually does bear some relevance to the issue of monopoly since one could rent unimproved land for the purpose of housing and get takers, as it would provide the "service" of protecting from a large part of police violence.
Besides I really don't care what smith or anyone else says- I'm not giving you the things I've paid for for free. If you want to use it- you can make an offer. But I'm not evil for not giving you something I worked for. You are for wanting it from me for free.
I have already emphatically said that I'm speaking on a systemic level because hyper-individualized solutions to systemic problems simply aren't useful, so bringing it back to personal incredulity and your land isn't useful. I have no problem with you being compensated for the labor that you put in or even the labor that you can plausibly say you managed, you're making many assumptions about my stance. The right to personally own the land itself, however, does not have so strong a basis in liberal philosophy (you can see Paine argue against this in many later works).
But really, pre-Covid the numbers were something like 600,000 homeless a night and 18,600,000 empty housing units. I don't care to moralize about landlords, I just don't want people to be homeless due to anything other than wanting to be homeless (which makes up a tiny minority, barring "itinerant" homeless who should also be sheltered). Maybe public funds buy your properties off of you, or maybe you are not directly affected because there are so many extra units that only a small proportion are relevant. I don't care, I just don't want people to die of exposure.
Naturally, if you don't have your properties bought off to start with, that will drastically undercut the amount of rent you can ask for for your properties simply because there will already be a supply for people who need it, making your service more of a luxury because it no longer has the force of monopoly behind it, but you are all for voluntary agreements, so that shouldn't represent a problem to you if people simply choose not to rent out your units and instead they sit empty, right?
I do happen to have my properties bought off and I don't really care what the rent is as long as it's making a return that makes sense.
If your issue is with the system- great I agree the system isn't the best. If your issue is with people that happen to own a thing and rent it to people- get fucked.
I won't argue, I will say that Adam Smith is a notable figure who predates Marx, Ricardo, Madison, Stuart Mill, Hayek and Friedman, etc. All of whom were important figures who have shaped our current economic system and form of liberalism.
Even if you don't care it's important to note the effect he's had as it largely effects you even to this day. Warren Buffet, notable capitalist, said one of his two favourite books was Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Think of it like the Bible of economics. It's where the phrase "invisible hand of the free market" comes from (wording might be off but I hope you get the idea!!)
If someone's living in their own home, I don't have a problem with that at all. The problem is purchasing a home just to extract rents and profits.
And btw, I think all those things should be collectivized and socially available. Landlords contribute no value (as shown by their unwillingness to do maintenance/repairs), and merely extract. After all, what really is the benefit, to society, of a landlord? They serve no purpose (hell, even a CEO has more purpose than a landlord, and they -- as Elon shows -- don't really contribute much either). It's entirely extractive. Your "why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves" is because of how they're using it. Just like how if you own a gun and defend your home, we consider that moral, but if you own a gun and shoot a person on the street, we consider it immoral. If you build a house and live in it, that's moral and fine(though, in a perfect world, this would be produced through the government/taxes rather than individual accumulation, but we're not talking about utopia, we're talking about moral judgments on our world as it exists). If you build a house or purchase a house, then use it to extract ever-increasing rents from people for a thing we require to live (shelter), that's immoral.
I think it's a pretty simple distinction actually.
To return to the starbucks example, the company "produced" that material. Is it "moral" of them to throw it away rather than donate it? After all, they made it - just like your example of houses.
Finally, I'll just note, the very idea of private property when applied to land, etc. is odious to me on philosophical grounds.
So your argument clearly states that we are living in capitalism... and at the same time states that your moral problem is one of idealism/communism. Your argument cannot exist in one and then transmute half way through to make it fit your narrative.
We live in capitalism. I have worked and saved to buy off my house which I now rent out at market (below market actually) and provide a home that my tenants could not afford to buy on their own. I haven't increased rent since I started renting.
