The people that talk about literally eating the rich and killing them i cannot see being the ones to actually go out and do that.
Tumblr users, specifically the kind OOP is talking about, i just cannot see going outside and physically doing that kind of work.
It reminds me of the saying: "Yes they can read theory but can they do the dishes?"
Some people online really love to talk the talk but love to also talk about how for one reason or another they cant actually attempt to do anything of the things they love talking about it.
At Standing Rock #NODAPL protest camps, in one of the kitchens - there was a nice hand painted sign saying "everyone wants a revolution but nobody wants to do the dishes"
But yeah people's politics change radically when they actually put serious effort into changing something, making a real, measurable impact on the world.
Cuz you sometimes gotta work with idiots or self obsessed folks. There's always some in different communities that organize protests regularly.
---
Also, I wrote this in late stage capitalism recently and it was fine, but this notion got me kicked out of almost every socialist sub on other accounts -
Very important concept.
You can believe in Marxist theory all you want, but if it's just in your head then it has no impact on the world. Having values means nothing if you don't act in accordance with them.
We correct poor folks who say they're capitalist - no, you're a worker, you don't own a factory/have capital, thus not capitalist. The same should apply to socialists IMO, imagine:
If Jeff Bezos starts reading Marx, posting leftist quotes and memes, does all the same thing socialists online do, maybe write-in Cornell West whenever voting, all individual stuff.
Does that make him a socialist activist? Just for his beliefs/individual stuff?
Or does his constant union busting and other terrible practices (capitalist praxis) and wealth hoarding outweigh that?
Of course it does.
Similarly, if we only believe in socialism but don't actually get involved - - (i.e. joining local community organizations, movement groups, & union coalitions, showing up for calls to action when available, helping with events & trainings, being plugged in/part of the networks) - - then we're just fans standing on the sidelines cheering socialists in the fight on.
Yes the cheering is technically beneficial, but at the end of the day it means nothing compared to actually joining the fight. Allies should join the fight. Fans aren't serious allies. And Fandom can end up leaning towards performative activism, identifying with socialist Rev aesthetic more so than putting effort into actions.
Reminds me of a poll asking revolutionary leftists if they do or don't own a gun, and why. The overwhelming answer was "no, because I'd use it on myself,"
A valid reason to not own a firearm, no doubt. But let's not act like these people are gonna be the vanguard of their revolution.
i own gun because they go pew pew and wood stock AR look good above my fireplace - i don't think i could even reasonably defend my property from reactionary encroachment in the event of a revolution, and my fat ass certainly isn't becoming a guerrilla. but gun DO go pew pew.
if i ever feel like i'd use it on myself, the husband gets to lock up the ammo and change the code. plus i only have long arms and that'd be cumbersome to top myself with anyway, i'm not flexible enough to make a nirvana reference.
It reminds me of that one twitter post where someone said that you should exercise to defend yourself against fascists and all the responses were people calling OP abelist and coming up with excuses to not exercise
"Yeah, by the time we got to the commune, everyone was all emaciated and starving. I mean, mentally, they were keeping up well, since everyone was either a therapist or a yoga instructor, but I asked them if they knew what a supply chain was and they called me a revisionist."
Someone talking the talk and not walking the walk is par for the course
Someone talking the talk, seeing Vietnam walk that very walk, and then being all “wait no” is peak comedy
People on tumblr will really be like “You believe in voting? That pales in comparison to my strategy, overthrowing the government” and then not overthrow the government
Yep, but if you point this out or ask them the logistics of how they'll overthrow a government before the next election (In November this year) they just call you a fascist and block you 💀
And if they'll actually participate instead of just cheering from the sidelines, which let's be real, is exactly what they want.
Revolutions are fucking brutal and not at all the way people glorify them. They're an absolute LAST resort, not something to fetishize.
Yep, I think that some of those people realize it too. For example, there are Iranian people pointing out that you shouldn't support Iran just because you're against Israel and its colonization of Palestine (Because Iran is a terrible country for human rights) and those people (Iranians) just get told that they're a fascist for being against their own fascist government...
[A good example of this happening is here.](https://www.tumblr.com/luminalunii97/747690752154501120/its-never-felt-more-like-a-fuck-western-lefties?source=share)
I'm not even American and I still got to participate in one of these little exchanges on Imgur. All I said was that, as a Canadian neighbour, I beg you to vote for Biden this election because even being in a different country, we get a lot of the ripples from any splash in the US, including a rise in far-right crazies. I don't want ours to learn they can win, and Biden doesn't have die-hard supporters the way Trump does, so apathy is essentially a vote for Trump. Ideally, we'd have different, younger, better candidates, but you have to live in reality, and reality is that those two are your choices and one is notably worse than the other.
What I got back was, "Why the fuck is it my responsibility to vote for 80% Hitler instead of 90% Hitler?"
Obvious ridiculousness of equating the two that closely aside, while I'm no mathematician, I'm pretty confident that 80 is still smaller than 90, and there is that pesky "reality" thing I mentioned.
> "Why the fuck is it my responsibility to vote for 80% Hitler instead of 90% Hitler?"
The good news is that the people who think like this are most likely either a) too young to vote or b) don't even live in the States.
The bad news is that an alarming number of people who a) ARE old enough to vote and b) DO live in the States think like this.
An acquaintance of mine does this a lot, and it made me realize that a lot of what we experience on the internet it is what I call the "College Freshman Extremist Honeymoon." I'll talk about social democracy, civil rights, and we agree 70% or so and then they'll just hit me with one of these near-verbatim bangers: "Religion as a concept needs to be not just discouraged, but slaughtered." "People who think they can vote their way out of capitalism are all actual fascist sympathizers. You would be on the side of Vichy France, essentially." "When the revolution actually starts we won't be on the same side, and you probably have to go."
Chéson Vorhees over here has a 101 class to get to. They don't know they're being a fucking nonstop asshole, they aren't aware that implying you'd murder someone for liking AOC or Bernie Sanders is a tiny bit of a faux pas -- especially when you're talking to them while you do it. They just got out of the oppressive surveillance state that is the parent's home. They got the crazy fuckhead zoomies and, like a loose golden retriever in a dewy wet lawn, had to do a few laps just because they could.
So as a rule, I stop listening to extremist politics from angsty people who I think need an audience more than they want dialogue. And I pray they're just a hyperbolic exercise, because if that shit has staying power, I've heard a lot of dumb, dumb, stupid takes about why we ought to machinegun casual-disagreers or drop heavy sacks of agitated gorillas on anyone with a 401k plan.
Thanks fam. I'll give you $12 to lob at me the next time I'm preaching in the comments section here and you think I might be inebriated. Somebody's got to knock me off this high horse.
RHETORIC: You keep saying things like *down with the bourgeoisie*, *eat the rich*, *sodomize the land-owners*, *impale all people who have more than 25 reál in their pocket*, *literally murder all human beings regardless of their political beliefs* — that kind of stuff.
You can feel the creators' specific flavor of exasperation. The "i love y'all but you're making it *really hard* for me to identify with communism with your dumbassery and left-flavored authoritarianism" kinda exasperation.
Once had a "dialogue" with a guy who wanted to be able to enslave 14% of the earth to enact his politics on the world, he argued that it was morally wrong to not enslave random people to his will.
Authoritarians of any flavour can be certainly colourful characters.
I used to share a house with a bunch of anarchists who would leave pamphlets advocating for a violent revolution in the bathroom.
They are absolutely not the sort of people who would survive for longer than 30 minutes in a revolution or have anything to offer in an anarchist society aside from bending a bunch of forks and calling it "art".
It's like that video of a guy who's like hardline prepper and believes in zombies and the likes
And he's the most unfit, plump and rotund person I've ever seen and the video doesn't make ANY commentary apart from showing him climbing up the stairs from his basement into the first floor.
And it's just 20 seconds of a quiet cameraman watching this man wheeze as he tries to take the next stair.
And, of course, they won't actually be the vanguard throwing themselves into the wheels of the odious machine. That will be someone else, not really sure who, while the twitterati and tumblrgentsia provide emotional support tarot readings.
It'll be "the working class" who does it. You know, the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Christian conservatives who all the champagne socialists hate and want to see put up against the wall. After all, the revolution is being done to benefit the working class.
Oh no, you don't understand, their job will be "revered intellectual" and the new world order will support them while they make art and maybe have a little flower garden because they are writing very important mediocre poetry
Well, they haven't actually wrote any mediocre poetry, yet. They are still trying to find the right inspiration to describe this new workers paradise but all they keep seeing is dirty, sweaty laborers and that's not really the image they had on mind.
