this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
1497 points (99.5% liked)
Technology
79762 readers
3271 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The tankies don't like him?
They don't like electoralism, prefer to LARP revolution while doing nothing to actually lay the groundwork for one.
They are essentially MAGA with few small differences.
Which is sort of wild.
Marx was very clear that communism could not be delivered by heroes on horseback. But then again, Tankies don't like Marx, they like Lenin, the man who lost an election to actual communists and then had them all killed. He seized power via coup, and then made himself a king, and wrote how kings (vanguard parties) were somehow vital to communism, and how democracy was not.
"If your last name ends in 'in', it's time to get out."
Hey, I recognised that reference.
I didn't.
Enjoy! :D
Tankies are chicken-hawks.
They gladly let millions of marginalized peoples suffer and die for a pipedream that those people will fight a communist revolution... on the tankies' behalf.
Tankies won't ever be the ones on the front line. They spam fuck comment sections and try to convince as many people as possible to act against their own self interests, to put them in a desperate enough state that the tankoes can more easily manipulate them.
Tankies aren't communists, they're red fascists. Same abuser mentality as the fascists they so gleefully surrendered to in November 2024.
@HazardousBanjo
@Schmoo
So are tankies accelerationists or sellouts? You weirdos need to get your story straight
I've looked through the whole thread again and I don't know where you're getting the idea anyone's accusing tankies of being sellouts. Best I can guess is that you misinterpreted the comment immediately above yours as saying tankies are secretly supporting the current fascist regime, is that it?
That's not what they're saying, they meant that tankies (I would clarify that it's the chronically online tankies that are like this) want other people to fight the revolution for them, and won't lift a single finger themselves until they can be sure that victory is inevitable. This is because they see themselves as the vanguard that tells everyone else what to do and how to do it, and will be put in charge after the revolution. That's why people call them red fascists (though I don't like that term myself as I don't think they should be conflated with actual fascists, it hinders understanding), they want to be in the fascists' place so they can use the systems of power and control that they built towards a different end (changing the economic system).
A previous person I talked to on lemmy.ml not long ago illustrated this mindset well, saying that authoritarianism is only a buzzword made up by the west to demonize their enemies, that it's just people exercising power, and that it's good when communists do it. Here's what I see wrong with this: the tools of a fascist state are purpose-built for oppression, and trying to use them for anything else is futile. You will be corrupted by their power. We should not be trying to take and use these tools, but dismantling them and creating our own which are purpose-built for liberation.
Spotted the tankie. Cope and seethe harder.
Both. They're the intellectual equivalent and ideological opposite of libertarians with equally internally inconsistent views.
Neither, because that would actually require praxis.
One thing I've learned as a socialist is that there is always a purity test by people who consider themselves purer socialists.
Karl Marx himself could post on here and people would accuse him of being a neoliberal stooge.
Karl Marx wouldn't be able to bring himself to write a post.
...unless some benefactor paid him to do it.
but be very careful of labelling people puritanical. Everybody draws lines that when crossed make the other person untrustworthy. This should be encouraged for a healthy democracy.
Tankies don't like anyone, they'll never be satisfied. I'm fairly certain most of them are russian trolls tasked with sowing discord and fracturing the left.
Excuse me, we're Chinese trolls, thanks very much; we are unhealthily obsessed with China because it's incredibly economically successful, it's the last hope of actual oldschool dictatorship of the worker socialism, and it's barely avoided being controlled by the market.
It's incredibly centralised, it's authoritarian, yes, but it's also building all the solar panels and executing billionaires when they get too powerful and making the imperial nations look like chumps, so you should forgive us for our infatuation.
My lack of action and lack of building local organisation? Guilty. I'm trying to correct this. China is not the model for the West, and even the Chinese govt says that, so as a true Chinahead I do not call for Chad Xi to come save us, that is missing the fucking point. We must grow our own socialist organisations to bypass the state, and anarchists and syndicalists might be the best idea for the West, with our individualism and love of freedom.
I honestly can't tell if you're being facetious or not...
That's probably because my thoughts on the matter are not incredibly settled.