You are now blanket yelling I should be stripped of my investment. My effort. My money that I've worked for. And these other slack-jaws are frothing at the mouth because they can't conceive of a difference between me and the multibillion dollar company who is actually doing what you are saying.
a home that my tenants could not afford to buy on their own
What I'm saying is there shouldn't be a situation like this in the first place. Your tenants shouldn't have to come to you to rent, housing should be freely available to all.
It's a difference of degree, not of kind. And the goal is to change the relationship to society/production/the state such that this relationship no longer needs to exist. After all, investing in housing/real estate is the one "safe" thing to do under capitalism if you have surplus money. I doubt you're a true "capitalist" in the sense of having true economic leverage, and the question for you is ultimately, would you side with the workers, your tenants, etc. and willingly join in the socialization of basic human needs? Or will you ally with the capitalists above you and protect private property at all costs.
A difference in degree but not in kind exists historically. Guatemala. The operations of the United Fruit company through exploitation were very profitable. They "built" them. The new government offered to either buy them out at the rate they had claimed on their taxes or reassess their taxes to redistribute their profits more equitably. Instead, the CIA coup'd them.
The question for you ultimately is, if given the chance to exit from the exploitative relationship imposed upon you by capitalism, will you? Would you let the government buy you out or raise your taxes to fund collective housing? Or will you instead employ the forces of reaction?
Then fucking say THAT. Not all landlords are evil. I'd be willing to bet 90% of these frothing loons don't realize why you are trying to accomplish and are just riding the hate train.
He'll yeah I'm all for more taxes to pay for healthcare/education/collective housing. Hell no am I ok with just giving my shit away because you happen to think I should. Sure- pay me for my investments at fair market value- and I'll just go an reinvest in something else that you guys will inevitably think should belong to all.
So no- I'm not going to ever stand with you because you will always want something from me. Do I think things can and should change. Yes- but your way is a ridiculous way of going about it.
where are you expecting people to live?
Houses and apartments. Like they do now.
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
Nope. Not worked/paid/built themselves. The vast majority of homes are made by people paying others to build homes for them. Labor is the source of value, not investors. This is like billionaires claiming to be job creators. You're extracting the value of their labor to make your investment property. You're paying them a fraction of what it is worth to you because you happen to live in a society where that is normal. Your lack of imagination beyond your current circumstances is not my problem.
Oh yeah, and even if you happen to build the house with your own hands, it is owned by someone, the bank where you got your construction loan.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Why do you think people who work and toil away should pay your mortgage on an investment property and then some?
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
Because helping themselves comes at the cost of someone else, and everyone else.
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than "evil landlords must die and be redistributed"
You can say what you want about the rest of Hexbear but I can actually explain myself. Yeah, I'm one of those who have actually thought about stuff. In fact, I know more about real estate investing than you do.
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
It's not. They all belong to those who actually made them, the workers.
Why don't you go build your own house? Why aren't you giving these unfortunate souls your own place?
I can't. Investors have inflated the cost of construction and increased the barrier to entry. They snuff out competition. Capitalism is built on lies. They don't actually like competition. The whole idea is to consolidate and monopolize. If I did try to build low income housing I'd be ran off by all the investors who own everything. Housing poor people next to their investments lowers the value. This is multi-family 101 kiddo. Read a book.
To cap it all- you follow each other around in groups and rather than actually discussing you strawman, point people to communist propaganda, and generally troll anyone who disagrees with you. No one wants to join your club, no one wants to read your Marxism books etc. If you have a point- state it. Don't point elsewhere and act like you won because we arent interested in your echochamber
The arrow of history disagrees. You probably should study the past sometime. Capitalism creates the conditions that make people want to join our club. It's pretty much a law of human society.
Yes worked/built/paid for themselves. Why does it matter if I personally hammered the nail or paid someone else for the house that he hammered the nail into? Work was done and value exchanged hands. Your mode of thinking means you don't deserve any thing you didn't create yourself. I own most of my houses outright as I have mentioned I worked my ass off to pay for them. So yeah...
