The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.
The onslaught of attacks – often of a vile and deeply personal nature – is part of a well-organized, increasingly brazen Chinese government intimidation campaign targeting people in the United States, documents show.
The US State Department says the tactics are part of a broader multi-billion-dollar effort to shape the world’s information environment and silence critics of Beijing that has expanded under President Xi Jinping. On Wednesday, President Biden is due to meet Xi at a summit in San Francisco.
Victims face a barrage of tens of thousands of social media posts that call them traitors, dogs, and racist and homophobic slurs. They say it’s all part of an effort to drive them into a state of constant fear and paranoia.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if Lemmy is rife with these trolls. And I’m not just talking about the tankies.
I will never understand people who advocate for communism as opposed to democratic socialism. Every major country that has ever gone down the communist road has ended up a dictatorship. That’s not a bug of communism, it’s a feature. I get the criticism of capitalism, I really do, but we can enact socialist laws that rein in the excesses and extremes of capitalism without sacrificing our democracies for one-party governments.
Every major country that has ever gone down the communist road has ended up a dictatorship.
Up until not too long ago, every democracy relied on slavery, disenfranchised large parts of the population, and eventually ended up a dictatorship. If you asked someone in like 1810 whether democracy could work, it’d be completely understandable if they pointed out all the horrible aspects of Greek and Roman “democracy”, American planations, colonialism and the Reign of Terror, and if they assumed all of these to be inherent to democracy.
“Sure, the king isn’t perfect, but he’s surely better than Robespierre (who was inevitably succeded by Napoleon). And besides, great thinkers like Plato argued for a philosopher king – and that guy lived in a democracy, who would know better about all of it’s evils?”
Yes, communism has failed in many respects so far.* The reasons for that are complex, include active sabotage by anti-communist states, but anyone who doesn’t genuinely and critically reflect it’s failures is (probably) doomed to repeat those mistakes.
Assuming those are inherent and inevitable based on less than a hundred years of history is imho short sighted.
*Some very early societies were probably kinda close to what we conceptualise as communism™ today, but applying the term is anachronistic.
Up until not too long ago, every democracy relied on slavery, disenfranchised large parts of the population, and eventually ended up a dictatorship.
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Slavery was never an inherent part of democracy and democracy certainly didn’t rely on it. Ancient economies might have, but not their democratic systems of government. By contrast, communism does inherently call for the violent overthrow of existing governments in favor of a one-party transitional government that violently suppresses all others. Like I said, authoritarian rule is not an unintended consequence of communism—it is very much intended and seen as necessary.
Yes, communism has failed in many respects so far.* The reasons for that are complex, include active sabotage by anti-communist states, but anyone who doesn’t genuinely and critically reflect it’s failures is (probably) doomed to repeat those mistakes.
I don’t really think it’s that complex. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you have a governmental system wherein multiple groups can check each other’s power levels, the system can self-stabilize (that’s not to say it always does, but it can at least). Communism, with it’s one-party system, has no checks and balances, and therefore is much more prone to succumbing to authoritarian rule.
You say we just haven’t given communism enough time to “get it right” yet; I say they’ve already gotten it “right” multiple times. China is communism working as intended.
I think one thing that’s confusing is that there’s Marxism, communism, Leninism, MLM, etc. Different communist countries try to learn from other countries and each one has its own implementation based on its own material conditions.
From what I’ve heard, Lenin’s vanguard party and violent revolution thing was basically theorized to be required basically because of the long history of more peaceful movements being squashed by violent capitalists, the difficulty it is to wrest power from the old dictatorship, that of the rich, and the difficulty it is to change a country’s culture (see the super brainwashed US that might re-elect Trump let alone ever be able to get affordable health care). It’s not really required for communism so much as seen as a working theory of what’s required to achieve it in a pragmatic way due to the US trying to destroy it in every country that’s gone near it from its very inception and their full corporate-owned media blitz on people like Bernie or the democratic socialist in the UK.
A lot of the authoritarian nature of these countries is due to the material conditions from which they arose (usually poor, rural non-industrialized dictatorships, often colonized) and from which they had to stay alive (which is usually in a siege mentality as the US or other Western countries continued to sanction and undermine them). I’d definitely prefer to live in a Nordic country than any communist one, but they also started off in very different contexts, so I’m not sure if that will always be true. Like the other commenter, I’d be curious to see more data. I’d give the point to socialist countries right now though, because the experiment of capitalism has the entire global south counting against it.
From what I’ve heard, Lenin’s vanguard party and violent revolution thing was basically theorized to be required basically because of the long history of more peaceful movements being squashed by violent capitalists, the difficulty it is to wrest power from the old dictatorship, that of the rich, and the difficulty it is to change a country’s culture (see the super brainwashed US that might re-elect Trump let alone ever be able to get affordable health care).
Anyone can call any other group “brainwashed.” If that’s all it takes for you to justify violence in order to change a system, you yourself are the fascist. Regardless of how wrong or deluded you think a people are, democracy requires that you rely on debate and conversation to change their minds in order to accumulate the support needed to change the system. If you resort to violence, you are enacting authoritarian rule, plain and simple.
That’s the thing, often the rulers resort to violence even before the people. You can’t talk or debate your way into power against a dictator or monarch. They’ll shoot your peaceful protestors and kidnap and torture your leaders. They will blacklist your writers and artists. Talking and other avenues should always be the first step, and if you’re already in a democracy probably your only step, but if violence is used to enforce an unjust system I’m not sure how else you think it could be changed.
I could see a vanguard party providing for more than just defense or violence, too. It provides a way to organize and spread your thoughts and ideas, a way to provide mutal aid, a way to focus your demands, a way to teach political theory, etc. The rich always have class solidarity while they are masters of splitting up the poor intos different factions based on race, sex, gender, etc. Finding a way to foster solidarity into a big group where the proletariat can get their needs met seems like a worthy goal.
In the case of a dictator or a monarch, I agree there’s a case to be made for necessary violence, but in actual examples of communist revolutions, the violence has never been contained to the ruling governing body and its enforcers; it always expanded to “the bourgeoisie,” which often meant anyone who made beyond a certain amount of money, including small businessmen, teachers, doctors, etc. You talk about this process in the nicest possible terms, but that’s never how it actually plays out. It’s a violent revolution, people–often innocent people–get hurt and killed, and the whole point is to establish a new authoritarian system of government that explicitly denies the right for any other body to contest its right to rulership.
