Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain’t dead. Remember, don’t downvote for disagreements.
Y’all don’t need to keep adding things to lgbtq or lgbt+. The q or + takes care of everything
I think this is a better argument that “queer” is the best catch-all phrase. Honestly, come to think of it, if we can phase out LGBT in favour of “queer” entirely, then that gives republicans a harder time to separate the T.
I’m aro/ace and honestly same. I refuse to use any longer acronym because to me it sounds silly.
In a similar fashion, I’m also not a major fan of the pride flags with more than the rainbow. It’s fine for special occasions in order to draw attention to a cause that needs it, but not as the default. Adding black stripes, the trans flag, and intersex flag all at the same time seems ridiculous to me, and it only invites other groups to feel left out. Adding the black stripes, the trans flag, the intersex flag, or whatever to the flag for some event, protest, or personal reason is great but imo we shouldn’t permanently muddy the flag like that.
I’m mostly an anarchist. But.
I think that there needs to be some degree of authoritarian, arbitrary power. Mostly because I’ve been in anarchist groups in the past, and when everyone has input into a decision, shit gets bogged down really fast. Not everyone understands a given issue and will be able to make an informed choice, and letting opinionated-and-ignorant people make choices that affect the whole group is… Not good.
The problem is, I don’t know how to balance these competing interests, or exactly where authoritarian power should stop. It’s easy to say, well, I should get to make choices about myself, but what about when those individual choices end up impacting other people? For instance, I eat meat, and yet I’m also aware that the cattle industry is a significant source of CO2; my choice, in that case, contributes to climate change, which affects everyone. …And once you start going down that path, it’s really easy to arrive at totalitarianism as the solution.
I also don’t know how to handle the issue of trade and commerce, and at what point it crosses the line into capitalism.
You might be interested in the essay The Tyranny of Structurelessness, which goes over the same concept you speak of with requiring some degree of formalization of structure in order to prevent unaccountable structure from forming. I’m not an Anarchist, though.
I’ll give it a read.
My main argument in favour of totalitarianism is the tragedy of the commons. Particularly in these areas: environmentalism, violence, and existential risks (whatever you think those are).
I believe that the stance against nuclear power (specifically, nuclear fission, as opposed to radioisotope power used by spacecraft) by greens undermines the fight to stop global warming, and that many of the purported issues with nuclear power have been solved or were never really issues in the first place.
For instance: the nuclear waste produced by old-gen reactors can be used by newer generations.
Yeah same. It makes the elections quite annoying because I agree with the local green party in almost every other way. But to me nuclear power is an important way to get reliable green energy. Something that still provides energy when the wind is not blowing and the sun isn’t shining. And to me some of the arguments feel way too “feeling based” instead of facts based. That its unsafe or dirty.
Preferably we’d have fusion, but until we manage to get that going I think nuclear fission is a decent alternative. Not forever, but for the coming 50-100 years until we find a better alternative.
I am very very very left wing, BUT I can get really annoyed with a lot of those “on my side” advocating for the most idealist of all idealism, as if it’s a contest. Feels like a competition of “who’s the bestest and mostest leftist of all”. You scare people away and - not justifying it - but I get why some people get upset with “the left” because of this…
I am very very very left wing, but
Everytime I see someone say this I know without a shadow of a doubt that they’re a centrist liberal.
Lmao this thread is full of “very/hard far left” who then present very cold for a far left takes or are straight out libs.
wrong, I support the green party (multi-party system, you should try it)
So, Social Democrat. I wouldn’t call that “left wing,” in that it isn’t a Socialist platform. It would be “left” in comparison to the status quo, but not enough to be “very very very left wing.”
It would be if you’d compare their program to that of the other left parties here
As I said, left of the status quo, but not on the left.
Lol, thanks for proving my point
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no, we have another party for that in Belgium (Vooruit). Groen has a leftist program
Groen are center left liberals.
With a program that’s more leftist than the actual left party, yes
Oh? Tell me more about their program to overthrow the liberal state and wrestle control of the means of production away from the owning class.
I believe that the vast majority of people are inherently good, and that tribalism and political divisiveness are some of the biggest issues we have to face.
Political differences arise mostly from different values, fears, education (or lack thereof), etc, but most people if you get to know them believe what they do because they believe it is genuinely good. But increasingly politics is focused on vilifying others, instead of trying to understand each other.
How do we tackle those problems you mentioned?
