> Greta Thunberg > @GretaThunberg
[https://x.com/GretaThunberg/status/1852331823428247927] > > #UsaElection
#USA2024 #StopArminglsrael #FreePalestine #ClimateJusticeNow > > This year we
have seen many defining elections all over the world. On November 5th, It is
time for one of the most powerful countries in the world ā the USA ā to go to
the polls. It is probably Impossible to overestimate the consequences this
specific election will have for the world and for the future of humanity. > >
There is no doubt that one of the candidates ā Trump ā is way more dangerous
than the other. But no matter if Trump or Harris wins, the USA ā a country built
on stolen land and genocide on indigenous people -will soll be an imperialist
hyper-capitalist world power that will ultimately continue to lead the world
further into a racist, unequal world with an ever increasingly escalating
climate- and environmental emergency. > > With this in mind, my main message to
Americans is to remember that you cannot only settle for the least worst option.
Democracy is not only every four years on election day, but also every hour of
every day in between. You cannot think you have done āenoughā only by voting,
especially when both those candidates have blood on their hands. Lets not forget
that the genocide in Palestine is happening under the Biden and Harris
administration, with American money and complicity. It is not in any way
'feminist.ā āprogressiveā or āhumanitarianā to bomb innocent children and
civilians ā it is the opposite, even It it is a woman in charge. And this is of
course one example among many of American imperialism. I cannot for my life
understand how some can even pretend to talk about humanitarian values, without
even questioning their own role In further deepening global oppression and
massacres of entire countries. > > So, Americans, you must do everything in your
power to call out this extreme hypocrisy and the catastrophic consequences
American Imperialism has on a global scale. Be uncomfortable, fill the streets,
block, organise, boycott, occupy, explicitly call out those in power whose
actions and Inaction lead to death and destruction. Join and support those who
are resisting and leading the change. Nothing less will ever be acceptable.
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 thatās very clearly not what she meant
Removed by modRemoved by modRemoved by modRemoved 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
You are mixing up different things here. I was also not so happy about the high number of low quality memes they posted in a short period of time inciting nothing but anger shortly before a very emotionally loaded election. I mentioned to the mod privately that I found this quite trollish at this exact point in time and they agreed to stop.
The specific post in question was maybe one of the less bad ones (Gretaās take is pretty sensible IMHO) and due to the high number of upvotes it had the usual drive-by comments by non-community members that were mostly off-topic, did nothing but stoke the flames and were also partially offensive*. Maybe the mod overacted somewhat with deleting most of them, but locking the thread was absolutely the right call after it derailed and handing out a temporary (!) community ban to a very argumentative drive-by poster is IMHO good practice to defuse the situation.
*I agree with the mod that you can vote for your lesser evil or strategically whatever, but there is no need to provide lengthy ideological justifications to convince yourself and others that it was something other than a lesser evil vote.
Repeated explicitly political memes spamming the community = ānot so happyā
This election is hugely important and, however shit some Democratic policies are when compared against what we actually need, Trump is clearly dangerous as fuck on a whole other level. That applies to the Mideast just as firmly as it does on climate change. Personally I agree with 100% of what she has to say here, both the first and second parts.
= ānothing but stoke the flames and were also partially offensiveā āno need to provide lengthy ideological justifications to convince yourself and others that is was something other than a lesser evil voteā, 10 day ban
What a crock of shit. Youāre buying word for word the modās revisionist history about āideological justificationsā where I donāt think those ever existed in any of the messages they deleted. Definitely not in mine. See for yourself:
Iām not a troll. I donāt make bad-faith arguments, create political spam, or inflame things to no purpose. This person does, and youāre giving them authority and booting me from the community.
Iām not trying to reopen the discussion by saying this. Itās been and gone, and Iāve moved on from !anarchism@slrpnk.net. I think this person has learned how to manipulate the Slrpnk admins to their liking for their own political ends. Have fun with them.
No one said you were intentionally trolling or making bad faith arguments. What you did was randomly enter a post you disagreed with and started an off-topic argument with the OP using emotionally loaded language to justify something that is in the end just a very mundane lesser evil decision. I am old enough to have seen this spiel out many times during every other election cycle and I find it quite offensive to be exposed to such arguments lacking even the slightest bit of self-reflection, especially in what is supposed to be an Anarchist community.