That's fine. The real world is messy; it's never about "good versus bad," it's always about "better in this context versus worse in this context."
China does some things better, like green energy. They're also pretty bad in some areas, like worker's rights, political representation, and human rights in general.
That being said, if they saved us from trump, I for one would welcome our new yuan-based overlords.
China is still a capitalist country though. It's state capitalism, but capitalism nonetheless. Calling themselves communist is really just branding.
Based on some other comments though, clearly tankies in the west don't understand that there can be a discrepancy between what one calls oneself and what one truly is. Oh well...
If you omit the word Russian, I think you just described the entirity of the current reddit user base.
You'd be surprised. I read about a time when there was a power outage in moscow, and for the span of a few hours there were hardly any trolls active on reddit
Tankies don't like objective reality.
Historically, a socialist holding an elected executive office of a capitalist government is a precarious position fraught with contradictions. You can only meaningfully govern by making massive concessions to the ruling class and betraying some supporters. Communists will stake out the "he will betray you" position.
FWIW the Mamdani administration is very aware of this contradiction and deliberately made promises that he can do by decree, such as the rent freeze. But there's also been some rather heinous concessions, like keeping on a bunch of Zionists in the admin, and also keeping on the NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch.
Why would you argue that we should stop doing our duties once we have cast our ballot and the candidate we support won?
I'd say they're skeptical that Mamdani will keep to his promises or that electing him isn't enough. But dislike? I bet every one would've voted for him.
Assuming they vote at all and don't think the best way to show your dissatisfaction is to stay home and complain on the Internet
They can't vote. They're either not American or they're bots.
I believe enough of them are American and Lemmy is a dumb place to create a bot army.
I’ve been accused of being a tankie, and I think he’s great. But obviously the McCarthyites of Lemmy would rather create a straw man than listen to anything a red has to say.
If you're comparing shitting on tankies to McCarthyism, you might be a tankie.
Lots of people on the left hate tankies, because tankies are more fascist than leftist in praxis. McCarthyism basically accuses anyone with a remotely left-wing opinion as being as bad as a tankie, which is a strawman.
Tankies have more in common with McCarthyism than they're willing to admit. That's called horseshoe politics.
I would swap fascism with authoritarianism or totalitarianism. To equal the left and right wing in any kind always sounds like horseshoe theory. But apart from that you are right.
You don't know what fascism is, apparently.
As for horseshoe nonsense . . .
I know precisely what fascism is, and the dumbfuck tankies accusing Mamdani of it are absolutely wrong.
I said they're the same in praxis, not ideology. You'd think a fucking leftist would understand the difference.
And your picture is kind of a strawman in this context, because I wasn't using "horseshoe politics" to describe phenomena of the abolition era. I was using it to describe phenomena of the current era where the contexts are different. But since tankies are allergic to nuance, I don't suppose you'll be comprehend that and you'll probably just resort to ad hominems.
Yes dear, everyone that doesn't agree with your nonsense is a tankie, and therefore wrong.
You were saying about ad hominems?
I never said everyone who disagrees with me is a tankie. I said anyone who accuses Mamdani of being a fascist is a tankie. That's a delusion no one but a tankie would hold.
Nah dear, the horseshoe nonsense is something you seem to be partial to. "Tankies", not so much.
Fascist tankies? Tell me you’ve huffed capitalist propaganda without telling me you’ve huffed capitalist propaganda. Y’all are miseducated af
Capitalists could not give a fuck less about tankies, what they think, what they are doing. These people basically only exist on Internet forums and have zero effect on anyone outside of their bubble.
Fuck off, tankie.
@FlyingCircus
@wonderingwanderer
It's wild innit? This whole section of children jawing about adult topics while chewing capitalist bubblegum.
Tankie does not equal any communist. People are fine with listening to socialists and communists, it’s MLs they draw the line at.
I am an ML as are most communists.
Yes that’s obvious when you said you were called a tankie.
Still doesn’t mean everyone hates communism/socialism.
How does a system that requires a stateless society appeal to hierarchists like tankies?
False accusations mean nothing.