I’m sorry, but you are either a very subtle troll or extremely naive in my opinion. I don’t think we have much more to talk about. Good-bye.
And you like to take the nicest part of the pre-revolutionary history, where often rulers perpetrated violence against the poor as well for years, and ignore that as well. You also seem to be taking the worst examples. There’s been socialist revolutions where nothing happens to teachers, doctors, or small businessmen. Most of them, actually. China and it’s Cultural Revolution is the only one I can think of that went out and hurt a bunch of unrelated civilians.
Amen, well said
Agreed. Ironically I imagine we’re probably wiser and more intelligent but worse off in terms of ability to simply leave the system than the Ancient Greeks
Quite a few of those communists actively celebrate and want to imitate the monsters others are pointing to as cautionary examples.
Those are idiots, they’re fed up with the horrors of capitalism, like the ideals of communism, and don’t understand that popularly understood “communism” was more authoritarianism than anything else. They believe the assertion is that the two options are brutal capitalism or an authoritarian monstrosity where everyone quotes Marx and Lenin
If you judge an idea by the understanding of the dumbest supporters, they’ll all seem pretty stupid
Yes, communism has failed in many respects so far.* The reasons for that are complex, include active sabotage by anti-communist states, but anyone who doesn’t genuinely and critically reflect it’s failures is (probably) doomed to repeat those mistakes.
This is the part I was replying to. A big part of the supporters aren’t critically reflecting its failures, which doesn’t make me very optimistic.
I think this is semantic(definitions) confusion. Please let me explain. For example communism by definition is a stateless society. Meaning a state cannot be communist. The countries you are thinking of have all called themselves socialist not communist. Socialism does not necessitate dictatorship or democracy. It’s simply economical. Socialism is an economic system that abolishes private property which marx defined as different from personal property. Personal property includes your place of living your tv your clothes all your personal shit. Private property refers to owning the means of production. So under socialism you could own your house but not a factory or Google ect.
The countries that are exploited the worst have sometimes had socialist revolts in the past. These countries are typically not functioning democracies beforehand. The USSR had a tsar. China’s last emperor ended up joining the socialists once he was overthrown. Cuba had a U.S. backed dictator before Castro’s popular revolution. These countries were not made into dictator ships because of socialism. You have the idea in your head because of capitalist propaganda.
Democratic socialism is just capitalism with a nice welfare state built on it. Despite the name it doesn’t necessitate having democracy or socialism. Infact it’s incompatible with socialism. These states are nicer then usual capitalist states but often backslide. For example Britain moving closer and closer to privatizing their healthcare.
I hope that makes some sense.
- is called “LazyPhilosopher”
- Writes a thorough, well-reasoned explanation of often-confused and weaponized semantics between various social systems.
- Didn’t patronize or “um akshully” in the slightest.
Points for pleasant irony. You’re doing good work 👍
Thanks stranger, I appreciate it. 👈😎
You are missing the contemporary academic basis for democratic socialism though. Orthodox socialists view capitalism akin to a malevolent force, whereas democratic socialists view it as something like an inevitable byproduct of scarcity, something contemporary history seems to have more support for. It’s very much a modern vs postmodern take on the same issue.
At the same time, democratic socialists prioritize a degree of individual liberty and human rights as an ideological basis for government. The ideological basis for orthodox socialism is honestly a bit more flimsy and often in conflict with itself, which is a big part of the reason why the modern demsoc movement doesn’t have the same outward hostility towards certain forms of regulated capitalism. The idea being that with the right regularly framework in place, you can effectively resolve scarcity and capitalism withers away. This is actually not incompatible with Marx, and is also very similar to Dengist technocratic state capitalism, but without the obligate autocracy.
Marx’s definition of socialism is unhelpful, has been detrimental, should be ignored. He did advocate for socialism, but in a specific way. He saw socialism as a step towards communism. Marx believed that after a workers’ revolution, society would first enter a socialist phase where the workers control the government and economy. Then, eventually, this would lead to communism, where there would be no need for a state and everyone would share everything equally.
The United States regulates businesses, provides welfare. Those are socialist ideas. China, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, has rich and poor people. It isn’t communist.
Marxs definition of socialism is the important definition because it’s his word. Marx did think socialism would be the next step after capitalism and that communism would eventually follow. But he thought communism would follow in a far off future.
“The United States regulates businesses, provides welfare. Those are socialist ideas. China, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, has rich and poor people. It isn’t communist.”
Socialism is not when the government does stuff. I know you have been conditioned to think that but that’s not what it means.
Social systems aren’t all or nothing. Government run health care: socialist/communist. Government regulating businesses: socialist. Enabling competition among businesses: capitalist.
Engels and Marx believed an all-in approach was best, but even they believed in the value of incremental improvement. We don’t have to implement an entirely pure socialist government before we can say we’ve adopted any socialist ideas at all.
I doubt the CCP cares about such semantics. Almost all governments and systems today are essentially “no frills, just works”
Thanks for the info.
No problemo 👈😎
Nah communism is that your private property is the community’s property, which would be great if you’re a single mother until someone finds your baby locked in the car by accident but it’s not your car.
Every major country that has ever gone down the communist road ended up a dictatorship
While I don’t think full-on Marxism is necessary and am in agreement on the democratic socialism, I think the reason for this is really more towards the political end of it than the economic.
If a country practicing a communist economy had a more representative/democratic political system from the start, I’d like to see how the results panned out. And I’d also like to see which came first, the dictatorship, or the communism. The former being first makes more sense than the latter.
Communism weds its system of government with its economic system pretty inseparably. I’m not sure how you’d set up a communist economy without a communist government to manage it. As for the communism/dictatorship chicken-and-egg problem, I’m not sure it really matters when communism predisposes itself so readily to authoritarianism that a dictator is a foregone conclusion.
Well I ask these cause authoritarianism seems counterintuitive to the main philosophy around Marxism. Saying “the proletariat should have greater value and power in a business, since they’re doing the actual labor”, but then rolling over and accepting a dictatorship where the populace has no political say seems nonsensical.
