I'll do you one hotter:
Ideological labels are horriscopes for the ultra-online left.
I miss the memes that r/CTH had I think they were funnier than what we put on c/main
I don't remember the numbers at its peak, but didn't r/cth have like 200,000 members? It's a lot easier to dabble with 20x the userbase.
However, it does feel like c/main took all the most played out memes and gave them a new home.
Kids younger than like 16 shouldn't be using social media. Even though this causes a fear of missing out, growing up with social media the way it is now does much more harm than good.
TW: self harm
Kids have already been growing up and self harming on or worse, but the rates of self harm and suicide is constantly going up. We can draw a lot of conclusions as to why, but I truly believe social media like IG, FB and Snapchat are at least contributing to this. Not saying it's why its happening, but it's definitely not helping.
When I grew up, we had MySpace but it wasn't like what social media is today, which a lot of times is used to post about how interesting a person is. Richer kids are able to do more, buy more and look like they are living a lot more exciting life than a less well off kid. Depression is a huge thing that is also going up, shit is fucked up in this world, but when you mix deep depression with developing hormones it's incredibly dangerous combo.
Social media isn't good for developing brains, the kids got enough on their plate already, they don't need to convince themselves they are worthless or not cool because they have other friends who are constantly out doing things, traveling, buying the newest shit, whatever. They don't need social media to feel that way but it amplifies it extraordinarily.
At the very least, monitor and limit their social media intake, put their phones away before bed time. Internet addiction is a real thing no one talks about either. The main thing is just encouraging more healthy habits and help your kid be active and no wallow away online all day everyday. My parents let me do that and I wish I was just out being a kid more. I still had a social life but I'd constantly give up hanging out with people I like because I'd just spend an unhealthy amount of time online
As a younger teen, I was so happy my dad didn't give a fuck what I was doing online and wanted to do the same for any of my future kids. Now that I'm older, I'm like wow. I WISH someone had been way more strict with me on it. The amount of grooming on social media alone is scary.
Probably is to teenagers. I wanted to say till 18, personally but, idk, I don't have kids, it's hard for me to judge
I have a daughter; she's not allowed on social media until she's 32.
She can bang away. Sex I'm only mildly worried about. Social media will either erode your self esteem or turn you into a psychopath. Or both.
One jaunt into Facebook Boomerville, USA and it's clear age hardly inoculates one from social media's toxicity. Burn it all.
I'm a little conflicted on this but I think I agree. I didn't really have friends in person during middle school/late elementary school but online I had tons of people to talk to so that kinda changes my opinions
The most chilling event of the 2020 election for me was when Trump told his followers at the debate to "stand back and stand by."
And now he's activated them to join him in DC on Jan. 6th. This is no general "I need your support, money, activism, etc." This is straight up "We're going to fight this transition of power, and I need you to show up and help me defend it."
...and I'm so irony-poisoned and bereft of any skin in the game that - fuck it - grab the popcorn.
It's not like I'm gonna counter-protest and risk getting shot on behalf of fucking Biden
I’ve worked places where I don’t engage the drama and it always blows up in my face.
I've taken the same strategy, but instead of blowing up in my face trying not to get involved in people's petty BS just ended up with me getting completely socially isolated from my coworkers. That's why my real friends are in my D&D group.
I worked in a restaurant and tried to encourage forming a union. I immediately became the most unpopular person. The vets especially who hold the most sway and had "worked the grind" to get all the best shifts and sections. It sucked.
One is that I have a very, very hard time trusting European leftists. I've seen so many European leftists still be horribly antiziganist (even on here, and even other nonwhite Europeans) while being pretty great activists otherwise. I don't think most communists would want us to be in their ideal utopia honestly.
And this plays into that, but also so many European liberals (especially online) focus on America's racial issues to ignore their own. Like talking about how racist America is while completely ignoring how incredibly antiBlack their country is, and again not to mention how they almost all act like Nazis towards Gypsies.
However I am also suspicious when nonBlack, nonAmerican people say shit like "Why are we always SO focused on America's issues" in a passive aggressive way. Honestly feels like a dogwhistle of like "can we please stop talking about antiBlackness." So while I do want other people to accept their own country's faults and address them, it also has to not be in a way that seeks to undermine Black Americans discussing racism against them... if that makes sense. I think this is a big issue on Twitter especially, so I don't know if you guys have seen that sort of behaviour as well.