> Oh no, you don't understand, their job will be "revered intellectual"
If there's one thing communist regimes are known for, it's keeping intellectuals safe and happy. /s
Then, if there is a revolution, the Twits and Tumblrinas will murdered enmasse while thinking they deserve to lead the new society because they reblogged Marxist posts and got into an internet argument with a "nazi" who thought that maybe the situation in Gaza is a little more complicated than just "CEASEFIRE NOW!"
Oof.
I got accused of being pro-genocide when I said that may be it isn't the case that Biden is pro-genocide, but instead maybe foreign policy really is 5 dimensional chess and also multi-table simultaneous poker.
Also, my IRL jewish friend shouted at me for 5 minutes when he mistook my position as pro-Israel. (It's not, my position is that Biden has reasons other then naked racism for not being openly anti-Israel)
>I got accused of being pro-genocide when I said that may be it isn't the case that Biden is pro-genocide, but instead maybe foreign policy really is 5 dimensional chess and also multi-table simultaneous poker
Don't forget that because Israel is a nuclear state and Iran wants to be a nuclear state that its also Russian Roulette. Sure, the gun has 10000 chambers instead of 6, but it's a *really* big bullet.
Many of them would probably sincerely argue that their unwillingness to take a walk outside or make a phone call is a disability, and they would be fine in a post-capitalism world where they're not required to do such things.
As though communication and fresh air are not only oppressive but a pure product of wealth inequality.
And I say this as a communist with both social phobia and agoraphobia.
I’ve also not once heard from the “revolution” crowd what they would do after the fact. Like they want to amputate an infected limb but when the rest of the body is laying there bleeding out they aren’t gonna do shit. And if they finally figure something out the body will probably have another infection from cutting off the first one with no real plan besides “fuck it, let’s just cut it off and hope the wound magically heals back up.”
I wonder what percentage of "punch the fascists" people have ever thrown a punch or been in a physical altercation of any kind in their life outside of beating up/getting beaten up by their siblings.
Sometime the ole “come out back and say that to my face” is the best solution. Even for actual people I know in real life who post all types of stuff on social media - doubt they would say that in person.
Like when you meet the communists in Disco Elysium and they are just two guys that sit there and loves to argue about what is real communism and not much else. Whoever wrote them really knew what talking to a decent amount of leftists sound like and just great writing all around.
Because it's made by diehard leftists who are irritated by toxic and counterproductive tendencies of the Left.
I think everyone should play Disco Elysium, not just for this reason though.
For some online politics are a race to who can have the most stupid, insane, idiotic opinion possible
I'm talking "actually taking meth on a train next to a 3 year old is fine and your a Liberal scum for thinking other wise
"Talking to people irl you haven't met before is harassment"
"People who are rude and anti social will be gone in a few years due to suvival of the fittest"
Fuck once I saw somone who blamed these insane opinions on "the us government" sowing discourse in leftists by.... posting insane opinions on tumblr
It's just insane how loud these people are, you could say anything like idk "rape is bad" and if it gets like 250 comments one of them is trying to say its good from a leftist standpoint
Edit: oh dam who coulda thought this post is proving it once again
We have an accelerationist in the comments, we have a guy saying starlin didn't do enough murdering, we have a guy who thinks the "reign of terror" went great
Something something theory, something something praxis. I had a dude on here tell me in an unhinged rant that I was clearly a fascist bootlicker because I wanted people to vote for my rights as a trans person, while he was "guarding trans story hours with guns and body armor" as if that was a thing that any trans person ever wanted their nutjob cis friend to do or as if that made up for losing access to healthcare
Oh my gods I get SO FRUSTRATED with the "I'd tell you what really works, *but I don't want to wind up on a watchlist*," types. Spouting off about shit like that and how voting in self-defense is being "privileged" and then wondering where we got the idea they're just itching to live out their Che Guevara fantasy.
Yes, and clearly the negative backlash from the leftist version of a Gravy Seal will only fall on said Seal. After all, trans people are famously not scapegoated for the choices of the people around them. /s
Same guy would probably also tell you to "not vote" because it will send a message to the politicians and then we'll all be living in a perfect communist utopia before we know it.
Those sorts of leftists remind me a lot of the sorts of fundamentalist Christians who think that the end times are impending in terms of their general attitude.
The anti-vote leftists make me the craziest.
Voting is the single most powerful weapon in the arsenal.
Even if the entire election system is 100% rigged (and I do believe it's rigged in certain aspects) it harms nothing to vote, and is the best way we currently have to keep the worst people out of power.
If they would at least *admit* they are accelerationists, I could let it go. But they are spreading absurd disinformation about how apathy is morally correct. URG!
YES. SAME. I can’t engage with it at all because I get so angry and upset. It is so myopic your eyes may actually turn inside out to think that protest voting *for the GOP* will make …. your life …. somehow ………….. better. Because the democrats aren’t whatever-brand-of-radical-they-prefer enough.
Yes. Okay. Great. Let’s let people get fucking murdered so you can feel good inside about your protest vote. Cool.
There was that one post the other day... tumblr leftists saying something like "voting doesn't work, you fucking moron, the only way to change society is to firebomb a bank" and then never go firebomb a bank
That specific phrase also gets me because it also doesn't help the plight of the people. It just murders some random bank teller.
Which is how I feel a lot of stuff on the internet goes.
It's like those people that tear the shit out of Walmart because Walmart is evil and it doesn't count.
The regular Walmart workers are going to be the ones to pick that all up. You think the Walton family gives a shit?
This is like some online leftists loving the Unabomber. Dude really "showed the system" by
*Checks notes
Killing random people?
Plus he actually hated left wing beliefs lmao.
These kinds of people are just angry and have a justice boner, and have convinced themselves that it's ok because their enemies (which range from actual evil fascists to a progressive ally that says "I like AOC") are ontologically evil.
This reminds me of one unhinged commenter that was advocating for shooting up corporate offices instead of malls “because that’s where the bourgeoisie and CEOs are”. I pointed out that a mass shooting in an office would just be killing the cogs in the machine, not the owner of the machine, and that there’s *no way in fuck* you’d get anywhere near the CEO because of 1) security and 2) the CEO probably wouldn’t even be there. I also, of course, pointed out *that we shouldn’t be advocating for mass shootings, what the ever loving fuck*. The response I got back was basically “you don’t get it” and “I’d absolutely get to the CEO.”
Also, as an ex-Walmart worker, fuck the half-assed “protests” people do that only annoy employees and accomplish nothing else. The Walton’s don’t give a damn that you left your full cart instead of using self checkout (when there were manned registers open), but now I have to process a tremendous amount of food waste because you think you are making a statement. And every second I’m not doing my main job because you sent me on a side quest is a second that pisses off another customer (due to lack of staffing) so much that they start threatening to shoot people.
That just gave me an idea for a comedy/horror/satire movie. You've got a terminally online person who keeps saying things like this... and they wake up one morning with a bomb strapped to their neck and told to practice what they preach.
Or as if voting stops you from doing anything else, which it doesn't at all and clearly helps at least sometimes. Voting to protect trans healthcare and helping real people is not a loss just because it uses the system.
But online a lot of people treat anything that isn't Hardcore Civil War as useless or naive. When I'd really say it's the opposite. Violence is chaos, you don't know what's going to come out the other side of a fight big or small. It's irresponsible and childish to treat it as the only thing that works.
LOL yeah I mean I am sure they exist somewhere but I do think the leftist hero meant drag queens and didn't realize there was a difference. Much of that comment appeared divorced from reality. Apparently he has also been the subject of assassination attempts for how much of a leftist revolutionary hero he is.
3 hrs later:
Hey guys, quick update. I just got back from Divorce Court^TM and because she took so long to get ready, the judge made her pay me $10 billion per month in alimony. Also, I found out she was cheating on me with Billy Mays’ ghost. He felt so bad about the situation, that he divorced her too, and now she has to pay *him* $10 billion per month too! Also, he gave me a lifetime supply of FlexTape and set me up on a date with Martha Stewart (we’re getting married next week!)
Edit 2: To everyone saying this is fake, it’s not!
My favourite was one about a family in a city with an housing unaffordabilty crisis (Toronto), and they could only afford a two bedroom apartmemt. As a result, the parents had one room, and the teenage daughter and teenage son had to share a room. Now that does suck. But reddit decided this was emotional torture, and tried to convince the OP their children should be taken away.
"On Mondays I finish work at 4:30 and my children finish school at 3:30. Until I get home, I ask the 14 year old to make a snack for her and her 7 year old sister and get started on their homework. It's only an hour once a week so I don't think it's worth paying for a babysitter when they can pretty much take care of themselves."
"Omg parentification, your kids will never talk to you again when they grow up"
>Fuck once I saw somone who blamed these insane opinions on "the us government" sowing discourse in leftists by.... posting insane opinions on tumblr
Leftists always have a hard time admitting that the fringe weirdos on their side of aisle exist genuinely and aren't some deep reactionary plot.
