Hey folks
I have been receiving a lot of messages every single day about federation with hexbear. Some of our users are vehemently against it, others are in full support. The conversation does not seem to be dying down, rather, the volume of messages I receive about it seems to be increasing, so I am opening this public space where we can openly discuss the topic.
I am going to write a wall of text about my own thoughts on the situation, I’m sorry, but no tl;dr this time, and I ask anybody participating in this thread to first read through this post before commenting.
Before I go any further, I want to be clear that for anybody who participates here, it is required to focus on the quality of your posts. That means:
- Be kind to each other, even if you disagree
- Use arguments rather than calling people names
- Realize that this is a divisive topic, so your comments should be even more thoughtful than usual
With that out of the way, there are a few things I want to cover.
On defederation in general
First of all, I am a firm believer that defederation must be reserved only for cases where all other methods have failed. If defederation is used liberally, then a small group of malicious users can effectively completely shut down the federated network, by simply creating the type of drama between instances which would inevitably result in defederation. In my view, federation is the biggest strength of Lemmy compared to any centralized discussion forum, so naturally I think maintaining federation by default is an important goal in general.
I am also a believer in the value of deplatforming hateful content, but I think defederation is not the best way to do this. Banning individual users, banning communities and establishing a culture of mutual support between mods and admins of different instances should be the first line of defense against such content. There are some further steps that can be taken before defederation as well, but these are not really documented anywhere (in order to prevent circumvention). The point is: for myself, defederation is the absolute last resort, only to be used when it is completely clear that other methods are ineffective.
Finally, I am wary of creating a false expectation among lemm.ee users that lemm.ee admins endorse all users and communities and content on instances we are federated with. Here at lemm.ee, we use a blocklist for federation, which means our default apporach is to federate with all new instances. We do not have the resources (manpower, skills and knowledge) necessary to pass judgement on all instances which exist out there, as a result, users on lemm.ee are expected to curate their own content to quite a high degree. In addition to downvoting and/or reporting as necessary, individual lemm.ee users are also able to block specific users and communities, and the ability to block entire instances is coming very soon as well.
Having said all that, in a situation where all other methods do indeed fail, defederation is not out of the question. Making such a call is up to the discretion of lemm.ee admins, and doing it as a last resort is completely in line with our federation policy.
Regarding hexbear
Hexbear is an established Lemmy instance, focused on many flavors of leftism. They have quite a large userbase who are very active on Lemmy (often so active that they leave the impression brigading all popular Lemmy posts). One important thing to note is that while some forms of bigotry seem to be quite accepted by many hexbear users (but seemingly not by mods - more on that below), they at least are very protective of LGBT rights (and yes, I am quite certain that they are not just pretending to do this, as many users seem to believe). Additionally, while I have noticed quite high quality posts from hexbear users, there are also several users there who seem to really enjoy trolling and baiting (very reminiscent of 4chan-type “for the lulz” posting), and it’s important to note that this kind of posting is in general allowed on hexbear itself.
The reason this whole topic is important to so many people right now (despite hexbear being a relatively old instance), is that hexbear only recently enabled federation. A combination of their volume of posts, their strong convictions, the excitement about federation, and the aforementioned trolling has made them very visible to almost all Lemmy users, and this has sparked discussions about the value of federation with hexbear on a lot of Lemmy instances.
My own experience with hexbear
I want to write down my own experience with interacting with hexbear users, mods, and admins over the past few days. I believe this experience will highlight why I am hesitant to advocate for immediate full defederation from hexbear at this point in time, and am for now still more in favor of taking action on a more individual user basis. Please read and see how you feel about the situation afterwards.
Background
My first real contact with hexbear users was in the comments section of a post in this meta community requesting defederation from hexbear by @glimpythegoblin@lemm.ee. That post is now locked, because several hexbear users very quickly started doing the aforementioned “for the lulz” type spamming of meme images in the comments (these are actually just emojis, but they are rendered as full-size images on all instances other than the source instance, due to a current Lemmy bug).
I did not want to take further actions in that thread in general (for archival purposes), but I did take one action, which in retrospect was a mistake: I removed a comment which contained the hammer and sickle symbol. I ignorantly associated this symbolism with Kremlin propaganda, and the atrocities my own people suffered at the hands of the soviet union during the previous century. Many users (including hexbear users) correctly (and politely) pointed out to me in DMs that the symbol has a much broader use than just as the symbol of the USSR, and people elsewhere in the world may not associate it with the USSR at all. I am grateful for users who pointed this out to me without resorting to personal attacks.
Let me be clear here: while I do not have anything against leftism or communist ideas in general (in fact in today’s world, I think discussion of such ideas is quite necessary), Kremlin propaganda has no place on lemm.ee. Any dehumanizing talking points of the Kremlin on lemm.ee are treated as any other bigotry, and if communist symbolism is used in context of Kremlin propaganda (that is the context in which I have been exposed to it throughout my whole life), then it will still be removed. But there is no blanket ban on communist symbolism in general on lemm.ee, and discussing and advocating for leftist and communist topics (as distinct from the imperialist and dehumanizing policies of the Kremlin) is certainly allowed on lemm.ee.
Hexbear user response
Coming back to the events of the past few days: soon after my removal of the comment containing the symbol from the meta thread, two posts popped up on hexbear. One was focused on insulting and spreading lies about me personally. Another was focused on diminishing the horrors of the soviet occupation in my country. In the comments under both of these posts (and in a few other threads on hexbear), I noticed some seriously disturbing bigotry against my people. There were comments which reflected the anti-Estonian propaganda of the current Russian state, things like:
- Suggesting that my people has no right to exist
- Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
- Claiming that anybody critical of both nazi and soviet occupations is themselves a nazi and a holocaust denier
I expect to hear such statements from the Russian state - here in Estonia, we are subjected to this and other kinds of bigotry constantly from Russian media - but to see it spread openly in non-Russian channels is extremely disturbing. Such bigotry is completely against lemm.ee rules in general. Additionally, my identity is public information, because I feel it’s important for the integrity of lemm.ee that I don’t hide behind anonymity. Considering this, I’m sure you can understand why I am very worried about my own safety when people leave comments in many unrelated threads (where my original posts are not even visible), baselessly calling me a nazi and a holocaust denier.
Note that the goal of this post is not to start a new debate in the comments about the the repressions of the soviet union in Estonia or other occupied territories, but if the topic interests any users, I can recommend the 2006 documentary The Singing Revolution (imdb). The trailer is a bit cheesy, but the actual film contains lots of historical footage from the soviet occupation, and also many interviews with people who experienced it, who share stories which are deeply familiar to all Estonians. If anybody is interested in further discussion, then I suggest making a post about it in the Estonian community here: !eesti@lemm.ee.
Hexbear admin response
After the above events had played out, I reached out to hexbear admins for clarification on their moderation policies and how they handle such cases. I was actually very happy with their response:
- They immediately removed the personal attacks and dehumanizing comments containing Kremlin propaganda from Hexbear, and assured me that such content is always handled by mods
- They told me that while there are all kinds of leftists on hexbear, Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods
- They implemented some additional rules on hexbear to try and reduce the trolling experienced by many other instances, including ours: https://hexbear.net/post/352119
My personal take-aways
Let me play the devil’s advocate here and employ some “self-whataboutism”: among all users that have been banned on lemm.ee for bigotry, the majority were actually not users from other instances, and in fact people with lemm.ee accounts. If we judge any larger instance only by bigoted posts that some of its users make, then we might as well declare all instances as cesspools and close down Lemmy completely. I believe it’s far more useful to judge instances based on moderation in response to such content. Just as we remove bigoted content from lemm.ee, I have also witnessed bigoted content being removed from hexbear.
