A story as old as federated social media, in 3 parts (slrpnk.net)

submitted 2 days ago by PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat to c/yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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Mod of !anarchism@slrpnk.net posts a great Greta Thunberg quote, but then tries to use it to justify not voting in the upcoming US election
Multiple people point out that’s very clearly not what she meant
Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod

Using your mod powers to decide who is allowed and not allowed to speak is not very anarchist of you, @mambabasa@slrpnk.net

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[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago

Anarchy is not equal to "no rules". That's anti-anarchy propaganda.

Lemmy in itself is anarchist because each community is allowed to have its own set of rules, and each instances as well.

The point of anarchy is that if you and a group of other people disagree with how someone is handling things, you can exclude them from your group. Of course, this is all in the context of leftist and communist ideologies.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 7 hours ago

The point of anarchy is that if you and a group of other people disagree with how someone is handling things, you can exclude them from your group.

I must have missed that part being key, when I was reading about Kropotkin and the mutualists. I thought it was some other things were mainly “the point.”

[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 hours ago

It is key. Anarchist theory is supposed to prove that hierarchy is not necessary. Proving that a group of people can manage themselves without one is the point.

I also added in the last sentence in order to include this. Multual aid is a leftist theory. Maybe the misunderstanding stems from this, as I didn't intend it to mean "that's the only point of anarchy", so my bad. I still think it is important though.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 1 points 7 hours ago

It is key. Anarchist theory is supposed to prove that hierarchy is not necessary. Proving that a group of people can manage themselves without one is the point.

It’s so key that Kropotkin said you need to nominate a leader for each discussion, so that the leader can kick people out if they’re supporting the wrong ideologies. It’s one of the key tenets, and thank you for reinforcing it.

Also:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory)

[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 hours ago

I'm not really talking about what Kropotkin said. I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic here.

Also literally the first line of your Wikipedia article:

Mutualism is an anarchist school of thought and anti-capitalist market socialist economic theory

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 6 hours ago

I'm being extremely sarcastic.

I'm saying that proving that hierarchy is not necessary, and a group of people can manage themselves without one, by nominating one person to have ultimate authority over what actions can and can't be taken within your anarchism group, so that person can make sure it stays anarchist, is a very silly thing to do.

[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 hours ago

But what I'm trying to point out is that this one person does not have authority over anyone due to the nature of the fediverse. If they did, your post right here would be gone.

If the users that are in the community of the moderator didn't like how they managed things, they could make their own community. And if they didn't like that the instance let the community exist for whatever reason, they can change for a better instance. Admittedly it's hard to do so, but it's a pretty good model.

They can't stop users from making their own solar punk meme community.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 5 hours ago

Yeah, but I don't think authority needs to be inescapable in order to be authority.

If I don't like the laws of the state of Ohio, I can leave Ohio. That doesn't mean the cops in Ohio have no authority.

In this case, it's actually even a little bit sillier than that, because we're just talking about words. There's no way to even do any actions. All you can do is say stuff. If people come in and start talking about things, and that's so destructive to your way of being that you have to wield your authority within that particular domain to eject them from it and stop them from saying those things, what's that say about your ability to work things out without a hierarchy and get along? How are you going to deal with it in your anarchist community if someone's playing music too late at night and keeping someone else awake, or saying things at meetings that you don't think they should be allowed to say? Or even doing something even more destructive, letting their dog loose and it might hurt somebody, something like that? If someone has to default back to putting one person in charge and having them wield ultimate power to keep things in line this early in the process, it doesn't sound to me like they're very serious about anarchism.

I'm not trying to be negative or sarcastic about anarchism. I think, on the whole, it's great. I talked more about it and learned some down in the deep forest of comments. I'm just saying that it sounds to me like !anarchism@slrpnk.net could use a lot more anarchism in its governance.

[-] Binette@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 hours ago

I think it should be inescapable. At least, the consequences from it should. The modlog is still available, and there is nothing that stops you from creating your own community. If we take the Ohio analogy tho, claiming yourself to be a sovereign citizen won't stop the police from applying their authority on you. They use violence in order to apply it as well. In Lemmy, creating your community in an instance may not stop an admin, but will stop a moderator. A step further to that would be making your own instance, and I know it's not perfect, but it's already way more power to the users and less to the moderators.