Hence why I suspect the authoritarianism must have come first. So I can’t necessarily agree to “communism predisposing itself to authoritarianism” since it doesn’t make sense for a True-Marxist society to want to accept that sort of government.
As for how to set up the government in a communist-economy state: probably more of a Republic. People elect multiple representatives, and these representatives meet and decide on policies for the country and how to run it
A one-party system is inherently authoritarian; that’s what predisposes communism to becoming a dictatorship. Communism starts with the premise that the old regime needs to be violently overthrown. I don’t know how much clearer a line towards authoritarianism you can get.
I think maybe starting with Leninism, what youre saying may be true, but not with Marxism. I think this comment explains it a bit well:
So the original Marxist idea would lead to withering-away of government, and thus zero parties, not one-party authoritarianism. But due to all the authoritarian implementations, people think of states like the USSR when they hear/see communism
That communist ideal has never been achieved and there are plenty of good reasons to expect it never will be. Communism in the purest sense (a government-less society) has only ever been shown to work in relatively small communities. I don’t think it could ever work on the scale of a nation state.
So, for all intents and purposes, the transitional one-party government system is the only real communist system. That’s what I criticize, and anyone who champions this fantasy of a government-less society—I’m sorry, but I just think that’s deluded.
I’m not sure how many times people have to point out that true communism is stateless for it to stick.
It’s never been achieved, and there are so many good reasons to believe it never will be, so who cares? The transitional phase of communism is actually the end one, so authoritarian rule for life. Great fucking system.
HexBear, Lemmygrad, etc.
Let’s put the western dogma aside here for just a moment.
The other thing you have to consider is that all governments, authoritarian or democratic are just another institute or system inside of a society.
Due to the human tendency for entropy, everyone has a different idea of what works and what is fair, and in a growing, and increasingly complex world, democratic and authoritarian regimes still somewhat coexist but may attack each other’s systems by disinformation and propaganda campaigns, but 9/10 rationality and conscience will support systems that provide utility and potential for innovation first, second to the next system that simply contains or prevents the worst of human tendencies - the reason is very simple. If you imagine you were born without a conscience or worse, simply to commit familicide, but the only thing holding you back was being busy with a job or doing something more meaningful that made you feel good, you would probably prefer to pick both, but still favour the one that keeps you busy so that you can think of better things to do while your planning something evil so that you can give yourself time to change your mind before you make a decision.
Communism more often than not gives people the short term illusion that they’re doing something useful, like for Che, until they realise they’d arguably still be able to apply the same function within a capitalist or anarcho-communalistic setting, it’s just a question of how useful and how much good do you think you can do before you feel competitive 😉
Seems that fascism hasn’t been successful either or do you consider that capitalism?
They don’t last long. Behind the scenes lemmy servers are active at booting trolls.
Hello? Lemmygrad.ml?
Anyone can make a lemmy server, but that’s an example of a cesspool.
but that’s an example of a cesspool.
Yes, but a cesspool with first mover advantage. I think its a good example of how Americans have been manipulated to operate against their own interests.
I love it when posts like this are made with way more upvotes than downvotes. Sure though, you’re an endangered minority and the commies are out to get you. The most red thing about lemmy are the downvotes that people get for disagreeing with your sentiment.
I’m under no delusions that Western communists have enough popularity or support to actually enact your dreams of a hostile takeover of Europe or the U.S. My only point was that Lemmy is a haven for you and you do make up the majority here, it seems.
I suppose Lemmy allowing for an opinion other than yours to exist makes it a “haven” but I don’t know why you think that’s a bad thing. Something tells me you’d love a dictatorship if it was yours. I bet you also count the deaths of nazis as “deaths under communism”. You don’t know a damned thing about my dreams, and you certainly don’t understand the meaning of “majority” when you think you having way more upvotes than downvotes means people who disagree with you are a majority.
Cuba’s a dictatorship?
It’s obvious you have read no theory. Read the Communist Manifesto, Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds. For anarchism read David Graeber or Rosa Luxembourg.
If you still feel the same after reading, fine. But read first. Instead you wallow in ignorance and declare your opinion informed. It’s not.
Or maybe you could try presenting actual ideas. Do you not know what the books you supposedly read were about?
Basically they are about (specially Blackshirts and Reds) how “libertarian” socialist experiments all failed, and were ultimately destroyed by national and international bourgeoisie.
I think Critique of the Gotha Program by Marx is much better than the Communist Manifesto, as it’s also a critique of the libertarian socialist German communes.
Like, if you want to get very sad, read about the politicides in Indonesia, Korea, South America etc. Communists (and I include anarchists, libertarians socialists, democratic socialists etc. here) have to organize in strong movements to survive.
All communist experiments that lasted more than 1 years were either MLs or Maoists.
We really should look at this and try to learn from it. It’s a fact, it’s just something that has happened.
We have to understand why democratic socialism is vulnerable to being exterminated, and why ML and Maoism aren’t.
So you’re saying I should be a fascist 🤔😅
Man if that’s what you got from what I said, idk what to tell you.
I sure hope no one becomes a fascist after materially studying and analysing history. And if they have any shred of empathy as well of course.
Lemme just laugh with you
Nobody said he was… that is not the point.
Would you be really shocked if “tankies” agreed the state sucks? They are… gasp… communists after all no? And communism is stateless, moneyless and classless, right?
Like even “tankies” are anti-statists… they just disagree with people like you that we can reach communism without authoritarian revolution, creating a dictatorship of the proletariat, and first transitioning to socialism. And that doesn’t mean they agree the revolution and the proletariat dictatorship will be like in the USSR, Cuba, China etc.
Marxists-Leninists and Maoists understand socialism will look different everywhere it comes, and will adapt to the culture and expectations of the working class of those places… only anti-communist leftists make the mistake of thinking “tankies” idolise the USSR or China. That what they want is an exact repeat of the Bolshevik Revolution…
You very clearly didn’t watch the video. Your interpretation of the critique of the Gotha program is off by a mile.
Posting a lone YouTube video is indicative of a deep and fruitful intellectual bedrock. Lookout: this guy’s got answers 🤣!
I didn’t say anything about what the critique was…. I did make a typo saying libertarian socialist German communes. But I tried writing libertarian socialist German communists, which doesn’t make sense either, but the meaning was libertarian socialist Germans, or libertarian German communists.
