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Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such, as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries. That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry. The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals. We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals. Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
Same goes for any technology, from power loom to AI.
Convincing the working class it's the tools that are the problem, and not the system that abuses them (both working class, and tools), is one of capitalism's greatest achievements.
https://www.globallearning-cuba.com/blog-umlthe-view-from-the-southuml/marx-on-automated-industry
Yep, I just didn't know how to add that succinctly to the title 😁
You're good, the point is clear, was just adding info. 😊
Ironically the Luddites were very aware the system was the problem, they made system changing demands.
Mainstream history has decided to make them into a terrified of new technology pastiche of the truth.
Convincing the working class that tools the system creates are free of the system’s agenda may be an even greater achievement.
Conspiring to jack up rent prices is exploitative when people do it. Is it any different when the RealPage algorithm does it indirectly?
I don’t see any value in saying that human behavior is the problem but then specifically carving out an exception for the automated agents we create to amplify specific behaviors.
When RedBubble ganks art and sells it on t-shirts, how is that different from when Stability ganks art and sells it at a text prompt?
Which was programmed by humans, with biases and vested interests based in and fuelled by capitalism and the rest of the kyriarchy
Human behaviours. Machines don't have their own behaviours, only those humans have programmed them to have, again, with those same biases and vested interests based in and fuelled by capitalism and the rest of the kyriarchy
It isn't, both are automated systems designed by humans, you guessed it - with those same biases and vested interests based in and fuelled by capitalism and the rest of the kyriarchy
And only picking examples of ways in which technology is used that are explicitly for profit is cherry picking and twisting reality. The existence of things like FOSS and other ways in which people share technology or otherwise use it to improve society without any profit motive proves you wrong.
AI isn't intrinsically capitalist, just like computers aren't, nor were steam engines or power looms. Capitalism convincing you that its way is the only way to use tools doesn't mean that's the reality, it only means the propaganda is working.
So is RealPage not a tool, or are tools not inherently agenda-less?
I’m not saying all technology is bad, but I am saying all technology is biased.
And I’m not saying all AI must be exploitative, but its mechanics are such that the easiest path forward for it is exploitative.