At the same time, I am aware of some internal conflict between hexbear users over the more strict moderation they are now starting to employ, and I am definitely keeping an eye on that situation and how admins handle it.
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don't have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
Where thing stand right now
I am not convinced that we are currently at a point where the “last resort” of defederation is necessary. This is based on the presumption that our moderation workload at lemm.ee will not get out of hand just due to users from that particular instance. My current expectation is that as the excitement of federation calms down (and as new rules on hexbear go into effect), the currently relatively high volume of low effort trolling will be replaced by more thoughtful posts. If this is not the case then we will certainly need to re-evaluate things.
Additionally, nothing is changing about our own rules regarding bigotry. Especially relevant in the context of Kremlin propaganda, I want to say that dehumanizing anybody is not allowed on lemm.ee (hopefully I do not have to spell it out, but this of course includes Ukrainians, LGBT folks, and others that the Kremlin despises), and action will be taken against any users who do this, regardless of what instance they are posting from.
Finally, I am very interested to hear thoughts and responses from our own users. I am super grateful to anybody who actually took the time to read through this massive dump of my own thoughts, and I am very interested to get a proper understanding of how our users feel about what I’ve written here. Please share any thoughts in the comments.
Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
As a member of Hexbear for 3+ years I just want to say that this isn't acceptable over here and would land people with a very serious reprimand or a permaban if they don't admit to being in the wrong for this. The use of "subhuman" in particular is fascist behaviour and I'd assume it is wreckers rather than longstanding members, it's not language that socialists are fond of.
The only other thing I will say is that I genuinely appreciate that you're building this community with your userbase and having these conversations, it's the correct way to create a unique community culture and have people care about the space.
The use of "subhuman" in particular is fascist behaviour and I'd assume it is wreckers rather than longstanding members, it's not language that socialists are fond of.
That's not true at all. Look at any post about landlords or Zelenskyy or "bourgeoisie". Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
I've already personally blocked the whole instance because it's not worth arguing with people over and over.
Edit: you can see from the comments below what I'm talking about. I don't care who these people think "deserve" the label of "subhuman". I don't want to interact with people who talk like that or think like that. That's why I block them all.
I don't know if defederation is the answer, but this instance is clearly a haven for these people. So I have already taken action.
There is a difference between calling someone subhuman which is the rhetoric of people that believe that various races of humanity are more human than others(fascist master race rhetoric) vs calls to eat the rich through the use of guillotine memes. The latter is just radical and militant activism. The former is fascist rhetoric. The latter also has a place in mainstream society already as something that is regularly the centerpiece of art.
The fact that you're here in our meta thread for our users to discuss the situation arguing the really doesn't help with the image of Hexbear users brigading other communities.
I can literally see the post on my feed. It's not brigading.
ShowAlso the admin hasn't said that this is an exclusive thread for lemm.ee users so we have the right to defend ourselves against accusations some of which are false.
I would be upset if people in our instance started spamming random shit here with no intention to engage in a conversation and agree that they should be reprimanded by the servers admins/mods.
It said in the post to read the admins whole message, and to only participate earnestly/ not be rude and stay on topic
So, we are. Why is that an issue?
I was already having a conversation with Sun over PM when he made the post. Which is why I was one of the first here. We've been talking for several days and generally having a nice time.
there's no such thing as brigading on lemmy, this post pops up at the top of our feed by default
there have been half a dozen hex users in this comment section so this accusation doesnt feel warranted
there are more of us and we post more than you, thats it
It's like moving to hawaii and being surprised to run into so many beaches
You should see how we are when we're at each others throats, then you'd know how mellow this turnout is comparatively
Lols, people will literally think you're one of them too mate. You have your pronouns there. I was confused for a second when I saw your complaint.
i liked the initiative and reasoning and wouldnt mind it being normalised on the fediverse at large, as opposed to just hexbear
If you're going to cry about "brigading" like a redditor then you don't understand what federation is and should go back to reddit.
It appears posting memes about assassinating people for ideology is something that both extreme left and extreme right tend to do, and that's something that non-extreme people, unsurprisingly, don't seem to be fond of.
What are you talking about? Liberals post about the people they want to die all the time, you've just normalised them. Go mention homeless people in the San Francisco subreddit and watch all the liberals turn into hitler in seconds. Don't get me started on what happens when you mention Roma people to european liberals. Or what happens in literally every single thread on China.
Besides, we're not talking about assassinating people. We'll put the billionaires through our courts beforehand just like you guys put poor people through your courts don't worry.
In the case of Putin it would be in the hope of stopping its invasion war. It's similar to wanting to assassinate Hitler during WWII, I don't think you would oppose that.
If you mean assassinating or letting die the lower classes, that would a very small percentage of liberal extremists, similarly to right and left extremists.
Not everyone is extreme in their ideology, most people doubt and are ready to discuss with other moderate people to build compromises.
Awoo has already noted some important refutations, but I want to unpack something here.
Landlords and Bourgeoisie are class identities. Importantly, these are not the result of things outside of your control (i.e. ethnic origin, nation, etc.) but instead determined by actions in the world. While one can't say that one is subhuman because of where they are from, isn't being a landlord (and thus extracting rent from people for shelter) a behavior? A series of actions and choices? And can't we characterize a behavior or action as evil/immoral? Basically, when I say "landlords are evil and deserve to die or surrender their assets to the collective" what I'm describing is a particular set of actions. It's not different from having an opinion on if murderers deserve capital punishment.
Btw, I believe in rehabilitative punishment. However, if we're going to talk about people who deserve to die, I think capitalists and landlords are up there. A person who kills someone else -- either due to mental illness or a crime of passion -- is far less damaging to our social fabric than people who, through institutions, contribute to the death of our world and the immiseration of many. For instance, how many unhoused people have gone hungry/died because of the executives at Starbucks who decide that food thrown out should be covered in coffee grounds to be inedible? We don't have the numbers, but shouldn't we call this behavior subhuman/evil? I think you're missing the distinction between saying the executive who designed that policy deserves the gulag -- a specific inhuman action that deserves a specific response -- and calling all insert ethnicity/nationality here subhuman.
This is highly offtopic flamebait that will trigger a protracted argument of little substance.
Further, how you've casually slipped into a debate about capital punishment for enormous swathes of population is disturbing and disgusting. This is the lack of self awareness that others have mentioned here.
This is the kind of thing I really hate to see. It's the reason I'm going to be leaving. You guys make a blanket statement like all landlords are evil because they extract rent for shelter. You don't give any further reasoning. I'm sure you've collectively decided that through some illogical conversations on your home instance but you fail to make a valid point in the wild.
For example:
where are you expecting people to live?
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than "evil landlords must die and be redistributed"
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
Why don't you go build your own house? Why aren't you giving these unfortunate souls your own place?
