Need a politics-free safe space? It’s called “going for a walk”
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I’m fine with politics on the internet, but why spam it on a memes community…
Point me to a time/place when politics were not completely intertwined with meme communities.
Oh, right. That doesn’t actually exist.
One time, back in the 90s, a baby danced.
The prevelance of computers are inherently linked with the corporate desire to minimize cost and maximize productivity and profit. The origin of computers comes from military use; first seen in WW2 to calculate angles for artillery use and crack codes as with Enigma. Later, financial and educational institutions saw an ability to reduce labor cost by using computers to automate some record keeping. Why would they be interested in reducing cost? Capitalism, of course! And who were the ones programming these machines? Mostly, wealthy white men. You see, because computers were still giant, expensive machines, they required a college education to learn to use them. At this point, this was the 50s/60s, and non-white people had very little wealth due to, yknow, all that discrimination stuff. Plus, wealthy people especially back then were also very misogynistic (“i hate my wife” jokes, anyone?) And these wealthy whites were sometimes passionate for the industry, and as computers miniturized, they brought these minicomputers home, where they could use them for much more casual use. Enter the 70s, and these computer users start to make video games. Companies for this new fad start to show up. Fast forward a decade and people start making these new home computers play recorded audio and videos too, and before long, the baby dances. But not everyone had the money for home computers in the 90s, so not everyone is aware of the baby - which is where the discrimination part plays in. Most of the people who experienced the dancing baby in its prime were wealthy, majority white families, so the experience was unfortunately not universal. Or fortunately, idk lmao
Of course I’m stretching super hard, but politics are everywhere when you look into it.
Apologies for the sin of linking Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NonPoliticalTwitter/
Sometimes humans do stuff that are not at all related with politics. But we are masters of linking any non-political action to political arguments. (The classic ‘I like pancakes.’-‘So you hate waffles!’-problem)
Sometimes I just want to have a space to engage with funny memes without the mental strain of filtering out political comments.
I would say pre 2016 political jokes was at one level, where the onion could make jokes that was not just an echo of reality.
Somewhere after that we crossed the political joke event horizon, and now we live in bizarro world, where many news items could have been the onion jokes.
Sure that’s true, but here it’s like way above 50% of the posts being just full-on propaganda, disguised as memes. IDK, I’m just comparing it to other sites/communities where the politics to meme ratio is way lower and feels less forced.
OK, fair enough.
I think the fediverse in general attracts a lot of people who are tired of capitalist assholes extracting wealth on various tech platforms, which probably explains some of it. People are very angry right now, and that’s gonna be hard to escape on Lemmy/kbin
Back in the 2000s, most memes were just cat pictures. Longcat [is long], ceiling cat [is watching you], keyboard cat, grumpy cat etc.
Also #BrusselsLockdown hashtag was used in 2015 to ease political tension.
Because political memes are hilarious.
Haha yes! The threehundreth variation of the same joke, feels like the first time I heard it
I will always find charlie kirk with a small face hilarious and I refuse to apologize.
We all have our guilty pleasures, I enjoy Stalin with a comically large spoon -memes but wouldn’t bother others with them.
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That’s just how memes do, political or otherwise
Lemmy has some very aggressive communists.
I’ve been lucky enough to dodge the crazy right wingers though.
Hey I’m not an aggressive communist. I like to think I’m a pretty laid back communist.
I mean unless we’re talking about the rich. But like my whole political ideology kinda hinges on aggression in that direction so…
Hey yknow that’s a good point.
I mean unless we’re talking about the rich. But like my whole political ideology kinda hinges on aggression in that direction so…
I think the common Communist definition of “Rich” and Marx’s might differ vastly, and I think the vagueness of the word is half the reason. I see too many Communists calling for the death to (for example) computer programmers because many of them are able to save up a couple million by retirement. I know a few that ended up with $10M cash because they worked for a profit-share startup. While I’m not an expert on Marx, I’m pretty sure that’s not what he meant when he referred to the bourgeoisie.
Hell, I don’t think he ever predicted the massive number of “petite bourgeoisie” that we have now in much of the west, people who put in 60-80 hours simply to live the same life the rest of us live but not have to obediently answer a boss. I’d do that if I could. You’d think Communists could make allies of both the successful proles (like programmers) and the petite bourgeoisie.
