Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.

Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…

The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.

Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.

Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?

  • SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    Communists are authoritarians because that’s what communism is, like by definition; it’s hard-left but also authoritarian. That’s literally what separates lib-left from auth-left, the same obviously being for lib-right and auth-right (I’m just going off of the standard four-quadrant political compass, which probably has its own deep, foundational issues).

    I have friends who are self proclaimed “tankies”, and talking to them a lot about it, my best understanding of the way they put it is basically:

    You need an Iron Fist® to fix anything, and an Iron Fist® to keep it that way.

    I also think that .ml probably has a percentage of people from those locations, and most people, period, tend to think their way is the best way. Which is also fairly hard to prove because history keeps being altered and destroyed and humans only live for like 60-90 years and we don’t have a very advanced intergenerational memory. Or maybe we do but just don’t know how to learn very well from it when all it seems to scream is “BREED, EAT, SLEEP, STINKY, TRIBE, SCARY, RUN, FIGHT, SAFE, LOVE”. It’s like some people’s own evolutionary biology tells them to prevent others from learning history to establish dominance and power.

    Hard to say whether or not we’ll make it. The solution-path definitely has a lot of construction and destruction.

  • TheFonz@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    They are not communists or socialists. They are campists.

    The mistake is assuming they care about the political idealogy they ascribe to. They exist exclusively as an oppositional force to whatever the West represents. The reality is that if the Western hegemony disappeared tomorrow, they would lose their entire raison d’etre. They dont care at all about the principles of communism. It’s an esthetic that they can bury themselves in order to criticize the West.

    Because engaging with the reality of effecting the goals of communism would entail coming to face with the brutal process of realizing effective change. You know, being politically effective. That would undermine the entire movement and modus operandi.

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
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      1 month ago

      yeah I see more posts about what lemmy.ml folks are like than experience such myself. Im a bit instance blind though ask I also just hang and just block folks if they are too annoying. I don’t need to get upset and sing from the rafters how bad they or their instance is. Ok I do bitch about the guy where I had to block like over a dozen alts but he was like pretty annoying.

      • shapis@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        It might be because this place is so small. A single idiot screaming loudly will take up the whole room.

  • Comet79@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    These people are called “tankies”. It’s communists who like militarism and imperialism, as long as it’s of their own flavor. The internet has many such “bunkers” where these people congregate. They unironically support the countries you mention, and they do not represent the entire left-wing community.

    I’d argue that they aren’t the result of capitalist policies being shitty. Such communities have existed on the internet since the early 00s. It’s just their ideology.

    Why are they on lemmy? My guess is that Reddit banned some of their communities for posting violent content (threats of violence etc.) so they moved to lemmy, which does not censor people to the degree Reddit does.

    The .ml for lemmy.ml supposedly stands for “marxism leninism”.

    • snek_boi@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      TIL I want a daddy to force himself on me.

      I had never thought about it. But I now feel obliged to. I guess I now have to search for local daddies and DM them? Idk… does that sound about right?

  • Sanctus@anarchist.nexus
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    1 month ago

    They do it for the same reasons you vehemently defend Israel and their genocide of the Palestinians.

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    You probably don’t speak any of the languages from the countries you listed. Almost everything that you know about them you’ve learned from “western” sources. You, like many others come to the fediverse and are exposed to counter narratives for the first time in your life. This comes as a shock, and you think that such people must be crazy, paid shills or bots. I encourage you to stick around, and actually read what people are saying.

    Also, don’t mistake nuance for unqualified support. Do I like Iran’s government? No, but that doesn’t really matter. Right now my government (who does far greater harm to the world than any others you mentioned), is killing people there. I know from my experience and knowledge of history, that the US “intervening” is not going to end up improving the lives of the people there.

    • VeryFrugal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      I want to create a world where each person give according to their ability and take according to their need.

      It’s pretty cringe that they paint themselves this innocent.

      • Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        i mean, its been the thesis of leftism for a little while now.

        you got a better thesis for a different organisation of the economy?

  • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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    1 month ago

    They aren’t in love with authoritarian regimes as much as communism. So don’t expect the devs to say nice things about the UAE, for instance.

  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I cringe so hard when I see shit like this. “Many people” is barely a handful. Most .ml users are just regular folks, stop trying to build tribes off the url at the end of names, weirdo.

    The most pro-russian user I know of is actually a .world user.

    Funny enough, OP has 9 comments and most of them are correcting people on “who actually started the genocide”. I’m guessing it’s not the pro russian stance that bothers you but the anti-israel one.