No worries! I hope I was not too much of a dick in my response, and I totally understand why and how you would read things the way you did. I’ll just try to express myself more clearly in the future. You know, this communication thing? It’s a never ending struggle! :D
I’m just pretty sure that people are either making it up or ascribing normal, terrestrial things that they don’t understand as fantastical things.
Yes.
As I said: If there were aliens, those fantastical things, are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And in most non US places. After all, aliens are a modern US legend, invented from Americans, for Americans.
I didn’t say that there were any aliens anywhere. Or that there were any other fantastical things anywhere.
That “almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today” is superstitious and wouldn’t know what aliens are
Didn’t we just establish that aliens are superstition? I think you are overestimating how many people share “aliens” as the most popular superstition which comes to mind first.
Most of the US shares that. A lot of other places probably don’t. Don’t underestimate how many strange stories about strange things in the night are out there :D
You didn’t get the point I made.
So… what were they mistaking the aliens for?
Ghosts. Spirits. Dragons. Or any other mythical creatures, or mythical phenomena of your choice.
If there were aliens, those are the descriptions I would expect through most of human history. And those are the descriptions I would expect in basically all the world, almost everywhere that isn’t the US, even today.
until the market adapts on how to recuperate that money since it can expect every citizen to get that every month, I don’t trust a free market not to ruin that.
Simple: Make UBI is inflation adjusted. Problem solved.
Let’s examine that:
The cult of tradition: Apart from Maoists, Stalinists, and Leninists, (all of them very rare breeds nowadays) I see very little “traditionalist thinking” on the left. So, NO.
The rejection of modernism: Does the left see the Age of Reason as the beginning of depravity? No. Even the most ardent communists the pre modern times as riddled with the same problems as modernity. They tend to see modernity and the rise of the working class as part of the solution. NO.
Thinking is emasculation, and action without thinking is good: If anything, then the left has a tendency to be a bit too over intellectual. NO.
Disagreement is treason: I have never seen two people on the left agree with each other. NO.
Fear of difference: If there is anything the left embraces, it’s plurality. NO.
Appeal to social frustration: Lefty ideologies do not speak to a middle class which feels threatened from lower social groups. NO.
Obsession with a plot: Lefty ideologies tend to not buy into the whole “Jewish cabal” thinking. Though they tend to put “the billionaires” in their place recently. So this one gets a MAYBE.
The enemy is both strong and weak: Does the left see their enemy as scary and weak at the same time? Not really. The threat from the right tends to just be seen as scary and overwhelming. NO.
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy: Do lefties in general embrace war, struggle, and fight for survival, because fundamentally life is struggle? NO.
Contempt for the weak: NO.
Does the left embrace heroism? Quite the opposite. Lefty action is community action, where working together makes you strong. NO.
Distain for women, intolerance of non standard sexuality, and a love for weapons: Nope, the left is against all of that. NO.
Selective populism: That’s the first point where I would agree. The left sometimes does engage in populism. YES.
Does the left use elementary langauge in order to limit critical thinking and reasoning? Heck no. If anything, a lot of stuff from the left tends to be too complicated to be broadly accessible. NO.
So, to sum it up: There is one point among 14 which aligns. And one which somewhat aligns. While in 12 points current lefty thinking directly opposes UR fascism, as described here.
That’s why I think your opinion is very strange.
I think you can say whatever you want.
As long as you don’t engage in the behavior depicted in that comic, this comic doesn’t seem to be about you.
I think that’s just not the topic of this particular comic though.
The comic is not about someone “calling a person a Nazi for owning firearms”. It is about “calling a Nazi a Nazi”, and someone else ignoring some blatant and obvious facts in response.
Of course there is also the problem of people calling anyone they don’t like a Nazi. It’s a different problem. The comic doesn’t talk about that at all, and has nothing to do with it.
Why do you bring it up? Why do you think that’s related?
Not really. The right tends to go a little bit harder in that direction:
Are you not white? Be scared. Jew? Be scared. Muslim? Be scared. Gay? Be scared. Socialist? Be scared. Woman? Be scared.
The left is a lot better in that regard, as they tend to limit the “bash their heads in” option toward literal Nazis. It seems to me that the right doesn’t feel a need to limit themselves in any way here.
Of course! How could I miss it. The argument: “User numbers are an indicator of quality”, is not valid, unless in context of the fediverse. Because…
Wait, I don’t think me, being the dumb asshat I am, understand that: Why? Why do you think user numbers indicate that something “can’t be as bad as you make it out to be” in the fediverse, but not anywhere else?
Reddit has more users than lemmy. Can’t be that bad then!
I see! Thank you for clarifying!
So let me see if I understand you correctly. I asked what Mastodon is for. You answered that Mastodon is for having meaningful conversations with people one on one about subjects important to you.
That would mean Mastodon is not in any way comparable to twitter, or any other social media platform of the like. To me it seems that, by this description you provide, it is best compared to a chat room, where you are together with a hand full of friends you already know, and can have a conversation. Just in a timeline that is a bit slower, and a bit more permanent than a chat room, but not quite as bloated as a classical internet forum.
That means Mastodon is not “social media”. The purpose of you being there is not to easily discover new stuff which might interest you. And likewise you also can’t easily reach out to new people with stuff that interests you, and which you think might interest other people. Mastodon doesn’t want you to be able to do that easily. Because Mastodon is an internet forum with people you already know, just with an added word limit.
So it seems I have misunderstood Mastodon. It doesn’t intend to be social media. It intends to be an early 2010s internet forum with a word limit. Now that I know what it is, and that this is what it is supposed to be, it makes a lot more sense to me.
And there are small independent artists who want to display their latest artwork to an audience of followers on a social media platform, with the potential of broader reach and impact. And there are activists, who aim to raise awareness by doing the same thing.
What you seem to be saying, is that social networks like Mastodon are not for that. No artists. No activism.
So, what’s Mastodon for?
people who support Russia/Stalin/China regimes.
Congratulations: That, and only that, is a tankie. It is a good practical defintion for the term.
Are tankies people who are economically left but socially and politically right
As I see it, tankies are just the same as the Trumpers. You can’t really say where they stand socially and politically, because they do not have a coherent opinion or ideology. Everyone who opposes their favorite regime is WRONG, and everything their favorite regime does is RIGHT. Bonus points for every action and opinion that hurts “woke lefties”, because the favorite regimes of tankies are all inevitably incompatible with progressive ideas and ideologies.
without knowing anything about the corrupt oligarchies in Russia or CCP China?
Imagine the answer a Trumper would give when you ask them if they don’t know about Trump’s corruption and character. The tankies answer just the same in response to allegations in regard to corruption and character of their favorite regimes:
First of all, none of that is true, because the woke lefties, the media, and everyone are all corrupt, and lying. And what is true, is all a well played move of brilliant 5D chess which will save us all, because the supposed “corruption” is actually all part of a very smart and deliberate system of ploys and strategems which the woke lefties just don’t understand.
Now, do the tankies and Trumpers truly believe that? Who knows. Doesn’t really matter anyway. What is clear is that both of those “ideologies” are dumb idiots.
Of course. That’s easy.
Only one person in those examples intended to kill someone, and then followed through with the plan. Murder is worse than unintentionally killing and hurting people through negligence.
It’s really easy to explain.