Yes, it's a lot. Like I always think about how one of the worst things people considered Trump to say during his campaign was Mexicans are all rapists. Which is HORRIBLE to say, don't get me wrong. But there have been countless politicians in Europe within the last 5 years run on the promise of killing Roma. The average Europeans are somehow more loud and proud of racism than the average American, in my experience.
the american left has forgotten how to be actually materially anti-imperialist
What's an example of how to be actually materially anti-imperialist? Especially in the imperial core?
Sorry if this is a silly question, but wouldn't then defending China to Americans online fall under that? In terms of like 'America wants to go to war with China, maybe we should try to convince people China isn't the almighty evil power'?
Ah I see! I didn't realize you meant only posting about it on here, and not just generally on the Internet. that makes sense, thank you for explaining.
It's why I think it's an op too. Like the contradictions are countless.
Generally-speaking, Western leftists prioritize labor rights, privacy, LGBTQ rights, open dialogue, human rights, and anti-imperialism, among others. And China ranks like fucking ZERO out of ten on all of these.
It just baffles me.
I agree that China's government is lacking in many ways, but I also wouldn't take Western rankings at face value. They are made to push an agenda.
Liberals who have given up worrying about corona are worse than people who never worried about it in the first place.
Edit: I'm talking about people who in March were stockpiling food, but now think it's okay to start flying across the country or go out daily when they absolutely don't have to. I know everything is fucking miserable and the government has completely failed, but its extremely disheartening to see these people who had some grasp of the situation just abandon all sense of social duty because they're bored. Not to mention it puts everyone who does have to go out (and work) at greater risk. Maybe you don't know any, but where I live we did excellent in the spring and now things are spiraling out of control precisely because rational educated people got complacent over the summer.
I worry about it and I do what I can to remain socially distant and wear a mask but I think chiding others for not doing the same is just putting the blame for the virus's spread on "personal responsibility" rather than the gov't's refusal to sacrifice the line going up for the public good.
I'm sick of the chiding around this site. it's beyond unreasonable to expect perfect behavior from millions of people when we don't even have the power to do the actually effective things (closing the fucking economy) but everyone who wants to see their family is a selfish asshole
Yea this is basically the same shit I see from conservatives, pushing the blame onto failings of personal responsibility so they can try and defend the shit job the government did in stopping the spread. Funny as they are so into rugged individualism when things are going ok for them.
This... kind of feels like a strawman. I know there's a lot of hypocrites, but I can't think of any libs who've "given up worrying about it".
Bernie endorsing and campaigning for Biden wasn't really a betrayal. It was a old man cynically understanding the nature of American politics, which is that the two party system is deeply baked in and will likely never again be broken as long as first past the post is the electoral system. The same applies to Chomsky. I don't think they deserve to be turned on and despised for just understanding how the US electoral system works. Like, you can fairly disagree with the strategy and argue otherwise, but I think its at the very least a fair take on politics to have. [To be clear, there are other much better criticisms of Sanders and Chomsky, I'm only talking about this specific issue].
I do think there's room to discuss if Biden was really a harm reduction candidate/lesser evil or if there just wasn't enough separating him and Trump to matter. Personally, I think the way he empowers white supremacists and says shit like "“stand back and stand by" (which was mentioned in another post in this thread) is enough of a separation on its own. The rollbacks on Obama era protections for queer folks is another thing that stands out to me, though it remains to be seen how many if any of those Biden will reinstate. Same with environmental regulations and shit.
To be clear, I voted for Howie (would have voted Gloria if she was on the ballot in my state), but I would have seriously considered voting Biden instead if I didn't live in a safely blue state. I get that that's unpopular here right now and I even sort of get why, but personally I share the Sanders/Chomsky logical cynicism about American politics. I see American politics as a machine with two levers, a red lever thats very bad, and a blue lever thats slightly less bad. There are a bunch of tiny switches as well but they aren't actually attached to anything. Thats my cynical pov on American politics and I've been through a shitton of debates about it and nothing thats been presented to me has changed my mind.
a red lever thats very bad, and a blue lever thats slightly less bad
Donald Trump's presidency was arguably "less bad" than Obama's. The US regime change operations were less successful because his department did not have ideological or tactical coherence. ICE deportations decreased because the agency was under more scrutiny. The US withdrew from the TPP. Uprisings against state-sanctioned murders were significantly more popular.
There are argument against Trump too. But anyone who says, as a matter of fact, "the conditions in America will be better in the US under a Democratic presidency," is talking out their ass.