To cap it all- you follow each other around in groups and rather than actually discussing you strawman, point people to communist propaganda, and generally troll anyone who disagrees with you. No one wants to join your club, no one wants to read your Marxism books etc. If you have a point- state it. Don't point elsewhere and act like you won because we arent interested in your echochamber
This is the kind of thing I really hate to see. It's the reason I'm going to be leaving
I'm sorry. I do hope you come around to at least tolerating leftist perspectives before you leave for an echo chamber. That all wealth is created by labor is one of the core leftist beliefs, you'll find anarchists, communists, democratic socialists, etc all agree on that.
where are you expecting people to live?
In houses. There's dozens of vacant homes for every homeless person. Just as capitalism requires some people be hungry to maximize profit of food, it requires some people be homeless to maximize profit of landlords.
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
The people who build houses deserve to be compensated for their labor. Owning a house on the other hand, is not labor.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Rent isn't compensation for the construction of a home, otherwise the renter would own the home after 20 years of renting paid off the mortgage.
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
I'd categorize the parasitic relationship as evil, but as for judging individual people for the poverty and homelessness caused by that relationship, it's more complicated as we live under capitalism.
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than "evil landlords must die and be redistributed"
Are you talking about the description of the cultural revolution in that one province in China people post? In the context of generations of peasants seeing their children die of starvation-related disease or conscripted never to return, the people were more merciful and practical than just. It's easy to criticize any change if you ignore the violence of the status quo. To quote Mark Twain:
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
It's not.
My partner and I should have a 50 percent equity in the apartment she rented for 10 years. Instead we were unceremoniously kicked out last year because the landlord's son wanted to make more money.
I'd categorize the parasitic relationship as evil, but as for judging individual people for the poverty and homelessness caused by that relationship, it's more complicated as we live under capitalism.
I accept this nuanced revision to my more angry framing. I have a personal vendetta, and this is actually the correct take.
What in the world makes you think you deserve 50% equity? Did you pay half the down payment? Did you pay half the mortgage and interest to the bank? Did you pay half the property taxes? Did you pay half the maintenance? Did you make any agreement woth the owner up front that this is what you would get? No? Did someone mention communism to you and you haven't thought twice since?
The amount it appreciated while we were paying the rent that whole time is how I got that 50 percent. Also, the property actually tripled in value 100k to 300k.
The total maintenance the owner did over the entire time we were there was 1000 dollars. One month's rent. Add painting and new carpet, ok, that's like 5k? We paid more than 100k in rent over that time.
It was pure profit extraction. The owner actually sent us the numbers to justify kicking us out. , His mother made more than him because of property tax, but after reassessing property taxes, he would have _only_been making 300 a month profit off of us. That's pure profit after everything. He was mad he couldn't raise our rent by 500 dollars all at once and instead had to do it yearly.
And? What makes you think you deserve any of that? If you'd wanted to rent-to-own that's a thing. It's something you should have talked about . Of course that appreciation you mentioned would still be a thing and your payments would have gone up to the point you couldn't afford it and null the contract... so... what point are you making?
Paying rent is NOT buying... buying is buying. And you are free to go give that a whirl. I guarantee you will pay more over the same time frame as a homeowner vs as a renters.
I genuinely don't see how you feel entitled to something no one ever agreed to.
I feel entitled to a place to live as such. The system and its facilitators that make it precarious is the thing I take issue with.
Great. i don't owe it to you. And I M not evil for not giving it to you. Make your case actually about the things you want- not some proxy bullshit that makes no sense and attacks me (and people like me)needlessly.
If you want to do something different- go do it. Go buy a place. Get a loan. Petition your senators. Give your house out as an example, etc. If you aren't willing to do anything no one will do anything for you.
Just for the record, nobody thinks you need to individually give up your houses. These are systemic critiques, the contradictions of capitalism aren't solvable by capitalists and landlords being more generous.
If the owners did all decide to be more generous, they'd eventually get out-competed more effective capitalists as the tendency for the rate of profit to decline squeezes them tighter.
This is a good post, but I think the person you're replying to is trying to bait a ton of belief statements out of you so that they can then piss you off by contradicting each one with effortless status-quo normalizing, and use that as a justification to defederate Hexbear. That, or they're just going to dig their heels in and you'll have wasted your time.
Buddy I'm replying to the things he's saying. If it hurts your brain that I'm detailing why the things he say make no sense that's on you. If hexbear is all people like you- that's on them.
I am new to lemmy and would prefer actual discussion- if certain groups brigade and shitpost in lieu of discussing- that's on them.
I could give you the benefice of the doubt. However, this is the calibre of argument you're throwing at us :
Did you pay half the down payment? Did you pay half the mortgage and interest to the bank? Did you pay half the property taxes? Did you pay half the maintenance?
The obvious answer is that yes, the tenant pays for all these things, because that's why the landlord charges rent to begin with. This is such an obvious thing, irrespective of any political beliefs, that the mere fact of you having asked it makes you suspect. I'm not even trying to be mean to you here, I'm just describing the situation as I see it.
Uh- he literally didn't. The owner did these things. He paid the agreed upon amount to live in the house that he doesn't own and doesn't improve or repair or pay taxes for.
I pay taxes - does that mean I own some percent of the road? Schools? Emergency service? Of course not. Do I get to utilize these things that I didn't build but do pay a fee for over time? Yes.
That you can't see this makes you quite a bit more than suspect.
The money does not disappear when it changes hands, nor is it laundered. Most landlords cannot afford any of these things if the houses that they own are not occupied by paying tenants.
If they can't afford the empty house... either it is rented or they sell it. Do you think people are sitting on houses they can't afford and also intentionally keep empty? What point are you trying to make here?
The point is that renters pay for home equity. They just don't earn home equity. Landlords retain 100% of that and 100% of the value gained by the asset. You are catastrophically wrong about that.
Whether or not you think that's ethical, it's still a fact.
No you.
Renters pay for a place to live.
Homeowners pay for equity.
Facts are facts sorry you don't like it.
The moment a renter pays taxes, repairs, mortgage, and all the other miscellaneous items a homeowner pays for AND there was an agreement that it's a rent-to-own situation- THEN you have an argument t.
Yeah sure the money flows like this : renter -> mystery black hole -> landlord -> bank
I was right not to take you seriously
More like
Bank - > landlord
Landlord -> bank
Landlord -> property taxes, maintenance, improvements, insurance, pest control, etc
Renter -> landlord
You not taking these simple facts of life seriously really highlights why Noone in reality takes you serious But hey- who am I to interfere with your obviously well-educated and experienced self.
You're no longer saying "owner", we're making progress.
Now do tell us : if the combined revenue and appreciation of assets are not greater in value than the expenses (eg mortgages, services, taxes, opportunity cost), what point is there to being a landlord?
(This is a trick question, by the way)
Landlord/owner whatever. They are synonyms. That you think it significant is concerning.
provide a place for people who can't afford them
If the value of the home and the income from rents is the same as your expenses it's a bad investment and should be sold. Doesn't have to be necessarily if it's not costing anything but it's just not a good investment.
Actually, you could rent out at a deficit, and still come out winning. I'm sorry but that was a trick question.
