this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.

Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.

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Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.

Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.


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  1. 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
  2. Multiple people point out that’s very clearly not what she meant
  3. Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed by mod Removed 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

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[–] Blaze 26 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Doesn't seem very anarchist

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 14 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Anarchists: Trust me, bro, we don’t NEED guardrails on power or democratic systems. We can just say “just be a good broski” and it all works out, if everyone’s living’ right. It’s beautiful, man.

Also anarchists, whenever they get even a pretty infinitesimal amount of power:

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (9 children)

It's not a problem with anarchists in general, I think, but that the kind of anarchists who put themselves into positions of power are generally... not the ones you want in power. Regardless of ideology, power, even the smallest, pettiest kind, tends to attract a certain kind of person more often, on average.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I thought the point of anarchy was not having positions of power.

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

There are always positions of power. Anarchists are interested in minimizing the institutionalization of power and individual offices. And also, that even anarchists don't live in a currently-anarchist society/structure, and have to work within that. Don't believe Lemmy has implemented

Taking turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decision of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs...

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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (8 children)

This is almost the exact opposite of an anarchist understanding of power.

The point of anarchist critiques of the state is that the structure and systems themselves corrupt and constrain people into acting in ways that are authoritarian and harmful.

So, even if you put a good person, and yes, even an anarchist into an authoritarian system, it will inevitably result in an abuse of power and violence towards oppressed people.

This is exactly why anarchists generally don’t put forth candidates or actively campaign or support political parties in the existing system. Because embedding a different, even better person into a corrupt system will only lead to further corruption.

I actually think that, ironically, this is a perfect validation of anarchist theory. Lemmy is a platform that was built by and for authoritarians (initially capitalists as Reddit, then only slightly modified by authoritarian leftists on Lemmy). The structure of moderation with mods and admins able to unilaterally take action and the difficulty of organized resistance inevitably leads to abuses, which is what this community is about.

I’m still waiting for the social media platform that has better infrastructure for distributed power among users rather than the chosen few.

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[–] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 21 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I don’t think mods should be moderating their own posts, generally.

[–] Blaze 7 points 3 weeks ago
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[–] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 3 weeks ago (12 children)

Mainly BPR imo. I can sympathise with the mod not wanting the thread to be hijacked by crazed Democrats telling everyone to vote, vote, vote, as though that will address any of the concerns raised by Greta. The clear message from Greta is that voting is not sufficent to move the dial on US policy in these areas. She didn't recommend to vote or not to vote, she just pointed out (correctly IMO) that only voting won't move the dial on many problematic US policies that both major parties are aligned on. That requires large-scale direct action.

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding by a lot of liberals who think anarchism means 'no rules' and 'free speech' no matter what. That's more like libertarianism than anarchism though. Anarchism is more about directly opposing or subverting the existing external power structures (aka authority) of state and capitalism instead of working within them to effect meaningful change (e.g. by voting in a 2-party system where both parties share the majority of policies).

So advocating for not voting but instead engaging in direct action against problematic US policies is entirely consistent with an Anarchist view. But so is advocating for voting and engaging in direct action. So if any libs were advocating for both things and had their comments removed then I think there's maybe a bit of PTB involved in those cases. But if all they are saying is vote, vote, vote, then it's perfectly reasonable to remove those comments imo.

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[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (22 children)

I’m really confused as an anarchist myself.

I know some anarchists who believe we should boycott the system and not vote, I know some anarchists who believe we should vote for Jill Stein because she is the most progressive candidate, and I know some anarchists (which include myself) who think along more utilitarian lines, that this election will can only end in two outcomes, and that one will cause a lot more suffering than the other, therefore I will vote for the one that causes the least suffering.

We anarchists believe more in direct action than voting, but that doesn’t mean we can’t vote.

I’m very concerned about this censorship of discourse on an anarchist community. And want to know what the moderator who made this decision’s rationale was. Would this comment be removed in !anarchism@slrpnk.net because I say not all anarchists vote for Jill Stein?

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