The reason I ask is I support your view here, but recently I’ve been downvoted a lot for having the opinion that I don’t blame people still using Twitter as I believe, like you, that most people are good people and can be reasoned out of what we believe are the wrong beliefs and that staying in those places to converse with them is better than Twitter becoming a right wing place and us chilling here in left wing ideology but at the end of that nobody learns anything they didn’t already know.
The hardest challenge in changing someone’s beliefs is that people don’t want to admit they were wrong or lied to or used or whatever and this makes it challenging if we can’t take our ego out of the equation.
Anecdotal proof that people can change is a YouTuber called JimmyTheGiant and he has mentioned several times how he went down the alt right pipeline but started to question things and now makes left leaning content.
Genuine question, why do you need to change peoples beliefs? Idk I find that 95% of people are pleasant to talk to and share your views with if you just speak with them nicely and try to understand their POV. And that applies to people who I vehemently disagree with.
I wouldn’t say I need to, but more I would like to.
If people are voting against their own interests because they have been lied to then don’t we owe it people to try and get them to see how the world works?
If people are hating on immigrants and poor people rather than the class system that is extracting all the wealth from areas then surely having more people onside makes it easier to change the system.
I agree that most people are good people and maybe just misinformed or have had their frustrations weaponised against them.
Have you heard of Daryl Davis? Black dude who convicted KKK members to quit just by being friends with them. I think empathy might be the key, I.e. its hard to be homophobic if your friend is gay.
That’s the energy I like to approach discourse with. Its harder online but it is possible.
I have heard of him actually, well I didn’t know his name but I’ve heard about him.
Exactly my point. You can’t expect people to change on their own and it’s on us to try and make the world a better place, as per our morals.
What’s your political creed?
I would describe myself as fairly left, but I’m not the most educated on accurate political terminology
I’m far left, but I believe that any citizen should be allowed to own any gun.
For what it’s worth, the far left (internationally) is traditionally pro-gun. I wouldn’t know what positions are about any citizen and any gun, but I wouldn’t be surprised either to hear a socialist advocate for it.
[…] The whole proletariat [i.e. worker class] must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois [i.e. owner class] democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.
That’s the far-left stance, generally.
Eastern front of ww2 made so much more sense to me when I realised the left could also have guns.
Stop out-woking one another, it’s okay to be right silently in order to bring in fence sitters.
If someone says, “my spirit animal told me late-stage capitalism is evil” welcome them to the club with open arms, focus on how you’re alike and trust them to work out their faux pas over time spent among like-minded peers.
Also cultural appropriation ≠ exploitation, we can stop clutching our collective pearls over these faux pas.
I vote we move to a new term, “cultural plagiarism,” which more clearly relates to e.g. a white person stealing a black musician’s work (as opposed to covering it and giving credit and royalties, which should be fine!)
In the spirit of my post, I’m glad you see a disparity in the term cultural appropriation like I do.
In the spirit of clarifying what I mean, cultural appropriation is using elements of another culture. What you described is exploitative, is very serious, and not what I’m referring to.
But I appreciate your input all the same.
I figured your objection to the term “cultural appropriation” is that people use it to refer to exploitative things as well as what I view as innocent things like a professional dancer who is white dancing to an anime song or something. That’s why I proposed a new term, to help differentiate these things.
Yes! I love it, thank you for that follow up. That’s exactly what I mean.
Cultural appropriation is specifically a method in which suppressing groups deny the cultural heritage of oppressed around. To call it a faux pas is ridiculous and ignorant
Respectfully, I disagree with your definition of cultural appropriation, but i agree it’s wrong to deny others the right to identify with their heritage or cultures.
Cultures borrow from one another, it’s just the nature of having multiple societies in proximity. I would argue (outside of the realm of exploitation) more often than not, cultural appropriation doesn’t come from a malevolent place, nor does it restrict anyone from otherwise enjoying their own heritage and culture. Some 9 year old wearing a Halloween costume of a Disney princess that isn’t their own race isn’t the crime we make it out to be. Worst case scenario it’s a faux pas, best case scenario, that kid took an interest in a group of people they are not familiar with and learned about them.
Also, as another commenter pointed out, the term cultural appropriation is used to cover a wide variety of offenses, so this disagreement could potentially come from that.
Edit: clarity
That intellectual property, both copyright or patents, doesn’t serve its theoretical purpose and just acts as a legal shield for the monopolies of big corporations, at least in our capitalistic system, and it limits the spread of information
In theory, a musician should be protected against abuse of their music. In practice, all musicians need to be on Spotify through one of the few main publishers to make any decent money, and their music will be used for unintended purposes (intended for their contract at least) like AI training
In theory, patents should allow a small company with an idea to sell its progressive product to many big corporations. In practice, one big corporation will either buy the small company or copy the product and have the money to legally support its case against all evidence, lobbying to change laws too. Not to mention that big corporations are the ones that can do enough research to have relevant patents, it’s much harder for universities and SMEs, not to mention big corporations can lobby to reduce public funding to R&D programs in universities and for SMEs.
