An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" (read: Dengists) (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't irrationally idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
Art credit: Daniele Turturici
I feel like this is an AI photo. If it is, then that makes the message feel kinda ironic. AI is definitely something that is under the control of capitalism while real human made art is under control of the masses
The author is Daniele Turturici who posted the illustration on his subreddit. One post before, he stated that all of his work is done without AI.
You can also find it in the solarpunk story seed library, also saying no AI.
It doesn't strike me as AI. Can you point to anything in particular ?
I thought the perspective was kinda odd, but the other comment was saying that it’s not AI. So I’m probably wrong
I've noticed that at some point solarpunk imagery got infiltrated with jetson-style hovercars. Which besides being imaginary technology are kind of just an individualist, capitalist transposition of motonormativity (Automotive normativity) into science fiction. Futurism is one thing, but they aren't very solarpunk. More of an Overwatch-liberalism type of fantasy.
I fully agree that the presence of flying cars wasn't thought-through
Maybe you'd like this piece by the same artist https://slrpnk.net/post/34365210
I could critique this one for a paragraph too but I don't feel like being so miserable :P And at least it doesn't have any imaginary technology. So long as that's a train in the... Tube thing.
I've done some solarpunk art myself and could ramble about it for many paragraphs if I let myself. Some people are concerned purely with aesthetics but I like to spend a lot of time thinking about how the society and culture and institutions in that imagined world inform the scene, directly and indirectly.
Not even if we string up every capitalist, redistribute their wealth, and smash every state, will we have flying cars. They're just a bad idea
What if they are silent, lifted with vacuum levitation?
Public transport would still be better
Who's to say that's not what's happening in the image?
The image itself says that by only having two people in the flying machine.
So you only understand public transportation if its packed like sardines?
Sure. Fine. We do not know from context from this picture whether the flying machines being depicted are publicly or privately owned.
However, the fact that they are flying and hold so few people makes the distinction not really matter because of how incredibly inefficient they would be at moving people around.
Who's to say there are not larger vehicles available for larger families or groups. Seems more efficient to me to hand out transport that fits the party. Guess i don't see everything through capitalism tented glasses.
I’m saying it. It’s a still image and those aren’t there. They literally do not exist.
Aww, so nothing else can exist if it's not depicted explicitly in this one image?
The problem is the private mode of transportation. You need to source and mass assemble those flying cars for it to only transport 1-4 people. There exists a contradiction between this fact and a solar punk/environment friendly way of living, because you'd have to exploit a fuck ton of natural resources #traingang
Trains are great, but some level of personal transport will always be necessary at least supplementarily (e.g. bikes, scooters). And we don't know how much natural resources would be used by flying vehicle construction, maybe there is a decent way to do it.
Still uses 100x more energy than any ground based transportation.
No way, it keeps itself on the air with 0 energy expenditure, then moves with minimal resistance. Much more efficient than a land vehicle.
I'm not an engineer, but if they are that light, wouldn't they be strongly affected by the wind?
Also they would still be crash hazard, so probably would be banned above human settlements and infrastructure, which doesn't leave a lot of places where they can traverse and take off / land.
A few years ago Adam Something made a video about flying cars - it was in the context of the currently available technology, but imho some of his concerns would still be valid.
They would be light, but have a high mass, so not as jerky as a balloon.
I get that there are a lot of theoretical problems with flying cars, and current technology is sufficient for improving society if we just make different choices. I've seen Adam Something video, I just think we shouldn't stop dreaming about something that has inspired utopian visions for generations. It can be easy to grow sour on the entire idea of innovation after people like elongated muskrat use it to hype up their stock prices and fail to deliver. But innovation can be great, and better futures start by daydreaming.
I am once again asking leftists to use plain language in their memes instead of jargon.
"The world if we were in charge of our labor instead of the capitalists." See how easy that was?
verrrry much agree.
there are so many memes where its some "bad" person saying a thing and then some leftist responding with--- three paragraphs of burogogies and-- all those words I keep misspelling.
i just stop reading at that point.
I don't know the jargon version is funnier to me.
Sure. I guess some memes are for in-jokes among those who read long theory books (which includes me!) and others are for actually reaching people.
You don't really need to have read anti-capitalist theory to understand the post, you just need to be literate — that being said, here's a quote from Mark Twain:
Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.
Well, the right wing political ideology is more geared towards the illiterate.
Memes work! They deliver a punchy message in a tiny package. I'd aim them at people who don't already have a strong political identity and people who are unsure or wavering.
... (and if somehow there was no infighting, sabotage, dishonesty, crime, corruption, greed, and so-on.)
That stuff has less of an effect if power is distributed.
Half of that stuff is an attempt to ensure that the power is not distributed. Just because you get rid of the private holders of capital doesn't mean that someone else won't try to step in and take control for themselves.
Well, I was deliberate to not say "if we got rid of the private holders of capital." Capital being successfully democratically controlled is key. I'm definitely with you on there being countless other bad options.
You can still have all kinds of abuses of power even without private holders of capital.
Maybe, what are you referring to?
Hot take but that seems pretty awful at least not somewhere I would ever want to live in. First flying cars suck, personal vehicles in general suck but flying cars especially. The amount of noise and nonsense caused by them would outweigh any advantage, some public transportation would be far better. Also while this seems cool for a rual area theres just no density in this picture.
Agreed on the flying car. However this looks pretty dense by US standards. Close buildings, 2+ stories. Could be more since the bottom is obscured by trees. More density might make sense but it's not bad.
Even by US standards it doesnt seem very high, I mean it is in a mountainous or hilly area so ofc density isnt going to be the best but it seems rual. Maybe dense by California standards but im a New Yorker.
Gotcha. New York is the exception though. Most of the US is honestly even worse than California.
But yeah you would not be 10' from a neighbor in a rural area. This is about the same density as my neighborhood which is a moderate density mixed use area many suburbanites would call "downtown". You're right that density could be higher but if every neighborhood looked like this it would be way way more dense than what we have today.
The left wants children driving flying cars, this is why women would be happier if they don't vote
/s
I don’t love this idea that the perfect future is everyone has their own urban garden and we all grow food… that’s going back, that’s regression. The fact that the vast majority of people don’t have to grow food for us to survive as species is MAIN benefit of this whole thing we call civilization. If the future is going back to “everyone does everything” we’re fucked.
I totally agree, but the gardens depicted strike me more as ornamental.
I guess we know who wins the outside cat struggle sesh
I have some news for you! There is apparently a company that allows you to easily invest in this future. This is an interview the the founder of this service.
I fucking hate capitalism and this is 100% working within capitalism, so that sucks. However, if we are going to be stuck in this capitalist hellscape, we all have to find ways to live in it. This at least makes it slightly less hellish