Tank the loss using personal income. Do this for a couple of years, and you have built enough equity on your homes to act as security for another mortgage. Now you have two renters paying you every month. Rinse, repeat.
Real estate is the safest investment, bar none. Do you want me to walk you through the implications of that?
Sure please do. I'd love to see when it becomes evil. So far I'm not seeing it.
I was mostly trying to point out that you're not as well informed as you think you are. Landlords being "evil" isn't something I'm interested in demonstrating because there's nothing materialist about that analysis. It's just cathartic maoposting.
I can spend some time explaining why rent-seeking is unethical and a net loss for society. When I get back home and if I'm not too drunk.
Great- I readily admit to not having read much Marxism or communism as the basics of it don't make sense to me. And from the interactions I've had with your community I've no desire to ever pursue it. If you people are the example I know what I need to know already.
If you can explain why rentseeking is unethical without devolving to "I have a philosophical disagreement" I'd be happy to hear it. Even better if you have a real alternative for people that doesn't involve stealing people's property.
Frankly, you seem like a decent enough person. I see no point in being condescending anymore. But before we seriously talk about housing, we have at least two hard problems to solve. The first being :
without devolving to "I have a philosophical disagreement"
It may very well lead to that. If I believe that not only housing but also housing security are inalienable human rights, and you instead believe that these things should be earned, then what we have there is a hard contradiction. If you and I agree on that, and you happen to believe that capitalism with well implemented reforms is the best way to achieve that goal, then we could get somewhere.
Even better if you have a real alternative for people that doesn't involve stealing people's property.
This also poisons the well a little bit. When the French overthrew their monarchy, they effectively "stole" land from the royal family and privatized it. Was that going too far, in a nation where serfdom was practiced? In other words, are property rights more important to you than human rights?
Conversely, when the soviet union collapsed, how do you think all that land was de-collectivized? Did they go back in time to 1917 and retrieve all the deeds of long-since-dead people, trace their descendants and just give the land to them? What if those descendants did not exist? No, what happened was : gangs armed with AKs and armored vehicles roamed the streets and enforced their claims. The Russia we know of today is the product of that period of time.
They are not unique in that way. In the western world, probably every single inch of private land was at some point under the dominion of a now-extinct polity and taken by force of arm. Is there a statute of limitations on "stealing" land? It's kind of a big question right now, since we're re-litigating the status of native Americans and all that stuff.
Now, if I argue that our economies should serve humanity rather than the other way around, are we in agreement?
If I argue that the simultaneous existence of empty houses and unhoused people on its own should be interpreted as a massive failure of our economic system, are we in agreement?
I suggested earlier that repeating strong and succinct messages was far more effective at shattering axioms than any form of long-winded debate. You interpreted that as promoting demagogy, and I can't really blame you. Still, we can argue if we are comrades. Otherwise we're in conflict. Does that make more sense now?
I believed in a perfect world everyone should have everything they need. I also believe we do not live in a perfect world.
Do I believe the current system is broken? Yes. Do I believe reform would work? Yes. Do I believe I've seen any kind of plan or actionable theory of how to change it? No.
Do I believe empty houses while people are homeless is wrong? Morally, yes. Realistically- not my fault and not my problem. Can't fix that but I can do what I am doing.
Ideally yes governments and economies would serve humanity- again we don't live in an ideal world and the human condition will always prevent that.
We probably won't get anywhere because:
I also believe that if these things were to be done it would involve the government- not me- providing these things. In this ideal situation I would also be allowed to buy property(or whatever thing) and rent it to those who can't afford it themselves. This means more taxes and excluding lobbying, gerrymandering, corruption in general. I believe every system fails to corruption because that's just the human condition.
Yes that's sort of what happened when ussr collapsed- not entirely. A lot of the apartments went to the current residents.. like alot alot. There's a reason I know this. However what you mentioned also happened. And it sucks. It's not fair. But there's no way to be fair about it. Now the legitimate (uncontested) government has control of things and that's just where we go from now. Going back through history is pointless.
I also disagree that shouting at people is effective. Especially when you appear to be shouting x when you really mean y.
I'm much more willing to listen to someone who lays out a well constructed argument rather than some rhetoric that on its own makes no sense.
I believed in a perfect world everyone should have everything they need. I also believe we do not live in a perfect world.
That's intellectually lazy. I described something that is both easy to conceive of and (in my opinion) completely achievable with modern means. At this point we should be talking about implementation details and not acting like "housing humans" is a pie-in-the-sky idea. You are the outlier if you think it is. You have to defend that abnormal belief.
Do I believe the current system is broken? Yes. Do I believe reform would work? Yes. Do I believe I've seen any kind of plan or actionable theory of how to change it? No.
I am trying to get there. First, admit that it's both a possibility and a worthwhile goal. Otherwise we have nothing to discuss.
Ideally yes governments and economies would serve humanity- again we don't live in an ideal world and the human condition will always prevent that.
Again, this is intellectually lazy, and completely without substance. If you truly believe that, then just don't have opinions. Don't question the credibility of others. Be a consoomer and live your life never thinking of injustice.
We both know that's not how humans work. The human condition is incredibly malleable. We built modern civilization on moral education. We should in theory only get better at that, so long as we can see people's material needs fulfilled. Historical progress is synonymous with the adoption of shared principles for the greater good of the collective.
I also believe that if these things were to be done it would involve the government- not me- providing these things. In this ideal situation I would also be allowed to buy property(or whatever thing) and rent it to those who can't afford it themselves. This means more taxes and excluding lobbying, gerrymandering, corruption in general. I believe every system fails to corruption because that's just the human condition.
I despise this idea liberals have that humans are necessarily greedy or corrupt or what-have-you, but if that really is the case, then why would you design your system purely around self-interest? Why would you allow slumlords to run rampant with no accountability? Why not remove greed from the equation and collectivize housing?
Yes that's sort of what happened when ussr collapsed- not entirely. A lot of the apartments went to the current residents.. like alot alot. There's a reason I know this. However what you mentioned also happened. And it sucks. It's not fair. But there's no way to be fair about it. Now the legitimate (uncontested) government has control of things and that's just where we go from now. Going back through history is pointless.
Then there is nothing to enforce its legitimacy other than violence. In other words, the state is legitimate, until it is overthrown with violence. I'm glad we agree on that. Lenin had the right idea.
I also disagree that shouting at people is effective. Especially when you appear to be shouting x when you really mean y.
I'm not talking about shouting. I'm talking about appearing cooler and smarter than your opposition. Yes, it's fucking stupid. Yes, it works. Welcome to modern politics.
I'm much more willing to listen to someone who lays out a well constructed argument rather than some rhetoric that on its own makes no sense.
You've given me pretty much nothing but prevarication, so I frankly doubt that.
Well that civility was short lived...
No, you.
You are lazy for not looking at how humans have worked since the dawn of time
You are lazy for thinking you've given some actionable plan when you've literally done nothing more than "can't we all just get along." Saying just give houses to the needy is stupid. Noone is ever going to do that. Petition governments to provide increased housing- sure. Create an initiative to build homes for free- great I'm all for you doing that. Do x thing that helps: sure. You do that. Telling people you need to just give up your stuff and return to monke- not a solution.
You are... lazy.
Worse- you think you are smart because you read a book on Marx and try to use ridiculously unnecessary words.