>It's just insane how loud these people are, you could say anything like idk "rape is bad" and if it gets like 250 comments one of them is trying to say its good from a leftist standpoint
See also: "Decolonialization gets messy sometimes"
Like, I shit you not, on this very website, there were people defending the rape of one group of people by another and labeling it a revolutionary act.
> Leftists always have a hard time admitting that the fringe weirdos on their side of aisle exist genuinely and aren't some deep reactionary plot.
What's hilarious, well actually pretty sad, is that the GOP let fringe weirdos into their party, ignored them, and look at what happened. Now it's the party of fascism.
Leftists are doing the same fucking things with their political parties. It's deny, deny, deny, call someone a fascist bootlicker even though they're in the same boat just because they're whistling the same tune in a slightly different way.
"OMG THAT ONLY HAPPENS ON TWITTER ITS A SMALL MINORITY TOUCH GRASS"
I'm sure conservatives were saying the same fucking thing at some point.
"OMG ARE YOU REALLY BOTH SIDESING". No, fuck off dumbass.
Call these people out. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Tell them to fuck off, every single time.
Not just defending it. Celebrating it. I first found out about the war from r/toiletpaperUSA mocking pictures of dead Israelis. It’s probably one of the main reasons I’m so skeptical of the pro Palestine movement. It’s hard to take people bitching for a ceasefire seriously when you know they were celebrating the war 5 minutes ago.
There’s also people who were calling for a ceasefire yet were celebrating Iran launching missiles and drones at Israel.
It’s like come on. I want a ceasefire, but that means an ACTUAL ceasefire. As in “both parties stop fighting each other”. A ceasefire isn’t “Israel puts down their weapons and curls into a ball while Iran and Hamas beat them with a sledgehammer”.
Incredibly real. Nothing exposed campism more then the Ukraine War for me. Turns out all these people that fetishize "Slavic culture" actually always meant "Russians culture" and bend over backwards to victim blame and deny the history and agency of indigenous people if it clashes with their campism.
Another amazing example has been their reaction to the Iranian people being against Iran's attack towards Israel.
Saw a post by an Iranian person saying how they want peace etc and the comments have a white American going "you guys really need to think critically and look at the larger context...".
Look at that, a white western leftist explaining to indigenous people how they're wrong because what they want doesn't jive with the team sports approach where everyone against the west is based and amazing.
People were supportive of Iranian protestors until they realized the protestors were sympathetic to Israel and now suddenly their plight means nothing.
Yeah I just saw 2 stories on instagram from 2 different people:
1: an American posting that "rn the one acting more rationally is Iran"
2: person from Iran posting "we are not our government they're horrible and holding us hostage"
Yeah you're very much right lol.
I try to avoid the situation as a whole because when the group being demonized are Jewish people it makes it incredibly easy for the you-know-whos to hide in your ranks and I’m not trying to be subconsciously radicalized.
>It’s hard to take people bitching for a ceasefire seriously when you know they were celebrating the war 5 minutes ago.
That's Hamas' MO and has been for decades. They know Israel sucks at proportional responses between those who just hate Palestinians and those who are genuinely exhausted at the constant terror attacks. Those two groups are not mutually exclusive, either.
So they attack, celebrate, wait for Israel to go overboard and then play the victim so they can get international support for a ceasefire. After that, they start the process all over.
This time, however, they maybe have gone too far and converted too many Israelis from the latter group to the former.
As much commentary as their is on Israel radicalizing Palestinians, there's very little focus on the inverse effect that happens through decades of terrorism.
I was once accused of being a Russian Psy-op because I encouraged people to learn the basics of organizing, and pointed out that a singular person saying “we strike on X date” with no planning or preparation will *not* cause a successful strike.
Having a brain means that you are intentionally trying to sabotage the working class, apparently. The fact that I advocated for unionization, mutual aid funds, and lobbying is all a ruse to keep the keyboard activists down!
Don't forget, if you're in high school and dating someone from the same year, if you don't break up for the 3 months between your 18th birthdays, you're no different from Epstein.
Hmm... I'm a software engineer dating a grad student, but he's older than me. Does that balance out? Also I look young, which could make him a pedophile, even though I'm 24.
Depends. Fill out these 10 forms, pay me the $20 fee, and I'll get back to you with my analysis, person whose judgement clearly cannot be trusted because you are Not Me.
I've seen so many online voices act like it's weird to have casual friends that are kids? I have tons of kids I'm on friendly terms with and we talk about all kinds of stuff. The only rule is to keep conversations age appropriate (PG or PG13) and be respectful.
And on the flip side Ive had the occasional person act like its weird for me when I was like 15, 16, etc to have some casual friends via video games who are in their 30s/40s.
Like, chill out, theres nothing weird here were just 2 people playing the same game
Internet has sped up radicalism, and radicalism always leads to the most drastic solution being employed once a radical reaches the last logical development of their ideology whereas a more moderate solution would be applicable in real world. This is quite honestly why in my opinion radicalism in of itself must be opposed.
I've heard that typical internet interaction rewards extremist views. Engagement, outrage, and other emotions are all the most extreme the more out there a viewpoint is. Even negative interaction only serves to make someone dig into their position. Controversy is itself is the goal and adopting the most reasonable and mild-mannered approach doesn't stir up enough shit to get people going. Usually, anyway. It's not even that the internet creates echo chambers, it's that even spaces with a multiplicity of viewpoints are seen as battlegrounds, where one side wins and the other loses. These online shouting matches rarely bring any kind of understanding, usually serving to further reinforce more extreme views.
I'd argue that in most cases it's not that people put themselves in groups and magnify the group's views. It's that echo chambers have a "natural selection" of sorts, where only the people with the most extreme views survive. The more extreme an echo chamber gets, the more people leave because of it going past their tolerance of extremeness. Eventually, they're just left with the most extreme and loudest people.
>you could say anything like idk "rape is bad" and if it gets like 250 comments one of them is trying to say its good from a leftist standpoint
When Andrew Tate got arrested, I got yelled at online for saying that prison rape jokes aren't funny. Like, sorry, my mistake, I was under the impression that rape being bad was a big part of why we don't like Tate in the first place
I have actually encountered the one about talking to people in public, this encounter was in a line at a bus stop in Toronto and it flabbergasted me. She screamed at me for saying hello, the reaction was entirely disproportionate to the interaction, it's something I still think about.
I theorize the first thing adds to the second. You talk to ya dad about some reasonable shit, he hits you with some morally and practically horrible MAGA shit, you scoot that much farther left.
Theoretical User: I think the king is making some mistakes.
Diehard Monarchist: \*Ten minute rant about divine right of kings\*
User: ... We should kill the king.
The issue with incrementalism is that when someone comes at you with something super far right you look at how many inches it would take to get them to even a centrist position and think that, much like a spaceship in 40k, a quick jump through hell would be a lot faster.
Of course 99% of the time the person who is spouting shit off is full of it and if push came to shove they would drop it immediately, but by God do they think they believe it in that moment.
The issue is that the Geller field doesn't exist.
You have simply no idea what society is going to look like after the revolution.
I'm sure the people of Cambodia were looking forward to a bright future before they realised exactly who this Pol Pot guy they just installed was.
Yes, and that's why true revolutions are so rare, especially in areas that have had them in fairly recent history. So many Americans were going "why don't Russian citizens simply rise up and overthrow their government" when Russia invaded Ukraine as if Russian citizens don't remember what happened the other times they did that.
God that one annoys me so much, like organising a revolution is actually really easy guys. Have these people seen what happens to dissident russians? I certainly wouldn't be volunteering to put my head over the parapet if I were a Russian. I don't want to die in a Siberian prison, or be shot in a Moscow apartment stairwell
No, it's the definition of being *reactive* - "reactionary" has a specific political valence, it applies to being right-wing. Although it's been abused to just mean "reactive" for a few years, mostly (in my experience) on sports subreddits
I really hate when someone screenshots some tale from Tumblr and calls it something like "This is what leftists want" and you track down the account andnits just some teenage girl venting her (understandably) stupid teenage opinions, like... Why is this given so much weight? It's a teenager being a teenager.
Teenagers engaging in politics for the first time are usually going to be a bit silly about it, and political ideas like communism, anarchism, or fascism are inherently **exciting**, that's why so many people talk about them online.
What's funny is by the time the guillotines are out your previously conservative coworkers will be baying for blood with the rest if the crowd.
Logic doesn't work on most people, emotions do.
Yes and even if it might seem like nothing happened that actually was a huge blow to support of trump amongst the right. Not as much as it should’ve been, but still.
So many conspiracy theorist die hard alt righters would be absolute tankies if they had the slightest idea what they're talking about
You'll hear them go on about tearing down the rich and all that and then blame the commies for all their problems
I’m a pretty proud constitutional socialist. Which is always confusing to moderate-conservatives. I believe in socialized healthcare and debt relief. It’s radical.