If you draw “rich” somewhere close to the $100M mark or higher and include some asterisks on the ones you think should be murdered in the streets (assuming that’s what you meant by “unless we’re talking about the rich”), maybe most people will agree you’re not an aggressive communist (but still be terrified of you like we are of anyone who wants to kill someone for who they are). If you’re going to look at a grandma who has $2M in savings after her husband dies, the world’s got problems with you.
I mean, if you want to peacefully dismantle people like Musk, then I’m 100% on board with you. If you would support someone taking sudden and violent force to him, as much as I think he’s a douche, that’s why we use the word “aggressive”.
And yet nobody minds the aggression of capitalism and the right on anybody other than well off cishet white men 🤔
Across the country LGBTQIA people are being actively censured, stripped of their right to exist, and outright physically assaulted. There’s no concerted trend trend to bitch about THAT violence, but mention a guillotine and half the fediverse comes out to cry about how we’re all just meanie tankies out to murder anybody who makes more than minimum wage.
And yet nobody minds the aggression of capitalism and the right on anybody other than well off cishet white men 🤔
Really? NOBODY minds that? I can’t be pro-LGBTQIA without believing that any possible system except strict communism will work? You’re talking black & white thinking, the same as the anti-LGBTQ extremists. There are miles of Left, even far left, that aren’t Authoritarian Communism (that isn’t authoritarianism but does involve Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the exertion of authority. I was fucking THERE, marching there, when they legalized gay marriage in my state, one of the first in my country. I had a good friend be in the first 50 gay marriages in my state. Does it not count if I’m not a Tankie? All my friends who were out there risking their safety against the Catholic alt-right violence in my state didn’t count?
Look, you touched a nerve here, and I’m trying to take a breath. Maybe I misread you. Are you genuinely trying to say that you can’t oppose far-right violence without being a Communist? Or (perhaps just as bad) are you trying to say that if I’m not ok with violence against queer and transgender individuals that I need to be ok with violence against all liberals?
And I’d like to quantify that I got hit this morning with a dozen replies putting me in the “liberal them” pile, basically agreeing that if I don’t strongly support violence against the non-Communist supermajority, I’m a liberal and have no right to call myself a leftist. I hate the tearing down of the pacifist Left I keep seeing.
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Interesting. I’m not a Tankie a tall. That’s kinda the point.
with no gender and no country
Wow. How many people would you murder to preserve your precious gender identity?
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I have no problem with an individual acquiring wealth on the fruit of their own individual labor. The computer programmer getting a buy out from a venture capitalist has successfully gamed the system without being personally responsible for harm to others. At least directly. Usually.
My problem is with people who exploit the labor of others for profit. No billionaire earns that last zero without causing harm. They perpetuate violence for profit, knowingly. That violence can take a lot of forms, from unsafe working conditions all the way down to actual fucking slavery.
The thing is, you can’t participate in capitalism without either extreme ignorance or at least a little complacency towards that violence. And fine, there’s little to nothing most of us can do about it. You exist in this system, you’re a part of it. You’re either ok with others doing violence on your behalf so you can have a bit of chocolate in your breakfast croissant, or you aren’t.
I don’t see a peaceful remedy to this problem. We can talk about theory, about “yeah just organize and vote” until we’re blue in the face but the reality is that system is actively rigged against us. We can talk about organizing your workplace and demanding better conditions, but that system is actively rigged against us too, even if you’re already in a union.
We are actively rocketing towards a very bleak future and every passing day without cataclysmic change only pushes it down the line. And every day we push it back, it increases in magnitude.
So frankly, if someone is going to commit violence on my behalf, I’d rather it be directed at the problem than directed at my peers in the working class, wherever they may be.
My problem is with people who exploit the labor of others for profit. No billionaire earns that last zero without causing harm
I’m mostly on board with you. But I’d like to cite “Notch” (of Minecraft) as an example of someone who earns the last zero without causing harm. Pure fucking luck? Sure. Should be part of a society that will redistribute his wealth? Definitely. Perpetuating violence for profit? I dunno what he’s doing now, but he wasn’t when he got that billion.
The thing is, you can’t participate in capitalism without either extreme ignorance or at least a little complacency towards that violence.
As a demsoc, my whole position is described by stopping the violence from within. There are parts of capitalism that are palatable, though it will inevitably end up in a horrible state if left to stagnate. But if I had to choose between universal healthcare and welfare for all and a violent revolution that fewer than 10% of people actually want, I think the former is a better option. And despite me having a lot of the same goals as the groups seeking that revolution, they still terrify me.