I find it quite offensive to be exposed to such arguments lacking even the slightest bit of self-reflection
Here. Iām just going to paste what I said elsewhere in these comments:
But please, tell me why anarchists should tolerate anti-anarchism, liberalism, and ideological cover for genocide in their space. Iām sure itās enlightening.
Because talking with people who donāt agree with you is a valuable thing to do.
If Iām wrong, and you take some time to talk with me, maybe Iāll absorb what you are saying, and take it on as a good idea. Probably not the first time, but it does happen over time. Itās good to be able to talk with other humans. If as soon as Iām wrong, you ban me, then Iāll never have that opportunity, and Iāll just go on being wrong and getting banned from places, indefinitely.
If youāre wrong, or what youāre saying is applicable sometimes but itās not a good idea in some other situations, letting me say what Iāve got to say might show you a new perspective. Or, even if youāre completely set in your way, itās still valuable for the people watching the conversation to be able to see both sides expressed, and decide for themselves.
I think itās universally agreed that the places on Reddit and Lemmy that aggressively remove āthe wrong viewpointā are laughingstocks. A lot of the time, theyāre doing that because they donāt have a good answer for questions people are asking or points theyāre making. Youāve chosen to make !anarchism@slrpnk.net into one of them, in this one particular instance. Well done.
Youāve asked over and over why I am supporting genocide. I explained over and over that what Iām saying is an attempt to prevent genocide, and calmly explained how. That pattern eventually starts to sink in, for people watching the conversation, even if it never does for you, and impacts what they take away from the conversation. I think it would be better for you to reassess your way of approaching conversation with people who donāt agree with you, but you do you.
See how good this is? We donāt agree on things, and weāre talking to each other. Itās normal, itās healthy. Like I said, if youāre insistent on making āyourā community into one where that canāt happen, thatās on you, but I think itās a bad idea.
I think, if Iām being honest, that the lack of time and moderation resources is at the root of a lot of this. You made a separate comment about that under Blazeās comment. I think thatās the real issue. I think if someone could wave a magic wand, and have moderation of !anarchism without giving god-power to any given person whoās also an active participant in an argument in the discussion, a lot of these issues would go away. I made a whole post somewhere talking about how mods being an underappreciated volunteer position I think leads inevitably to the āmods are power trippingā perception and pattern, whether or not itās accurate in any given case.
Youāre able to run your instance however you want to run it. Good luck.
There are certainly many things that could be improved about Lemmyās moderation tools and general setup, I agree.
However the core argument is not about ātalking with people who donāt agree with you is a valuable thing to doā. There was no real disagreement about any topic where an exchange of ideas would be beneficial to both sides. Unless you have infinite patience, there is no point in arguing with people that donāt even realize how hypocritical their position is, in fact usually doing so only results in them digging in their heels and arguing even stronger as you are likely challenging some of their deeply held believes. I believe this is what happened, and your reaction in the original post itself and even more so in making this new thread to complain about someone not having infinite patience with you pretty much proves that.
We have two very different opinions about what the purpose of moderation is. Among some other things.
Thereās a huge difference between ānot having infinite patienceā to talk with someone, and deleting comments from several different people who are trying to have a discussion with each another about how they disagree with your point of view, thus driving the conversation to some other location where people come to a broad consensus that youāre out of line. Honestly, thatās part of why I posted here, to serve as a check to make sure I wasnāt the one being awful. There seemed to be a broad consensus formed after all the discussion, which Iām happy with. The slrpnk authorities as a group plus db0, seem to have their own consensus, which of course theyāve got a right to do.
If youāve read some of my comments and exchanges and youāve decided that talking with me would take infinite patience, then okay. If youāve read Mambabasaās comments and think they deserve a position of authority, then okay. I donāt seem to have any issues talking and interacting with a bunch of anarchists, and presumably a wide variety of people, in these comments. Probably I will continue to do so. Slrpnk can do what it likes.
I think this person has learned how to manipulate the Slrpnk admins to their liking for their own political ends.
I dont know why you would need such conspiracy theories when there is a much simpler way to explain it, which was confirmed by most folks(mods and admins alike): We are fine with the moderation actions taken, we dont need to be manipulated for this.