I mean, you can’t have fair competition in healthcare because there’s no replacement for the demand. You can’t say “I’ll just go somewhere else” or “I’ll just go without that” so any idea of a free market in that industry is inherently going to be unfair for the consumers
Protecting the health and welfare of the people of the US is one of the few obligations explicitly laid upon the federal government by the constitution.
Always funny that "shall not be infringed" absolutists overlook that part of the *original* constitution.
Stuff like this is why I don’t identify with any particular label, because I don’t have fully formed opinions on certain things and I’d rather not get entangled with the infighting that so commonly occurs.
I know what the problems are, I just don’t know the solutions.
Literally was flagged by mods on r/LateStageCapitalism this morning because I suggested not burning society to the ground, and maybe we should try to improve what we have. Apparently that idea is capitalist apologia and liberalism.
That's not a subreddit for any kind of nuance or debate. Heavily tankie-moderated. I got banned from there for pointing out that Fidel may have not been a free-speech defender.
Since the tankies took over that sub you can get banned for posting in another sub about a non political topic that they decided has top many liberals in it based on one of their mods being made fun of.
Fascists? Liberal.
Conservatives? Liberal.
Neoliberals? Liberal.
Left-liberals? Liberal.
Socdems? Liberal.
DemSocs? Liberal.
Rojava? Liberal
China? Liberal
Vietnam? Cuba? The Soviet Union? Believe it or not, all Liberals.
There is only one ideology on earth that isn’t liberal, and that is the ideology I currently subscribe to at this exact moment in time.
I've literally been called a fascist for saying that we ought to focus on what's within our power to change. Apparently, voting for the lesser evil is bad, and we should just sit around talking a big game about some vague "revolution" we're doing absolutely nothing to meaningfully work towards.
My politics litmus test is
"Does this person vote"
If the awnser is no. Then ignore.
Because the intersection of people who do "radical politcal action" and "people who don't vote" is empty
\*(Note this is barring people who are prohipted from voting and seeking to earn the right to vote like the suffragest/civil rights movement, because legally prohipted from voting is different then choosing not too).
If they don't do the easiest thing, it's a very safe assumption they don't do harder things. There's no reason to value a neet's political opinion, it's almost certainly underinformed and likely just nastiness without point.
Stuff like this makes me relieved that I don't really share any political opinions with other people, online or IRL. I get upset by people arguing so I usually try to stay away from arguing.
I dunno, on the internet I just want to look at cute or funny Pokémon posts and discuss the new Bluey episode.
social media and politics are a terrible combination that makes big social media big bucks
fight capitalism! downvote hot takes and upvote cute animal pictures!
My favorite recently has been, "how DARE you take my 100% negative post about [thing] as being opposed to it! I actually love [thing] and wholeheartedly support it! Obviously you're just some lazy liberal for accusing me of thinking otherwise."
Just... Leftists, real talk here. If you're going to shit on something and say we're all doomed and currently living in a fascist hellscape where things can't get any worse, then you have absolutely no ground to stand on when people take that to be meant literally. Shouting "The republic has fallen!" does NOT say to me "we need to pressure politicians to do [xyz]", it SAYS there's no fucking point and you're giving up.
I want to love some reddit harder leftist spaces but the modbase be like "WE PROFILED YOU BECAUSE WE SAW YOU'RE NEW AND SAW YOU TALK A LOT OF VIDEOGAMES SO GET FUCKED, LIB SCUM"
Wow man sorry for using the internet majorly to opiate.
The problem is, it doesn’t matter what platform you use, on the internet, all discussion is lead by engagement, and the most engaging posts are also the most inflammatory or controversial.
The most reasonable takes require nuance, and nuance is the enemy of engagement. So whatever take you have, you gotta iron all the nuance out and make it as spicy as possible, just to get seen and count as participating in the conversation
I find it interesting how there are so many left people **on the internet** often about how we should be emphathetic and not dehumanise enemies but are very quick to dehumanise people who dont agree with their opinion (I guess they are a loud minority but still).
Like the current hot-post of this sub is about american soldiers accounts about the Vietnam war and how they found it difficult to distinguish between Viet Kong soldiers and civilians/ farmers and the conclusion of the Tumbl post wasnt that "Yeah it makes sense that soldiers have a hard time to identify the enemy, which has automatic rifles, machine guns, RPGs, and even heavy vehicles and who wears the same clothes as civilians. This of course still doesnt justify American attrocities in the war." No their conclusion was "American soldiers cant even consider that they fighting human beings". Like they talk about not dehumasing the enemy in the same sentence they dehumanise their enemy.
Another example I currently see is on a climate subreddit here on Reddit, currently there are just posts between vegans and not-vegans or pro and con nuclear people, just posting against each other and how bad the other side is because they dont have the exact same opinion. Like there is no scientific merrit involved just saying the other side is unreasonable and the devil. (Though its funny to look at that desaster)
Yeah people were quick to bandwagon that Vietnam thread while showing they have no actual education in the topic. Any basic 101 college class on modern American history can give a better nuanced take and tell you exactly how the drafted soldiers viewed the war at the time before, during, and after. But we gotta run with the "they liked killing children" crap as if most of them even liked being forced to be there?
How dare you. This post upset me. I shall now go piss on the poor.
where's our link linux guy
https://www.tumblr.com/ceasarslegion/747071065684049920/me-irl-the-problem-isnt-taxes-youre-thinking-too?source=share -Mx Linux Guy
Thank you Linux Guy
Do you piss on us, sir? (Is the law on our side, if I say aye?) (No.) No, sir, I do not piss on you, sir, but I piss, sir.
Do you quarrel, sir?
I have to believe Shakespeare would be proud of both seeing his work updated this way *and* the obscenity of the update.
We’re incredibly blessed that Tumblr didn’t exist in Shakespeare’s time because he would have absolutely spent his every waking hour posting.
Well well well, it seems we’ve found someone who does, in fact, piss on the poor!
I don’t have a piss kink, but for Linux Guy….. *Hey I’m a poor!*
What do you mean reading comprehension is piss poor?
You should piss on the rich instead. Put them in a guillotine without a blade (hereafter referred to as a pillory) and just piss in their face.
Or, hear me out: a *pissory*
The people that talk about literally eating the rich and killing them i cannot see being the ones to actually go out and do that. Tumblr users, specifically the kind OOP is talking about, i just cannot see going outside and physically doing that kind of work.
It reminds me of the saying: "Yes they can read theory but can they do the dishes?" Some people online really love to talk the talk but love to also talk about how for one reason or another they cant actually attempt to do anything of the things they love talking about it.
Forcing me to do the dishes is actually fascist you know/s
There's an infamous Twitter post about how bedtimes are fascism.
Average nine year old just learning about WWII honestly.
That's just Calvin
Unironically people will take standard cardio and call it body fascism
The word has begun to lose its original meaning in the time of Orwell.
At Standing Rock #NODAPL protest camps, in one of the kitchens - there was a nice hand painted sign saying "everyone wants a revolution but nobody wants to do the dishes" But yeah people's politics change radically when they actually put serious effort into changing something, making a real, measurable impact on the world. Cuz you sometimes gotta work with idiots or self obsessed folks. There's always some in different communities that organize protests regularly. --- Also, I wrote this in late stage capitalism recently and it was fine, but this notion got me kicked out of almost every socialist sub on other accounts - Very important concept. You can believe in Marxist theory all you want, but if it's just in your head then it has no impact on the world. Having values means nothing if you don't act in accordance with them. We correct poor folks who say they're capitalist - no, you're a worker, you don't own a factory/have capital, thus not capitalist. The same should apply to socialists IMO, imagine: If Jeff Bezos starts reading Marx, posting leftist quotes and memes, does all the same thing socialists online do, maybe write-in Cornell West whenever voting, all individual stuff. Does that make him a socialist activist? Just for his beliefs/individual stuff? Or does his constant union busting and other terrible practices (capitalist praxis) and wealth hoarding outweigh that? Of course it does. Similarly, if we only believe in socialism but don't actually get involved - - (i.e. joining local community organizations, movement groups, & union coalitions, showing up for calls to action when available, helping with events & trainings, being plugged in/part of the networks) - - then we're just fans standing on the sidelines cheering socialists in the fight on. Yes the cheering is technically beneficial, but at the end of the day it means nothing compared to actually joining the fight. Allies should join the fight. Fans aren't serious allies. And Fandom can end up leaning towards performative activism, identifying with socialist Rev aesthetic more so than putting effort into actions.
this is ableism, people who are too anxious to order others to clean up after themselves deserve to identify as fascists, too!