In any case, I never said it was the main point of the text either……
Why should you listen to me when the people I referenced are more knowledgeable? That was the point. Read.
Because I don’t care. And you haven’t made me care.
You have a bit of time here to make some kind of point to make us interested in the hours you want us to spend. You haven’t accomplished that.
It’s like trying to sell someone on coming to your space opera production when all you’ve done so far is sing off key for six seconds.
No? Why would anyone want to voluntarily subject themselves to that. I don’t need to spend five hours of my evening attending your play to know that it probably sucks.
If it were any good, you’d be able to make a small, interesting point out of it.
Do I want to learn more about your hemorrhoids? No. Fuck no, dude. That’s not how I’m spending my evening.
You know while I do empathize with being asked to care about something and being annoyed at that, it’s also annoying to be inundated with takes from people on complicated subjects, who aren’t willing to put in some hours worth of work. Nobody’s going to be willing to personally walk you through the subject matter and do all of the intellectual labor for you specifically, that’s an unreasonable request of them, and frankly, less efficient than just reading.
Sure, but you need to sell someone on why the time is worth spending. Nobody here is asking anyone to walk them through the subject matter, just give an idea of why the subject matter is worth digging into.
I personally have read the The Communist Manifesto, and when paired with what I know about human nature and how it turned out in practice, my conclusion is that it’s a bunch of idealistic nonsense. It can only work in the way described if everyone buys in and the leadership is noble, which is true for pretty much every governmental system out there (dictatorships can work well if the dictator works in the interests of the people). It doesn’t work well when you remove the assumption, because people will game the system and consolidating power is a recipe for disaster.
And that’s why liberal democracy has worked so well. Instead of assuming people are good and consolidating power is beneficial, it instead mitigates the damage bad actors can cause. There are obviously downsides, but the average liberal democracy should be better off than the average dictatorship.
So I’m not going to pitch The Communist Manifesto because I find it uninteresting. I will, however, pitch How Democracies Die, which is an interesting look at how bad actors have subverted or attempted to subvert democracy to turn it into authoritarianism, and it culminates in a discussion about Donald Trump and similar political figures. You won’t find a pitch for an ideal political system, but you will find examples of weaknesses in past and existing institutions, and I think that’s a lot more interesting than a non-existent, “ideal” system that we don’t fully understand.
This is a great example of how you can take complicated subjects and express the ideas in a simple way while still recommending further reading. I’m absolutely more likely to read How Democracies Die now than I am to read anything the tankies have suggested.
If you can’t explain something to a five year old then you don’t really understand it.
I’m convinced the tankies understand less about government than they do about social media techniques and creating a cult.
Hell, I’m even trying to help them. Novel ideas are good for everyone. It’s why we believe in freedom of speech and not banning books. Trying to bandwagon and browbeat and mock people into joining your “cause” is… less helpful.
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We are doomed
If this is the pinnacle of your outreach, I see how you’d come to that conclusion.
I’m not your savior. Find Jesus
Why would it be a book if the information in it could fit into a forum comment? What kind of hollow fluff are you reading?
If you got anything out of it other than a sense of pretentiousness, you should be able to extract and express some ideas from it without going into detail.
Instead you just sound like a cult.
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You’re not a democratic socialist, you’re a social democrat
The distinction is only important to those who seek to exclude social democrats from leftist spaces via purity tests.
The absolute nerve of people wanting their ideological spaces to be based on ideology.
I don’t really care what the term is, to be honest.
I don’t understand people who feel the need to open their mouths but don’t care if actual meaning is conveyed
Haven’t opened my mouth here yet!
hurr
Bro its called lemmygrad look it up.
I’m aware of it. Plenty of commies here too.
Did any communist nations in history try to reduce the disparity in wealth?
Are you serious? Almost every single one.
Really? It looks to me like ‘almost every single one’ tried to use communism as an excuse to funnel as much wealth as possible to their ruling classes, just like capitalism and Russian/North Korean/Chinese communism.
But can you name some specifics? That way we know exactly what you’re talking about.
Edit: Still waiting on those specific countries.
Generally these countries already had massive wealth disparity so keep that in mind, with a few landlords and the rich ruling over vast amounts of a mostly rural populace.
The USSR massively reduced wealth inequality and then it rose against after it fell. The funneling as much wealth as possible to their ruling classes happened more afterwards, with the rise of the oligarchs.
North Korea was a lot more equal than South Korea when it was formed although I’m sure it’s changed since then, but they don’t let people in so there’s not many official figures. China is basically a capitalist country now, although notably it’s income inequality rose more when it implemented these market reforms that made it more capitalist. It’s wealth inequality is less than the US’s, or about the same, anyway.
Cuba was a lot more equal after the revolution than before. They basically removed homelessness, fed everyone, gave everyone health care, etc. It’s commonly known that the Batista era was filled with graft, rich landowners and club owners, and corrupt government officials while most of the countryanguished in poverty. Inequality has only risen when they had to implement more capitalist-like market reforms after the Soviet Union fell and they lost their major trading partner.
Vietnam had also done well at that front, increasing growth with only slight increases in inequality, doing better than China on that front. They’re still worried about it after implementing market reforms as well but are working on it, and have still done better than other countries.
Notably Social Democratic countries like the Nordic ones have also done well in terms of wealth inequality, but like these other ones examples, it can trend worse when increasing - privatization or similar capitalistic reforms. Some of these countries like Norway also have even more publically owned goods and companies than countries people think of as socialist, like Venezuela.
Speaking of, Venezuela had the lowest inequality in South America for a long time, although crashing oil prices has impacted that.
Whether it’s a bug or feature depends on whether you’re trying to hold power or not.
Authoritarianism is often one of the steps on the way to communism, and in theory it makes sense. Once you have unified control, you can start getting everyone and everything to work together.
Problem is, people tend not to do that. If a regular person gets the reins, they are usually unwilling to give them up, and the citizens tend to care more about themselves than the collective
In theory communism works great. In reality it’s the people that fuck it up.
Governmental systems are designed around people, for people. If your governmental system only works if everyone does what they should, your system is broken. Political systems need checks in place to prevent bad actors from screwing the whole thing up.
So if communism doesn’t work with actual people, it’s a worthless system from the start. Maybe some of the ideas can be salvaged. For example, the separation of private and personal property is interesting, and it’s what makes georgism interesting to me, and I think we should be looking at systems like that instead of communism.