Its quite something to make up a conspiracy after writing this just a few sentences earlier:
Iām not a troll. I donāt make bad-faith arguments, [ā¦] or inflame things to no purpose.
I havenāt seen evidence of a strong majority being fine with the decision.
Among slrpnk commenters on this post I believe the split was 3-3, or possibly 3-2-1.
Taking into account the comments from dbzer0 folks, it goes to 5-5 or 5-4-1.
Self-proclaimed anarchists from other instances represent, by my accounting, 1 more āforā and 4 more āagainst.ā
The other comments from users who may or may not identify as anarchists appear to slant towards against by about the same margin.
It could be that one or both of us carries a bias in how we perceive support that aligns with what we already believe. I tried to be cognizant of that when I scrolled through to count, but Iām fallible. If Iāve misrepresented, it wasnāt on purpose. That said, I think at best thereās a somewhat even split. I donāt think you can claim that as āmost folksā being fine with the actions taken.
Additionally, the way the mod conducted themselves in these comments doesnāt inspire much confidence that they moderated in good faith
Mambabasaās posting history at the time I looked at it started with:
Kamala Harris = genocide
Kamala Harris = genocide
Democrats = party of genocide
Kamala Harris = genocide
Democrats = genocide
Greta Thunberg quote
āElect the Democratsā satire
āVote Democratā satire
āVote Democratā satire
āVote Democratā satire
āDonāt think, just voteā satire
āVote Democratā satire
āDonāt think, just voteā satire
I donāt think itās inflammatory or a conspiracy theory to say that thereās a visible pattern there which points to a very un-anti-electoral goal for their participation. If I was doing half the spamminess of participation that their history evinces, or done half as much inflammatory participation as theyāve done in these comments, Iād leave the platform on my own, feeling bad that Iād done that much to bring badness to the platform.
SLRPNK is an intentionally both an international instance, as well as an ideologically diverse instance. We give a lot of autonomy to moderators. Despite being administered by anarchists and having a significant membership that identifies as anarchist, we expect our anti-fascist moderators to follow the politics of their conscience rather than toe a particular anarchist line. Solarpunk is an internationalist movement, and should not be dominated by any one country or culture.
These two goals sometimes create tension. A significant portion of our international audience is from the United States, and some SLRPNK moderators have filled their community feeds with Democratic Party propaganda. I guarantee @mambabasa does not want Trump to win, and criticizing the hypocrisy of liberal politicians and the losing proposition of elevating electoral politics above direct action is not an endorsement of fascism.
Mambabasaās posting history at the time I looked at it started with:
His meme posts exist in the context of a local feed full of United States election centered news in what is supposed to be a haven for internationalists and anarchists. Theyāre a reminder that anarchists are not edgy Democrats, and if that idea is offensive, you can unsubscribe and block !anarchism and !notvoting@slrpnk.net. Other people existing who donāt share your politics and have their own spaces should not be so threatening to someone with confidence in their own ideology.
I wasnāt asking that as a sarcastic question. It was serious.
I donāt think there are communities on Slrpnk that are brimming with Democratic propaganda. Thereās some kind of weird backwards-ism going on here, where Mambabasa constantly spamming stuff about Harris and the Democrats counts as some kind of innocent anarchism, and Iām dogpiling partisan propaganda on him when I say that actually it sounds pretty clear to me that Greta Thunberg is saying Trump and specifically Trump is a terrible threat. I think youāre exaggerating events into this caricature, and then telling me straight-faced that the caricature is whatās going on. But, maybe not. Maybe Iām wrong. So, I asked about the Democratic propaganda on Slrpnk that youāre saying is happening.
I think the bulk of Lemmy, anarchist and not, sees it the same way I do here. You can look up and down in these comments if you want. You and the other Slrpnk admins are not required to see it the same, of course, or to give me a serious response. You can say whatever you like. But it was a serious question.
I didnāt think you were asking sarcastically. But I donāt think youāre serious.
Youāre attacking SLRPNK for being covert Republican operatives when youāre simultaneously commenting in another YPTB thread thatās calling us out for being covert Democrats. I should not have to do this much hand-holding with someone who genuinely wants information. The answers are right under your nose, but it benefits your grandstanding victim complex not to see them.
