Post 9qqllmoBYnmBGiKilE by wolfcoder@witches.live
(DIR) More posts by wolfcoder@witches.live
(DIR) Post #9qnLK6907Ty7HV6Msq by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-08T14:24:33Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
For those people who believe that we need big names like the BreadTubers to recruit people to the left, I ask you a simple question: pick your favorite left-wing thinker - Marx, Mao, Goldman, Kroptokin, doesn't matter - and answer me this: do you like them for their philosophy, or do you like their philosophy because of them?If you only agree with someone's philosophy because you like the person for whatever reason, then fuck off! You're not a leftist; you're just another boot-licker clutching at the pantleg of a strong parent that would give you an excuse to do whatever the fuck you want. It doesn't matter if the person you worship is a goddamn saint, because the minute that person commits an atrocity, you would be lining up to defend them like any fascists. If you like someone because of their philosophy and can acknowledge that the person may be flawed, that their actions may be questionable, and that even their philosophy can be improved, then you're my comrade.
(DIR) Post #9qnLK6TYt2PoJGimvo by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-08T14:41:37Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
This is not a matter of having a bad philosophy or opinion; it's an issue of having a completely wrong way of thinking. A fascist who is a racist because they believe in the Nazi philosophy can potentially be reformed, if we can deconstruct that Nazi philosophy for them and replace it with a leftist one; a fascist who simply blindly worships Hitler is more than likely beyond saving. Our message can, will, and shall shine through because they are true and just. All we need to figure out is how to package our propaganda to better push them at the fence-sitters. To tie any revolutionary movement down to a few prominent individuals is flatly unwise: a revolution is built upon people trusting the movement more than the establishment, and if you tie your movement down to a few idols, then all the establishment needs to do is tearing the idols down.
(DIR) Post #9qnLK6vDEEX7h1es1w by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-08T14:43:15Z
0 likes, 2 repeats
Ideas are bulletproof; people are not. If we fell prey to idol worship again, then whatever revolution movement we have is doomed to failure. You can mark my words.
(DIR) Post #9qnLK7GTx9XykzbrBQ by 361.xj9@social.sunshinegardens.org
2020-01-08T15:01:30.282073Z
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@DissidentKitty ideologies and ideas don't scale without a meaning making system to hold them together.
(DIR) Post #9qqiRRzAyABt2A5MHI by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-08T14:49:52Z
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Anarchists who won't let go of their idols are like Maoists who don't wanna kill their landlords: LARPing.
(DIR) Post #9qqiRSU17UrQZoVzLk by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-10T06:01:16Z
1 likes, 2 repeats
Honestly, upon reflection, I wonder if the biggest problem with the cancel culture - namely an ordinary person getting cancelled online for one bad take - is a result of idol worship, at least in part.Think about it. Idol worshipers assume that their idols are never wrong. If they don't, they won't be worshipers. Consequently, they see anyone who make a mistake they can identify - such as someone making an obviously racist take (even by ignorance) vs. their idol's subtle racist take (even knowingly) - as a target they can beat down for woke points.No one is right all the time. But we put more scrutiny on famous people and punish them harder because they have more power. That is the way.
(DIR) Post #9qqikS0f6XKIbtqB8q by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-10T06:07:09Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
I'm also frankly quite sick of seeing false equivalence used in leftist space. I have talked about equating all atheists to New Atheists in a pinned toot. I also had a clown barging into my menchie to accuse me of being a purist and a LARPer for making fun of Google dictionary suggesting "nihilist" and "terrorist" as synonym for anarchist, because this clown thinks that making fun of a megacorp that make billions of dollar by conducting surveillance Capitalism for Fascists is the same as policing the language of a new lefty with a dozen followers on Twatter. Again, this is like saying making fun of the US is the same as making fun of trans people: a false equivalence the right uses to bait the libs. Do not fall prey to it.
(DIR) Post #9qqjhXl5NFx3WcjTYO by GreenandBlack@sunbeam.city
2020-01-08T15:13:02Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@DissidentKitty I noticed I was idolizing Emma Goldman too much at one point. So I sat myself down and deliberately went searching for shit wrong with her, and there was plenty of material to dig through. (From racism to sympathy for eugenics)I did the same with Makhno, and though I couldn't find any more dirt on him as a person, it completely changed my view of the Ukrainian revolution. Previously I thought it was one spearheaded by Makhno himself, whereas research led me to discover that the revolution was extremely bottom-up and collectively directed, Makhno played a much smaller role than I initially believed.Killing your idols is a very rewarding process.