And, last but not least important, access to content, think of politically relevant movies or book, depends on your income. If you are from a poorer country, chances are you cannot enjoy as much information and content as one born in a richer country.
And to add to that, scientific papers should be published in open-access journals, instead of Wileys et al. And Universities could run and host these journals, as it is part of their core duty: To preserve and spread knowledge.
Essentially, universities and libraries seem to have a lot in common. Both preserve and spread knowledge.
I believe it does function in as it does in theory, but the justification to the public is what you list as “in theory.” Regulations like IP laws are only allowed to pass because they support the profits of those who hold the IP.
I would love to see IP law burned to the ground. A more realistic goal in the meanwhile might be to get compulsory licensing in more areas than just radio.
In theory, a musician should be protected against abuse of their music.
You mean like with copyright (IP) laws?
Patents and copyright originated to protect everyone. Charles Dickens complained that his books were rampantly copied. Without them any invention by the little guy would be immediately stolen and ramped up into production at levels the little guy can never match. Why would I work on anything if it can just be stolen with no legal protection? Universities and SMEs constantly issue patents, if they can’t commercialize them themselves they can license them to someone who can.
chances are you cannot enjoy as much information and content as one born in a richer country.
What? The internet is full of free info.
The real issues are things like:
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Insanely long copyright periods. Sorry but your grandkids/Disney shouldn’t profit from your work. 70+ years later.
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Patent camping. Either do something with it or lose it.
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Patent lawsuit factories. The patent office makes money off of fees and is too quick to hand out patents that are overly broad or trivial. You have business that just hoard patents with no intention to use them except to sue others.
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I don’t like racism against white people or sexism against men. Do I think they’re less urgent or worrying than bigotry directed at other groups? Sure. There’s less hate against men and whites compared to other groups, and bigotry against them doesn’t have the same social or political impact due to current systemic racism and sexism being directed at others. But bigotry is still bigotry, and I don’t like bigotry against anyone.
I think it’s important to differentiate systemic racism from bigotry. There are some people who have a definition of “racism” that actually means “systemic racism,” and they make a more compelling case that “racism against white people” doesn’t exist.
I’m of the opinion that systemic racism against white people is pretty rare, but you can find it in niche communities, not as much society as a whole. I also think of systemic racism as being about inequity rather than inequality; but if you were to consider it as being about inequality instead of inequity, then you could make a case that e.g. affirmative action is systemic racism against white people.
A lot of this is semantics, which is a distraction from real problem solving.
As a white man, it means nothing to me when someone uses my race against me. The historical context of oppression doesn’t accompany the insult. However, there have been times in my life when minorities have excluded me or shunned me for my race, which sucks, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to internet war over it.
That is ignorant to what racism actually is. Racism is not just a set of unconnected rude actions towards someone but specifically exists within a cultural context that subjugates certain groups. Racism upholds that oppressive framework and racial bias in statements and beliefs help to encourage that false framing of the world. White men aren’t oppressed in the same way that a racial minority woman is and to say it is racism or sexism all the same is to downplay those specific experiences and cultural norm that holds certain groups and the individuals within those groups down.
The way all of this is discussed and phrased paints a sort picture, in some peoples minds, of white men being evil. The problem is that this capitalist society is too isolatating, individualistic, and distracting for everyone to properly empathize with the struggles of others, so we end up with these people on the defensive. We’re left with a portion of the population supporting a proper biggot like trump to now justify they’re own existence.
If only we could have all been properly educated… but its all just distracting from the fact that everyone suffers from an oppressive and exploitative system, some more than others. But its probably about time for a more uniting class conscience form of rhetoric.
What’s the more uniting class consciousness? When is anyone saying white men are inherently evil? The fact is that they are rewarded for upholding existing frameworks in the US and Europe. Have you read Sakai’s Settlers? He goes over this quite well.
I have no clue what you mean about a more uniting rhetoric besides just denying reality in order to appeal to a group that is materially rewarded by the current system. We have to analyze things materially, not through lenses of trying to “reframe things to appeal to this group”.
I don’t like extreme leftists (they live in a bubble) but they’ve been right about everything and they are our best chance at resolving economic disparity
Doesn’t sound like they live in a bubble, then.
