Head dev of Lemmy (he actually spends most of his time supporting russian and Chinese propaganda) claims that North Korea is a great place to live.
He also supports the killing of Ukrainians and the extermination of Ukrainian culture and identity and is a huge fan of russian genocidal imperialism.
It’s all documented here:
White-washing genocide, supporting authoritarian regimes and ethnic cleansings, making comical, truly degenerate claims (“North Korea is a great place to live and there is a BIA conspiracy to discredit manpig leader”) has nothing to do with moderation practises.
We both know you and other tankie roaches are merely engaging in online roleplay. You almost don’t speak any other languages and have never lived in another country.
And yet you constantly chimp out with ridiculous claims and clear demagoguery.
Even your chimp outs against what Americans call liberals is performative and stupid.
They are going to take him out.
In addition to recognizing Palestine, all countries should drop recognition of Israel and recognise the presence of Israelis in Palestine as being illegitimate.
The Israelis will cry about anti-semitism, but I think more and more people in the world recognize this trick and are not going to buy it.
Corbyn is a genuine committed supporter of russian genocidal imperialism!
He is the perfect example of preformative and retrograde western “leftism”.
He is essentially signalling to other pro-crime Americans: “if you go after me, you will never get a chance to steal and benefit from corruption!”
Dark humour, but honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Israeli use some variation of this.
I believe we are already seeing Israeli propganadist trying to bring up polemics about how Hamas is genocidal in order to distract people from the real genocide done by the Israelis in Gaza.
Yes, that would be smart and just move.
Both far right and centre right.
The primary enabler of Israeli crimes is the American public. Not every single person of course, from my time living in the US, both the local far right and centre right are complicit.
Realisticly, the best way forward would be to end the recognition of the Israel colonialist regime, ban all economic, logistical and communication links and start catching and prosecuting war criminals.
But for most countries, this is not possible, since America will annihilate you economically if you take such actions.
And the responsibility for this lies with the American public. And this includes the centre right.
The Israelis are increasingly getting to the point where collective responsibility would be a justified approach to their systematic mass killings and abuse of civilians.
But you do take any scepticism of A16Z as an immediate sign that one is a “purity obsessed leftist”. This is not reasonable.
OK, so you are saying that I started lying in this thread, I actually believe substack is full of Nazis, but I decided to temporarily back down from this view in order to try and “win” this discussion.
You can agree that substack is not full of Nazis and it’s a viable platform, while also recognising that they are an American tech company that received money from a VC firm that is commited to authoritarianism, corruption and criminal schemes.
What’s your logic here? I am genuinely curious.
You are ranting against “left orthodoxy on purity”, yet you yourself are demanding acceptance of A16Z specifically.
That’s a fair take.
The claim that they are somehow really committed to “free speech”. I don’t believe this. Heard these sort of polemics a lot when I lived there (both on an institutional level and from individuals).
Me not trusting their alleged commitment to “free speech” doesn’t necessarily mean I think Substuck is particularly bad or that one shouldn’t use it or read it.
It’s not circuitous nonsense to highlight that statements made by Americans companies (and many individuals for that matter) about “free speech” are often shallow, performative and unconvincing. From my perspective, this is a factual statement.
This has nothing to do with the % split between leftist or rightist bloggers.
I don’t deny VC money may be necessary evil. A16Z is not the only VC company there is.
I am just pointing out that not trusting Substack’s claims about their alleged passion for free speech and seeing more nuance than “A16Z investment is a necessary, end of story! No discussion allowed!” does not make one a purity obsessed leftist that thinks substack is full of Nazis.
The piece about Substack making nazi blogs to stir up drama was not meant to be taken seriously; I was making fun of American startup culture (and many startups do engage is super sketchy behaviour, perhaps not substack though) and the bombast with which free speech polemics are often marketed.
I am not American (although I have lived there, and have traced extensively and have many good friends); I did not find American polemics around freedom of speech to be in the least convincing.
Absent convincing evidence to the contrary, it is reasonable to be sceptical of Substack’s claims. People in other countries get severally beaten up (or even killed) in an attempt to do real journalism - that is a commitment to free speech. Not some drama about blog hosting.
I do have some exposure to silicon valley go-to-market strategies. It is not at all “nonsense” to speculate that in theory a startup could engage in a guerrilla marketing (especially using free speech copytext, which is extremely fashionable among their target market).
Where did I make any claims about how the A16Z money was used? Sure, it likely was used to fund journalists on the platform, including people who do good work. It is a good thing that they are getting paid.
I think you misunderstand my worldview, I have nothing particularly against substack.
I just don’t buy the colourful story about “commitment to free speech” (not sperixi to substack) and the uncritical view of the A16Z investment.
For me personally, the A16Z investment is a much bigger issue than the Nazi blogs. From my perspective, it means the management is comfortable working with criminals (pump and dump and pyramid schemes haven’t yet been made legal in the US, have they?).
Performative claims of support for “free speech” is pretty standard stuff, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a part of the go-to-market strategy (it would be funny if they created the Nazis blog themselves to stir things up).
I will admit the “nation of contracts” piece is not from a IRL convo, it was a forum convo. That being said I’ve definitely encountered very similar polemics in face to face conversations in the US.
The level of skepticism of oligarchs and government corruption in the US is far less than in any country I’ve lived in (I’ve lived in 5 countries across North America, Europe and Asia, I’ve also visited another ~25 countries, some multiple times).
I am not saying there is no skepticism of either the judiciary or the oligarchic system, but a lot of people (note I never said a plurality or majority, I used the word “large”) actively and aggressively promote oligarchic polemics, corruption and criminality.
In other countries, you almost never have situations (IRL) where someone talks about the constitution or freedom of speech or any such concepts in a random manner. You can have conversation about such topics, but these are defined and focused discussions. In the US, as foreigner, you get the impression and that everyone and their mother claims to be constitutional expert. And the “free speech supporter” polemics (the ones I’ve heard IRL, not internet or media stuff) are extremely shallow, bordering on childish.
And the polemical outbursts almost always leverage standardized copytext. This is very noticeable if you are foreigner and you travel across the US and talk to different people in different environments.
It is not my intention to “shit on the US”, not at all. But it also not reasonable for me to deny my real experience in the US (not one location, I’ve been to maybe ~20 states or so).
Let’s hope for the best. :)
I hope you’re right, for both our sakes. I live in Ukraine, but mark my words, if we fall, you’ll be next.
Isn’t Rand Paul that demagogue who was lying about taking horse tranquilizer for COVID?