Why use an extraneous amount of verbiage and syllables when a diminutive amount suffices?
Pseudo intellectual is the worst kind of intellect .
Please respect hexbear user pronounsIronically an issue of pronouns, since you're directly replying to a he/him but it's unclear who the antecedent in the first sentence is. I'm gonna trust that you're not intentionally doing it tho, thanks.
I'm not leaving for an echo chamber. I'm just leaving. It's your echo chambers I'm exiting.
All these empty houses aren't producing rent are they? You can go buy one and give it away if you want. Oh what's that? You don't want to do that?
What's the difference if I hammered the nail myself to build the house or if I buy it from the guy who did the hammering. This is the insanity that permeates your argument. I've done both by the way- either way that home is owned by someone and rented to someone else.
When did I say rent was compensation for building a home? You say that- and you are wrong for bringing it up. I built a thing- someone wants to use said thing- we make an agreement that we both agree to.
I characterize this insane rationality as evil. You want a thing to be given away for free without compensation. It's crazy to think this investment I've made is somehow going to magically fix something if I just transform it into some other thing you aren't all brigading over. If it wasn't a house- it'd be a restaurant, or a clothing business, or whatever. And you'd eventually get up in arms about that too. What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven't done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
All these empty houses aren't producing rent are they? You can go buy one and give it away if you want. Oh what's that? You don't want to do that?
Personal charity is not a solution to a systemic problem! This will not actually get rid of the problem, it will palliate it! Also, I literally can't because I personally don't have the money that would be needed to buy a rental property off of someone who can afford to leave such properties empty, since if we assume they are willing to sell, it's a high price, but more likely they just won't because an apartment on the fourth floor of an eight-floor complex being someone else's property seems like a litigation nightmare if there's literally any type of water damage or anything of the sort that occurs after the sale.
Right. So because you can't afford it- it should be given to you for free? What have you bought recently? Am I entitled to that? How about you loan it to me for a set fee over time? Which makes more sense?
If I was monopolizing a resource people need to live, sure, repatriate it! I, uh, have a lot of books and I actually do like lending those to people -- even ones I hardly know or somewhat dislike -- so long as I think that I will get them back in good condition.
Part of the problem with your need to individualize everything is that we encounter class antagonism, i.e. people in different classes have different incentives. I am totally fine with the idea of virtually everything I own being held communally and living in a monastery -- so long as there was enforcement against just trashing things. What matters to me is use, not profit, because I am not in a class that profits but one that subsists on labor and therefore am mainly seeking to ensure the easiest subsistence possible by the means I know. I also see that many people are in my same position and we can't all subsist by lying at the top being fed grapes while being paid to own things, the viability of selling a commodity comes from people not having it. On that basis, since I don't want to make enemies out of my fellows (enemies are dangerous) and I don't want to be stuck under someone else's corporate boot heel if I fail, it is more appealing to me that we collaborate rather than compete, so that our best interests lie in mutual benefit rather than scalping scarce resources.
I have no issue with any of what you said. My entire argument is about the Individual ownership and the attacks I receive from you guys.
Your arguments have not been the system is bad and it's the mega billionaires etc... it's all landlords are bad because they own something you feel should be given away for free.
I would like to try to explain something while avoiding reference to those liberal economists that you seemingly care just as little for as Marx and friends.
Person A owns a car. Person B steals the car and fences it to an unwitting Person C. Person C fixes up the car in various ways and then tries to sell it. The origin of the car is discovered and it seems like perhaps Person A should get their car back, but Person C has put in work on it and didn't know it was stolen, and doesn't want their labor value to be for nothing. What is to be done?
You might disagree on or not see the relevance, but humor me here.
Person b compensates person c. Person a gets their car back.
Person b goes to jail for theft.
Not seeing the connection here.
What if person B doesn't have the money to compensate person C? Many car thieves are poor, which is part of why they engage in a crime where it is so likely to get caught.
Don't worry, there's a connection.
Too bad. Person b will work off the debt. He's just made life harder for himself and he reaps that reward.
That's why there are systems in place to verify ownership and this is part of the risk of buying from shady characters.
Person B is dead and has no earthly possessions left behind (or none that can be tracked and recovered). Now from where does person C receive compensation?
This actually brings the analogy closer to my intention, so don't worry
He doesn't. Part of the risk of making shady deals.
Just fyi I think I know where you are going and you are going to be disappointed with the result.
I appreciate the fair warning. Tell me, what is the basis for the ownership of a plot of completely unimproved land?
Did you buy it legally from someone who also legally owns it. That's the basis.
I believed you when you said you knew where this was going. I still do, so feel free to include multiple steps in your response. Do you believe that this exchange of property goes back infinitely? If not, what was the basis for the first instance of such ownership? Not in the concrete historical sense, since we're talking about land in the abstract, but more generally. How did land become something that people owned?
It became a thing people owned when the legitimate government that owns the land decided to sell it to a private citizen/gift it/however it was legally acquired.
Where you are going with this results in tribalism, nomadic cultures, and anarchy. It results in survival of the fittest. The idea that everyone contributes equally is a great IDEA. It's NEVER in the history of the world been practiced. There's always someone who tries to game the system either through manipulation, laziness, or personal power gain. People are not all the same and have varying abilities. Some of those abilities are rarer/more valuable than others and have always will always be rewarded thusly. Going your route just puts us right back here eventually.
You want a thing to be given away for free without compensation.
Except I do want you to be compensated, for the labor of building the home. Everything beyond that is theft.
What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven't done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
You are the one expecting others to work for free. You are demanding a greater amount of wealth from the renter than you've produced.
To put it another way, construction and property management are forms of labor and deserve compensation for the wealth they've created. Landlord is not.
Cool- then buy my house and I'll just reinvest in something else for profit- which you will then move on to claiming is for everyone. And the cycle will continue.
What you really want is others to give you an equal share even though you haven't done anything to earn it and I fucking have.
A core belief most of us have is that workers are very literally not being given what they've earned. But we also believe that all humans deserve food, shelter, and care. If you think that's evil, there's not much more of a discussion to have.
That's fine. That's not what you have been saying though. What you've been saying is take my stuff and redistributed because I'm evil.
Way more effective to actually say the things you mean because we didn't all buy into your Marxism and discuss it internally- so we don't know what that you mean y when you say x.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Amazing logic. I worked so hard to buy this minigun, surely it's perfectly ok to unload it into a crowd. Don't tell me what to do with MY money!
Your post is far better than mine comrade. Much funnier example.
Yeah, I just had to give props though, it's such a good example, way better than my lame one t.t
This is the strawmanning I referenced earlier. Goodjob being true to your roots.
It would be strawmanning if here was a point to make. But here was only only a bunch of cliches to make fun of.
Most of those questions are full of tacit assumptions, but I'd like to answer the general question "Why do you commies dislike landlords so much?" You may restate any of those questions or present new ones if you feel them to be relevant in response.
You complain about people citing Marxist literature, so let's try citing the central figure of classical liberal economics, Adam Smith:
Wealth of Nations, Chpt 11 -- Excerpts
Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing, whatever part of its price is over and above this share, he naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of somewhat less than this portion; and sometimes too, though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more, or to content himself with somewhat less than the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally meant that land should for the most part be let.