You are mixing up different things here. I was also not so happy about the high number of low quality memes they posted in a short period of time inciting nothing but anger shortly before a very emotionally loaded election. I mentioned to the mod privately that I found this quite trollish at this exact point in time and they agreed to stop.
The specific post in question was maybe one of the less bad ones (Gretaās take is pretty sensible IMHO) and due to the high number of upvotes it had the usual drive-by comments by non-community members that were mostly off-topic, did nothing but stoke the flames and were also partially offensive*. Maybe the mod overacted somewhat with deleting most of them, but locking the thread was absolutely the right call after it derailed and handing out a temporary (!) community ban to a very argumentative drive-by poster is IMHO good practice to defuse the situation.
*I agree with the mod that you can vote for your lesser evil or strategically whatever, but there is no need to provide lengthy ideological justifications to convince yourself and others that it was something other than a lesser evil vote.
Repeated explicitly political memes spamming the community = ānot so happyā
= ānothing but stoke the flames and were also partially offensiveā āno need to provide lengthy ideological justifications to convince yourself and others that is was something other than a lesser evil voteā, 10 day ban
What a crock of shit. Youāre buying word for word the modās revisionist history about āideological justificationsā where I donāt think those ever existed in any of the messages they deleted. Definitely not in mine. See for yourself:
https://ponder.cat/comment/791878
Iām not a troll. I donāt make bad-faith arguments, create political spam, or inflame things to no purpose. This person does, and youāre giving them authority and booting me from the community.
Iām not trying to reopen the discussion by saying this. Itās been and gone, and Iāve moved on from !anarchism@slrpnk.net. I think this person has learned how to manipulate the Slrpnk admins to their liking for their own political ends. Have fun with them.
No one said you were intentionally trolling or making bad faith arguments. What you did was randomly enter a post you disagreed with and started an off-topic argument with the OP using emotionally loaded language to justify something that is in the end just a very mundane lesser evil decision. I am old enough to have seen this spiel out many times during every other election cycle and I find it quite offensive to be exposed to such arguments lacking even the slightest bit of self-reflection, especially in what is supposed to be an Anarchist community.
Here. Iām just going to paste what I said elsewhere in these comments:
I think, if Iām being honest, that the lack of time and moderation resources is at the root of a lot of this. You made a separate comment about that under Blazeās comment. I think thatās the real issue. I think if someone could wave a magic wand, and have moderation of !anarchism without giving god-power to any given person whoās also an active participant in an argument in the discussion, a lot of these issues would go away. I made a whole post somewhere talking about how mods being an underappreciated volunteer position I think leads inevitably to the āmods are power trippingā perception and pattern, whether or not itās accurate in any given case.
Youāre able to run your instance however you want to run it. Good luck.
There are certainly many things that could be improved about Lemmyās moderation tools and general setup, I agree.
However the core argument is not about ātalking with people who donāt agree with you is a valuable thing to doā. There was no real disagreement about any topic where an exchange of ideas would be beneficial to both sides. Unless you have infinite patience, there is no point in arguing with people that donāt even realize how hypocritical their position is, in fact usually doing so only results in them digging in their heels and arguing even stronger as you are likely challenging some of their deeply held believes. I believe this is what happened, and your reaction in the original post itself and even more so in making this new thread to complain about someone not having infinite patience with you pretty much proves that.
We have two very different opinions about what the purpose of moderation is. Among some other things.
Thereās a huge difference between ānot having infinite patienceā to talk with someone, and deleting comments from several different people who are trying to have a discussion with each another about how they disagree with your point of view, thus driving the conversation to some other location where people come to a broad consensus that youāre out of line. Honestly, thatās part of why I posted here, to serve as a check to make sure I wasnāt the one being awful. There seemed to be a broad consensus formed after all the discussion, which Iām happy with. The slrpnk authorities as a group plus db0, seem to have their own consensus, which of course theyāve got a right to do.
If youāve read some of my comments and exchanges and youāve decided that talking with me would take infinite patience, then okay. If youāve read Mambabasaās comments and think they deserve a position of authority, then okay. I donāt seem to have any issues talking and interacting with a bunch of anarchists, and presumably a wide variety of people, in these comments. Probably I will continue to do so. Slrpnk can do what it likes.