Authoritarianism is often one of the steps on the way to communism, and in theory it makes sense. Once you have unified control, you can start getting everyone and everything to work together.
The word you’re looking for is “force” and it’s exactly why authoritarianism is a horrible thing. Stop trying to justify it.
Communism doesn’t work because any sufficiently large number of people are going to have disagreements. That’s not a fault of the people, it’s a fault of the system trying to manage them (communism). If your system of government’s only way of manufacturing consensus is violent suppresion, you have a shitty system.
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Tell Xi to fuck off for me, troll.
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Omg it’s the guy the article is talking about! Dude, you’re famous!
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The goal of democratic socialism, like all socialism, is communism. My guess is you either meant social democracy instead of democratic socialism (easy confusion to make) or you’ve been made to think communism means stalinism (also prone to happen if you’ve lived under McCarthyist propaganda your entire life).
The goal of democratic socialism, like all socialism, is communism.
Uh, actually the Wikipedia page for democratic socialism says the exact opposite of this.
No it doesn’t? Literally in the overview section
Some Marxist socialists emphasise Karl Marx’s belief in democracy[51] and call themselves democratic socialists.[20] The Socialist Party of Great Britain and the World Socialist Movement define socialism in its classical formulation as a “system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the community.”[52] Additionally, they include classlessness, statelessness and the abolition of wage labour as characteristics of a socialist society, characterising it as a stateless, propertyless, post-monetary economy based on calculation in kind, a free association of producers, workplace democracy and free access to goods and services produced solely for use and not for exchange.[53] Although these characteristics are usually reserved to describe a communist society,[54] this is consistent with the usage of Marx, Friedrich Engels and others, who referred to communism and socialism interchangeably.[55]
The only difference between a socialist party and a communist party is branding for people who don’t know what either thing is
I’m not trying to be pedantic here, but I did want to add that there is a big difference between democractic socialism and social democracy. Jacobin has a great article on what the differences are … below are 2 quotes that highlight the basics.
Nordic countries — Finland, Norway, and Sweden — are social democracies. They have constitutional representative democracies, extensive welfare benefits, corporatist collective bargaining between labor and capital that is managed by the state, and some state ownership of the economy.
Democratic socialism, on the other hand, should involve public ownership over the vast majority of the productive assets of society, the elimination of the fact that workers are forced into the labor market to work for those who privately own those productive assets, and stronger democratic institutions not just within the state but within workplaces and communities as well. Our characterization of democratic socialism represents a profound deepening of democracy in the economy.
It’s really more of a spectrum.
Also words are literally determined by use. Arguing about then as if they have inherent meaning is stupid.
Sure, but it’s important to distinguish when a word is being used two different ways, and the only way to do that is define them.
There are people who use Lenin’s definition of “socialism” as the name for the transitioning stage between capitalism and the communist goal in the Manifesto.
There are also people who use “socialism” to mean any time the government does any regulation or helpful policy of any kind.
Fair. The only thing I’m trying to do here is fight the unnecessary reification of words.
Also worth noting that Marx never refers to two stages transition between capitalism and communism. He does refer to higher and lower stages of communism but those don’t map to lenin’s usage with socialism etc.
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You know most people differentiate between socialism and communism now right? It is definitely more nuanced than your argument of all democratic socialism wants to transition into communism.
People can call themselves whatever they want to call themselves, but if their goal isn’t a currencyless, stateless society without private property and based on mutual aid they aren’t socialist they’re sparkling capitalists.
I bet you’re also one of those people who goes around complaining about “liberals” and then wonders why so many people think you’re a right winger.
That never once happened but I do love to call US right wingers liberals.
No, it’s not. Even they differentiated between socialism and communism. But they are correct in their assertion that the ultimate goal of socialism would be achieving a state like communism. Not a state as in a nation. But a state as in a state of being.
Whether or not you think such thing is possible in this moment. And I think most people would say it’s probably still a little ways off. Even you ultimately would like a society in which you were free to do whatever you desired. Whatever stimulated you intellectually and explore your passions. Without having to worry about being a wage slave.
I assume from the second half of your comment that you’re in favor of communism, but I question your strategy of using literal Republican scaremongering statements as your argument for it.
The goal of democratic socialism is not communism, generally. I’m sure there are a range of individual goals.
Democratic socialism is closer to a fully capatalist system than it is to communism, but attempts to limit capatalism in ways that could be detrimental society (regulation and taxation). Additionally, it implements programs that benefit society (public infrastructure, Healthcare, etc).
A completely capatalist society will kill itself. A fully communist society will grind to a halt. A careful balance between those extremes can deliver many of the benefits of both. Finding that balance is difficult and there are reasonable debates to be had about how. Unfortunately, there are a lot of unreasonable people in power.
You’re describing Social Democracy. As I said earlier, it’s easy to confuse the two.
It is, because it depends on the country and decade that we’re talking about. Best I can tell is that it is a distinction without a difference.
A completely capatalist society will kill itself. A fully communist society will grind to a halt. A careful balance between those extremes can deliver many of the benefits of both.
A socialist country will simply kill itself more slowly – any system that accepts the continued exploitation of the planet is unsustainable. Considering how much damage has already been done to the environment, even if we all went socialist today and started driving electric cars we’d only push back the inevitable a decade or so.
An authoritarian “communist” (I use quotes because I don’t believe actual communism can be forced) society will degrade and grind to a halt the same way any system that has positions of power will as the power struggles ensue.
Communism doesn’t imply pacificism. A decentralized anarcho-communist society with a culture that recognized and managed consistently bad actors before they had an opportunity to gain power, and was moneyless (as communism is) meaning those seeking power would have limited ability to pay anyone to back them up seems the only logical sustainable path.
This may seem like an impossibility, but it was arguably the way humanity existed for 200K years before the consistently bad actors got the upper hand, took power and used money to keep it.
Socialism and communism were interchangeable terms historically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Etymology
The main problem is that the exact meaning of communism and socialism and all of its derivatives has changed since its creation. Everyone ends up argueing over semantics and using no true scotsman fallacies.
https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/39009/democratic-socialism-vs-social-democracy
Are you sure?
