An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme 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, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low quality!
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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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
That means 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" (read: Dengists) (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 irrationally 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.
[a wide character looks smug with a wide smile]
Your ideology is wrong and can't work because "human nature" is to exploit others
[a thought bubble is connected to their head]
I really really want to exploit others, exploiting or being exploited is the only way I can picture society please God I play that you let me become an exploiter I dream of it every day
The one that gets me is "Without the profit motive, no one would innovate."
Like, my dude, have you ever met an innovative person? You can't pay them to stop. It's a compulsion. Working for money is only impeding their innovative capacity.
Or "Who would go through the years of training to be a doctor or engineer?". Uh, the good doctors and engineers who do it because it's their passion. I don't want to go to a doctor who only did it for the money.
I think it's not that everyone wants to exploit, but if the opportunity exists and there are insufficient systems to discourage it, then some will. As demonstrated by [wide gesture at everything]
Like, even if that was human nature, shouldn't we try to overcome it?
I mean. That's exactly why all these systems fail. The shitty people get ahead by exploitation or breaking the rules.
Aka republicans
Right, and imo most people just want to get along. We just need a way to defend the commons from the shitty people rather than make them trillionaires.
From the time of the Natufians, beginning around 13100 BC , up to the Early Bronze Age IIb around 3200 BC, there are only a handful of violent deaths indicated by skeletal remains:
Guess the Bronze Age Collapse never happened. The Sea Peoples never swept through coastal cities raiding and plundering in the Mediterranean. Egypt and Assyria never dominated their neighbors. All those books I read were wrong. Even in Egyptian tombs, the extensive records of wars are all wrong.
Listen up. New information. All reports of societies duking it out in ancient history didn't happen. It's time to realign our understanding of human nature. War is a modern concept. In fact, I'm gonna go even further and declare that until the USA and our genocidal partner attacked Iran this year, there had never been a war EVER. Tell your friends.
Right, surely you must question your assumptions when there are no violent deaths at all.
The kinds of injuries they're talking about cranial fractures, a blow to the head, multiple fractures, etc. surely are seen today in people who die on construction sites, or in car crashes or after falling off a building.
If you're not finding those kinds of remains, something else must be happening. Maybe there was a taboo against burying people who didn't have perfect bodies. Maybe anybody who died from violence or violent accident was given a "sky burial" or something.
I mean, put aside the idea that there was no war. Is it reasonable to think that in the bronze age, people aren't getting mauled by wild animals? They're not getting kicked in the head by their livestock? They're not falling off buildings?
But I need to excuse my bad behavior and shitty ideas with an intellectual lacuna that brooks no argument. Do you have some better alternative?
It might not be that the person wants to exploit others but that exploitation is the norm in their experience in life.
We’ve said the word exploit so many fucking times they’ve lost all damn meaning!
I apologize for the exploitives.
And must be excused by intellectual lacunae?
You can think something is human nature, but also think that you’re above that nature
I am above drinking, eating, and defecating.
I will proceed to live the rest of my life without doing any of those things.
You sure will!
Just other people. Obviously I'm better than them. Maybe better than the gods.
The best reason to have children is for the free labor on your farm. Don't live on a farm? Force them to make shit you can sell on Etsy. Gotta make a profit somehow.
Uh, NO, the best reason to have children is that the line must go up and the social security system is going to be partially unfunded within six years!
American leftists becoming addicted to extracting social capital this last decade kind of low-key has me thinking he might be right. Not that it's impossible to live that way but the will to power is just too strong for egalitarian notions to ever become a significant thing again.
We've got like a dormant virus in our souls that was just waiting for the internet to exist and for money to get low
There's no thing like an American leftist because there's no left in the US.
And who thinks otherwise are just dumb mouth shitters who only had US propaganda for ~~meals~~ pasture all their lives.
Well, I thought you had an accurate take up until the tourettes goblin made you reply to yourself there. Something tells me your own ability to make anything good in the world might be a vestigial non-prority next to impotently talking shit on the internet. So at least we have that in common
Don't ever compare your greedy cynicism with my accurate take on such brain dead society divided between bleach drinkers and those who expect voting out genociders (to make other genociders take place).
~~"☹️ I'm not like other internet snark idiots. I fight people on the internet for real"~~
wait I think I just realized who you are. my bad, I enjoy reading you fight with other people but obviously couldn't take the heat myself. Carry on.