This is an admin post, intended for blahaj lemmy users. Top level posts from members of other instances will be removed.
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After recent events, it feels to me that sentiment has shifted and more people are asking for defederation of hexbear than previously.
I've been doing my best to try and mend bridges and keep us connected, as it's my hope that we can maintain trans solidarity and work with them, despite the friction, however, ultimately, I feel that this is an issue for the blahaj lemmy community to decide, not the admins alone.
So here's what we're going to do.
We're going to leave things as they are for a week. That will give time for things to calm down whilst we see if we can work together. After a week, I'll put up a vote and get a feel for where the community is at in regards to our continued federation with hexbear. That poll will run for a week. If there is a strong will to defederate (a clear majority), then that's what we will do.
I've seen a few people from there on here and my experiences have been nothing but pleasant.
On the other hand, the communities I've seen there seem almost troll like. Like the dumbest worst right-wing circlejerk except some insane left ideas and they hate on "liberals"? It's so confusing to me.
Definitely some very cool people are from there though, from what I see here. I am conflicted. I don't want the shitshow some of their communities starting over here.
Leftists use the term liberal to refer to people who are moderates, e.g. the Democrats rather than the communists. Liberals often hold some progressive ideals, but ultimately believe it should happen within the context of capitalism and our existing systems.
Hexbear hates on liberals a lot, but they're hating on them because they're not progressive enough. It's not a right wing thing.
I've seen some of them claim to be a "leftist unity group" while "lib dunking" on anyone with a slightly different geopolitical opinion then them. And then there's the incessant questioning if someone is "really a leftist". It doesn't seem to matter how progressive you are.
I used to call people libs, but after contact with them it feels cringe now, not gonna lie.
There are some cool people, but in my experience the vast majority are trolls pretending to be communists.
You ban trolls. You can't reason with them because they derive enjoyment from engaging in bad faith.
What makes you think they're pretending to be communists?
Trolls are trolls first and foremost. They may adopt some ideology for the lulz, but only as a way to rile people up and troll them.
But their ideology has been consistent for the years they've been completely isolated from the Fediverse. It doesn't make sense that they would be trolls trolling no one but themselves for years with consistent ideology and rhetoric.
When they say "liberals" I personally understand it as referring to liberalism in the textbook economic sense, i.e. support for private property, market economies, Age of Enlightenment ideals of personal liberty, and what could be called "bourgeois" democracy. You may be somewhat familiar with the economic definition of "liberal" from the term "neoliberal", which refers to the types of market liberalization associated with Reagan and Thatcher.
So basically the confusion comes because in the popular discourse of the United States, political terms are often used with completely different meanings from their more international/proper definitions. This is made worse by the fact that leftists use a number of words, such as "anarchy" and "dictatorship", in completely different ways than most of the rest of the world.
The issue of contradictory definitions is particularly problematic for me as a Norwegian-American leftist, because I might say "I'm a republican. I'd never vote for Liberals or Democrats in my life. I strongly oppose liberal ideology." one moment, and then the next I might say, "Oh, no, I'm absolutely a liberal! I hate Republicans like nothing else and only vote Democrat.", with these statements not being contradictory in the slightest because these words are all autoantonyms with meanings depending on who exactly you're speaking to. And don't even get me started on the American versus Norwegian Overton windows!
Edit: I guess you could say these are examples of what the What Is Politics? podcast refers to as political "worbs". Great podcast IMO.
You are completely correct and explained things well.
As a note for those wondering, anarchy refers to the absence of "unjust" hierarchy (take that as you will, different anarchists take different views on it) and dictatorship is the "rule without restriction" that a class has over society, e.g. a capitalist society is the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" not because there is a single person who is a dictator but because political power is overwhelmingly placed in the practical control of the bourgeoisie through many different means (corporate media, lobbying, speaking fees, etc.)
If you look at their post about rule updates for their instance, there are several of them that say things like “but dunking on people is the entire reason to be federated”. Like they’re explicitly wanting to federate to be assholes on other instances.
Hopefully their admins can rein stuff in a bit.
Yeah, I haven't looked at the rules, but yeah, fuck that.
They definitely have troll vibes going on. But at least they seem mostly harmless. I've noticed a lot of jokes are copy paste. I like allies around as well.