Holy shit it never ends. I remember hearing similar bullshit in the 90’s. Just replace Vaush with Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman. This guy is projecting hard with the “most tankies are former Evangelicals.” Wasn’t aware that the local Communists in my overwhelmingly Catholic country were fundies all along. Most of them follow Liberation Theory. This asshole probably isn’t even aware of what that is because Vaush hasn’t read the Wikipedia article on it for him.
Vaushites love pulling the “America bad” whiny shit but will do the same with “Russia/China” bad without a shred of irony.
I do worry about the future of leftists in NATO countries that do everything online. Why bother reading a boring ass book when I can watch a Twitch streamer give me theory in a fun and entertaining way? He sounds intelligent and is so sophisticated. Definitely not a geographic dumbfuck who thinks Portugal is in South America.
The only thing that gives me a little hope is knowing Vaush is disproportionately represented online. Hasan has over three times the popularity of him and is more well known among “normies.” I know Hasan fans and have met a few in person. I’ve never met a Vaush fan outside of an online forum. Maybe they’re more common in NATO countries that lap his shit up.
“shortcut”
SHUT UUUUUP!
OH MY FUCKING GOD!
It’s not a fucking shortcut you fucking dorknob.
It’s a lens of materialist analysis honed over a century before us and for a decade at least by many of us, personally speaking at least.
it feels simultaneously very dire and also very funny how this person’s worldview is very directly informed by a single Twitch streamer. Is that how you kids absorb politics these days? This person made a huge post about how Marxists develop political awareness and didn’t use the words Marx, Lenin, Mao, didn’t mention specific policies. They just mention a Twitch streamer and discord channels
glass houses and everything, since I know we’re a terminally online forum, but this whole thesis seems terminally online. Politics as posting styles
I can only speak for myself but I think this community skews a bit older than the new median lemmy age established by the reddit exodus/migration.
So many of the most out there takes I have seen could only have come from a literal high school student, and an incurious one at that.
I know this comment is a few days old at this point and the conversation is dead, but is it really true that reddit users skew younger?
Like, I was a teen when I made a reddit account over a decade ago, but I feel like reddit isn’t the cool thing for high schoolers to sign up for anymore. If feels more like legacy social media with very outdated design sensibilities even if you’re using new reddit.
I think reddit’s userbase is certainly more immature in the way that being a semi-anonymous user in an endless sea of throw-away accounts tends to foster. That kind of design creates an environment where people feel comfortable putting less care and thought into the views that they share because whatever bullshit they wrote will get buried when the thread dies, and most communities aren’t small enough for individual users to develop a persistent reputation in a community based on their previous comments, so every interaction starts off as a fresh slate with little/no stakes. And people are less likely to mature if they never have any accountability to the things they say/believe.
I don’t think the quality/maturity of posters on Hexbear vs reddit and the “reddit diaspora” on Lemmy can be explained by the age demographics of those groups. I think it has more to do with the quality of moderation here filtering out people with “reddit-brain,” as well as simply having a more well defined community where you can somewhat expect other people to recognize your username and therefore care about the impression you leave on people as a result.
yeah it’s just inscrutable to me and unlike any of my experiences but maybe I’m just getting old. I became a socialist because I had a minimum wage job at a grocery store and I was watching how evil the Iraq War was. It all seemed very direct to me. America’s evil and committing warcrimes, my boss wants my paycheck as low as possible, might as well listen to what these commies are saying.
Internet commentators back then were on Myspace and blogs, there wasn’t as much of a weird parasocial connection going on. Not even saying this was better, because it was dire back then too, but this seems so different and weird. It’s like internet cliques or fandoms.
“You can’t just say America always bad, what about when they’re on the good side?”
Well what makes them on the good side?
“They’re fighting against the bad guys like Russia/China”
Okay, well you can’t just always say Russia Bad China Bad, what about when they’re on the good side?
“Well what makes them on the good side?”
Well weakening the global military empire of the US is a good start, since that global military empire currently is the primary mechanism through which global capitalist imperialism is enforced onto the world at gunpoint, and anything that breaks the hegemonic control of that global military empire gives breathing room to liberation struggles around the world.
“Okay, but you can’t support dictators just because they weaken America”
Why not?
“Because what if America is on the good side?”
What makes them on the good side?
“Because they’re fighting against the bad guys.”
Repeat Ad Infinitum.
smug logiclord scientimistic LARPing talk without any actual scientific expertise presented, let alone references
presumes dissenters are illogical children by default because they are the out-group to the logiclord and the scientimistic LARPing talk
“vitriolic”
I never wanna hear the word “cognitive dissonance” again. It is literally exclusively used to say “How can people have other beliefs than me? Could they have reasons? No, it must be this fancy word I saw in a twitter post one time. I am the protagonist of reality surrounded by cognitively dissonant NPCs.”
Ahh yes apparently reading Marx and applying his law of value to the modern global imperialistic economy is a simplistic shortcut, who knew? Who knew that Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx’s Law of Value is actually just a simplistic shortcut with no data analysis and that liberal ideals are actually true!
“leftist wall of text incoming”
the first sentence is the most unimaginable liberal nonsense you’ve ever read
When you shortcut yourself into following the data uncritically, you inexplicably end up following the narrative of the US empire. I’m sorry sweaty, but data is not unbiased and free from manipulation.
Also, “when I was becoming a tankie”, if you ain’t one now you weren’t one then mate. Read some Lenin and become a proper leftist and not some lackey for the American empire. Gee, what a fucking idiot.
when I was
becoming a tankiedeciding whether to read a book or watch YouTube, I decided to watch YouTube and here I am. Don’t fall into their trap of reading a book. They all have shares in second hand bookshops and leftwing publishers.
