this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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Communism
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You seem to like them enough to fully accept everything they say about China, though
Hey, sorry for yet another reply, it just occurred to me "tankie" probably kind of implicitly suggests I think your perspective is less valid or that I look down on it
If that's what "tankie" communicates, I'm really sorry about that, it's probably more apt to say pro-PRC communist, I was just being lazy and didn't wanna type that out but it honestly didn't occur to me tankie might be an insult until just a moment ago 🙃
As a side-note, if you want to actually get a view of what Communists are saying on Lemmy, consider making an account on Lemmygrad.ml, Hexbear.net, Lemmy.ml, or an instance that can view them like Mander.xyz.
Its not the highest priority for me, I just value talking with people who's perspective I don't share when I get the chance (including to the right of me, when I can manage the cognitive dissonance of forgetting out how their ideology and voting record are harming me) but I have been meaning to potentially migrate to another instance again for various reasons. It was gonna be .ee, but they're shutting down now 😅
Lemmy.zip (absolutely hate the .zip as a thing that exists, but oh well) is one I wanna investigate and maybe make an account on to check out, but I haven't made any real decision. I'll have to go look into mander.xyz, thanks for the suggestion :) Previously I was on .ee after decinding beehaw was a bit more defederated than I wanted, but the mirroring from reddit swamping the "all" feed was the biggest reason I stopped using it
Though, I will say, the folks on exclusively communist instachoicese often EXTREMELY difficult to talk to and find common ground with as an outsider. Even folks from .ml are hard to have good discussion with at times; the more of an echo chamber people spend time sitting it, and the longer they spend there, the harder I find it is to engage with them and have a real conversation about what people think and why without it becoming antagonistic. Which is why I hate echo chambers and I'm thinking I'd like a instance that federates everyone and I can moderate as I need to.
Though I can appreciate being defederated wasn't necessarily the communist instances choices, and being in your own space where you don't deal with outsider has it's merits as well as disadvantages
Thanks for the suggestion and I hope you have a lovely day :)
One thing, I'd say that Communist spaces can't really be real echo chamberd, as in the English-speaking internet and world liberalism is by far the most dominant ideology. Communists cannot avoid exposure to liberalism.
Thats a perspective I really hadn't considered but that's very fair, at least in some ways. I think that's an issue for any minority group.
But I will say that still being exposed to outside voises as noise intruding on your space doesn't really mean you can't become increasingly hostile to outsiders. If anything, I think it makes it harder to remain open to talking to folks you don't agree with because you'll constantly be subjected to hostility and context collapse where outsiders step in to interject, often with hostility or antagonism, and even when it's not antagonistic, it's probably exhausting. When youre hugely outnumbered other perspectives are more likely to feel "inescapable" vs being just one more in the conversation. I can appreciate that I basically stepped into other people's space and started a debate that takes everyone involved a huge amount of emotional and intellectual labor (though I feel a bit less bad about it given this comm seems like it's kinda intended for persuading people and outreach)
I can both agree that patience is a good method of outreach while understanding the frustrations from comrades. Plus, outreach is better done in orgs and parties directly, engaging in mass media such as on YouTube. We have to be where the people are. Lemmy is more of a place to not have to worry about censorship.
I mean there literally are no global impartial sources. The us government isn't my source for deciding how I feel about foreign governments, but if everything is western propaganda surely you can see China participates in that propaganda just as much as every other country. I do my best to cut through the noise and understand the high level patterns and ongoings globally, but there's not exactly anyone truly impartial. Lots of people buy wholesale into US propaganda that we're the most free nation in the world and have done no wrong abroad, I don't really have any more reason to listen to tankies about geopolitics than those people. I have no way to know that you aren't a victim of literally just another propagandized narrative
There's not any great way for me to tell truth from propaganda other than listening to well respected journalistic sources with a variety of perspectives, and doing my best to sift through the common elements, but I live in the us and only read English. I do my best 🤷♂️
On just the subject of the uyghur Muslims the human rights watch has been very critical of the PRC, and they regularly criticize the US government and Israel, one of our current close allies https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/19/break-their-lineage-break-their-roots/chinas-crimes-against-humanity-targeting
It does take a bit of work to develop real media literacy.
No, they just fund your sources that do.
And yet you're only repeating the anti-China propoganda...
Is there a single piece of anti-China propaganda you don't believe?
And yet you somehow do have a reason to listen to those people over leftists, apparently.
Let me guess: all western, english speaking, liberal, and anti China.
See? You just showed how much all your previous claims about not just accepting all claims against China were hollow by posting an article that uses Adrian fucking Zenz as it's main source. So you're willing to trust ultra far right pundits from the "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation" who are literally paid by western governments and claim to on a mission from God to destroy China, but I'm guessing even the most mild pro-China source is too much for you.
The antagonism is uncalled for, I literally just replied to the other commenter who provided lots of sources in hopes we could discuss further, some of which definitely made me more informed. You don't have to attack me just because I don't see the world the same way you do.
You literally could have just said "hey, the person who wrote that article or was the primary source has background you might want to research"
I didn't see an author listed on that article so instead I looked at what the hrc has been criticized for, and it led me to believe they were fairly willing to criticize both the west and the PRC. What tells you that Adrian Zenz is the source for the paper? His name is never mentioned in it, so it's not like there's any good way I could have known that, or check it now that you've said so.
I'm happy to discuss and learn why you have a different perception of things than I do, just dont be a dick to me. I've read the bulk of two Wikipedia pages (linked by another pro PRC commenter in this thread), read a couple additional articles, and done my best to get some background on like 4 sources/authors now just trying to run down what y'all think and why it's different from what I do because I'm interested in talking to people I don't already agree with, I don't see how acting like I'm a fucking idiot for having any perspective other than yours is productive or helpful to anyone's cause
If everyone can tell what's propaganda and what's not, and which narrative is fake, it wouldn't be very good propaganda. That was my point. It's extremely difficult to discern whether your beliefs are propaganda, or mine are. But I'm fucking willing to try, I do my best. Don't be a dick.
Actually, there is. It's called "licensing".
The information fits into my class interest -> truth
The information doesn't fit into my class interest -> fake enemy propaganda
Its super intuitive and easy, and everyone does it instinctively