I see it more as someone kicking you out of a group. You can ask the others if they disagree and want to form another group with you. If the others agree, they can leave the group, and if not, they'll stay because they agree with the decision. It's not a perfect model, but gives way more agency to the user than it does to the moderators/admins. For example, on reddit, if you were banned from a community, you could make your own, but if you were banned from the site, then not much could've been done. People also don't agree with the moderation on ml, so they moved on to .world, db0 or lemm.ee. So far, it works.

I would advise against using the argument of it being "just words", as it removes the intention behind your words, and can lead to some more right wing talking points (not that you are right wing).

[-] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 5 hours ago

you're not an anarchist, so I don't see why they should consider your critique as anything but liberalism

[-] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I’m really confused as an anarchist myself.

I know some anarchists who believe we should boycott the system and not vote, I know some anarchists who believe we should vote for Jill Stein because she is the most progressive candidate, and I know some anarchists (which include myself) who think along more utilitarian lines, that this election will can only end in two outcomes, and that one will cause a lot more suffering than the other, therefore I will vote for the one that causes the least suffering.

We anarchists believe more in direct action than voting, but that doesn’t mean we can’t vote.

I’m very concerned about this censorship of discourse on an anarchist community. And want to know what the moderator who made this decision’s rationale was. Would this comment be removed in !anarchism@slrpnk.net because I say not all anarchists vote for Jill Stein?

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 3 points 1 day ago

They made a long attempt to defend themself here:

https://slrpnk.net/comment/11904145

If you have some time, read the whole thing. There's all kinds of interesting treasure in there.

[-] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago

So my comment would be removed because according to the mod I provide “ideological cover for evil”, by not supporting Jill Stein, even though my rationale conforms with anarchist ideals?

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 day ago

No, the argument is something like this: you can vote (or not vote) however you like and voting strategically or for the lesser evil is a compromise many Anarchists make, but you are lying to yourself and others if you claim that this is anything but a painful compromise. Jill Stein is irrelevant for that question.

[-] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I agree with what you said, via painful compromise and such, but that’s not the impression I got of the driving force behind the moderator’s decisions.

It seemed more like they were removing the comments because basically suggesting to vote for the lesser evil was in their view providing justification for evil and does not belong in the community.

If that’s the view of the moderators is that only idealistic (black or white) anarchism is welcome, and all forms of pragmaticism or utilitarianism or philosophicisim within anarchist ideals are unwelcome in the community, I will have to stop participating.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago

I can't speak for the exact reasoning, but my impression is more like this:

The OP made a post explicitly about how voting is not enough and that direct action is needed (a very uncontroversial position for Anarchists) in an Anarchist community and because it is upvoted a lot and hits the all feed, some non-anarchist liberals show up in the comments and Reply-Bro their off-topic views about how it is absolutely crucial to vote for Harris and spout their various hypocritical justifications as of why. As a result the OP gets angry at those uninvited comments and deletes some of them and closes the thread and also gives a temp ban to some especially argumentative people that clearly didn't get the message.

I find this pretty sensible over all, as this isn't about not welcoming "all forms of pragmaticism or utilitarianism or philosophicisim within anarchist ideals" but rather about showing people the door who are clearly not anarchists nor seem to be interested in learning about it.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 10 hours ago

Here’s the mod log. IMO the OP already invited those comments (the post says in the first few lines that Trump is way more dangerous) and I don’t see how they were bludgeoning or hypocritical.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 0 points 7 hours ago

Yes they didn't understand it either, but you have to keep in mind which community they commented in.

[-] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 4 hours ago

Erm, which they are you referring to? Nobody's saying elections are better than anarchism, and as I've said below (on my alt account of the same name), I don't see how saying voting for Harris is better than voting for Stein contradicts election principles. It's not like Greta endorses Stein either.

[-] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

There is a detailed body of theoretical works in Anarchism about how Electoralism is counter-productive and mostly just distracts from the real work that is needed. This isn't about Harris or Stein. Coming into an Anarchist community and arguing about the need to vote for a candidate is similar to coming to a Vegan community and starting to argue that eggs are better than meat and maybe a little meat is not so bad after all.

[-] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 23 hours ago

Thanks for engaging with me. I don’t have the energy to properly read or reply to your comment right now, I’ll come back to it tomorrow.

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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024

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