"Oh, this is calamity! Calamity! Oh no, he's on the floor!"
Welcome to MoG!
Meanwhile On Grad
Documenting hate speech, conspiracy theories, apologia/revisionism, and general tankie behaviour across the fediverse. Memes are welcome!
What is a Tankie?
(caution of biased source)
Basic Rules:
Sh.itjust.works Instance rules apply! If you are from other instances, please be mindful of the rules. — Basically, don't be a dick.
Hate-Speech — You should be familiar with this one already; practically all instances have the same rules on hate speech.
Apologia — (Using the Modern terminology for Apologia) No Defending, Denying, Justifying, Bolstering, or Differentiating authoritarian acts or endeavours, whether be a Pro-CCP viewpoint, Stalinism, Islamic Terrorism or any variation of Tankie Ideology.
Revisionism — No downplaying or denying atrocities past and present. Calling Tankies shills, foreign/federal agents, or bots also falls under this rule. Extremists exist. They are real. Do not call them shills or fake users as it handwaves their extremism.
Tankies can explain their views but may be criticised or attacked for them. Any slight infraction on the rules above will immediately earn a warning and possibly a ban.
Off-topic Discussion — Do not discuss unrelated topics to the point of derailing the thread. Stay focused on the direct content of the post, rather than engaging in unrelated arguments.
Brigading — If you're here because this community was linked in another thread, please refrain from voting, commenting or manipulating the post in any way, this includes alt accounts. All votes are public, and if you are found to be brigading, you will be permanently banned.
You'll be warned if you're violating the instance and community rules. Continuing poor behaviour after being warned will result in a ban or removal of your comments. Bans typically only last 24 hours, but each subsequent infraction will double the amount. Depending on the content, the ban time may be increased. You may request an unban at any time.
Modlog: https://photon.lemmy.world/modlog?=&community=32
Join the lemmy.ml boycott today and help foster a better Lemmy-verse! No more posts, comments (except to counter their propaganda ofc!) or upvotes on any comms on the Lemmy.ml instance! To make this easy you can do an instance block at Settings > Block Tab > Scroll to bottom > Input "lemmy.ml" and apply
And consider donating to individual instances instead.
Check the megathread for more!
I will never understand why people go down the tankie route.
Sure, communism I can understand, even if it's not a political ideology I agree (that much) with. When you're starving and someone promises you all the potatoes you can drink, that's a massive upgrade. But what causes otherwise intelligent people (because I'm sure this guy is) to cling to authoritarianism and human rights violations as something to support and even promote?
Sure, CIA bad, and all that. That doesn't mean KGB good. Murica bad doesn't mean NK good.
They need mother and/or father figures. Something to tell them what to do and handle everything for them.
If you are actually asking;
Because most people generally agree that a more equitable society is good, people being beholden to their employers in a relationship with an extremely lopsided power dynamic is bad etc.
But because if even filthy shitlibs agree with things like that there is no value to espousing them; you get no good-leftists points for a statement which costs you nothing to make.
But if you say the US deserved 9/11 due to it's support for Israel, or that North Korea is actually a model state and all the reports of human rights violations are just propaganda etc. well you are clearly willing to burn all your political credibility with normies and so you must be an ardent communist and therefore worthy of respect.
In real life this effect is diminished because you are usually forced into interacting with people who sadly aren't a fan totalitarian regimes or quite like the US and you see these people often enough that you maybe respect them and care about their opinions. So you naturally moderate your opinions so you can perceive yourself as someone they would respect in turn.
But if you live in an echo chamber, the statements which would otherwise carry a personal cost suddenly become free and still ingratiate you with you peers. And then it becomes a conception to see who can pick the position juuust within the echo chamber's overton window but as far as possible outside the general public's overton window.
See also: the young republicans mask off support for literal Nazism in their group chat.
Echo chambers, belief perseverance and the "second belief theory" (I'm not sure it's a real theory). For example most (western) people learn that the US is great and everybody else are terrorists from action movies. Then you learn that the US has done a lot of horrible things. However finally you also learn that the Soviet Union also did a lot of horrible shit, and then you have a nuanced opinion. However some people stick to the second belief, that the US is the great Satan and they know so much more than everyone else that have only learnt from action movies (even if they are on the third belief)