Mr. Philbin, that is my final answer
Thanks for the information.
Socialism and communism are interchangeable terms historically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism#Etymology
I can’t prove it, but my hunch is a lot of the obnoxious people I argue with online, who seem unable to see reason or resist devolving to insults and twisting my words, are actually foreign operatives tasked with depleting American morale
IDK, I think there are a lot of pretentious idiots who refuse to engage in good faith discussions without any direct ties to any foreign governments. People adamantly hold on to all kinds of stupid opinions and argue fervently for them.
So it’s hard to tell who the foreign operatives are if regular people are willing to spread disinformation without any kind of compensation.
True, but the people funding disinformation operations believe they’re making a difference, and anti-disinformation operations like Bellingcat agree with them.
I think a better way to view is that malicious actors have managed to weaponize the “pretentious idiots” you referred to, making them an integral part of their propaganda strategy. They’re useful idiots working for foreign governments without even knowing it, and the way they’re manipulated and amplifying deliberate propaganda makes them far more influential than they would be if they were just spewing their own personal idiocy.
That’s fair. My point is that the person you’re talking to is unlikely to be a foreign operative, so calling them on their BS (if you do it well) could have enough of a ripple effect to get others to ignore them.
It’s a huge pain, and it’s not something anyone will ever win, but I think it’s important. It’s a lot easier to neutralize an idiot than a professional.
I prefer to add a dose of spicey humour or sweet idiocy to my conspiracies to keep the real spies off my tail
That’s where the psy-op is though. So much of our communication even in our local communities is done online anymore.
So just putting that uncertainty in your head of “I bet a large percentage of people we interact with are just Pooh-bear sock puppets” might be enough subtle false-flagging to heavily polarize entire societies, when we remember China excels at taking bad things and applying them “at scale.”
At a time when we’re deprived of and seeking community and social bonds, it’s isolating, it’s depressing, and it’s doing a ton of potential damage.
Agreed. Assuming bad things is a great slope into playing devil’s advocate
Weird, my sensation is that everyone online agrees with me and thinks I’m very smart and overall a great guy.
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Most
delusionaltypical conservative.Thank you.
You see? Another fan.
I dunno if I’d agree with you on everything, but in your own way I bet you’re a great guy overall. <3
I honestly can’t imagine any other reason why internet leftists would defend an autocratic capitalist nation so vehemently, while also putting so much effort into excluding European social democracy from leftist spaces.
Certainly social democracy would be an improvement for the US people over what the US currently has.
Quick question, though, Wikipedia gives this definition of a communist state:
A communist state is a form of government that combines state leadership of a communist party, Marxist–Leninist political philosophy and an official commitment to construct a communist society.
How does this not apply to China? It sure makes sense to me that a communist forum would support a communist state…
The problem with that is the fact its a descriptor. Basically ever so called communist state since the Soviet Union has in some way been influenced by so called “Marxist-Leninism” due to soviet and now chinese influence. The thing there is a shit-ton of leftists who see MLs as nothing more than fascists with a red paint job, so will thusly argue that china isnt communist.
Plus you could have a communist society which actively lynches MLs which would actively invalidate that qoute you put up.
Its a bad definition, itd be like making a definition for republics based solely on the the Commonwealth of England.
Fair, I’m not saying it’s a definition. This is Wikipedia we’re talking about. My point was more that a “communist state” (although the term is misleading) is really in active usage referring to a country with MLs in power that are working for the benefit of their citizens to achieve communism. That’s not an exact definition either, but it should convey the point well enough in terms of currently existing countries.
Western Moral. I’ve got the same hunch here in Europe.
Nono tankies aren’t Chinese operators, they’re CIA, tasked to discredit the left. That’s important because they’d be proud of the former but are enraged by the latter.
tasked to discredit the left
Ah, yes, of course, the classic strategy of discrediting the left by using the viewpoints of the definitely not left wing movement of … checks notes communism?
The strategy of equating a classless, stateless, and moneyless society with brutal, authoritarian, oligarchy-run, very much statist, state capitalism. Just paint all means of oppression red and it’s going to be fine, amirite?
Marxist-Leninists do not argue that when you have a communist revolution that you’ll just magically end up with communism. Look into the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
Just paint all means of oppression red and it’s going to be fine, amirite?
No, of course not. China has a strategy of democratic centralism, which actually seems to be a quite effective implementation of a democracy. Unlike in countries like the US, Chinese citizens are quite satisfied with their government.
democratic centralism, which actually seems to be a quite effective implementation of a democracy.
Read your fucking Lenin. Democratic centralism is an organisational principle for parties, not for societies. Also it doesn’t work as the enforced unity (“thou shalt not question shit that has been voted on”) allows authoritarianism to take root, especially considering that party officials were never freely elected, but from lists drawn up by guess who those already in power.
It’s always funny, Tankies thinking other leftists don’t know anything about the mechanics of ML parties and their state-level experiments. We do. We understand it. We know where it leads. That’s why we don’t want that shit because to communism it leads not. Granted Cuba is on a good path right now but, well, they’ve left a lot of that old ML stuff behind them.
As to China. Fucking China. China doesn’t even have public healthcare. It has billionaires. It’s not even state capitalism it’s straight-up authoritarian capitalism. Singapore but in corrupt, without rule of law, and with polling that you can’t trust because people are both afraid of speaking their mind, as well as isolated from the world.
Nah, people got too much dogma up their arse these days anyways
It’s called tik tok isn’t it?
They’re all over, here it’s called hexbear.
That and MAGA.
Tik-Tok’s only problem is capitalism. /s
I’d bet I’m not the first person to write that sentence on Lemmy, Hexbear and elsewhere. The problem is right here and everywhere.
Hit em with that “Taiwan number 1” to send em back to the shadow realm
Start sending them vids of our hero, Tank man.
In Chinese that’s just means china #1
You spelled west Taiwanese wrong.
Japan number 2!
Anyone know if harassing US politicians and businesses is a paid gig?
And here we’ve all been doing it for free all along!
Never put a price in doing what you love.
But if you end up falling in love with whatever it is you’re good at… You’d better hire an accountant.
If you are good at something, never do it for free.
Have you not heard about lobbying?
Yes, but it’s Chinese pay, so we’re talking 30 cents an hour.