Oh I'd love to hear all of your education on real estate investing. I bet that'd be fun for everyone. Especially since you've already stated you can't seem to buy any place on your own...
Stating a thing does not make it so- helping myself does not harm anyone else. If anything it helps people like yourself who can't afford to buy the place to still live in the place.
How do you even begin to think something is owned by the workers when they are not the ones paying for any of it. If those workers were the ones getting the loans, paying the taxes, filing the permits, getting the required certificate, marketing, selling, delivering, etc... you might have the start of a point. As it is- they are the ones receiving a wage to work the land. Physical labor does not equal ownership. Again this mode of thinking means you aren't entitled to anything you didn't build yourself. You like that burger? Did you raise that cow? Did you slaughter it? Feed it? Work the soil to make the feed? Etc etc etc.
I think people should pay to use my property that I'm providing for a fee. There's really nothing more to it. We could transmute that house to a restaurant, a store, a farm and it all means the same thing. I built it. Or bought it. You didn't. Now you can use it if you want- for a fee. Under no circumstances do you own any part of it unless you and I come to some agreement about it. You are welcome to buy it- or try to make a rent to own deal...
Oh that's funny because somehow I did manage to do just that... and I didn't come from money or any special background. I applied for the scholarships, the loans, put in the work, forgo eating out for decades, looked for opportunities, leveraged my meager earnings into extra payments until I finally paid off my first house. Made sure I didn't make a baby or get into massive credit card debt etc. I went and lived in the low cost areas no one cares to go to. I made the required sacrifices to eventually get to a better position.
So yeah in conclusion- you just said a bunch of rhetoric with no backing and also no solution. Fairly typical if less vitriolic than normal... oh you dropped this 'kiddo'
Why does it matter if I personally hammered the nail or paid someone else for the house that he hammered the nail into?
Because that's the definition of building it yourself.
helping myself does not harm anyone else.
Stating a thing does not make it so. Just stating you're doing no harm doesn't make it true. I can explain why you're doing harm but you can't explain why you're not. Explanatory might makes right. We're talking about the science of society, not vibes.
How do you even begin to think something is owned by the workers when they are not the ones paying for any of it.
Value comes from labor. A forest is nothing without the lumberjacks. A pile a logs is nothing without the workers of the saw mill. A pile of lumber is nothing without framers. A frame is nothing without drywallers, roofers, plumbers, electricians. The ownership you claim is just a piece of paper given by the state based on historical premises of property rights. It's not a default state of nature nor a universal truth.
Wages are specifically designed to not pay them the full value of their labor. If you own a horseshoe factory that produces each horseshoe for $1, then you can't pay a person $100 an hour to make 100 horseshoes in that hour. You wouldn't make any money as the factory owner. So you must pay them less than the value they're producing. It's how businesses work. Likewise you can't rent a house for profit without charging more than its worth. You can't afford to build all those investment properties unless you pay the people who actually built them a fraction of what the house is worth. You exploited the people who built the house so you can sit on your ass and exploit workers who need a place to live. It's quite simple.
Oh that's funny because somehow I did manage to do just that... and I didn't come from money or any special background. I applied for the scholarships, the loans, put in the work, forgo eating out for decades, looked for opportunities, leveraged my meager earnings into extra payments until I finally paid off my first house. Made sure I didn't make a baby or get into massive credit card debt etc. I went and lived in the low cost areas no one cares to go to. I made the required sacrifices to eventually get to a better position.
There's two ways to build wealth under capitalism. One is to get a bunch of people to work for you and pay them less than their labor is actually worth. The other is to leverage your capital, buy property and then become a rent-seeker and/or lender. That's what you did. You were fortunate enough to be able to get loans and leverage your debt and get scholarships. Most people don't get all that. The people you rent to don't get that.