You exist in this system, you’re a part of it. You’re either ok with others doing violence on your behalf so you can have a bit of chocolate in your breakfast croissant, or you aren’t.
Please understand that this terrifies me. The black & white no-middle-ground thinking is the foundation of so many atrocities. That idea that you cannot improve capitalism, or that a “better capitalism” is still identical to “others doing violence on your behalf so you can have a bit of chocolate” is the kind of madness that leads to authoritarian regimes. I’m against capitalism in general. I’m also against a smallish number of people with guns replacing capitalism with something else.
I don’t see a peaceful remedy to this problem.
Can you acknowledge that a state that over 90% of humans would be happy with is still within “the problem” for you? If not, please understand that THIS is why most people incorrectly batch Communism with Fascism. If so, please understand why you having a problem is the problem and you need to learn to differentiate between the Bidens and the Trumps. Biden is “the other side”. Trump is satan.
We can talk about theory, about “yeah just organize and vote” until we’re blue in the face but the reality is that system is actively rigged against us.
Let me be clear about this. I’m part of the same category batched as “progressives and leftists”. WE represent about 9% of the population in my home country. That part is unfortunately Democracy working as designed. Not rigged. WE should represent a larger percent of the population, but unlike Billionaires and Church Leaders, we can’t seem to find common ground between Far Left V1 and Far Left V2.
But you’re right. With less than 6% of people in your country supporting your particular views, voting is not the answer. But, IMO, neither is violence. If 6% of the country manages a coup, I will not be happy no matter how much of their views I agree with. Because that’s an authoritarian regime.
We are actively rocketing towards a very bleak future and every passing day without cataclysmic change only pushes it down the line. And every day we push it back, it increases in magnitude.
Everything you say here I agree with. But if we can’t get the support for “very bleak future” under 90%, then you’ve failed even if you temporarily succeed.
So frankly, if someone is going to commit violence on my behalf, I’d rather it be directed at the problem than directed at my peers in the working class, wherever they may be.
My wife’s best friend is Petite Bourgeoisie, she owns a breakfast diner near the local project. She makes less than her workers in all but the most perfect months. I have no problem with her. I have problem with anyone who will make her choose between surrendering her freedom not to answer to an ownership structure (even a communal ownership structure), or “going up against the wall”. Ironically, it is the part of me most sympathetic to the goals of communism that support her attempted independence from private ownership. I have, on many occasions, been told she would be in line for death or disenfranchisement. Do you understand my reservations? I PREFER an imperfect capitalism if that is the only alternative. And you might not have meant it, but you came across as saying that’s the only alternative, and by way of violence.
Whether or not notch directly hurt anyone himself. (He is now) The money he was paid was blood Money derived from persecuting destroying and monopolizing the market on Microsoft’s part.
So are you or are you not advocating for the murder of Notch? If so, I will oppose you at all costs as I would any extremist. If not, then what exactly are you disagreeing with me about?
No. Definitely not as long as he will help to work to make a more just and amicable Society. However if he or others try to violently oppress or push everyone down. All bets are off. One of the things these wealthy people need to remember is that we far outnumber them. And their money only isolates and protects them as long as we are marginally content. Should we ever get focused enough to the point to come for them. They stand no chance. So it’s in their interest to work with us. I don’t care if they have a slightly better life than average. So long as people aren’t homeless and Starving in the streets.
You frame it as killing someone for who they are (rich) while the aggressive communist frames it as what the rich have done (destroy countless lives for personal monetary gain)
Not saying that it’s ok, I wouldn’t condone murder in a public setting of course. Just saying :)
I’m not ok with the death penalty for serial killers and rapists, and I think the laws we have now (if they were enforced) cover for corruption.
I have a rule. No matter how shitty the rules, nobody should die for playing by them. Ex Post Facto protections are a hallmark of preventing justice from being another name for authoritarian persecution. Of all people, it tends to shock me that Communists struggle to see that when they are the first to back extreme versions of ACAB-attitudes.
I know rich people who are… just fucking rich and that’s it. Lottery, good job. Smart little investment. Most rich people don’t destroy lives directly for monetary gain. Is there an indirect effect between wealth distribution and suffering? SURE, but holding someone accountable by violence for something they indirectly effected when it was legal? I just can’t see it no matter how they frame it.
It’s like COVID opposition. When we didn’t have laws against their bullshit (COVID spreader parties?) it is unjust to now go back and pass a law to punish there behavior merely because it caused hundreds of thousands of extra death.
