Cowbee [he/him]

To be fair, that seems to be more of a Lemmy.world problem, which itself is one of the worst overall instances.

Enshittification comes from Capitalism and the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, not necessarily centralization. The Fediverse eliminates the issues that lead to enshittification.

It certainly do be

You can always just have multiple accounts, if you’re specifically trying to avoid Marxists but also liberals, dbzer0 is probably what you want, but you could also have a Lemmynsfw.com account as well.

Lemmy is lacking in Anarchist and NSFW instances from what I know of, so either you will want to go with a general purpose instance that doesn’t block NSFW instances and deal with liberals and Marxists also federated with the general purpose instance, or maintain 2 accounts. Some apps let you swap at the press of a button without needing to relog in. I personally have a Hexbear.net account and a Lemmy.ml account, the former for relaxing and checking the news, the latter generally for trying to get liberals to read theory, so I use Jerboa for Lemmy.ml and Hexbear.net through my browser (so I get access to the unique Hexbear emotes). Works well for me!

Browsing Hexbear’s All vs Lemmy.ml’s All is night and day different in terms of average post and commenter quality. Lemmy.world and similarly aligned right-wing instances really drags down the average quality of discussions.

Huh, interesting. Probably weird fediverse shenanigans!

You’ve given me a lot to think about but I do want to clarify my personal views a bit. I’m not anti-Marxist, I don’t believe authoritarianism is inherent to marxism, just that those tendencies are present.

For context, Marx and Engels were constantly referred to as authoritarian, to the point that Engels wrote On Authority to counter the notion entirely. Authoritarianism is typically ill-defined, or used to simply refer to any use of the state apparatus, it’s a moving goalpost. I recommend reading Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” because judgement of AES states is usually done in an idealist manner, rather than actually looking at the structures. It’s a 21 minute article, I highly suggest reading it, if nothing else.

From my perspective authoritarian communism is to my right, so I don’t see it as left-punching, but I think the left-right metaphor is reaching the limits of its’ usefulness here.

It isn’t about direction, you’re correct that left/right reaches its limits here. Marxism is on the left, period. If you are punching left-wingers yet giving liberal right-wingers a pass, then you’re running into issues, hence why I suggested just making it an explicit and exclusive Anarchist community. Grad punches Anarchists, but also punches liberals, it’s strictly Marxist so it doesn’t run into issues with cooption or confusion.

Vladimir Lenin referring to “left-wing” communism as an infantile disorder is more in the ballpark of what I mean when I refer to authoritarian communism.

Have you read it? Lenin isn’t just saying leftism is wrong, Lenin was one of the most radical Leftists in history. Lenin is specifically referring to Ultraleftism, which is idealist in nature, and not Materialist. It’s a failure in understanding the Material Conditions of society and trying to achieve Communism through fiat, without developing the productive forces to be able to achieve it, which has historically run into massive issues. Lenin is correct here, you can’t pray Communism into existence.

I mean, that sounds like your referring to anarchists criticizing authoritarian communism, which is certainly not something slrpnk admins and mods would have any interest in “cleaning up” given they are anarchists themselves. If you meant liberals then I did say that we tolerate them there, at least on the memes community. We believe in outreach.

Being anti-Marxist is definitely a big negative, especially since you tolerate liberalism. Believing in “outreach” by allowing liberals yet rejecting Marxism is where you get “left” antileftism. It would be better to be an enforced anarchist community intolerant of liberalism, which would help y’all avoid the problems I see with slrpnk.net. Grad has a strict Marxism-only platform, and it has no issues, Hexbear has strict left-unity and has no issues, but solarpunk isn’t defined by anything other than the aesthetic, so it becomes a source of “left” antileftism rather than just an Anarchist community.

That’s fair. Solarpunk is primarily an artistic movement, so it is vulnerable to co-optation in the same way that any artistic movement is. IMO socialists are in desperate need of a strong modern artistic movement and if we don’t want it to be co-opted we should be embracing it.

As a Marxist, I want to point out that this is more Utopianism, ie trying to come up with a formula and enforce it, rather than trying to steer development. The Superstructure, ie art, culture, laws, etc, comes from the Base, ie the Mode of Production. Art naturally follows and supports the Base. Trying to force an aesthetic onto a utopia, ie a better form of society you wish to implement directly, is difficult and prone to coopting.

