Cowbee

@[email protected]

This town, in fact, has more than enough room for the two of us

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Cowbee,

And yet the political commentary displayed in the series is blatantly leftist in nature, and was written in the context of modern Capitalism.

Just like showing a dystopian hyper-Capitalist cyberpunk future is a commentary on the dangers of modern day Capitalism, showing a more “enlightened” post-scarcity Communist society as a hopeful future is also commentary on modern day society.

Sci-fi is pretty much just political, as it’s all speculative fiction based on different possibilities of modern society abstracted to a future setting.

Cowbee,

Same reason Linux is popular on Lemmy. Lemmy is essentially an explicitly leftist community that appeals to people nerdy and techy enough to leave Reddit and join a smaller platform. Linux is a FOSS, ie leftist techy OS. Star Trek is leftist Sci-Fi.

Nerds, tech, and leftism all congregate on Lemmy.

Cowbee, (edited )

Collectivization of industry, ie a rejection of Private Property. FOSS is leftist as it rejects individually owned IP and the profit motive.

Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, etc. are examples of leftist ideologies.

If you want a true ELI5, instead of one dude owning the factory and therefore everything the Workers create in it, imagine the Workers owning the factory and democratically deciding how to allocate profits and whether or not to elect a manager to help facilitate this.

Cowbee,

Pretty simple to sum it up as collectivization of industry, or as abolition of Private Property in favor of collective ownership of the Means of Production.

Anything else, such as a rejection of hierarchy or a focus on democratization of production, is an abstraction and benefit of the previous statements.

Cowbee,

He made an account 20 minutes ago just to post inflammatory, reactionary comments from a hyper-conservative angle, lmao.

Cowbee,

He made an account 20 minutes ago just to post inflammatory, hyper-conservative reactionary comments

Cowbee,

Spoken like someone who has never been targeted based on the political climate, and hasn’t cared for anyone who has.

Cowbee,

There’s little that’s legitimately out of your control. Of course, I don’t mean 1 person can topple Capitalism or anything, but 1 person can set up a union, join a protest, or set up a co-operative farm, educate others, or make meaningful grassroots change.

1 person can make a big difference in the lives of the people around them.

Cowbee,

Yep, I have found that just accepting one person’s words alone, especially in a field as politically charged as economics, is a terrible way to gain knowledge and understanding, just more misunderstanding. Pinker does a great job of being technically correct, but like the other commenters have pointed out, he is very careful of showing only some numbers and ignoring others, in order to massage a narrative that the status quo is flawed but ultimately not to be challenged.

Cowbee,

I certainly believe it! Colonization and Imperialism in particular have an absolutely brutal history. Japanese soldiers occupying China and Korea used to catch babies on bayonets, and had quotas for how many ears they cut off. Dutch occupiers of the Congo would cut off the hands of underperforming workers, including children, and give the hands to their parents.

The thing is, generally, humans are guided and shaped by material conditions, and material conditions improve with democratization and industrialization.

Cowbee,

What a dashing monke

Cowbee,

So charming 😍

Cowbee,

Yep, I’m grateful that I can fix what’s still there, it’s just unfortunate that teeth are luxury bones, and good health is a luxury in and of itself.

Cowbee,

My problem is the opposite, normal teeth, small mouth! Haven’t ever been able to have braces until now, so I’m knocking it all out now. Hope everything goes well for you!

Cowbee,

Unironically yes, increasingly. I know Lemmy is very leftist, and thus doesn’t reflect America in general, but the more time goes on the more left each generation becomes, and Gen Z is by far the most leftist generation in America currently. Gen Alpha will have to wait and see, but for now America is more likely than ever before to vote for Bernie.

Cowbee,

Those people are dying out, which is more to my point.

Cowbee,

Increasingly fewer people do.

Cowbee,

That’s blatantly bad-faith, Biden got more votes in 2020 than Hillary did as well. Voter participation was far higher.

Cowbee,

I didn’t say she did. Biden got more votes in 2020 than Hillary did in 2016, because voter turnout was far larger in 2020. Increasingly, Gen Z is more okay with Socialism and actually prefers it over Capitalism, something unthinkable for Boomers and Gen X.

Cowbee,

They are facts. And, facts are additionally that more people voted in 2020 than 2016, and Trump lost both the popular and electoral vote in 2020.

Are you a bot?

Cowbee,

Yep, and his support is and always has been a minority.

Cowbee,

It’s 2023 and trends have trajectories. This may be difficult to understand.