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From what I see, it’s full of wannabe rebel communists, who claim to be communist because they like the idea of revolution. The type of people that think that wallstreetbets is communist because “they fight the system”.
Marx and gramsci are turning in their grave reading some lemmy post
I’m sorry but the Marxist and communist discussions on here are an absolute far cry from wallstreetbets lmao, not to mention using WSB favorite word gets you banned in a lot of these communities
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Nah the one that starts with an R
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ROI?
Investing man-hours into mechanization also has labour ROI.
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Many are same level of nativity. Grown up kids pretending to be revolutionary to protest mum’s political ideas
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Complicated issues are complicated. Neither Reddit, lemmy, Twitter (x?), nor any social media platform is particularly well suited towards discussing complex decisive topics.
Exactly
A whole bunch of these self proclaimed “communists” are supporting trump/trumpism…started with unfunny memes and well, I think we can all guess where they’re all going to end up.
The funniest part is arguing about current “forms” of communism and capitalism and not realizing that it’s just the same shit from different assholes and a far cry from either.
Are you lying about the communists supporting Trump or are you just repeating lies about the communists supporting Trump?
Just look at the crap they post, no need for me to lie
wow that’s so enlightened, tell us more
My main problem is that most of the memes aren’t even funny.
Make memes that are funny and then we can talk
Yeah, it’s literally just circlejerking the same dumb political views with different variations of “if you don’t agree you’re stupid”
I saw one an hour or two ago, literally just a YouTube video of some guy screaming “if you have a penis you’re a boy if you have a vagina you’re a girl! Got it?!” end video
Expecting memes to be funny is literally the same as voting for Trump. Memes are supposed to be brave and important, and if you don’t agree with that you’re part of the problem.
You had me at first lol
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They also have a real affinity for the time-tested “BOTH SIDES ARE BAD” argument, the absolute most sure-fire tell of a right-winger.
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Let’s live like a community.
Unless you’re gay or trans or non-religious. While you’re doing community activities with me, I’m going to spend every other waking moment trying to get your human rights taken away.
But when I have time, we’ll schedule some of those community things.
Careful. Hexbear caught your scent.
Now you’ll get a whole bunch of them replying to you nonstop for a couple of days.
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Exactly! “Why are you making everything about politics?”
I’m a gay person in a red state with first-gen immigrants and trans people in my family. I don’t have the luxury not to “make everything political.” The fact that I exist is political to these people!
I do use woke unironically, but in a prideful way. Eg, Brooklyn 99; “He means he was arrested for being black! Get woke, Scully!!”
Fair enough! I always thought that “woke” should be a good thing.
Same with SJW – it’s actually a positive thing to fight for social justice! Like, thanks for the compliment, I guess…
And the other two thirds are politics posts.
You don’t have to make everything political. It’s okay just to have fun and like things.
Tf you say?
Also every person who bitches about safe spaces: “ban dresses on men because it makes me feel funny”
Really? Every third post on my feed are tits
Wtf I get no tits in my feed. Why has lemmy forsaken me?!?
This guy internets.
Really? All I get are boobies.
Trade you a red-footed for a Willow.
tits or boobies debate. Discuss amongst yourselves
I’m genuinely curious what’s the difference between talking about our lives and politics?
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Maybe I can’t differentiate because people make my life political. Good for you that’s not a problem but other people exist like me and have this issue. A lot of people seem to lack awareness of others and act like they’re in the right. It’s childish.
I once worked for someone who thought like you. He was a real redneck. When I walked in, he looked at the hiring manager and rolled his eyes. I ended up doing the best out of anyone on my first day and it was physically intense. He apologized to me later because he gained an awareness that other people can exist differently without him being a bitch about it. You should learn from him.
When politics imprest your life on such a level that it could mean not getting the health care you need, yeah it is part of your life, there is no difference. I think people like yourself see politics like sports, just boring talk, no one cares about your team. That’s not what it is, these are major things impacting people’s lives, and not talking about them could lead to less awareness and even more rights being taken away.
You see, if you are white, straight and male, the answer is usually a big difference. For everyone else? Likely very little.
I mean it does though? If my wife died because she couldn’t get healthcare she needed, I feel like that might maybe affect me.
That’s why I wasn’t categorical. But I mean you proved my point. If your wife died she’d be the one who suffered and died. Not you.
The point is, politics being like the super bowl is a privilege for some. For others it’s life and death. It’s almost like saying “Keep politics out of my life” is a relatively lucky/conservative request or point of view.