(DIR) Post #9qqjtq13JpUTco3zEW by Anarkat@hackers.town
2020-01-08T15:41:40Z
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@DissidentKitty hah, I'm already ahead of you.You can't have idols if you don't read philosophy.Except for Will Van Spronsen. Rest in power.I don't think Will was a Paragon of humanity. Just someone with the courage to try to make the world a better place.
(DIR) Post #9qqjtqNjxTdelAg6b2 by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-08T15:49:17Z
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@Anarkat I don't read as much philosophy as some, but I'm not opposed to it since it can save time on reinventing ideas that had already been proposed by others.
(DIR) Post #9qqjtqgAqwNrgLIpKS by Anarkat@hackers.town
2020-01-08T15:57:28Z
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@DissidentKitty I don't think philosophy is bad. I'll read it occasionally, but I think you're right about idol worship. Then there's another issue I have with philosophy.That's the habit of philosophers to develop opaque jargon to convey ideas. This is a somewhat good thing for having a common language between people discussing ideas with similar familiarity with the philosophy, but it's absolutely terrible for conveying ideas to new people. We're not going to convince workers to unionize by telling them about the excesses of the bourgeoisie. No one knows what that means.But you know what people do understand? Rich people. bourgeoisie means rich people, and lots of people already have rich people. Why do so many leftists insist on anchoring themselves to opaque language that hinders their ability to convey ideas to new people? It's just not productive.
(DIR) Post #9qqjtqyxj5Pecc5pc8 by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-08T15:59:52Z
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@Anarkat Personally I have always hated jargons anywhere. Jargon's main function is gatekeeping people from joining a conversation; it's inherently elitist and bougie libs just fucking love dropping jargons on you when they see they are losing an argument.
(DIR) Post #9qqjtrJsTK8vfTsXDM by Anarkat@hackers.town
2020-01-08T16:06:01Z
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@DissidentKitty concur. Jargon serves some purpose in making complex ideas concise for the purpose of conversation. However, I find that a lot of leftists that are big into idols also tend to take up their idol's jargon, and then use that jargon as a means to determine who is as much of a Lenin (for example) LARPer as they are.
(DIR) Post #9qqllmCxnC0BPGuzk8 by wolfcoder@witches.live
2020-01-10T06:12:26Z
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@DissidentKitty be wary of anyone defending google. Even the liberal me from a decade ago felt uneasy about the level of involvement Google was getting with our everyday lives.
(DIR) Post #9qqllmVkfL1yLXi01o by DissidentKitty@radical.town
2020-01-10T06:20:39Z
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@wolfcoder Yeah. Any tech people should be vary of such centralized control of data tbh, especially those with security consciousness. Then again, it always surprises me how even tech people can completely drop the ball on security.
(DIR) Post #9qqllmoBYnmBGiKilE by wolfcoder@witches.live
2020-01-10T06:21:28Z
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@DissidentKitty it must be cheaper to react to security breaches than to build for security in the first place
(DIR) Post #9qqlln1ekiYFwUdTl2 by icedquinn@blob.cat
2020-01-10T06:41:59.354530Z
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@wolfcoder @DissidentKitty it isn't covered by the boot camps that mint most of the employed coders, and the business units don't care until it becomes a scandal. then the cost of waiting out the five day twitter anger is possibly less than the opportunity cost of not adding buzzwords because security review is slow.business people are much the same. they really could not care less what a platform does unless it directly affects their own bottom line. the founder (and still beneficiary) can go around giving people in the third world cancers and causing artificial disease outbreaks and nobody gives a shit.though i laugh when the same people turn around and cancel someone for wearing black face, then whine about it using their facebook (domestic spying, selective censorship) accounts on their windows (OEM extortion, monopoly tax on computers, founder runs a genetic warfare lab) computers. :blobcatdunno:
(DIR) Post #9qqme37J8rtzUB9Ubg by hakui@tuusin.misono-ya.info
2020-01-10T06:51:48.667960Z
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@DissidentKitty same with being "plural" huh