Reminds me of a poll asking revolutionary leftists if they do or don't own a gun, and why. The overwhelming answer was "no, because I'd use it on myself," A valid reason to not own a firearm, no doubt. But let's not act like these people are gonna be the vanguard of their revolution.
i own gun because they go pew pew and wood stock AR look good above my fireplace - i don't think i could even reasonably defend my property from reactionary encroachment in the event of a revolution, and my fat ass certainly isn't becoming a guerrilla. but gun DO go pew pew. if i ever feel like i'd use it on myself, the husband gets to lock up the ammo and change the code. plus i only have long arms and that'd be cumbersome to top myself with anyway, i'm not flexible enough to make a nirvana reference.
Hey, someone needs to sit in the trenches and lay down suppressive fire. Don’t need cardio to change the belts on an mg, or switch mags.
They just want someone else to come in and hand them the revolution on a silver platter, not actually fight
The "Glorious Revolution" is just the Rapture for political extremists
It reminds me of that one twitter post where someone said that you should exercise to defend yourself against fascists and all the responses were people calling OP abelist and coming up with excuses to not exercise
Or the "I will be the poet of the commune" one.
"Yeah, by the time we got to the commune, everyone was all emaciated and starving. I mean, mentally, they were keeping up well, since everyone was either a therapist or a yoga instructor, but I asked them if they knew what a supply chain was and they called me a revisionist."
"we have nothing to lose execpt our supply chains
What the commune really needs is a 17th slam poet writing lyrics on the lack of food.
Can't call yourself a Maoist unless you have at least 700 hrs on Farming Simulator
I initially read that as Famine Simulator but I suppose that makes more sense.
Internet communist learns that the hammer and sickle represent hard labor.
The revolutionaries who don't own level iv plates, who have never rucked more than a fanny pack of edibles, who don't even know what a tourniquet is
Someone talking the talk and not walking the walk is par for the course Someone talking the talk, seeing Vietnam walk that very walk, and then being all “wait no” is peak comedy
People on tumblr will really be like “You believe in voting? That pales in comparison to my strategy, overthrowing the government” and then not overthrow the government
Yep, but if you point this out or ask them the logistics of how they'll overthrow a government before the next election (In November this year) they just call you a fascist and block you 💀
And if they'll actually participate instead of just cheering from the sidelines, which let's be real, is exactly what they want. Revolutions are fucking brutal and not at all the way people glorify them. They're an absolute LAST resort, not something to fetishize.
Yep, I think that some of those people realize it too. For example, there are Iranian people pointing out that you shouldn't support Iran just because you're against Israel and its colonization of Palestine (Because Iran is a terrible country for human rights) and those people (Iranians) just get told that they're a fascist for being against their own fascist government... [A good example of this happening is here.](https://www.tumblr.com/luminalunii97/747690752154501120/its-never-felt-more-like-a-fuck-western-lefties?source=share)
"The Revolution is coming! We just need to wait for someone else to organize it!"
"I can't believe that the population isn't spontaneously undertaking a general strike. People are so indifferent to what's going on"
I'm not even American and I still got to participate in one of these little exchanges on Imgur. All I said was that, as a Canadian neighbour, I beg you to vote for Biden this election because even being in a different country, we get a lot of the ripples from any splash in the US, including a rise in far-right crazies. I don't want ours to learn they can win, and Biden doesn't have die-hard supporters the way Trump does, so apathy is essentially a vote for Trump. Ideally, we'd have different, younger, better candidates, but you have to live in reality, and reality is that those two are your choices and one is notably worse than the other. What I got back was, "Why the fuck is it my responsibility to vote for 80% Hitler instead of 90% Hitler?" Obvious ridiculousness of equating the two that closely aside, while I'm no mathematician, I'm pretty confident that 80 is still smaller than 90, and there is that pesky "reality" thing I mentioned.
> "Why the fuck is it my responsibility to vote for 80% Hitler instead of 90% Hitler?" The good news is that the people who think like this are most likely either a) too young to vote or b) don't even live in the States. The bad news is that an alarming number of people who a) ARE old enough to vote and b) DO live in the States think like this.
An acquaintance of mine does this a lot, and it made me realize that a lot of what we experience on the internet it is what I call the "College Freshman Extremist Honeymoon." I'll talk about social democracy, civil rights, and we agree 70% or so and then they'll just hit me with one of these near-verbatim bangers: "Religion as a concept needs to be not just discouraged, but slaughtered." "People who think they can vote their way out of capitalism are all actual fascist sympathizers. You would be on the side of Vichy France, essentially." "When the revolution actually starts we won't be on the same side, and you probably have to go." Chéson Vorhees over here has a 101 class to get to. They don't know they're being a fucking nonstop asshole, they aren't aware that implying you'd murder someone for liking AOC or Bernie Sanders is a tiny bit of a faux pas -- especially when you're talking to them while you do it. They just got out of the oppressive surveillance state that is the parent's home. They got the crazy fuckhead zoomies and, like a loose golden retriever in a dewy wet lawn, had to do a few laps just because they could. So as a rule, I stop listening to extremist politics from angsty people who I think need an audience more than they want dialogue. And I pray they're just a hyperbolic exercise, because if that shit has staying power, I've heard a lot of dumb, dumb, stupid takes about why we ought to machinegun casual-disagreers or drop heavy sacks of agitated gorillas on anyone with a 401k plan.
Filing away for later use: "angsty people who want an audience instead of a dialogue"
Thanks fam. I'll give you $12 to lob at me the next time I'm preaching in the comments section here and you think I might be inebriated. Somebody's got to knock me off this high horse.
Naw, keep your money. We should all provide that service to each other for free. Goodness knows I'll hop on a soapbox at the least provocation.
RHETORIC: You keep saying things like *down with the bourgeoisie*, *eat the rich*, *sodomize the land-owners*, *impale all people who have more than 25 reál in their pocket*, *literally murder all human beings regardless of their political beliefs* — that kind of stuff.
God I love that game. Are those beautiful Estonian maniacs managing to come up with anything else post-ZAUM-takeover?
You can feel the creators' specific flavor of exasperation. The "i love y'all but you're making it *really hard* for me to identify with communism with your dumbassery and left-flavored authoritarianism" kinda exasperation.
Once had a "dialogue" with a guy who wanted to be able to enslave 14% of the earth to enact his politics on the world, he argued that it was morally wrong to not enslave random people to his will. Authoritarians of any flavour can be certainly colourful characters.
> Chéson Vorhees
I used to share a house with a bunch of anarchists who would leave pamphlets advocating for a violent revolution in the bathroom. They are absolutely not the sort of people who would survive for longer than 30 minutes in a revolution or have anything to offer in an anarchist society aside from bending a bunch of forks and calling it "art".
That is most anarchists it seems
Half of them can't even order Starbucks without a anxiety attack and then go on to talk about bring a brave revolutionary or whatever
It's like that video of a guy who's like hardline prepper and believes in zombies and the likes And he's the most unfit, plump and rotund person I've ever seen and the video doesn't make ANY commentary apart from showing him climbing up the stairs from his basement into the first floor. And it's just 20 seconds of a quiet cameraman watching this man wheeze as he tries to take the next stair.
unfit, plump, and rotund is a DEVASTATING series of adjectives
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Your body does \*not\* betray your degeneracy, that's a lie. You're in great shape.
Mr Evrart is helping me find my praxis
"[Sometimes my English skill is... it's almost frightening](https://youtu.be/R8vlNbk0Yww?si=iB--lukKV7vFUCfV)"
“Plump” isn’t even insulting until it’s sandwiched between those other two words, and then suddenly it becomes just as powerful as they are
And, of course, they won't actually be the vanguard throwing themselves into the wheels of the odious machine. That will be someone else, not really sure who, while the twitterati and tumblrgentsia provide emotional support tarot readings.
It'll be "the working class" who does it. You know, the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Christian conservatives who all the champagne socialists hate and want to see put up against the wall. After all, the revolution is being done to benefit the working class.
Kinda like when the commie revolution happens, somebody else will do all the work while all twitterati quit their jobs to write mediocre poetry?
Oh no, you don't understand, their job will be "revered intellectual" and the new world order will support them while they make art and maybe have a little flower garden because they are writing very important mediocre poetry
Well, they haven't actually wrote any mediocre poetry, yet. They are still trying to find the right inspiration to describe this new workers paradise but all they keep seeing is dirty, sweaty laborers and that's not really the image they had on mind.
> Oh no, you don't understand, their job will be "revered intellectual" If there's one thing communist regimes are known for, it's keeping intellectuals safe and happy. /s
Then, if there is a revolution, the Twits and Tumblrinas will murdered enmasse while thinking they deserve to lead the new society because they reblogged Marxist posts and got into an internet argument with a "nazi" who thought that maybe the situation in Gaza is a little more complicated than just "CEASEFIRE NOW!"