I said a bunch of arguments against yours. You can't demand an argument from everyone and then when someone gives you wave it off as mere rhetoric. Yes it's rhetoric. That's what the word means. I think you're just saying stuff based on vibes. You don't actually know what words mean or have any real sense of your own position. You just know that you feel a certain way and want that to be as valid as my rational argument. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
It's also funny how you think not eating fast food and living in a place nobody wants to go is some grand sacrifice and the reason for what you have. Dude millions of people live without McDonald's or a suburban home in the nice part of town. They also don't get loans and scholarships. Their prostrations before capital go unnoticed.
Rather than demanding we disprove your views maybe you should spend some time thinking about why you believe them beyond "I'm a hard worker." Like do you really think you're the only person who has ever worked hard? Do you think that the reason why most people don't have rental properties is because they're not hard working? Imagine the hubris to think something like that.
Bla bla bla- no you.
That's what you just did. Which is fine but doesn't explain any of the original points being made.
Go get those lumberjacks to cut down that forest... wait a minute... they won't do it unless someone pays them??? Really? But they will own the lumber... oh they don't need that lumber? Oh man. I guess no one owns that lumber and no one is gonna cut it down then. If only there were some way to get those guys who are experts at cutting down trees to cut them down. Then wed have lumber to build houses.... but wait- the guys that know how to build house wont build them? But since they don't wanna do it I guess there's nothing to be done. Since... ya know... paying people for their work is not valuable and apparently inherently worthless.
Guess it's just up to each member of society to learn all the things and do all the work themselves. Because paying each other for things means you don't own it and only making yourself means anything.
Also curious how I'm paying these wildly inflated housing costs but also somehow paying the people who build them wildly below the worth of their work... Man your mind just works in mysterious ways I guess.
Yeah it really is too bad that not everyone can go apply for those scholarships... the millions in unclaimed scholarships, welfare, etc just... too bad not anyone can file the paperwork.
Yeah I know it's also hard not to build credit card debt, have families with no viable plan for the future, not buy the things you want but are too expensive etc.. your right- literally everyone is doing that.
Oh mustnt forget the hubris of thinking people aren't slaves to where they start and COULD choose things like joining the military for the literal free education it gives, or contracting their particular expertise out... but I guess that involves being paid for labor... so that's out...
What a quandary.
I don't think you make a bad point, but it takes years to develop a leftist, collectivist, anti-imperialist world view. Vulgarizing leftist theory to anyone who will listen is a colossal waste of time when 95% of you are not interested in interacting in good faith to begin with. As much as loaded political slogans, easy gotchas and plain old derision suck from a debate-fan point of view, they are too useful to ignore. Even more importantly, you are doing the exact same thing when you talk about "kremlin propaganda" like there's ever any substance or truth behind that accusation.
Here's the trolling/bad faith.
My response to this 'argument':
"No, you"
What the fuck are you on about Kremlin propaganda?
Well the Communist argument is that the government will provide all of the infrastructure and services. In real life, a good chunk of infrastructure are provided by the government. However, as far as services are concerned... It can be a pretty mixed bag depending on how functional your government is.
When I was young, edgy and anti-business I used to believe that government was absolutely the answer to all of our problems. Did I voted for something like 15 tax increases and saw my quality of life and the city itself just go down the drain. Wait no, it became a dumpster fire. Cost of living has skyrocketed about 500%, crime and homelessness are up 300 to 1,000%, and there hasn't actually been enough housing constructed to house people. We still don't have a social safety net and medical prices are astronomically high as well.
The fact is that the world is a complex place and whenever there is a disproportionate amount of economic disparity between classes, it doesn't matter who's running the show but there's going to be a lot of unhappy people.
Sure. That'd be great. Just curious why that hasn't been implemented yet.
On topic, but I've actually had a couple of good landlords over the years. One guy would stop by once a month to check on the house and do landscaping. We used to have really good conversations when I saw him, and we would talk about how the neighborhood was doing, any issues with the house and so on and so forth. Whenever I had a maintenance issue, he would be there within a few days to handle it. He even kept rent increases to below inflation.