Cowbee,

Hahaha, I gotchu. On an individual basis, it’s totally possible that a Japanese person may genuinely stumble upon it and like it purely for the tunes. At an aggregate, it becomes increasingly obvious that there are tendencies that lead people out of traditionally popular Japanese music and into obscure northern European Nazi music.

Cowbee,

Individually? Possible, totally. In aggregate? It’s not a secret that Japan has an uncomfortably large fascist subculture. Putting 2 and 2 together as an aggregate makes sense.

Of course, I wouldn’t go up and assume a random Japanese person listening to fascist northern European metal is necessarily a fascist, but if they also had the rising sun flag of Imperial Japan on their car, or hanging in their room? Absolutely.

Cowbee,

Ya love to see it.

Cowbee,

There are people siding with Nazis and reporting this post for doxxing, lol

Cowbee,

Per Capita, in total, Per capita per year, or total per year? Each of these 4 types has a different answer, and the Nazis were higher in nearly every metric of slaughter.

The US is bad. The US has never been fully fascist, despite flirting with it. Nazi Germany was perhaps the most evil and oppressive country to ever exist in history, and certainly was for the 20th century.

What exactly is your point? Nazis are bad, but so is the US? I don’t think too many people on Lemmy are fans of the US, but to insinuate that the Nazis are somehow more palatable by being compared to the US is absurd.

Cowbee,

Odd to call it “winning,” but the answer is “historical total.” The US has murdered tens of millions more over its several hundred year history than Nazi Germany killed in the less than half a century it existed.

It isn’t sanity to pretend that hundreds of years of brutal history are equally comparable to an extremely condensed period of the single most brutal country to exist in modern history. Nazism is far more evil than liberalism, even if liberalism is still inevitably evil.

Cowbee,

Imagine getting mad at someone saying Nazis are bad. I wouldn’t be caught dead getting upset that someone was saying Nazis are bad, lmao

Cowbee,

It’s all strange. What’s the point? “Hmmm, you think Nazis are bad? Have you considered that other countries are bad but significantly less bad? Checkmate!” It’s just terminally online.

Cowbee,

I’ll make it simple for you: Nazis are bad.

Cowbee,

When one becomes a Nazi, they cease to be able to be considered good.

Cowbee,

On an individual level, this is possible. At an aggregate? No.

Cowbee,

Why? You keep trying to dodge that your central point is that people should stop saying Nazis are bad, because the US exists. It’s absurd and nothing more needs to be said, you aren’t willing to engage in fair or meaningful convo

Cowbee,

Nazis are evil. Simple.

Cowbee,

Depends entirely on the context. Framed like that? Probably not a Nazi, but I wouldn’t dare make judgement without knowing what actually transpired.

Might be a hot take, but the idea that the word “Nazi” is thrown around like it’s nothing is actually overblown, and usually it’s correctly thrown.

Cowbee,

Usually the far left calls everyone a liberal, it’s liberals that call conservatives Nazis. The far left usually calls actual fascists Nazis.

Cowbee,

To be fair, understanding the damage of hierarchy economically while simultaneously rejecting intersectionality and upholding it socially is an extremely fringe view to have. Socialists with conservative social views are very rare in developed countries and online.

Cowbee,

Isn’t it funny how when you add context, “maybe Canada is taking in too many immigrants at once” turns into “yea, I’m probably better described as an ecofascist even if I don’t like the way that sounds, and I am intolerant and believe in overpopulation?”

All I’m saying is that my suspicion was a lot closer to being correct. Ecofascism is far closer to Nazism than mere “immigration too quick” ploys, and it makes sense to call you a fascist in that context.

Maybe reconsider your positions if they even put you in the vicinity of fascism? Just a hint.

Cowbee,

Since when did disagreeing with the idea that the Earth is currently at or reaching overpopulation levels equivalent to thinking that those levels don’t exist?

You could move far, far away from Nazism and Ecofascism, and join EcoMarxists. No intolerance, no lack of intersectionality, and a true leftist movement, rather than a far-right fascist movement.

Cowbee,

Just don’t be a fascist, buddy. Get help.

Cowbee,

Not genocide, lol.

Cowbee,

No, I am advocating for democratic control, not giving all control to one or two dudes. That’s what you’re putting in my mouth. For example, I’m arguing for the factory to be owned by the Workers, and managed by whoever they vote for. You’re the one adding the caveat of an anti-democratic central god-planner, which is nonsense.