You joke but Chinese minimum wage is higher than my country’s 💀
EDIT: according to Google it actually varies by province so it can be lower or higher but it’s right at the edge
Can I live in China so I can buy a whole meal for 15 cents? Right now I’m more than double the min wage in my state and a McDonald’s meal costs about half an hour of time, so I’d still be making about the same in terms of what I could buy.
Fuck the CCP, fuck any Chinese citizen participating in this, fuck your mudda, fuck your whole ancesta, like a someboody fuck you bic, Taiwan numba wun
Been a long time but I can still hear total ownage’s voice
“Dishonor on your cow!”
Note the devolving into casual racism with the mocking accent.
Found the astroturfer for west Taiwan
You say, as you write the most derivative astroturfer post including “found the” and “west Taiwan” like a stupid parrot. Polly want a cracker?
Yes I also read this in a funny accent
West Taiwan you mean?
Free Puerto Rico
Make it an official state
How about you ask them what they want instead of using them as pawns because you think you’ll get two senators?
I won’t get any senators because I’m not even in the US. I just wanted to be a contrarian to the guy above who is clearly just trying to be inflammatory 🤡
You must be a special kind of trash to think ‘free puerto rico’ is “just trying to be inflammatory”
Takes a more special kind of trash to know trash. You can kindly fuck off now and take your shit opinions with you.
No it doesn’t. What a stupid thing to say.
Weird way to say tiktok sucks but ok.
The article hypothesizes a network of bot accounts that spam targets across social media with invective. So its got nothing to do with TikTok (a company run out of Hong Kong and Singapore, with an American subnet that’s physically cut off from its Chinese-mainland counterpart). Even then, if you look at the actual details of the article…
When trolls disrupted an anti-communism Zoom event organized by New York-based activist Chen Pokong in January 2021, he had little doubt who was responsible. The trolls mocked participants and threatened that one victim would “die miserably.” Their conduct reminded Chen of repression by the government of China, where he spent nearly five years in prison for pro-democracy work.
He’s a major contributor to US propaganda networks across the South Pacific who attracted a bunch of harassing call-ins during a Zoom meeting. He then attempted to tie the calls back to a wave of FBI arrests of Chinese residents, accused of subversive activities aimed at American institutions.
There’s a certain irony in this story, because Chen Pokong himself spent two years in prison for championing anti-CCP protests in Guangzhou, following the Tienanmen protests in '89. So a guy who was once a passionate advocate for dissident expression and protest as an economics professor at Sun Yat-sen University is now a professor at Columbia University participating in mass arrests and imprisonments of US residents for dissident expression and protest.
American subnet that’s physically cut off from its Chinese-mainland counterpart
You believe that?
The Executive Branch, by way of the NSA, appears to believe it per the terms of Bytedance’s operations in the states.
Freedom of speech should not extend to foreign adversaries. Give me the ability to geoblock social media just like I can with my router at home. Accurately label any domestic sources that are relaying this disinformation as well so I can block them too.
Geoblocking only works when they don’t VPN, Tor, or hack and remotely control grandma’s domestic computer, including her FB account.
Keep trying, though. We need to figure something out.
In 2016 a friend was attacking another of my friends on FB, and the ‘attacker’ had no idea it was happening.
Presumably it was GRU at work, based on the nature of the attack.
So that’s at least one vector that FB and NSA, etc., need to address for starters.
Freedom of speech should not extend to foreign adversaries.
Hot take incoming…
Actually, I would argue the opposite.
Now that we have global access to each other, we should be speaking to each other, and finding common ground. We all share the same planet.
And when speaking to adversaries, we should consider what they’re saying for truthfulness or if it’s just an attack, before deciding to ignore/block it or not.
A foreign adversary isn’t a uninformed troll engaging in debate. Their job is to attack a target. Supporting their right to attack is like supporting telemarketer scammers right to robocall everyone. You aren’t going to debate them out of scamming. They have a job to do.
A foreign adversary isn’t a uninformed troll engaging in debate.
How do you know? It could be his/her day off.
They have a job to do.
A “foreign adversary” has many jobs, not all of them is to shape a narrative on the Internet.
Having said that, my use of the term was more generic in nature, as a country that has opposing motives/goals than we do (Iran, etc.).
We’re dancing close enough to the Armageddon line at this point as it is, its ok to pull back a bit and try peaceful means to resolve issues, instead of just ‘pushing the button’. Generally speaking, the more we talk, the less we fight.
Yes, but it makes a difference when that conversation is effectively controlled by whoever has the most bots and/or money. Especially when they’re using tactics like spam and just drowning out the conversation.
I mean, you’ve seen Hexbear respond to things.
Yes, but it makes a difference when that conversation is effectively controlled by whoever has the most bots and/or money. Especially when they’re using tactics like spam and just drowning out the conversation.
Very true, but that’s not the point being discussed, this is …
A foreign adversary isn’t a uninformed troll engaging in debate. Their job is to attack a target.
Using misinformation on the Internet is a generic response to shape a false narrative, and not to attack a specific target (though that can be a side effect result).
And also, an adversary will use the Internet as you described, where the OP was (effectively) saying that they don’t use comments on forums on the Internet at all, but instead do physical attacks only.
You are ignoring the premise that these are identified foreign adversaries who are not looking for debate. There is no one to debate because the harassment if from fake accounts.
The targets are being doxed, dogpiled, and “told to kill themselves”.
these are identified foreign adversaries who are not looking for debate.
You are making an assumption (the italicized part).
It’s not an assumption. It is the basis of the article! Or do you actually support death threats?
Or do you actually support death threats?
Ah damn it! You’ve discovered my nefarious plan! Curses!
/s
This is the same problem with being tolerant with intolerants. While ideologically might make sense, it’s a losing battle that favors bad faith actors.
Not the same problem at all. Intolerance is straight-up hate with no logical basis and it calls for harmful actions against groups of people. Meanwhile there is a lot of room for interpretation and disagreement in global politics. What we’re seeing here is a fight between global powers to control the narrative, and it’s not just China doing it either.
While ideologically might make sense, it’s a losing battle that favors bad faith actors.
That’s an assumption. You “trust but verify” (as a famous former president said), and if they’re not acting in good faith, then you move on from talking to other actions.
Tell Elon that. Or sign up for CounterSocial, they have a few countries blocked.