Perhaps it was an overreaction, I can’t say for sure because I think most of that drama played out before I joined lemmy. I have also never personally experienced right-wing anti-leftism on slrpnk.net so I might assume that we have cleaned that up.

To be clear, calling Marxism “authoritarian Communism” is a form of left-punching. You may not believe anti-Marxism is anti-leftism, but the fact that you allow liberalism but not Marxism is where the issues come in. It would be better, again, to be a strictly Anarchist community, or to allow both liberals and Marxists, blocking out left-wingers in favor of right-wingers is where the cooption comes from.

Therefore, I would say you have 3 good solutions:

1. Unblock leftist instances like Hexbear and Grad, while retaining liberals as well. This way, outreach balances itself out

2. Block liberalism, this keeps Anarchism as the focus

3. Add lots of resources for theory and discussions for theory that go beyond how this “utopia” may function, ie how do we actually get there? I see lots of “what we stand fors” on the sidebar but very little in the way of actual praxis, which adds further to the cooption process. Hexbear has anarchist and marxist theory linked everywhere, even in the sidebars and taglines, same with Grad (which even maintains a wiki and beginner reading list). Solarpunk kinda just has the manifesto. Even a simple theory reading list can do wonders for the theory levels of your userbase.

Of course, you’re free to continue as you see fit, I’m just going to have the same issues with slrpnk.net. You don’t have to appease this random Marxist-Leninist, you don’t owe me anything, but I do think you’re harming your server by being more tolerant of right-wingers than Left-wingers you disagree with on practice.

I wondered if it was a limitation in the code, or if it was out of a desire to limit pronouns to 2 sets, I guess. I am not at all familiar with the history of this

Huh, is that a technical problem?

It’s an utter failure in understanding Marxism, trans liberation is a firmly Marxist position. Communist Parties in the Imperial Core tend to have the worst takes imaginable because they are largely detached from the International Movement as they are made up of Labor Aristocracy.

The UK in general is TERF island, so it’s not hard to see why their views suck.

Not to be mean or anything but I’ve seen right-wing and “left” anti-leftism from slrpnk.net, hopefully y’all have cleaned that up more. I think an issue with Solarpunk is that ultimately it’s an aesthetic, not an actual strain of Socialism or anything, so it’s easy to coopt.

Again, typically blocking Hexbear and Grad is a negative when it comes to the ideas held by the userbase of an instance in my personal experience.

There are (none/use name) options, and new options are added by request. It isn’t just he/him they/them she/her, and you can have multiple sets of pronouns.

Yep, the mods have even openly expressed disdain for Marxism, referring to it as “a phase in college.” When you take a deliberately anti-Leftist stance, you become a welcoming space for the far-right, hence why instances that block Hexbear or Grad tend to be home to the most right-wing individuals on Lemmy.

Really wish I could hear an explanation for keeping Nutomic around when there is blatant transphobia. Either a public apology or something along those lines, it’s clear Nutomic has made trans users feel unsafe and that goes against the stated anti-transphobia aims.

You mean the leftism?

You love to see it. Great job organizing that, by the way!

That’s fair to bring up, but from speaking to trans comrades on Hexbear.net it seems Blahaj doesn’t do a great job protecting trans users, despite the focus of the instance, due to issues with some troublesome moderators. That’s ignoring the whole anti-Marxism thing Blahaj has going on, of course, I don’t think that’s entirely relevant but wanted to bring it up to put it to rest.

Beehaw is interesting, it’s a micro-instance so I am not sure how to judge it. Hexbear is many times larger than both Blahaj and Beehaw and yet manages to have 0 transphobia, which is an achievement even if we assume neither Beehaw nor Blahaj have transphobia either.

The overall activity, diversity in content across communities, and mandatory pronoun listing in Hexbear is at the top of trans-inclusivity and protection in Lemmy instances, that’s pretty much undeniable.

Typical LW L. From the mods literally admitting to being anti-Marxist to failing to protect trans users, LW is sowing its own destruction.

Hexbear is easily the most trans-positive instance, and it isn’t close. Strictly anti-chaser, pro-trans, there’s even a cis/trans questionaire that shows trans and trans-questioning members outnumber cis members when put together.

Lemmy.ml’s trans community has fantastic mods, but unfortunately Lemmy.ml itself isn’t as protective of its trans users. I try to report transphobia when I see it, but I see a lot more transphobia on Lemmy.ml than I do on Hexbear.net, which is a symptom more of the userbase than the mods IMO.