On the other hand, I've also heard people denigrate architects, lawyers, engineers, and tech support people. But landlords and lawyers in particular make great punching bags.
I mean ironically, the guy who kicked us out's mother was totally fine. Just an old lady who needed the rent to supplement her fixed income. When she died, 6 months later the "I'm selling the place, you need to be out by X day" email came.
Agreeing with something a ukraine flag pfp says? Truly the world has gone mad.
This isn’t appropriate for this post, the OP asked that conversation stays on topic
Putins head should be stuck inside one and saying that doesn't dehumanise anyone.
spoiler
Guillotines [...] reference perhaps the most important part in late medieval European history
The guillotine is best known for its use in France, particularly during the French Revolution. The French revolution was late 18th century, long after the Middle Ages had ended.
And Guillotines are not even Socialist references, they reference perhaps the most important part in late medieval European history.
Not only are you wrong on calling it medieval as stated by others, but you're also wrong about saying it has nothing to do with Socialism. The French Revolution, the Paris Commune (name rings a bell?) and Robespierre are major references of the European left culture.
In addition to doing hate speech against protected minority groups such as landlords and factory owners we also discriminate against other minority groups such as: war criminals, slave owners, Nazis, and fascist paramilitaries
Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
To be fair, I see those memes about guillotines and "eat the rich" all over the Internet.
Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
With varying degrees of seriousness, people call for violence against others all the time all over the internet. Go on any pro-Ukraine thread and you'll find tons of bloodthirsty comments calling for the killing of Russian soldiers (you'll often find variations of horrible stuff like "any Russian who isn't in open revolt is a fair target," too).
So first, what you are describing is not unique to Hexbear, and is in fact common. Second, if your response to my comparison is "well they're talking about a war!", so are we: every year capitalists wage war on the poor, killing millions by profit-driven deprivation of housing, food, medical care, etc. (see social murder).
It is pretty unique to hexbear and .ml on Lemmy from what I've seen. Even if what you just said was true (it's not) that doesn't excuse it
Go on any pro-Ukraine thread and you'll find tons of bloodthirsty comments calling for the killing of Russian soldiers (you'll often find variations of horrible stuff like "any Russian who isn't in open revolt is a fair target," too).
Do you disagree with this? Have you not seen all the pro-Ukraine threads on reddit and here the last few years?
And when a type of conduct is common but punished selectively, that's a sign that the ones swinging the hammer don't care about the conduct so much as they care about harassing the target. It's like the War on Drugs.
stinky
should have spanked you
🤮
edit: Less than a day old account I see.
The reason dehumanizing someone is evil is, among other things, because it makes it easier for non-psychopathic people to kill them. If you're ok with killing people even without dehumanizing them, that suggests very troubling things about you.
Oh boy, wait until you find out what the bourgeoisie and landlords are fine with doing to us.
Oh look, another redfash debate jeenyus who can tell what their opponent knows without asking
I forgot your instance isn´t great with subtext. If you are aware that the landlords and bourgeoisie are killing people each and every day either indirectly or directly, as well as stealing from them, sexually assaulting them, and committing every other crime imaginable, I assumed you would also understand that a) killing is already on the table, and b) it is not only justified but necessary to end their actions.
also, redfash? read parenti.
Imagine thinking you can know whether someone is good at subtext based on which instance they're using. Now, given that you are already comfortable publicly stating that landlords and bourgeoisie deserve death, why are you so worried that people think you're dehumanizing them?
I don't need Parenti to know someone is redfash. If the shoe fits, as they say. Commanding me to read something is just a classic thought-terminating cliche.
That’s not true at all. Look at any post about landlords or Zelenskyy or “bourgeoisie”. Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
This is like a children's picture book-level of understanding of the differences between these. This same group of people are responsible for getting you things like healthcare, or the 8 hour work week, or fucking paid vacation. Maybe listen to them and read a little more before posting dumbass takes like this.