Cynically supporting Democrats is still supporting Democrats. All it does is weaken our ability to brand ourselves as an alternative to the capitalism and the two-party bourgeois dictatorship. I know a shit-ton of people who supported Bernie in 2016, who now (rightfully!) think he is a Clintonite.
being better is when we murder iranian leadership unprovoked
Iran is still standing. Libya is an open-air slave market. You know how many Libyan generals were murdered by the Obama administration?
What is better is detaining more people indefinitely instead of even deporting them you are correct that this is less harmful
Sure. Do you want to debate whether detainment, or sending them back to US-backed death squads is better or worse? I'd say both are horrible.
Won’t argue there
Ding ding ding.
Nothing materially changed, more people have been murdered
Major cities have been shut down for months with general public support. Ferguson and Baltimore were crushed almost immediately. That is a material change.
Trump Is Less Evil Than Obama is so fucking horseshit lol
As horseshit as "Obama Is Less Evil Than Trump", that's my entire point.
Hmm yes it’s less evil that we murder people without discretion because are incompetent. It’s certainly not the same level of awful because the intention is there lol
Executing top generals and creating an open-air slave market is worse than just executing generals. I don't care about intentions, none of these people are honest about their intentions.
I don’t debate dumbfucks, it’s self evident that Not Being Able To Be A Human is pretty fuckin bad
Sure. Are you referring to the cententration camps, or the handling people over to US-backed death squads?
This reads as: “I am an an uneducated assclown who watches V*ush streams”
Vaush agrees with your perspective btw
lol what cities are shut down?
Right now, I think none? The biggest shut-down were in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis. The Portland protests were shutting down their downtown area for at least 100 days. In my city, which had a relatively smaller response, the main shopping district was still disrupted for about a week.
Knowing that a popular streamer supports "lesser-evilism" makes me a Vaush watcher lmao
I'm sorry you have incredibly dumb takes. No reason to call me names.
You can reread the thread. The dispute is not over the facts .
The dispute of over whether "Trump was better than Obama" or "Obama was better than Trump" are valid statements.
My perspective is that there are arguments for both. And therefore, they are both meaningless. You disagree.
this take that Trump Is Less Evil Than Obama is so fucking horseshit lol
"Trump is less evil than X corporate Democrat" is consistently the worst take on here, followed closely by "write off all libs from the list of people who are persuadable."
The dumbest takes here are, in order:
1: “Trump is less evil than X corporate Democrat”
1 (tie): “X corporate Democrat is less evil than Trump”
All it does is weaken our ability to brand ourselves as an alternative to the capitalism
This is magical thinking. There is no reason why you can't cynically support a lesser evil why also advocating against capitalism. Its the same line of thinking behind the idea that voting somehow prevents you from doing direct action. No, it doesn't, you can do two things at the same time.
And no, its not "rightful" to think that Bernie is a "Clitonite" lol. That's garbage. Those people are dumb.
There is no reason why you can’t cynically support a lesser evil why also advocating against capitalism
You can. No one will take you seriously.
its not “rightful” to think that Bernie is a “Clitonite” lol
How else would you describe playing cover for the DNC leaks & working harder than any elected official in the country to get Clinton elected?
If you support Bernie, you might twist yourself into believing he's playing cynical politics. I don't blame anyone who sees him as controlled opposition for the Democratic machine.
You can. No one will take you seriously.
The fact that people are too idealistic and naive to understand how American politics works isn't something anyone should kowtow too. We should insist on it actually, emphasize the point. Yes, I get the fact that some people are deeply resistant to seeing American politics for what it is is a reality that I'm aware of and constantly frustrated by. I'm not going to change my political stances because of it though. I'm going to continue to advocate for my political positions. For the same reason I'll support police abolition even though most people are too propagandized to understand what it means. And yes, I "believe in" lesser evilism in a similar way because lesser evilism has given me a home, food, and healthcare, basically. Anyone who takes me less seriously because of that position can 1. fuck off, because my life is literally on the line and 2. has been propagandized, I'm not going to bow to that. I'll explain it to them sure, but the fact that my idiot ex-roommate told me he "respects me less" because I voted for Hillary in 2016 instead of writing in Bernie (a literally useless action because he wasn't a qualified write in) isn't a reason to change my positions.
The one thing I'll criticize Bernie for here is not actually vocalizing that cynicism. But I sort of get that too, because people are like pathologically resistant to hearing cynical takes on American politics. They believe in **Democracy** religiously. I get why you wouldn't want to turn those people away. For whatever reason, "Vote for Biden because he's actually good" goes down easier than "vote for Biden because he's the only alternative" lol.
How else would you describe playing cover for the DNC leaks & working harder than any elected official in the country to get Clinton elected?