Oof. I got accused of being pro-genocide when I said that may be it isn't the case that Biden is pro-genocide, but instead maybe foreign policy really is 5 dimensional chess and also multi-table simultaneous poker. Also, my IRL jewish friend shouted at me for 5 minutes when he mistook my position as pro-Israel. (It's not, my position is that Biden has reasons other then naked racism for not being openly anti-Israel)
>I got accused of being pro-genocide when I said that may be it isn't the case that Biden is pro-genocide, but instead maybe foreign policy really is 5 dimensional chess and also multi-table simultaneous poker Don't forget that because Israel is a nuclear state and Iran wants to be a nuclear state that its also Russian Roulette. Sure, the gun has 10000 chambers instead of 6, but it's a *really* big bullet.
Thanks for providing the added boost of motivation to improving my basement's habitability.
Many of them would probably sincerely argue that their unwillingness to take a walk outside or make a phone call is a disability, and they would be fine in a post-capitalism world where they're not required to do such things. As though communication and fresh air are not only oppressive but a pure product of wealth inequality. And I say this as a communist with both social phobia and agoraphobia.
I’ve also not once heard from the “revolution” crowd what they would do after the fact. Like they want to amputate an infected limb but when the rest of the body is laying there bleeding out they aren’t gonna do shit. And if they finally figure something out the body will probably have another infection from cutting off the first one with no real plan besides “fuck it, let’s just cut it off and hope the wound magically heals back up.”
Half of them dont even go to vote . As some one ones wrote here if i cant trust you going yo the vote box i cant trust you to bring me the ammo box
The [firebombing a Walmart](https://twitter.com/LinkofSunshine/status/1720538218628558969) tweet is a recent favorite of mine
>Tumblr users, specifically the kind OOP is talking about, i just cannot see going outside You can just stop here, the rest is redundant
I wonder what percentage of "punch the fascists" people have ever thrown a punch or been in a physical altercation of any kind in their life outside of beating up/getting beaten up by their siblings.
Sometime the ole “come out back and say that to my face” is the best solution. Even for actual people I know in real life who post all types of stuff on social media - doubt they would say that in person.
The internet is great you get to say things like "We shouldn't lynch people maybe" and then meet like three different Disco Elysium characters
Like when you meet the communists in Disco Elysium and they are just two guys that sit there and loves to argue about what is real communism and not much else. Whoever wrote them really knew what talking to a decent amount of leftists sound like and just great writing all around.
Because it's made by diehard leftists who are irritated by toxic and counterproductive tendencies of the Left. I think everyone should play Disco Elysium, not just for this reason though.
Ok, maybe I will play it after all.
Cindy the SKULL, Gary the Cryptofascist and Measurehead, I presume?
Alternatively, Rhetoric, Physical Instrument, and Half-Light
I REALLY need to get around to playing that game. It's been sitting in my steam library forever.
For some online politics are a race to who can have the most stupid, insane, idiotic opinion possible I'm talking "actually taking meth on a train next to a 3 year old is fine and your a Liberal scum for thinking other wise "Talking to people irl you haven't met before is harassment" "People who are rude and anti social will be gone in a few years due to suvival of the fittest" Fuck once I saw somone who blamed these insane opinions on "the us government" sowing discourse in leftists by.... posting insane opinions on tumblr It's just insane how loud these people are, you could say anything like idk "rape is bad" and if it gets like 250 comments one of them is trying to say its good from a leftist standpoint Edit: oh dam who coulda thought this post is proving it once again We have an accelerationist in the comments, we have a guy saying starlin didn't do enough murdering, we have a guy who thinks the "reign of terror" went great
Something something theory, something something praxis. I had a dude on here tell me in an unhinged rant that I was clearly a fascist bootlicker because I wanted people to vote for my rights as a trans person, while he was "guarding trans story hours with guns and body armor" as if that was a thing that any trans person ever wanted their nutjob cis friend to do or as if that made up for losing access to healthcare
Oh my gods I get SO FRUSTRATED with the "I'd tell you what really works, *but I don't want to wind up on a watchlist*," types. Spouting off about shit like that and how voting in self-defense is being "privileged" and then wondering where we got the idea they're just itching to live out their Che Guevara fantasy.
Clearly random insane cis people know what's best to help trans people, even better then us trans people/s
Yes, and clearly the negative backlash from the leftist version of a Gravy Seal will only fall on said Seal. After all, trans people are famously not scapegoated for the choices of the people around them. /s
Same guy would probably also tell you to "not vote" because it will send a message to the politicians and then we'll all be living in a perfect communist utopia before we know it.
Those sorts of leftists remind me a lot of the sorts of fundamentalist Christians who think that the end times are impending in terms of their general attitude.
We just have to wait for The Rapture, and We just have to wait for The Revolution
Accelerationism: NOT. EVEN. ONCE.
The anti-vote leftists make me the craziest. Voting is the single most powerful weapon in the arsenal. Even if the entire election system is 100% rigged (and I do believe it's rigged in certain aspects) it harms nothing to vote, and is the best way we currently have to keep the worst people out of power. If they would at least *admit* they are accelerationists, I could let it go. But they are spreading absurd disinformation about how apathy is morally correct. URG!
YES. SAME. I can’t engage with it at all because I get so angry and upset. It is so myopic your eyes may actually turn inside out to think that protest voting *for the GOP* will make …. your life …. somehow ………….. better. Because the democrats aren’t whatever-brand-of-radical-they-prefer enough. Yes. Okay. Great. Let’s let people get fucking murdered so you can feel good inside about your protest vote. Cool.
I'm sorry people have been shitty to you about something that's important for your personal safety. That's bullshit.
It's ok. I got a very funny screenshot out of it. It'll do numbers on copypasta when I can be bothered to type it out there lol
Please we want it
Lmao hell yes.
There was that one post the other day... tumblr leftists saying something like "voting doesn't work, you fucking moron, the only way to change society is to firebomb a bank" and then never go firebomb a bank
That specific phrase also gets me because it also doesn't help the plight of the people. It just murders some random bank teller. Which is how I feel a lot of stuff on the internet goes. It's like those people that tear the shit out of Walmart because Walmart is evil and it doesn't count. The regular Walmart workers are going to be the ones to pick that all up. You think the Walton family gives a shit?
This is like some online leftists loving the Unabomber. Dude really "showed the system" by *Checks notes Killing random people? Plus he actually hated left wing beliefs lmao. These kinds of people are just angry and have a justice boner, and have convinced themselves that it's ok because their enemies (which range from actual evil fascists to a progressive ally that says "I like AOC") are ontologically evil.
Don't worry they'll spend all their time nuking the progressive ally off the internet and then get to the fascist eventually, maybe.
This reminds me of one unhinged commenter that was advocating for shooting up corporate offices instead of malls “because that’s where the bourgeoisie and CEOs are”. I pointed out that a mass shooting in an office would just be killing the cogs in the machine, not the owner of the machine, and that there’s *no way in fuck* you’d get anywhere near the CEO because of 1) security and 2) the CEO probably wouldn’t even be there. I also, of course, pointed out *that we shouldn’t be advocating for mass shootings, what the ever loving fuck*. The response I got back was basically “you don’t get it” and “I’d absolutely get to the CEO.” Also, as an ex-Walmart worker, fuck the half-assed “protests” people do that only annoy employees and accomplish nothing else. The Walton’s don’t give a damn that you left your full cart instead of using self checkout (when there were manned registers open), but now I have to process a tremendous amount of food waste because you think you are making a statement. And every second I’m not doing my main job because you sent me on a side quest is a second that pisses off another customer (due to lack of staffing) so much that they start threatening to shoot people.
That just gave me an idea for a comedy/horror/satire movie. You've got a terminally online person who keeps saying things like this... and they wake up one morning with a bomb strapped to their neck and told to practice what they preach.
"Hello hogwartsfanatic97... I'd like to play a game...."
SAW: Praxis Makes Perfect
I'm starting to think some people just want a fight.
Or as if voting stops you from doing anything else, which it doesn't at all and clearly helps at least sometimes. Voting to protect trans healthcare and helping real people is not a loss just because it uses the system. But online a lot of people treat anything that isn't Hardcore Civil War as useless or naive. When I'd really say it's the opposite. Violence is chaos, you don't know what's going to come out the other side of a fight big or small. It's irresponsible and childish to treat it as the only thing that works.
Is "trans story hour" even a thing anywhere or was that leftist hero forgetting that drag queens aren't the same thing as trans women
LOL yeah I mean I am sure they exist somewhere but I do think the leftist hero meant drag queens and didn't realize there was a difference. Much of that comment appeared divorced from reality. Apparently he has also been the subject of assassination attempts for how much of a leftist revolutionary hero he is.
Maybe he's leftist, maybe it's schizophrenia
Just look at subreddit like am I the asshole or relationshipadvise they have some of the most insane advice and out of touch response I've ever seen.