That's hard to believe when it's basically almost the only thing (and other serious and aggressive trolling and not trolling.) I've not seen any calm reasonable and rational responses from hexbear users until this post threatening to get rid of them
Come chat to us more then. Jesus would have done the same as us, he chased the money lenders out of temple by beating them with a whip.
I'd like to stay federated with hexbear. They bring important information to conversation that people are otherwise not exposed to. American school-taught history is NOT the gold standard in truth.
I feel a little sorry for the Lemm.ee users here that came to make measured, personal posts specific to the annoucement. There's a fair amount of long off-topic arguements happening in bits of the thread now and that probably makes it harder to read and manage.
This is something that's often been pointed to as a pure result of Hexbear users or federation with Hexbear and given rise to accusations of 'brigading here and in the past'. While I don't think every segue into debate has been useful here, and have also told comrades that I didn't think this was the place for specific comments (which they removed) I also think there's some important context to point out - and I hope it helps lemm.ee users wondering about all this traffic not to fall into the trap of assuming the worst based on a couple of comments:
- Hexbear is a very big and very active instance. A very small proportion of users posting in a thread (especially one explicitly about them) can seem like a lot to a lot of instances.
- Hexbear doesn't have downvotes and Hexbear users do not have the ability to downvote posts or comments on other instances. This creates a culture where if people disagree, they tend to reply, not downvote instead. Another reason we're very active.
- This thread has constantly been at the top of people's feeds on Hexbear. if they're not only set to 'local'.
- Finally - and I say this fully acknowledging and appriciating the many ordinary, good faith, pleasant lemm.ee commenters that I've enjoyed reading and talking too even when I totally disagreed with them - a lot of these off-topic arguements and more heated comments do not come from nowhere. While not at all the majority, I do see a pretty shocking amount of actively hostile, hateful, and insulting behaviour here. Sadly, quite a bit of it would be banned under Hexbear's moderation policy against things like slurs and hate speech too.
So try to keep in mind if you see salty Hexbear users replying to people that, just in reading through this thread myself, I've the following instances of abuse or smears against my comrades (and they continue popping up). So I absolutely support them defending themselves (as long as they stay within the rules here):
- Dimissal as the pejorative "tankie" - 4 times (although we actually think this one is pretty funny usually)
- Users stating that Hexbear users are propagandists - 8 times
- Stating that people from Hexbear are specifically paid Russian/Chinese bots/propagandists - 10 times
- Direct equivalences of Hexbear posters to Nazis or just straight up calling us Nazis/fascists - 7 times
- Insults regarding mental health or IQ that would be classed as ablism on Hexbear - 8 times
- Dismissing users as children - 2 times
- Claiming Hexbear users are using vote-manipulation (impossible, as explained above) - 4 times
- Accusations of deliberate brigading rather than just commenting, being active - 11 times
I've tried not to count repeated instances from the same users. But sadly that's not all. Just a handful of the following are comments that have been made against Hexbear users in this thread, without any kind of equal hostility. As far as I can tell they all still remain:
- "You guys are like cancer"
- "Braindead fucking tankies"
- "Get fucked"
- "Asshole" (multiple)
- That our beliefs are "moralistic bullshut"
- That some of our beliefs are "a criminal ideology"
- A comment that simply states "No Russians"
- That we're "evil" (multiple times)
- An elaborate comparison to us "vandalising a Jewish graveyard" and other Nazi equivalences
- And of course a comment that explictly minimised the Nazi death toll with glee, seeming to imply they should have killed more. On the subject of disagreeing with equating the hammer and sickle to the swastika (hidden with spoiler tag, for those who don't want to see it repeated)...
spoiler
"you are right, it is nor really fair to nazis, who killed measly 17 million people, compared to impressive 100 million killed by communists."
There's also been numerious instances of users misgendering Hexbear users. I'm not going to put all of these down to malice, but at Hexbear we display our pronouns for a reason - we love our trans comrades! You don't have to, but could you please at least respect them and not misgender them?
Again, this isn't the majority, but it's honestly disappointing and worth keeping in mind amongst some of the louder, minority yells of 'brigading' etc.