I’ve been on reddit for over a decade. There were clear signs of Russian trolls on reddit during the 2016 election. What I witnessed was that people in general were very easily deceived.
No longer on reddit so i cant tell of they are there, but the Chinese spam and disinformation bots/accounts are quite active on Twitter(X). I follow dozens of Chinese dissidents on Twitter and each time they tweet something, there are 5-10 bots tweeting sexual contents. It’s ridiculous.
My experience with Chinese trolls on Reddit is that they are not discreet. They do not hide that they’re actively propagandising. Whereas Russian trolls are more effective and subtle by pretending to be local of other countries and sowing division. Although with the Ukrainian invasion, I see that Russian trolls became less discreet. Creative, in fact, with putting interesting spins into how the war in Ukraine is unfolding. My favourite is when a Russian troll asked “was Stalin a necessary evil?”. The poster reasoned that Stalin may have killed people, but he industrialised the Soviet Union. And Stalin may have blundered during the first phase of the invasion of Nazi Germany, but he won in the end. The poster then projected the history to support Putin and the war in Ukraine. An interesting spin but Putin has no competent military command and there is no one near enough to competently lead. Someone made a point that Putin has no Zhukov.
Edit: spelling
Discreet, just for the record. Had to look it up after a bit of confusion.
Corrected.
There is an idea that may help this, if it were built and then also used. it’s a form of group decision making based on fluid data that solidifies as more data comes in.
One of the main aspects is that comments and things are compared to others to find how similar they are, something may present itself differently but be the same discussion. This method of identifying each ‘argument’ and ‘rebuttal’ goes hand in hand with declaring definitions so that conversations can’t be flipped around by a bad actor. There’s a big write up of the way it can be used to combat disinformation but as far as I know it’s just the outline of how such a system would work, no one has built the system.
It’s kind of similar to voting sites like reddit but goes a lot farther in defining ways things work, and works so ostracize trolls and the like. but as it would require something no one online would ever go for, being in one way ‘tied’ to your offline person, that I don’t see it ever being a mainstream thing. Of course the accounts people would be using would be in no way identifiable unless selfdoxed they would still be like voter registration in that a real person had to be there once, and all things that person does online are here tied to them so that trolls and things show clearly over time. It’s really designed to be mostly a niche discussion platform engine for people in the same hobby or interest.
I mean, just look at the comments section on X or Instagram and you’ll see this playing out in real time.
What? Shocked! Shocked I am to find out the second you go after the CCP an army of trolls shows up!
After the army of CIA trolls had their circlejerk. Were you all directed to reply when the post dropped?
Hey man, at least the Western spy movies are good
Neither thing anyone here is surprised about brother
Based on downvotes, some people certainly are angry it’s being pointed out.
No you are just being reactionary with a WhatAboutism. It’s about tone. It absolutely does deserve to be called out but like it can be pointed out for similarities or because you just want to shout that “they do it too!” And people don’t care much for that. It just doesn’t work to change minds, but shrink them against your statement because people are also reactionary.
Ah yes, the classic claim of “whataboutism”. You may not be aware of this, but whataboutism means pointing out something irrelevant to counter criticism e.g. the US pointing at breadlines in Soviet Russia and Soviet Russia saying “well what about lack of civil rights for black people in the US?”
People bringing up the US’s disinformation campaign in response to China’s disinformation campaign is not whataboutism. CNN, being a propaganda outlet for the US, is making the claim that China is using the world’s largest known online disinformation operation. That’s a point of comparison right there, so bringing up the US is perfectly valid.
What’s also funny is the cries about a supposed CCP army of trolls while all pro-US posts get overwhelming upvotes while any disagreement gets overwhelming downvotes. Speaking of reactionary…
No a WhatAboutism is when you don’t respond to the initial conversation and bring up a different point. Say like
Yeah China sure does have a lot of bots.
Well What about US’s bot use?!?But you don’t care you just want to be right which is why you get downvotes.
Like no one is going to engage with the rest of your argument when you are just trying to prove yourself right at an argument you want to have instead of the conversation happening.
Whatever dude. This is an important discussion but I ain’t having it with you.Again, CNN is making the claim of “world’s known largest disinformation operation” so pointing out the US is valid because it’s a comparison from the beginning. The word “known” is a key word here because they can claim ignorance on the US bot operation, even though it is likely much larger. I did respond to the initial conversation by bringing up the point that the US disinformation operation exists as well i.e. this is called information warfare and all countries are engaging in it. You’d be stupid to think that wasn’t the case.
You were never actually engaging in this conversation because all you wanted anyone to talk about was “China bad” and anything beyond that you consider wHaTaBoUtIsM. Like, what else is there to discuss? That China should stop it? Yeah, I also wish we could get rid of nukes, but they’re a tool of nations that simply won’t be eliminated because they serve a purpose to further a nation’s agenda.
Anyway, you and you posse can continue mindlessly upvoting your posts while mindlessly downvoting my posts if it’ll help you folks sleep better. Just don’t engage, don’t think, only emphasize points your propaganda pals at CNN want you to emphasize.
Damn, all this time Hexbear was actually getting paid?
Imagine that, getting paid to cast hexes
From the article…
But Linvill of Clemson University argues that the network uses a unique strategy of “flooding” conversations with so many comments that posts from genuine users receive less attention.
“They are operating thousands of accounts at a time on a given platform, often to drown out conversations, just with sheer volume of messaging,” Linvill said. “When we think of disinformation, we often think of pushing ideas on users and making ideas more salient, whereas what China is doing is the opposite. They are trying to remove conversations from social media.”
This is what’s always concerned me, more than anything else.
If you can’t shape the narrative, you might as well destroy the environment any other narrative that would come from it. An anti-control, basically.
As an analogy, a band at a party that plays it’s music so loud that no one can hear each other to be able to talk to each other.
If we don’t get these bots/shills under control then meaningful conversation will never happen again in any large scale, and any chance for peace at a species level goes with it.
The center will not hold.
Good thing this instance isn’t federated with lemmygrad.ml & hexbear.net, protecting everyone from
They still leak into here.
Wow, what made you think of them?
Absolutely, we might have to deal with the sheer terror of alternative viewpoints. It’s like wearing a raincoat in the desert – better safe than sorry, right?"