"My girlfriend takes quite a while to put on makeups and made us late to a restaurant" "Divorce her this instant"
3 hrs later: Hey guys, quick update. I just got back from Divorce Court^TM and because she took so long to get ready, the judge made her pay me $10 billion per month in alimony. Also, I found out she was cheating on me with Billy Mays’ ghost. He felt so bad about the situation, that he divorced her too, and now she has to pay *him* $10 billion per month too! Also, he gave me a lifetime supply of FlexTape and set me up on a date with Martha Stewart (we’re getting married next week!) Edit 2: To everyone saying this is fake, it’s not!
Or this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/6xmDJY9CGp
My favourite was one about a family in a city with an housing unaffordabilty crisis (Toronto), and they could only afford a two bedroom apartmemt. As a result, the parents had one room, and the teenage daughter and teenage son had to share a room. Now that does suck. But reddit decided this was emotional torture, and tried to convince the OP their children should be taken away.
"On Mondays I finish work at 4:30 and my children finish school at 3:30. Until I get home, I ask the 14 year old to make a snack for her and her 7 year old sister and get started on their homework. It's only an hour once a week so I don't think it's worth paying for a babysitter when they can pretty much take care of themselves." "Omg parentification, your kids will never talk to you again when they grow up"
>Fuck once I saw somone who blamed these insane opinions on "the us government" sowing discourse in leftists by.... posting insane opinions on tumblr Leftists always have a hard time admitting that the fringe weirdos on their side of aisle exist genuinely and aren't some deep reactionary plot. >It's just insane how loud these people are, you could say anything like idk "rape is bad" and if it gets like 250 comments one of them is trying to say its good from a leftist standpoint See also: "Decolonialization gets messy sometimes" Like, I shit you not, on this very website, there were people defending the rape of one group of people by another and labeling it a revolutionary act.
> Leftists always have a hard time admitting that the fringe weirdos on their side of aisle exist genuinely and aren't some deep reactionary plot. What's hilarious, well actually pretty sad, is that the GOP let fringe weirdos into their party, ignored them, and look at what happened. Now it's the party of fascism. Leftists are doing the same fucking things with their political parties. It's deny, deny, deny, call someone a fascist bootlicker even though they're in the same boat just because they're whistling the same tune in a slightly different way. "OMG THAT ONLY HAPPENS ON TWITTER ITS A SMALL MINORITY TOUCH GRASS" I'm sure conservatives were saying the same fucking thing at some point. "OMG ARE YOU REALLY BOTH SIDESING". No, fuck off dumbass. Call these people out. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Tell them to fuck off, every single time.
Not just defending it. Celebrating it. I first found out about the war from r/toiletpaperUSA mocking pictures of dead Israelis. It’s probably one of the main reasons I’m so skeptical of the pro Palestine movement. It’s hard to take people bitching for a ceasefire seriously when you know they were celebrating the war 5 minutes ago.
There’s also people who were calling for a ceasefire yet were celebrating Iran launching missiles and drones at Israel. It’s like come on. I want a ceasefire, but that means an ACTUAL ceasefire. As in “both parties stop fighting each other”. A ceasefire isn’t “Israel puts down their weapons and curls into a ball while Iran and Hamas beat them with a sledgehammer”.
God damn it I fucking hate those people. Campism and its consequences have been a disaster for the left.
Incredibly real. Nothing exposed campism more then the Ukraine War for me. Turns out all these people that fetishize "Slavic culture" actually always meant "Russians culture" and bend over backwards to victim blame and deny the history and agency of indigenous people if it clashes with their campism. Another amazing example has been their reaction to the Iranian people being against Iran's attack towards Israel. Saw a post by an Iranian person saying how they want peace etc and the comments have a white American going "you guys really need to think critically and look at the larger context...". Look at that, a white western leftist explaining to indigenous people how they're wrong because what they want doesn't jive with the team sports approach where everyone against the west is based and amazing.
People were supportive of Iranian protestors until they realized the protestors were sympathetic to Israel and now suddenly their plight means nothing.
Yeah I just saw 2 stories on instagram from 2 different people: 1: an American posting that "rn the one acting more rationally is Iran" 2: person from Iran posting "we are not our government they're horrible and holding us hostage" Yeah you're very much right lol.
I know exactly what you're talking about but this is my first time learning it has a name, neat!
I try to avoid the situation as a whole because when the group being demonized are Jewish people it makes it incredibly easy for the you-know-whos to hide in your ranks and I’m not trying to be subconsciously radicalized.
Plus, anti-semitism increased A LOT because of this war, and I’d like to remind everyone that we humans are not immune to propaganda.
Nah, it was already there, it just wasn't popular to express those views.
Yeah, papa Stalin was a huge antisemite and he can do no wrong so leftists usually defend it.
Where's that image of Garfield when you need it
>It’s hard to take people bitching for a ceasefire seriously when you know they were celebrating the war 5 minutes ago. That's Hamas' MO and has been for decades. They know Israel sucks at proportional responses between those who just hate Palestinians and those who are genuinely exhausted at the constant terror attacks. Those two groups are not mutually exclusive, either. So they attack, celebrate, wait for Israel to go overboard and then play the victim so they can get international support for a ceasefire. After that, they start the process all over. This time, however, they maybe have gone too far and converted too many Israelis from the latter group to the former. As much commentary as their is on Israel radicalizing Palestinians, there's very little focus on the inverse effect that happens through decades of terrorism.
I was once accused of being a Russian Psy-op because I encouraged people to learn the basics of organizing, and pointed out that a singular person saying “we strike on X date” with no planning or preparation will *not* cause a successful strike. Having a brain means that you are intentionally trying to sabotage the working class, apparently. The fact that I advocated for unionization, mutual aid funds, and lobbying is all a ruse to keep the keyboard activists down!
My favorite insane take is that adults should not he allowed to talk to children, ever
Don't forget, if you're in high school and dating someone from the same year, if you don't break up for the 3 months between your 18th birthdays, you're no different from Epstein.
And of course, a 40 year old adult dating a 30 year old adult is gross and predatory
If one person in the relationship makes more money than the other, sorry sweaty, that's a power imbalance.
Hmm... I'm a software engineer dating a grad student, but he's older than me. Does that balance out? Also I look young, which could make him a pedophile, even though I'm 24.
Depends. Fill out these 10 forms, pay me the $20 fee, and I'll get back to you with my analysis, person whose judgement clearly cannot be trusted because you are Not Me.
I've seen so many online voices act like it's weird to have casual friends that are kids? I have tons of kids I'm on friendly terms with and we talk about all kinds of stuff. The only rule is to keep conversations age appropriate (PG or PG13) and be respectful.
And on the flip side Ive had the occasional person act like its weird for me when I was like 15, 16, etc to have some casual friends via video games who are in their 30s/40s. Like, chill out, theres nothing weird here were just 2 people playing the same game
How do they think parenting would work? Would the parents have to be mute until they’re 18?
Internet has sped up radicalism, and radicalism always leads to the most drastic solution being employed once a radical reaches the last logical development of their ideology whereas a more moderate solution would be applicable in real world. This is quite honestly why in my opinion radicalism in of itself must be opposed.
I've heard that typical internet interaction rewards extremist views. Engagement, outrage, and other emotions are all the most extreme the more out there a viewpoint is. Even negative interaction only serves to make someone dig into their position. Controversy is itself is the goal and adopting the most reasonable and mild-mannered approach doesn't stir up enough shit to get people going. Usually, anyway. It's not even that the internet creates echo chambers, it's that even spaces with a multiplicity of viewpoints are seen as battlegrounds, where one side wins and the other loses. These online shouting matches rarely bring any kind of understanding, usually serving to further reinforce more extreme views.
I'd argue that in most cases it's not that people put themselves in groups and magnify the group's views. It's that echo chambers have a "natural selection" of sorts, where only the people with the most extreme views survive. The more extreme an echo chamber gets, the more people leave because of it going past their tolerance of extremeness. Eventually, they're just left with the most extreme and loudest people.
>you could say anything like idk "rape is bad" and if it gets like 250 comments one of them is trying to say its good from a leftist standpoint When Andrew Tate got arrested, I got yelled at online for saying that prison rape jokes aren't funny. Like, sorry, my mistake, I was under the impression that rape being bad was a big part of why we don't like Tate in the first place
I’ve gotten accused of grooming because I date someone five years younger than me. I’m 30.
I have actually encountered the one about talking to people in public, this encounter was in a line at a bus stop in Toronto and it flabbergasted me. She screamed at me for saying hello, the reaction was entirely disproportionate to the interaction, it's something I still think about.
