Zstom6IPOne of the mods is removing the no tankies rule, this must not continue.
anonI sometimes wonder how it feels to be unable to think for yourself, having each and every one of your opinions come directly from the hivemind right down to the catch phrases you use. I see SO much hivemind thinking here and the whole “tankies” thing is a great example of it. The people at hexbear and all people who think communism would be better than profiteering from death are not a monolith just as the people who support that orange guy are vast and varied.
Does being a sheep prevent you from processing nuance or is it just easier (or faster) for you to get your opinions wholesale from someone who you identify with? I see it so often that I can only guess that it’s pure laziness.
DeceptichumDo you feel the same way about applying Nazi to alt-right?
Tankie refers to a specific subset of people, those who are fine with oppression and authoritarianism, maybe not everyone on Hexbear are all tankies but it’s the Nazi bar problem and best practice is to kick them out.
I think it’s pretty authoritarian to seek to stifle any speech. Where I have to obviously draw the line is groups that are clearly hate groups.
It’s tough to toe the line and I appreciate your intellectually honest retort. I understand where you’re coming from and on the surface, it seems to force people to find some sweeping rule for the most situations.
Perhaps that’s the problem though. Perhaps painting with a broad brush is the problem. Perhaps comments should be moderated on a case by case basis. I know I’ve said some things on hexbear that got me banned for being “patsoc” and it rubbed me the wrong way.
Heavy handed moderation and generalization of entire swaths of people just disgusts me.
I honestly don’t know the answer. But I do know that bundking anyone who has communist views into some reductive title is shitty, intellectually dishonest bootlicker behavior. Maybe OP doesn’t even realize it.
Well communist views != tankie for one thing
This. Not even all Marxist-Leninists are tankies, despite the intellectually dishonest and historical-revisionist takes that I’ve heard (most often that it was Trotskyists, I suspect due to cognitive dissonance - specifically, unwillingness to acknowledge that followers of one’s ideology has done anything wrong - not horseshoe nonsense but it rhymes with authoritarian right-wingers). The term was coined by the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Great Britain because of their disgust at the USSR sending in tanks to quell unrest.
livus...some reductive title
...bootlicker
I think it's much easier to see when someone else's slang/shorthand becomes reductive than when you're doing it yourself.
Well there you go, we can all agree based on your own words. Tankies are clearly a hate group. Their only ideology is hatred for America, or “the west”.
I think it’s pretty authoritarian to seek to stifle any speech.
Ohhhhh you’re a free speech absolutist. Gotcha.
There’s a fuckton of philosophy and case law behind why free speech absolutism is a bad idea. Maybe you can spend some time looking into that, you might gain some insight into why everyone is shooting you down.
Also, words mean things and while authoritarianism always shuts down free speech eventually, not all restrictions on free speech is authoritarianism. This would be the nuance that you claimed other people refuse to see, that you yourself have eschewed in this case.
free speech absolutist
I think we can debate the merits of this irl. However, on the internet, absolutely not. It’s not one person, one voice here. It’s very soon to be one person, ten thousand voices. There are already troll farms where nothing is genuine. If today’s AI can do one thing, it’s repeat a talking point of your choosing ten times every time you see someone say something to the contrary.
Hexbears say they aren’t sectarians, but then they effectively drive out anyone who doesn’t do their cartoonist self parody.
Being fine with authoritarianism is not a defense against capitalism. It’s sinking to the same level, and it’s failing to provide a viable alternative. I’ll take the devil I know instead of violent revolution followed by a dictatorship.
I’m actually in that camp too. I’m just FAR from plugging my ears and calling anyone from an entire site a “tankie” and banning them outright.
Many of these people are quite intelligent and are willing to talk through their perspective. It’s not like it’s going to suddenly make you into one of them to read some of their writing. If your moral compass is well-calibrated, you’ll know that what they’re saying is wrong.
The only way that we can understand people we disagree with is to study them and analyze their perspective on their level.
I’ve seen calls for violence and rhetoric that I didn’t agree with. I didn’t join in. I just said to myself, “this is wrong.” and I went on to say my piece in defense of a different way.
Now if someone is openly calling for the deaths of entire ethnicities, that’s an obvious, “the only way to deal with a Nazi is bullying”.
Again, it is complicated and nuanced. I’m honestly glad to be talking about it here because I think that no one has the answer. I just think the answer is RARELY to plug your ears and dismiss people with labels in this and many other cases.
It’s not complicated nor nuanced. If you actually had a moral compass, you wouldn’t be turning a blind eye towards calls for violence. Being willing to gish gallop through some “effort posts” is not equivalent to intelligent discourse, and frankly that’s what I’m seeing from you here.
Flying Squid“You guys are a hive mind! You’re not at all like the people who praise the dictator of North Korea, who expects his country to have a hive mind!”
EldritchI see SO much hivemind thinking here and the whole “tankies” thing is a great example of it. The people at hexbear (and all people who have been beaten long enough by capitalism to think that communism would be better than profiteering from death) are not a monolith just as the people who support that orange guy are vast and varied
And just as wrong. No one here realistically has a problem with communism. The problem we have is with authoritarian groups just as bad as capitalists. Calling themselves communist while not being communist in any meaningful way, shape, or form. Leninism isn’t communism. And would itself have to be overthrown via another revolution to even become communist.
You are 100% correct in likening tankies to maga’ts. But you are absolutely incorrect to claim that either group is simply tired of people being downtrodden. They just want to be the ones doing the trodding. Nothing more, nothing less.
And on the topic of hive minds and echo Chambers. You will find no bigger hive minds and echo chambers than those of the Leninist or the modern fascist right. I would have to borrow the hands of many, many people. To count on fingers the number of times when debating a leninist or fashy neo-libertarian. How often it turns out I’m simply debating their reading list and not their actual understanding of any ideas of any sort.
I think reading is great. Even if it’s Engles, Lenin or Rand. What’s better is critical thinking and understanding. Being able to recognize bad arguments, bad ideas, and fiction. I’m less concerned with who said what. And more interested in how it worked out. And so far it’s full blown fascist state invading their neighbors. Brutal oppressive state capitalist silencing, slaughtering, and harvesting the organs of dissenters to enrich the powerful in the state party. Really wanting to invade their neighbors. And a backwards nepo-state. It’s not a good, or even better record than most capitalist states.