I dont know why you would need such conspiracy theories when there is a much simpler way to explain it, which was confirmed by most folks(mods and admins alike): We are fine with the moderation actions taken, we dont need to be manipulated for this.
Its quite something to make up a conspiracy after writing this just a few sentences earlier:
I havenāt seen evidence of a strong majority being fine with the decision.
Among slrpnk commenters on this post I believe the split was 3-3, or possibly 3-2-1.
Taking into account the comments from dbzer0 folks, it goes to 5-5 or 5-4-1.
Self-proclaimed anarchists from other instances represent, by my accounting, 1 more āforā and 4 more āagainst.ā
The other comments from users who may or may not identify as anarchists appear to slant towards against by about the same margin.
It could be that one or both of us carries a bias in how we perceive support that aligns with what we already believe. I tried to be cognizant of that when I scrolled through to count, but Iām fallible. If Iāve misrepresented, it wasnāt on purpose. That said, I think at best thereās a somewhat even split. I donāt think you can claim that as āmost folksā being fine with the actions taken.
Additionally, the way the mod conducted themselves in these comments doesnāt inspire much confidence that they moderated in good faith
Mambabasaās posting history at the time I looked at it started with:
I donāt think itās inflammatory or a conspiracy theory to say that thereās a visible pattern there which points to a very un-anti-electoral goal for their participation. If I was doing half the spamminess of participation that their history evinces, or done half as much inflammatory participation as theyāve done in these comments, Iād leave the platform on my own, feeling bad that Iād done that much to bring badness to the platform.
Clearly. Like I said, have fun with it.
SLRPNK is an intentionally both an international instance, as well as an ideologically diverse instance. We give a lot of autonomy to moderators. Despite being administered by anarchists and having a significant membership that identifies as anarchist, we expect our anti-fascist moderators to follow the politics of their conscience rather than toe a particular anarchist line. Solarpunk is an internationalist movement, and should not be dominated by any one country or culture.
These two goals sometimes create tension. A significant portion of our international audience is from the United States, and some SLRPNK moderators have filled their community feeds with Democratic Party propaganda. I guarantee @mambabasa does not want Trump to win, and criticizing the hypocrisy of liberal politicians and the losing proposition of elevating electoral politics above direct action is not an endorsement of fascism.
His meme posts exist in the context of a local feed full of United States election centered news in what is supposed to be a haven for internationalists and anarchists. Theyāre a reminder that anarchists are not edgy Democrats, and if that idea is offensive, you can unsubscribe and block !anarchism and !notvoting@slrpnk.net. Other people existing who donāt share your politics and have their own spaces should not be so threatening to someone with confidence in their own ideology.
Do you have an example of this? Which community?
Ask this guy, I think he can guess at least one of them. Remember to tell him anarchist admins are the real authoritarians because we support our community moderators, and that weāre bad for letting people into our space to use it for political propaganda, because they are making a pretty thin and implausible claim to being on our team.
I wasnāt asking that as a sarcastic question. It was serious.
I donāt think there are communities on Slrpnk that are brimming with Democratic propaganda. Thereās some kind of weird backwards-ism going on here, where Mambabasa constantly spamming stuff about Harris and the Democrats counts as some kind of innocent anarchism, and Iām dogpiling partisan propaganda on him when I say that actually it sounds pretty clear to me that Greta Thunberg is saying Trump and specifically Trump is a terrible threat. I think youāre exaggerating events into this caricature, and then telling me straight-faced that the caricature is whatās going on. But, maybe not. Maybe Iām wrong. So, I asked about the Democratic propaganda on Slrpnk that youāre saying is happening.
I think the bulk of Lemmy, anarchist and not, sees it the same way I do here. You can look up and down in these comments if you want. You and the other Slrpnk admins are not required to see it the same, of course, or to give me a serious response. You can say whatever you like. But it was a serious question.
I didnāt think you were asking sarcastically. But I donāt think youāre serious.
Youāre attacking SLRPNK for being covert Republican operatives when youāre simultaneously commenting in another YPTB thread thatās calling us out for being covert Democrats. I should not have to do this much hand-holding with someone who genuinely wants information. The answers are right under your nose, but it benefits your grandstanding victim complex not to see them.