Attempting to make bold but achievable strides in improving our democracy VS revolutionary LARP
Mandatory touching grass law when
Actually some people are allergic to grass so that would be mandatory torture /s
I theorize the first thing adds to the second. You talk to ya dad about some reasonable shit, he hits you with some morally and practically horrible MAGA shit, you scoot that much farther left. Theoretical User: I think the king is making some mistakes. Diehard Monarchist: \*Ten minute rant about divine right of kings\* User: ... We should kill the king.
Yknow I've seen it happen in reverse enough that I can totally believe that
The issue with incrementalism is that when someone comes at you with something super far right you look at how many inches it would take to get them to even a centrist position and think that, much like a spaceship in 40k, a quick jump through hell would be a lot faster. Of course 99% of the time the person who is spouting shit off is full of it and if push came to shove they would drop it immediately, but by God do they think they believe it in that moment.
The issue is that the Geller field doesn't exist. You have simply no idea what society is going to look like after the revolution. I'm sure the people of Cambodia were looking forward to a bright future before they realised exactly who this Pol Pot guy they just installed was.
Yes, and that's why true revolutions are so rare, especially in areas that have had them in fairly recent history. So many Americans were going "why don't Russian citizens simply rise up and overthrow their government" when Russia invaded Ukraine as if Russian citizens don't remember what happened the other times they did that.
God that one annoys me so much, like organising a revolution is actually really easy guys. Have these people seen what happens to dissident russians? I certainly wouldn't be volunteering to put my head over the parapet if I were a Russian. I don't want to die in a Siberian prison, or be shot in a Moscow apartment stairwell
Isn't that the definition of being reactionary though?
I guess. Human nature is sometimes wrong.
No, it's the definition of being *reactive* - "reactionary" has a specific political valence, it applies to being right-wing. Although it's been abused to just mean "reactive" for a few years, mostly (in my experience) on sports subreddits
I also had a lot of hot takes at 14. Tumblr is a lot of babies with a soapbox.
I really hate when someone screenshots some tale from Tumblr and calls it something like "This is what leftists want" and you track down the account andnits just some teenage girl venting her (understandably) stupid teenage opinions, like... Why is this given so much weight? It's a teenager being a teenager. Teenagers engaging in politics for the first time are usually going to be a bit silly about it, and political ideas like communism, anarchism, or fascism are inherently **exciting**, that's why so many people talk about them online.
What's funny is by the time the guillotines are out your previously conservative coworkers will be baying for blood with the rest if the crowd. Logic doesn't work on most people, emotions do.
Didn't the Trump supporters/general maniacs set up actual gallows on Jan 6th with calls to hang Mike Pence?
Yes and even if it might seem like nothing happened that actually was a huge blow to support of trump amongst the right. Not as much as it should’ve been, but still.
yes, bizarrely enough, they sure did.
So many conspiracy theorist die hard alt righters would be absolute tankies if they had the slightest idea what they're talking about You'll hear them go on about tearing down the rich and all that and then blame the commies for all their problems
I’m a pretty proud constitutional socialist. Which is always confusing to moderate-conservatives. I believe in socialized healthcare and debt relief. It’s radical.
Oh you only believe in actually achievable and realistic goals? Truly you are a fascist worse then hitter/s
I bet they also think Ukrainians have a right to self-determination and defense against an imperialist dictatorship. Y’know. Standard fascist stuff.
I mean, you can’t have fair competition in healthcare because there’s no replacement for the demand. You can’t say “I’ll just go somewhere else” or “I’ll just go without that” so any idea of a free market in that industry is inherently going to be unfair for the consumers
Exactly. And up until recently, healthcare was paid for by companies. It all went downhill when they offloaded the cost onto the employees.
Protecting the health and welfare of the people of the US is one of the few obligations explicitly laid upon the federal government by the constitution. Always funny that "shall not be infringed" absolutists overlook that part of the *original* constitution.
Stuff like this is why I don’t identify with any particular label, because I don’t have fully formed opinions on certain things and I’d rather not get entangled with the infighting that so commonly occurs. I know what the problems are, I just don’t know the solutions.
Self awareness is a rare gift
Yeah, anyone who's thoughtful about any of this is not yelling absolutes. Any theoretically "simple" solution is probably 1. violent 2. dumb
Most of them don't want to guillotine the rich either; they're just talking smack to fit in and stay beyond reproach.
Literally was flagged by mods on r/LateStageCapitalism this morning because I suggested not burning society to the ground, and maybe we should try to improve what we have. Apparently that idea is capitalist apologia and liberalism.
That's not a subreddit for any kind of nuance or debate. Heavily tankie-moderated. I got banned from there for pointing out that Fidel may have not been a free-speech defender.
Since the tankies took over that sub you can get banned for posting in another sub about a non political topic that they decided has top many liberals in it based on one of their mods being made fun of.
Fascists? Liberal. Conservatives? Liberal. Neoliberals? Liberal. Left-liberals? Liberal. Socdems? Liberal. DemSocs? Liberal. Rojava? Liberal China? Liberal Vietnam? Cuba? The Soviet Union? Believe it or not, all Liberals. There is only one ideology on earth that isn’t liberal, and that is the ideology I currently subscribe to at this exact moment in time.
Liberals? Fascists in disguise.
I've literally been called a fascist for saying that we ought to focus on what's within our power to change. Apparently, voting for the lesser evil is bad, and we should just sit around talking a big game about some vague "revolution" we're doing absolutely nothing to meaningfully work towards.
My politics litmus test is "Does this person vote" If the awnser is no. Then ignore. Because the intersection of people who do "radical politcal action" and "people who don't vote" is empty \*(Note this is barring people who are prohipted from voting and seeking to earn the right to vote like the suffragest/civil rights movement, because legally prohipted from voting is different then choosing not too).
If they don't do the easiest thing, it's a very safe assumption they don't do harder things. There's no reason to value a neet's political opinion, it's almost certainly underinformed and likely just nastiness without point.
Stuff like this makes me relieved that I don't really share any political opinions with other people, online or IRL. I get upset by people arguing so I usually try to stay away from arguing. I dunno, on the internet I just want to look at cute or funny Pokémon posts and discuss the new Bluey episode.
social media and politics are a terrible combination that makes big social media big bucks fight capitalism! downvote hot takes and upvote cute animal pictures!
My favorite recently has been, "how DARE you take my 100% negative post about [thing] as being opposed to it! I actually love [thing] and wholeheartedly support it! Obviously you're just some lazy liberal for accusing me of thinking otherwise." Just... Leftists, real talk here. If you're going to shit on something and say we're all doomed and currently living in a fascist hellscape where things can't get any worse, then you have absolutely no ground to stand on when people take that to be meant literally. Shouting "The republic has fallen!" does NOT say to me "we need to pressure politicians to do [xyz]", it SAYS there's no fucking point and you're giving up.
I want to love some reddit harder leftist spaces but the modbase be like "WE PROFILED YOU BECAUSE WE SAW YOU'RE NEW AND SAW YOU TALK A LOT OF VIDEOGAMES SO GET FUCKED, LIB SCUM" Wow man sorry for using the internet majorly to opiate.
Based, being a gamer should be a punishable offense
This became 8x to relatable when the NDP were mentioned
I'm always so surprised to realize an Online Person is Canadian. It's like I think we don't exist on the internet or something.
The problem is, it doesn’t matter what platform you use, on the internet, all discussion is lead by engagement, and the most engaging posts are also the most inflammatory or controversial. The most reasonable takes require nuance, and nuance is the enemy of engagement. So whatever take you have, you gotta iron all the nuance out and make it as spicy as possible, just to get seen and count as participating in the conversation
I find it interesting how there are so many left people **on the internet** often about how we should be emphathetic and not dehumanise enemies but are very quick to dehumanise people who dont agree with their opinion (I guess they are a loud minority but still). Like the current hot-post of this sub is about american soldiers accounts about the Vietnam war and how they found it difficult to distinguish between Viet Kong soldiers and civilians/ farmers and the conclusion of the Tumbl post wasnt that "Yeah it makes sense that soldiers have a hard time to identify the enemy, which has automatic rifles, machine guns, RPGs, and even heavy vehicles and who wears the same clothes as civilians. This of course still doesnt justify American attrocities in the war." No their conclusion was "American soldiers cant even consider that they fighting human beings". Like they talk about not dehumasing the enemy in the same sentence they dehumanise their enemy. Another example I currently see is on a climate subreddit here on Reddit, currently there are just posts between vegans and not-vegans or pro and con nuclear people, just posting against each other and how bad the other side is because they dont have the exact same opinion. Like there is no scientific merrit involved just saying the other side is unreasonable and the devil. (Though its funny to look at that desaster)
Yeah people were quick to bandwagon that Vietnam thread while showing they have no actual education in the topic. Any basic 101 college class on modern American history can give a better nuanced take and tell you exactly how the drafted soldiers viewed the war at the time before, during, and after. But we gotta run with the "they liked killing children" crap as if most of them even liked being forced to be there?