The rest of your comment is you continuing this nonsense, so maybe I’ll break it into something simple and bite-sized for you.

Factory 1: Capitalist owner, workers have no say except to leave.

Factory 2: Workers are the Owners, elect a manager, and said manager can be deposed by the Workers at will.

Why do you think having Factory 1 is better, and why do you think I’m advocating for Factory 2 to have no democracy whatsoever? Why do you think it’s impossible to have a federated network of Factory 2s, that are all democratically accountable, rather than someone at the top of all of Factory 2s and no democracy?

If you keep avoiding this question and intentionally misrepresenting my point, you just further prove that you don’t actually care to discuss anything.

Cowbee,
  1. We’ve already explained that your claim that workers owning tools = nobody works = starvation is pure mysticism. When pressed for why, you said people would work less automatically, which is wrong, especially considering co-operative farming has worked for as long as humanity has existed, and continues to do so. Additionally, you claimed they would be less stable, which was also proven false with my example of Worker co-operatives.
  2. I’m not asking for the Soviet Union, you keep pushing that in there as though it’s the only way, and pretend that every problem the Soviet Union had must be repeated if Workers share tools. Its an utter fallacy.
  3. Workers cannot consent to Capitalism, it exists regardless. That’s like saying peasants consented to Feudalism.

The very fact that you deliberately refused to answer why Factory 1, with the Capitalist ownership, was better than Factory 2 with democratic ownership, and instead dodged, proves me exactly correct: you have nothing to stand on and merely reflexively reject everything I say. You’re no different from a Monarchist during the French Revolution saying that workers wouldn’t have the ability to choose to be a serf under Capitalism.

Please, explain exactly why the democratically run factory is worse than the undemocratically run factory. If you’re going to continue to lie about what I’m saying and make absurd mystical claims, then I suppose I expected too much from an internet stranger.

Cowbee,

Economic systems absolutely affect development, but again, you’re comparing a country that was a backwater nation completely undeveloped come the start of the 20th century with a country that has always been at or near the top of the list of industrialized nations. The starting points aren’t even in the slightest.

Secondly, the banning of alternative political parties was indeed antidemocratic, but the party didn’t select who you could vote for. Factions were banned by Lenin, supposed to be temporary, but this continued until 1989.

Historical accounts actually disagree with you saying candidates were preselected. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy Pat Sloan in particular mentions that anyone could be elected, at the local level. Perhaps what you’re referring to is that those above the local Soviets were made up of those elected at local Soviets, and thus people couldn’t directly run for higher Soviets? Either way, definitely flawed, but not the same as what you’re saying.

Democracy is a sliding scale, I would say the Soviet Democratic model was still democratic, but less than many other countries. The US is technically more democratic, but many absolute positions cannot be voted on, such as the Supreme Court. There isn’t a currently existing country with fantastic democracy, unfortunately.

Cowbee,

Yes, I agree with that crux, never disagreed with it. I still think it was functionally democratic, it’s not like the top controlled every aspect of society. Often times the elections with the most impact on your personal lives are the local elections, and that’s where Workers did in fact have control.

Again, though, I’ve never argued for repeating the USSR. I just think that we can learn from what worked and what didn’t to create a better system of leftist organization, and the fact that so much went right and so much went wrong is exceptionally useful data. We know what not to replicate democratically, and we know that guaranteeing Healthcare and education, and investing heavily in building residential plots and urbanization at the public level, does tremendous work in reducing poverty and homelessness.

At the end of the day, I’m NOT an ML, nor am I a USSR Stan. I’m a leftist, and more importantly I’m anti-tendency, and think each country will have a different path to worker liberation. As such, we should learn as much as possible from previous Socialist attempts and structures to create a better future.

Do you disagree with that notion?

Cowbee,

I’m pretty sure they just operate on reflex. I say I think democratization of production is a good thing, they say that I’m suddenly a hardcore USSR Stan and want to Purge everyone who disagrees with a Supreme leader. I truly don’t think someone thinking coherently and logically can make these leaps, they must be purely operating on anti-socialist reflex.

They wouldn’t even answer straight when I asked which is better, a factory that is democratically controlled, or a factory that is owned solely by a Capitalist, then said I’m as dangerous as a fascist.

Cowbee,

Yep, for these people Capitalism is the only thing that has ever existed and is the only thing that will ever exist, so there’s no point in advocating for better, as it can’t be better. Real “end of history” neoliberal bullshit.

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