I posted a comment in the_dunk_tank without noticing where I was. While many people were heated over what I said, it was a misunderstanding due to a lack of specificity and ignorance on my part. After I clarified what I was intending to say, discussion ensued and it was ended on good terms.
The vast majority of users I interact with from hexbear are thoughtful, insightful, kind and genuine individuals that care deeply about humanity and moving forward. The hate that they have is for fascism and actual fascists.
To defederate hexbear would be a disservice to the idea of federated social media.
Thanks for that very thoughtful statement. I am fine with keeping them federated and letting individual users block what they don't want to see. I find it interesting to see what different communities have to say, even if I find it abhorrent.
And that should be golden rule. We're not kindergarten anymore.
Should it?
The overwhelming majority of mass shooters currently plaguing America are young, male and far-right. They didn't just wake up one morning as extremists.
The story always reads basically the same. Loneliness, frustration and/or disillusionment made them vulnerable, they stumbled upon the far-right claiming they had answers and were lead down the path of extremism by memes, algorithms and social media groups.
Given that, why should they be platformed at all? Why make the default "if you don't like it, just block it" rather than "if you want to read it, join their shithole servers"?
While we might not be "kindergarten" any more, there's definitely users who are in early highschool and users who are vulnerable to cults.
That said, I don't see hexbear being nearly as dangerous because unlike neo-nazis, state violence isn't the goal.
Take the murder and enslavement out of modern Nazism and there's nothing left, because murder and enslavement was the point. Take the murder out of communism and socialism and you've got a fairer, less exploitative society because a fairer, less exploitative society was the point.
And we are very much not straight white men. User survey said it's like 1/3 trans people which is more than any non exclusivly trans space I've seen.
I was about to say, Hexbear is very against stochastic violence, which on the left is called "Propaganda of the Deed" after a failed activist "experiment" to do just that. We reject it as a type of adventurism, i.e. doing something for kicks that isn't actually politically useful (and in fact is usually wildly detrimental).
“if you don’t like it, block it” gives each of us a choice. Defederating takes away that choice for all 20k people on this general-purpose instance. We shouldn’t be censoring based on opinion of content alone
state violence is the goal, but for the purpose of ending state violence
As a Hexbear user and one of the people your mod and OP interacted with in that thread, I find a good chunk of this post concerning and often spurious.
First, personally, I am one of the people who accused him of engaging in behaviour that was tantamount to Holocaust denial. I did so after his repeated, blunt, assertions of false equivalency between the undisputed horrors of Nazi Germany and those - some true, many disputed, some outright refuted - of the Soviet Union. I explained that this practice is known as the 'Double Genocide Theory' and even linked to articles by Jewish historians and Holocaust academics that explained the issues with the theory and the history of its official use to whitewash far-right movements, particularly in post-Soviet states. Instead of receiving a modicum of serious engagement he instead deliberately and grossly misrepresented and dismissed not only my point but the work of the Jewish academics I linked before leaving with an insult.
Secondly, what exactly constitutes Kremlin propaganda? This is a usually completely baseless claim that is thrown constantly at Hexbear uses, but also almost any marginally left or anti-war figure on the internet. A small but vocal group of cynical users that cannot and will not tolerate opposing viewpoints use it to shut down debate and to smear people. As your mod/OP stated, Hexbear does both refute and ban clear instances of actual Russian (or other) state propaganda when it's demonstrably untrue or breaks our very strict rules on bigotry of any kind. But much of what was smeared as Kremlin propaganda was not, because it was not.
Your very own mod/OP engaged in a version of that in the thread on Hexbear and when pushed on what it meant variably either ignored the question or cast the net as wide as anything Russia (state, politicians, or media) have ever said. Several people made the point that a Russian source can say can say something that's factual, or identify something true and use that as part of a political narrative. Does that objective truth suddenly because false as soon as it's spoken by Russian lips? These questions were ignored.