Again, I would say if my wife died I would maybe suffer? Losing a partner is not just a nothing event…
But I would agree, politics are life and death for certain people, they don’t have the luxury of getting to ignore them.
Yes obviously you’d bother suffer.
There was a way to word this where you wouldn’t be a hypocrite but ya kinda just face planted fam.
The whole point of being progressive is to identify things we’ve been missing and things we’ve been doing wrong and to fix them.
Not to only swing the pendulum the other way. Not cool.
Singling out straight white men… so progressive!
Yo soy
I don’t know why people are down voting you when you’re right. Hell people are mad at you just for talking about it
I mean I was mildly flippant. But I am a straight white guy, so you know, I’m not really punching up or down here?
Politics impact our lives, of course we talk about it. In the US basic human rights are being fought over. I bet if you were in danger of losing some civil rights you’d be interested in how it’s going lol.
The definition of Privalage is not having to worry about politics because you are so secure in your place in our Capitalist Society Hierarchy.
Going for a walk?!?
That has surprisingly become political in the US
Leftie propaganda from big sidewalk! They want to see your precious calories burn!!
I wonder if there are any conservatives who get upset about nutrition labels when they find out the food has trans fats in it.
The pedos are grooming our Oreos!
The call for walkable cities is a fatphobic dogwhistle!!!1
France go for a walk every year, and in Russia you can be beaten to death for jogging.
Who talks about politics on the internet? Round here we yell and fight about politics.
No we don’t you fascist swine!
The truth is somewhere in the middle, like always
Edit: apparently I should have put /s at the end
…what?
You made a joke, I played on it further. Should I have put “/s” at the end?
I just had no idea what those words in that order even meant lol
Maybe they have no meaning or maybe they do. Maybe my wording was poor since I’m not a native speaker.
Or, like always, maybe the truth is somewhere in between.
You absolutely should, since there is crapton of people out there which really prefer to throw that line completely seriously instead of moving their grey matter for a while.
Need a politics-free safe space? It’s called “going for a walk”
Unfortunately, walks don’t last forever. Another option is to delete your lemmy/kbin account, because everything in these places is politics or related to politics or turned into politics.
Or…bear with me…you could create and moderate a politics-free meme community.
There are already, like antiquememeroadshow, adhdmemes and my_mouldy_memes. But the most generic meme communities, or the flagship meme communities if you prefer it that way, are infected.
Maybe because they’re not called nonpoliticalmemes or something like that?
Why wouldn’t a general memes community contain memes of all types, which would include political memes?
Tbh I’ve subscribed to all sorts of meme communities, and I wouldn’t say I see an annoying level of political memes on my subscribed feed.
That page 404s for me FWIW
I wonder if maybe this is a federation thing then given you’re on kbin. Honestly doesn’t seem that bad a problem to me on lemmy.world
And as much as my other comment has a couple of people disagreeing with me, I don’t think the point is unreasonable.
Unless a general purpose meme community explicitly disallows a specific type of content, I don’t see how you can expect to not see it.
Particularly something like politics which people just love making memes about. It’s like complaining about SpongeBob or Star wars memes in the same community, there’s just a lot of that kind of content out there, so you’re gonna see it in general purpose places.
But again, maybe this is a federation thing and I’m not seeing the problems others are on different instances
I don’t see anywhere close to the same amount of political memes on generic meme communities anywhere else i frequent on the internet. Lemmy feels like it consists almost exclusively of political memes.
I guess i wouldn’t mind so much if they were actually funny, but they aren’t. They’re mostly just “haha those people dumb” with zero effort to be funny or clever or anything which could make them interesting after having seen the first 3 or 4 of them.
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I live in São Paulo state, very leftist person. My city voted 86% for Bolsonaro, so good luck going for a walk to find a politic free space.
South Dakota in the US here. Very red state. Can’t avoid politics unless I stick my head in the sand even for a moment and let the fascists run unchecked
never ever ever let the fascists run unchecked. they tend to end upside down somewhere in Italy.
Upside down in Italy is one of the best places for a fascist to be
Better yet is if they just stop being fascists, but you can’t logic a person out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into, so slim chance of that
Fellow South Dakotan, /me tips hat
Aha so there are at least two people living in this state!
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.world and sjw users when they ask to defederate after defederating
you can still block a community.
It’s always this sub… with the stupid Joe Biden memes. I don’t care… stop showing me politicians.
I’ve been here a couple of months and I don’t think I’ve seen but possibly one Biden thing