Not Clintonism. His political positions, like his actual policy positions, are decidedly not Clintonian. Anyone who thinks that is incredibly out of touch with reality. Supporting someone who you disagree with politically because they are better than someone you disagree with politically even moreso isn't actually bad lmao. And it doesn't mean you suddenly agree with their politics. Again, I'm not going to kowtow to dumb bullshit. I'm going to explain why its dumb bullshit.
If you support Bernie, you might twist yourself into believing he’s playing cynical politics. I don’t blame anyone who sees him as controlled opposition for the Democratic machine.
I'm not twisting myself lol. Its quiet obvious from Bernie's political positions that he doesn't passionately support neoliberalism. Like yeah, social democracy and neoliberalism are in fact distinct ideologies! Shocking, I know.
I don't necessarily blame those people, in that I won't attack them for it. But its a naïve, misguided position to hold and I will explain to them why its not true.
And yes, I “believe in” lesser evilism in a similar way because lesser evilism has given me a home, food, and healthcare
I'm glad to hear the Democrats are somehow providing you a house, food, and healthcare. That isn't the case for millions of people.
"Lesser evilism" gave my hometown NAFTA, which has turned it from a strong union town to a drug den with decent gentrified restaurants. It has over doubled my current city's prison population.
There were two factories right nearby that had plans to shut down after TPP. Trump is the lesser-evil to their workers.
This is why I reject lesssr-evilism. It allows the ruling class to pit the working class against each other.
Not Clintonism. His political positions, like his actual policy positions, are decidedly not Clintonian.
No one trusts politicians. His actions have been incredibly pro-Clinton.
Do you really think all that shit that you think came from "lesser evilism" wouldn't have happened just as bad or worse under Republicans though? If you do, and the workers in your city do, they are ignorant of reality. Lesser evilism doesn't have to pit workers against each other, because blaming the Democrats for things that the Republicans would have done the same or worse on is just ignorance, that can be educated away. The TPP is a really, really weird aberration, no other Republican president would have done what Trump did with that, but being single-issue about TPP is also ignorance. Also I'm like, 90% sure that any claims of Trump saving factory jobs have been proven to be absolute bullshit, so the workers who think he's the lesser evil for that are probably misinformed.
Bernie's actual like, votes and bills and shit as a Senator are not "pro-Clinton" though, you say "no one trusts politicians" like all he's done is talk. Like he doesnt have a many decade long political career of actual like actions. He unfortunately hasn't accomplished all that much because all his colleagues are neolibs, but he keeps on voting and putting bills out there anyway. And he keeps on speaking in favor of political positions well ahead of them becoming popular.
Do you really think all that shit that you think came from “lesser evilism” wouldn’t have happened just as bad or worse under Republicans though? If you do, and the workers in your city do, they are ignorant of reality.
Hillary endorsed TPP. I'm not reading the rest of this post if you are going to call workers ignorant for listening to exactly what Hillary said. Fuck off.
"Lesser evil" does not map one-to-one onto the Democratic Party. Often Democrats can do more fucked up shit under the guise of "liberal humanitarianism."
Your very, very specific example of Hillary/Trump and the TPP is true. I was referring to Democrats and Republicans in general, and their policies in general. You're the one who's fixated on one thing.
I was referring to Democrats and Republicans in general, and their policies in general. You’re the one who’s fixated on one thing.
NAFTA, 94 Crime Bill, Glass Steagal, Libyan invasion, Syrian invasion, Fracking, etc. You can be the one to convince victims of these policies that the Repiblicans would have been worse. That is impossible to prove.
OK I can be 100% confident than Republicans would have been worse on 94 Crime Bill and fracking, and anything else "law and order" and environment related. I don't care that it's technically impossible to prove, its very obviously true to anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to Republican rhetoric and votes.
NAFTA is the same as TPP. Trump was an aberration on being better about free trade shit, any other Republican president would have been as bad or worse. And the Republicans in congress are nearly all as bad or worse. If you think Trump is a lesser evil on the whole because of of free trade, you're incredibly single issue.
Forpo stuff is more like, they're both evil as hell and they'll do different individual actions than the other might not have done but you basically dont know what you're going to get with forpo so its barely even worth considering who's the lesser evil on that front. Like yeah technically you can't know if McCain would have invaded Libya but you also didn't know that Obama was going to do that in '08 so its just like, there's no point in trying to figure out who's going to be worse on that front. Technically I think its possible to claim that four years of Hillary would have been worse forpo wise than 4 years of Trump was, even though by your own logic its impossible to prove that, but that's like... entirely because of Trump being an incompetent which isn't actually a point in his favor. His incompetence, and his pettiness, and his entire personality could have easily lead to the opposite result. We just sorta lucked out that it didn't.