The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his own.
. . . The rent of the land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give.
Obviously, Smith here is discussing a different type of landlord here, one who rents land for farming (etc.) rather than just habitation, but this contrast is largely to the detriment of the modern landlord as they leave it up to the geographic location of the rented property (i.e. availability of jobs within commuting distance) rather than have the possibility of issuing improvements to the farmland or otherwise assuring that rent can be paid by that individual.
The apologetics around landlords would have a chance if not for the basic fact that they operate on the principle of monopoly, as all of the land has been "accounted for," it is all publicly or privately owned, and there are extensive efforts to keep people from sleeping on public land. There's often no camping in a tent, there are specific "public awareness" campaigns encouraging private citizens to report those for destruction, and the settlements that remain are at any time liable to be cleared out by a police squad for the crime of existing. Sleeping on benches, when the benches aren't specifically designed to prevent this, is "loitering" or "trespassing" (many public sites are officially considered to be closed at night), and in any case is immensely dangerous even if one only considers things like precipitation. Landlords make their profit from the fact that renting land and buying land are the only possible options for someone who doesn't want to die of exposure or state violence. If there was land open for grabs and it wasn't being bought up by land sharks, there would be very few homeless because they could at least have little shacks on such land.
Without the power of monopoly, rent would be drastically less, in proportion to the actual maintenance and management labor performed by the owner (or their property manager). We communists have nothing against paying for maintenance or management, but merely owning a vital resource that is monopolized is not a job.
If someone's living in their own home, I don't have a problem with that at all. The problem is purchasing a home just to extract rents and profits.
And btw, I think all those things should be collectivized and socially available. Landlords contribute no value (as shown by their unwillingness to do maintenance/repairs), and merely extract. After all, what really is the benefit, to society, of a landlord? They serve no purpose (hell, even a CEO has more purpose than a landlord, and they -- as Elon shows -- don't really contribute much either). It's entirely extractive. Your "why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves" is because of how they're using it. Just like how if you own a gun and defend your home, we consider that moral, but if you own a gun and shoot a person on the street, we consider it immoral. If you build a house and live in it, that's moral and fine(though, in a perfect world, this would be produced through the government/taxes rather than individual accumulation, but we're not talking about utopia, we're talking about moral judgments on our world as it exists). If you build a house or purchase a house, then use it to extract ever-increasing rents from people for a thing we require to live (shelter), that's immoral.
I think it's a pretty simple distinction actually.
To return to the starbucks example, the company "produced" that material. Is it "moral" of them to throw it away rather than donate it? After all, they made it - just like your example of houses.
Finally, I'll just note, the very idea of private property when applied to land, etc. is odious to me on philosophical grounds.
So your argument clearly states that we are living in capitalism... and at the same time states that your moral problem is one of idealism/communism. Your argument cannot exist in one and then transmute half way through to make it fit your narrative.
We live in capitalism. I have worked and saved to buy off my house which I now rent out at market (below market actually) and provide a home that my tenants could not afford to buy on their own. I haven't increased rent since I started renting.
You are now blanket yelling I should be stripped of my investment. My effort. My money that I've worked for. And these other slack-jaws are frothing at the mouth because they can't conceive of a difference between me and the multibillion dollar company who is actually doing what you are saying.
a home that my tenants could not afford to buy on their own
What I'm saying is there shouldn't be a situation like this in the first place. Your tenants shouldn't have to come to you to rent, housing should be freely available to all.
It's a difference of degree, not of kind. And the goal is to change the relationship to society/production/the state such that this relationship no longer needs to exist. After all, investing in housing/real estate is the one "safe" thing to do under capitalism if you have surplus money. I doubt you're a true "capitalist" in the sense of having true economic leverage, and the question for you is ultimately, would you side with the workers, your tenants, etc. and willingly join in the socialization of basic human needs? Or will you ally with the capitalists above you and protect private property at all costs.
A difference in degree but not in kind exists historically. Guatemala. The operations of the United Fruit company through exploitation were very profitable. They "built" them. The new government offered to either buy them out at the rate they had claimed on their taxes or reassess their taxes to redistribute their profits more equitably. Instead, the CIA coup'd them.
The question for you ultimately is, if given the chance to exit from the exploitative relationship imposed upon you by capitalism, will you? Would you let the government buy you out or raise your taxes to fund collective housing? Or will you instead employ the forces of reaction?
Then fucking say THAT. Not all landlords are evil. I'd be willing to bet 90% of these frothing loons don't realize why you are trying to accomplish and are just riding the hate train.
He'll yeah I'm all for more taxes to pay for healthcare/education/collective housing. Hell no am I ok with just giving my shit away because you happen to think I should. Sure- pay me for my investments at fair market value- and I'll just go an reinvest in something else that you guys will inevitably think should belong to all.
So no- I'm not going to ever stand with you because you will always want something from me. Do I think things can and should change. Yes- but your way is a ridiculous way of going about it.
I did note later in another thread, a comrade had a good revision. The relationship is evil, not the actual person. Here's what was said:
I'd categorize the parasitic relationship as evil, but as for judging individual people for the poverty and homelessness caused by that relationship, it's more complicated as we live under capitalism.
Again, I've got some salt because my landlord kicked me out last year just because he couldn't extract enough profit from me. Needless to say, his anger at basic tenant protections has stuck in my craw ever since. I'm earnestly glad you're for social housing/education/etc as well.
where are you expecting people to live?
Houses and apartments. Like they do now.
These homes are owned by someone- they worked/paid/built them themselves.
Nope. Not worked/paid/built themselves. The vast majority of homes are made by people paying others to build homes for them. Labor is the source of value, not investors. This is like billionaires claiming to be job creators. You're extracting the value of their labor to make your investment property. You're paying them a fraction of what it is worth to you because you happen to live in a society where that is normal. Your lack of imagination beyond your current circumstances is not my problem.
Oh yeah, and even if you happen to build the house with your own hands, it is owned by someone, the bank where you got your construction loan.
Why do you think these people who have toiled for 40+years should just give you there invested money/work for free?
Why do you think people who work and toil away should pay your mortgage on an investment property and then some?
Why are they evil for using something they have worked for to help themselves?
Because helping themselves comes at the cost of someone else, and everyone else.
Inevitably someone like you comes along and just shitposts this same rhetoric you just did with no logical backing behind it other than "evil landlords must die and be redistributed"
You can say what you want about the rest of Hexbear but I can actually explain myself. Yeah, I'm one of those who have actually thought about stuff. In fact, I know more about real estate investing than you do.
How is a house different from a farm? Or a rail system? Or a insert anything created by someone and used for personal gain?
It's not. They all belong to those who actually made them, the workers.
Why don't you go build your own house? Why aren't you giving these unfortunate souls your own place?
I can't. Investors have inflated the cost of construction and increased the barrier to entry. They snuff out competition. Capitalism is built on lies. They don't actually like competition. The whole idea is to consolidate and monopolize. If I did try to build low income housing I'd be ran off by all the investors who own everything. Housing poor people next to their investments lowers the value. This is multi-family 101 kiddo. Read a book.