I appreciate the recognition, but I think being right implies a lack of living in a bubble, right? Like, we might be annoying, but certainly not detached.
You can be Jewish and even support the idea of a Jewish homeland while also being fervently appalled by the actions of the state of Israel (Netanyahu, West Bank settlements, unarmed Palestinians shot/killed, houses being bulldozed, mass displacements).
Liberal zionists are still zionists
There’s countless invaluable Jewish voices in the anti-zionist movement of course, but what Jewish homeland could you support that wouldn’t be an ethno-state? /g
Agreed. Antisemitism != antizionism.
Im left leaning on many social issues but pronouns was never a necessary social construct hill we needed to die on.
I think that useless fight got us the full hard swing to the right.
Especially because you shouldn’t give a fuck about how people perceive you. You should be whoever you are and not care about labels.
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Religion can be a force for good. For social cohesion and a feeling of belonging. That it often isn’t speaks more to the samesuch cultural and emotional rot that has affected literally everything than to religion unto itself.
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It actually makes perfect sense for a country to want to limit or tariff importation of goods. This, if done right, can bring industrialisation into the country. You can’t have a nation that is all middle-managers, despite the First World’s best attempts to become that, it’s just fundamentally unsustainable. And while you can have a nation that just produces/exports raw materials, this is ultimately bad for the people in that nation.
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I don’t really know what constitutes a “political creed,” really, so I don’t know how to answer.
He means who do you circlejerk with on tinternet
Poor choice of words, perhaps. I meant those who generally share your political opinions in other respects. For instance, “anarcho-communist” or “libertarian”
Sure, but I do feel that by the time you’ve picked a niche label, you’ve filtered out where you disagree.
I don’t think so. Labels only have so much resolving power. They represent people who are broadly aligned in values, but not necessarily on every specific issue.
For instance, I think most libertarians have individual dissent from their norm on various topics. It should be easy to find examples in the case of libertarianism, but I believe this applies to other political ideologies too.
“Libertarian” is far more broad than, say, Marxist-Leninist or Anarcho-Communist. When you go from “Marxist” as an umbrella to “Marxist-Leninist” as a category within Marxism, you are generally conforming to that specification’s tendencies. At that point of specificity, there are more “solved” questions than unsolved.
Oh yeah sure. More solved questions than unsolved seems like a good way to put it. But there are still points of dissent though.
Immigration is universally a roaring net positive in all of history ; economically, socially, everything. It’s more than disinformation when they spew talking points. It’s hate. And most people complicit are just fully ignorant. USA lost their empire due to lack of education. Every other first world nations have their success in lockstep with the level of education they give their kids. A heist of all wealth has been conducted and you are viewing the aftermath. Elon will find your coffers empty. The real treasure, turns out, was the people.
counterpoint:
the labor market is a market, and as such regulated by the rule of Supply and demand. That implies: if the supply is increased, then the price is decreased. If the supply is decreased, then the price is increased.
In the context of the labor market, that means: If there’s fewer workers in the country (which comes naturally with a smaller population), then the price for labor (a.k.a. wages) goes higher. That increases the Quality Of Life for the people, and is therefore a socially good thing.
That’s interesting but I think you’re making a couple of crucial mistakes.
First as others mentioned, production and consumption are obviously intrinsically linked. A bigger country doesn’t automatically mean bigger quality of life despite having more workers, Switzerland is not richer because it’s smaller when it’s got roughly the same population as the poorest country on earth. But if talking proportionally, more workers per capita means more production per capita, which means more consumption per capita.
Second, to kinda go in your direction and in part because of the contractual nature of employment, the market pressure on workers wages is not a product of the number of workers, but the number of available workers. For working (not unemployed) people, the quality of life does increase as that number gets lower, but this means less unemployment, not less workers. This fact is the reason why unemployment is not a side-effect of capitalism (or the lazy nature of people or whatever else), but a necessary feature of capitalism, since capital relies on this perpetual supply drive (buyers market) for profit.
edit: This isn’t to talk about immigration, this is a more nuanced subject. Immigration has been defended on progressive basis (often not genuinely, but to benefit from cheap exploited labor) and attacked on reactionary basis (surprisingly also often non genuinely, e.g. France making massive anti-immigration propaganda in the 20th from one hand while asking border to let through illegally half a million of Portuguese workers with the other, against Portugal’s demands).
Is it your political creed commonly against immigration?
From your post history you see left leaning which is just almost always pro-immigration.
China and DPRK strongly restrict immigration, whereas there are lots of neoliberals advocating immigration for free market reasons