Personally, I'd prefer that there isn't defederation, that the bad feeling that's undoubtedly been created by members from both instances, is moved on from, and to explore and engage with more of lemm.ee afresh. I also recognise and respect that decision as being lemm.ee's to make, but felt that users deserve to hear some of the other perspective. Especially when I do not believe your mod/OP is either willing or able to be clear eyed or act in good faith around contentious issues like those highlighted in this thread. Which of course is also to be considered, and decided by, users of Lemm.ee.
I've seen the hexbears at work and don't doubt that they'd class some of my views as woefully liberal but in the main I am enjoying being on a site where the left is so unapologetic, doesn't go for all this centrist bollocks and is unafraid to call out bullshit.
Having seen the Overton window constantly shifted to a narrower aspect ratio and then shifted rightwards on reddit was a very disheartening experience and I think seeing active hexbears on all threads will be useful in stopping the uptight right when they inevitably decide that that the fediverse needs shifting towards their own Volkish views.
I've seen more posts complaining about Hexbear than actual objectionable things they've done. Maybe that's a sign of effective moderation, but in general I agree that defederation should always be a very last resort, and it doesn't feel like we're even close.
Also, with the ability for users to block instances coming soon, I think everyone will be happy then. At least, users anyway, it will still be down to the admin team to determine if the moderation workload is excessive and act accordingly - but that decision is and should be up to you.
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don’t have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
This was why my eyebrows raised when I saw the Hexbear admin response when they claim that "Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods". Kremlin propaganda is rife in communities like chapotraphouse, and it certainly seems like the mods there let anything slide as long as it is isn't outright incitement to violence.
I challenged claims made in a couple of different anti-Ukraine posts and despite the fact there were maybe one or two users whose responses were thoughtful, the majority were outright calling me an idiot and a
removed liberal(edit: correction; dumb fuck)So far, my impression of HB's userbase is pretty negative because the posts on there that make the front page here tend to be the more shit-posty ones.
That said, I appreciate @sunaurus for the stance he's taking. There is some positive and thoughtful content on HB - you just have to block the noisier and more idiotic communities so it doesn't get drowned out.
Banning state propaganda is great, but why limit that ban to Kremlin propaganda? US propaganda is just as, if not more, prevelent and toxic. The narrative surrounding the destruction of the Nord Stream is a good example:
American corporate media and government officials were calling for its destruction and outright threatening to blow it up for months prior to the actual attack. Immediately after its destruction, the corporate news outlets and government officials that had been calling for that very action acted as though they had never done so and presented a unified front that blamed Russia for the attack. Doing some critical thinking and realizing that Russia had neither the opportunity nor the motive to blow up their own pipeline is not Kremlin propaganda. Continuing that critical thinking and realizing that the US had both motive and opportunity, and was a likely culprit because they had repeatedly threatened to blow up the pipeline is not Kremlin propaganda. Shutting down all discussion critical of the US by dismissing it as Russian bots is US propaganda.
Defederating from Hexbear would be a hugely disappointing move. They have a lot of insightful posts that I want to see interleaved with my other subscriptions. It would be a true shame to defederate from them because a subset of their users are immature/shitposters (where isn't that the case?). The point of federation was to not require every user to have N separate accounts on every forum. They show up in everyone's feed because they have a lot of users and activity. That's a
feature, not a bugsuccess!i don't have anything in particular to add, I just want to repeat that clicking on "all" isn't brigading.
Please don't defederate unless moderation becomes impossible. People should curate what they want to see on their own. Part of why I joined lemm.ee was that the content is not pre-curated, but I have a wide selection to choose from myself.
Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
Oh, that's includes a now deleted comment of mine. Yes, i admit i got a bit overboard here. I wanted only to highlight a certain political tendency in the region. rather than make a blanket statement about any nationalities and ethnicities. It really came out wrong. And while i don't really care whatever this instance defederates or not, here i must apologize since i was clearly in the wrong. I should only dunk on people for what they do, not what they are.