To cap it all- you follow each other around in groups and rather than actually discussing you strawman, point people to communist propaganda, and generally troll anyone who disagrees with you. No one wants to join your club, no one wants to read your Marxism books etc. If you have a point- state it. Don't point elsewhere and act like you won because we arent interested in your echochamber
The arrow of history disagrees. You probably should study the past sometime. Capitalism creates the conditions that make people want to join our club. It's pretty much a law of human society.
I don't think you make a bad point, but it takes years to develop a leftist, collectivist, anti-imperialist world view. Vulgarizing leftist theory to anyone who will listen is a colossal waste of time when 95% of you are not interested in interacting in good faith to begin with. As much as loaded political slogans, easy gotchas and plain old derision suck from a debate-fan point of view, they are too useful to ignore. Even more importantly, you are doing the exact same thing when you talk about "kremlin propaganda" like there's ever any substance or truth behind that accusation.
Well the Communist argument is that the government will provide all of the infrastructure and services. In real life, a good chunk of infrastructure are provided by the government. However, as far as services are concerned... It can be a pretty mixed bag depending on how functional your government is.
When I was young, edgy and anti-business I used to believe that government was absolutely the answer to all of our problems. Did I voted for something like 15 tax increases and saw my quality of life and the city itself just go down the drain. Wait no, it became a dumpster fire. Cost of living has skyrocketed about 500%, crime and homelessness are up 300 to 1,000%, and there hasn't actually been enough housing constructed to house people. We still don't have a social safety net and medical prices are astronomically high as well.
The fact is that the world is a complex place and whenever there is a disproportionate amount of economic disparity between classes, it doesn't matter who's running the show but there's going to be a lot of unhappy people.
On topic, but I've actually had a couple of good landlords over the years. One guy would stop by once a month to check on the house and do landscaping. We used to have really good conversations when I saw him, and we would talk about how the neighborhood was doing, any issues with the house and so on and so forth. Whenever I had a maintenance issue, he would be there within a few days to handle it. He even kept rent increases to below inflation.
On the other hand, I've also heard people denigrate architects, lawyers, engineers, and tech support people. But landlords and lawyers in particular make great punching bags.
Agreeing with something a ukraine flag pfp says? Truly the world has gone mad.
This isn’t appropriate for this post, the OP asked that conversation stays on topic
Putins head should be stuck inside one and saying that doesn't dehumanise anyone.
spoiler
Guillotines [...] reference perhaps the most important part in late medieval European history
The guillotine is best known for its use in France, particularly during the French Revolution. The French revolution was late 18th century, long after the Middle Ages had ended.
And Guillotines are not even Socialist references, they reference perhaps the most important part in late medieval European history.
Not only are you wrong on calling it medieval as stated by others, but you're also wrong about saying it has nothing to do with Socialism. The French Revolution, the Paris Commune (name rings a bell?) and Robespierre are major references of the European left culture.
In addition to doing hate speech against protected minority groups such as landlords and factory owners we also discriminate against other minority groups such as: war criminals, slave owners, Nazis, and fascist paramilitaries
Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
To be fair, I see those memes about guillotines and "eat the rich" all over the Internet.
Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
With varying degrees of seriousness, people call for violence against others all the time all over the internet. Go on any pro-Ukraine thread and you'll find tons of bloodthirsty comments calling for the killing of Russian soldiers (you'll often find variations of horrible stuff like "any Russian who isn't in open revolt is a fair target," too).
So first, what you are describing is not unique to Hexbear, and is in fact common. Second, if your response to my comparison is "well they're talking about a war!", so are we: every year capitalists wage war on the poor, killing millions by profit-driven deprivation of housing, food, medical care, etc. (see social murder).
That’s not true at all. Look at any post about landlords or Zelenskyy or “bourgeoisie”. Count the number of pictures or references to guillotines.
This is like a children's picture book-level of understanding of the differences between these. This same group of people are responsible for getting you things like healthcare, or the 8 hour work week, or fucking paid vacation. Maybe listen to them and read a little more before posting dumbass takes like this.
That's hard to believe when it's basically almost the only thing (and other serious and aggressive trolling and not trolling.) I've not seen any calm reasonable and rational responses from hexbear users until this post threatening to get rid of them
I'd like to stay federated with hexbear. They bring important information to conversation that people are otherwise not exposed to. American school-taught history is NOT the gold standard in truth.
I feel a little sorry for the Lemm.ee users here that came to make measured, personal posts specific to the annoucement. There's a fair amount of long off-topic arguements happening in bits of the thread now and that probably makes it harder to read and manage.
This is something that's often been pointed to as a pure result of Hexbear users or federation with Hexbear and given rise to accusations of 'brigading here and in the past'. While I don't think every segue into debate has been useful here, and have also told comrades that I didn't think this was the place for specific comments (which they removed) I also think there's some important context to point out - and I hope it helps lemm.ee users wondering about all this traffic not to fall into the trap of assuming the worst based on a couple of comments:
- Hexbear is a very big and very active instance. A very small proportion of users posting in a thread (especially one explicitly about them) can seem like a lot to a lot of instances.
- Hexbear doesn't have downvotes and Hexbear users do not have the ability to downvote posts or comments on other instances. This creates a culture where if people disagree, they tend to reply, not downvote instead. Another reason we're very active.
- This thread has constantly been at the top of people's feeds on Hexbear. if they're not only set to 'local'.
- Finally - and I say this fully acknowledging and appriciating the many ordinary, good faith, pleasant lemm.ee commenters that I've enjoyed reading and talking too even when I totally disagreed with them - a lot of these off-topic arguements and more heated comments do not come from nowhere. While not at all the majority, I do see a pretty shocking amount of actively hostile, hateful, and insulting behaviour here. Sadly, quite a bit of it would be banned under Hexbear's moderation policy against things like slurs and hate speech too.
So try to keep in mind if you see salty Hexbear users replying to people that, just in reading through this thread myself, I've the following instances of abuse or smears against my comrades (and they continue popping up). So I absolutely support them defending themselves (as long as they stay within the rules here):
- Dimissal as the pejorative "tankie" - 4 times (although we actually think this one is pretty funny usually)
- Users stating that Hexbear users are propagandists - 8 times
- Stating that people from Hexbear are specifically paid Russian/Chinese bots/propagandists - 10 times
- Direct equivalences of Hexbear posters to Nazis or just straight up calling us Nazis/fascists - 7 times
- Insults regarding mental health or IQ that would be classed as ablism on Hexbear - 8 times
- Dismissing users as children - 2 times
- Claiming Hexbear users are using vote-manipulation (impossible, as explained above) - 4 times
- Accusations of deliberate brigading rather than just commenting, being active - 11 times
I've tried not to count repeated instances from the same users. But sadly that's not all. Just a handful of the following are comments that have been made against Hexbear users in this thread, without any kind of equal hostility. As far as I can tell they all still remain:
- "You guys are like cancer"
- "Braindead fucking tankies"
- "Get fucked"
- "Asshole" (multiple)
- That our beliefs are "moralistic bullshut"
- That some of our beliefs are "a criminal ideology"
- A comment that simply states "No Russians"
- That we're "evil" (multiple times)
- An elaborate comparison to us "vandalising a Jewish graveyard" and other Nazi equivalences
- And of course a comment that explictly minimised the Nazi death toll with glee, seeming to imply they should have killed more. On the subject of disagreeing with equating the hammer and sickle to the swastika (hidden with spoiler tag, for those who don't want to see it repeated)...
spoiler
"you are right, it is nor really fair to nazis, who killed measly 17 million people, compared to impressive 100 million killed by communists."