I don't really have much to say, both because the other guy responding to me has kinda worn me out (and I'm kinda worn out of having this debate in general), and because you started out by empathizing with me feeling this way rather than just going on the assault. I can return that by empathizing with your position as well, even though I strongly agree with some of it. In particular, the sticking point for me is always going to be that as someone on social security, food stamps, subsidized housing, medicare, semi-public disability services (which are going to lead to me getting the Covid vaccine in the first round), and will soon use public employment counseling to get employed again, I'm always going to see the party that doesn't openly want to dismantle these things and leave me to die as the lesser evil. Yes, even though these programs were gutted under Clinton as well, and even though Biden has always had a hardon for gutting social security, I still see Democrat control in general as less of a threat to my ability to be alive. Maybe that's self centered, but it is the foundational reason why I see things the way I do.
Sidebar about Chomsky though, while I haven't read the book the concept of manufactured consent is pretty rhetorically important. So I wouldn't discount him completely. Obviously, I disagree fairly strongly with hating him for supporting lesser evilism, but even if I accept that I think he's made some pretty noteable contributions that can't be handwaved.
OK, I keep finding sticking points that I actually want to comment on, one other one. The thing about "caring about queer issues even on an aesthetic level" means you don't vote for "the Kasich party" (not that I think Kasich backing Biden makes Biden "the Kasich candidate" anymore than Bernie backing him means he's a Bernie candidate). I've talked to quiet a few trans people, some liberals yes but some very much leftists, who would strongly disagree with you there and very firmly see Biden as a lesser evil on queer issues. I myself am bi and questioning my gender identity. I see from your pronouns that you're enby, so I know you aren't just talking shit and assuming things from a place of privilege, and you are far from the only LGBTQ+ person to feel the way you do, but still, not everyone who cares about queer issues agrees with your take. Honestly, even if Biden doesn't reverse Trump's rollbacks of Obama era queer protections (which would be weird, because they were Obama era queer protections), the simple fact that he wouldn't be actively seeking to destroy even more would make him better than Trump on that issue, in my view. The fact that Obama established those things in the first place is is also a point in the "Democrats are lesser evils" as well.
Black Panther fucking sucks. I know it's "trendy" to say that these days, but outside the cool notions of Wakanda, the script, acting, and CGI fuckin blows. It was so damn boring. I feel like time is going to be very unkind to this mediocrity, and the fact that it got nominated for Best Picture is going to go down as one of the most cynical and cloying gestures of the last decade.
I thought Micheal B Jordan was great in it, but other than that yeah not a lot of redeeming qualities and the turn in the third act of him from being a villian with motives to cartoonishly evil was stupid.
Just like Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, and The Hurt Locker it got nominated because it's low-key CIA propaganda
That's a feeling I similarly can't shake. It's after seeing the BLM protests appear to coincide with election cycles that there's an invisible hand controlling that market, too.
not sure exactly what you're implying but I can tell it's incredibly stupid
It's probably part being afraid of failure, and part being afraid of compromising oneself.
outside of beating the nazis, stalin sucked. defending him will just scare people off -- and for good reason.
edit: I don't mean that beating the nazis was the only good thing stalin did. my point still stands: criminalizing homosexuality, mass deportations involving mostly women and children and rape apologia just aren't a good look.
The idealized "Stalin committed no crimes" mentality is overreaching and a turn off, but beating the Nazis isn't the only good thing Stalin did, and pushing back on the narrative of "Stalin is just as bad as Hitler" is important.
I think the best approach is to couple Parenti's "compare the revolutionary generation with the generation that came before it" with "compare the USSR with like countries that existed at the same time."
It's probably not good to open up your organizing with a discussion of Stalin, but I'm also not mad that Stalin crushed the landowning class of Ukraine. Destroying power structures that preserve themselves through anti-semitic violence is good.
Still, your definitely right about scaring people off. Here in America you shouldn't bring up that the main criticism of Stalin is literally fascist gaslighting until you have a very deep and strong relationship with someone.
not qualified to produce a comprehensive list, but off the top of my head: criminalizing homosexuality was kinda cringe
Anarchism for the imperial core, ML for Europe, and Maoism for everyone else. I will not take questions or criticisms.
I'm noticing a lot more people here are carrying water for libs