There's also been numerious instances of users misgendering Hexbear users. I'm not going to put all of these down to malice, but at Hexbear we display our pronouns for a reason - we love our trans comrades! You don't have to, but could you please at least respect them and not misgender them?
Again, this isn't the majority, but it's honestly disappointing and worth keeping in mind amongst some of the louder, minority yells of 'brigading' etc.
I posted a comment in the_dunk_tank without noticing where I was. While many people were heated over what I said, it was a misunderstanding due to a lack of specificity and ignorance on my part. After I clarified what I was intending to say, discussion ensued and it was ended on good terms.
The vast majority of users I interact with from hexbear are thoughtful, insightful, kind and genuine individuals that care deeply about humanity and moving forward. The hate that they have is for fascism and actual fascists.
To defederate hexbear would be a disservice to the idea of federated social media.
Thanks for that very thoughtful statement. I am fine with keeping them federated and letting individual users block what they don't want to see. I find it interesting to see what different communities have to say, even if I find it abhorrent.
As a Hexbear user and one of the people your mod and OP interacted with in that thread, I find a good chunk of this post concerning and often spurious.
First, personally, I am one of the people who accused him of engaging in behaviour that was tantamount to Holocaust denial. I did so after his repeated, blunt, assertions of false equivalency between the undisputed horrors of Nazi Germany and those - some true, many disputed, some outright refuted - of the Soviet Union. I explained that this practice is known as the 'Double Genocide Theory' and even linked to articles by Jewish historians and Holocaust academics that explained the issues with the theory and the history of its official use to whitewash far-right movements, particularly in post-Soviet states. Instead of receiving a modicum of serious engagement he instead deliberately and grossly misrepresented and dismissed not only my point but the work of the Jewish academics I linked before leaving with an insult.
Secondly, what exactly constitutes Kremlin propaganda? This is a usually completely baseless claim that is thrown constantly at Hexbear uses, but also almost any marginally left or anti-war figure on the internet. A small but vocal group of cynical users that cannot and will not tolerate opposing viewpoints use it to shut down debate and to smear people. As your mod/OP stated, Hexbear does both refute and ban clear instances of actual Russian (or other) state propaganda when it's demonstrably untrue or breaks our very strict rules on bigotry of any kind. But much of what was smeared as Kremlin propaganda was not, because it was not.
Your very own mod/OP engaged in a version of that in the thread on Hexbear and when pushed on what it meant variably either ignored the question or cast the net as wide as anything Russia (state, politicians, or media) have ever said. Several people made the point that a Russian source can say can say something that's factual, or identify something true and use that as part of a political narrative. Does that objective truth suddenly because false as soon as it's spoken by Russian lips? These questions were ignored.
Personally, I'd prefer that there isn't defederation, that the bad feeling that's undoubtedly been created by members from both instances, is moved on from, and to explore and engage with more of lemm.ee afresh. I also recognise and respect that decision as being lemm.ee's to make, but felt that users deserve to hear some of the other perspective. Especially when I do not believe your mod/OP is either willing or able to be clear eyed or act in good faith around contentious issues like those highlighted in this thread. Which of course is also to be considered, and decided by, users of Lemm.ee.
I've seen the hexbears at work and don't doubt that they'd class some of my views as woefully liberal but in the main I am enjoying being on a site where the left is so unapologetic, doesn't go for all this centrist bollocks and is unafraid to call out bullshit.
Having seen the Overton window constantly shifted to a narrower aspect ratio and then shifted rightwards on reddit was a very disheartening experience and I think seeing active hexbears on all threads will be useful in stopping the uptight right when they inevitably decide that that the fediverse needs shifting towards their own Volkish views.
I've seen more posts complaining about Hexbear than actual objectionable things they've done. Maybe that's a sign of effective moderation, but in general I agree that defederation should always be a very last resort, and it doesn't feel like we're even close.
Also, with the ability for users to block instances coming soon, I think everyone will be happy then. At least, users anyway, it will still be down to the admin team to determine if the moderation workload is excessive and act accordingly - but that decision is and should be up to you.
I am also still quite worried about the amount of distinct users on hexbear who have posted Kremlin propaganda. I so far don’t have reason to believe that these users are employed by the Russian state, but the fact that they are spreading the same hateful content which can be seen on Russian television seems problematic to say the least, and it remains to be seen if moderators can truly keep up with such content.
This was why my eyebrows raised when I saw the Hexbear admin response when they claim that "Russian disinformation is generally either refuted in comments or removed by mods". Kremlin propaganda is rife in communities like chapotraphouse, and it certainly seems like the mods there let anything slide as long as it is isn't outright incitement to violence.
I challenged claims made in a couple of different anti-Ukraine posts and despite the fact there were maybe one or two users whose responses were thoughtful, the majority were outright calling me an idiot and a
removed liberal(edit: correction; dumb fuck)So far, my impression of HB's userbase is pretty negative because the posts on there that make the front page here tend to be the more shit-posty ones.
That said, I appreciate @sunaurus for the stance he's taking. There is some positive and thoughtful content on HB - you just have to block the noisier and more idiotic communities so it doesn't get drowned out.
Banning state propaganda is great, but why limit that ban to Kremlin propaganda? US propaganda is just as, if not more, prevelent and toxic. The narrative surrounding the destruction of the Nord Stream is a good example:
American corporate media and government officials were calling for its destruction and outright threatening to blow it up for months prior to the actual attack. Immediately after its destruction, the corporate news outlets and government officials that had been calling for that very action acted as though they had never done so and presented a unified front that blamed Russia for the attack. Doing some critical thinking and realizing that Russia had neither the opportunity nor the motive to blow up their own pipeline is not Kremlin propaganda. Continuing that critical thinking and realizing that the US had both motive and opportunity, and was a likely culprit because they had repeatedly threatened to blow up the pipeline is not Kremlin propaganda. Shutting down all discussion critical of the US by dismissing it as Russian bots is US propaganda.
Defederating from Hexbear would be a hugely disappointing move. They have a lot of insightful posts that I want to see interleaved with my other subscriptions. It would be a true shame to defederate from them because a subset of their users are immature/shitposters (where isn't that the case?). The point of federation was to not require every user to have N separate accounts on every forum. They show up in everyone's feed because they have a lot of users and activity. That's a
feature, not a bugsuccess!i don't have anything in particular to add, I just want to repeat that clicking on "all" isn't brigading.
Please don't defederate unless moderation becomes impossible. People should curate what they want to see on their own. Part of why I joined lemm.ee was that the content is not pre-curated, but I have a wide selection to choose from myself.
Stating that my people (and other Baltic nations) are subhuman
Oh, that's includes a now deleted comment of mine. Yes, i admit i got a bit overboard here. I wanted only to highlight a certain political tendency in the region. rather than make a blanket statement about any nationalities and ethnicities. It really came out wrong. And while i don't really care whatever this instance defederates or not, here i must apologize since i was clearly in the wrong. I should only dunk on people for what they do, not what they are.