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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: July 18th, 2024

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  • If the post contained any actual examples of comments that OP believes are either bots or trolls, it might be possible to actually analyze whether their assumptions and claims have validity.

    We don’t need people starting witch hunts here to “root out the fake Leftists”

    These are contradictory statements.

    I won’t identify anyone who is claimed to be an example, specifically because of the valid concern raised in the second quote. I will say that the two examples that come most clearly to mind for the proof requested in the first quote are two people who are in that category of “talks CONSTANTLY about how voting for Democrats would be a terrible thing that no self-respecting leftist would EVER do for any reason”, who also claimed to be American, who also made mistakes that no American would make. One of them used non-American characters to punctuate a number, and then when it was pointed out they got confused and didn’t understand what people were pointing out that was weird about their number. Another claimed that they employed a bunch of people and paid them all $250k per year (and, again, seemed not to understand that this was a wild thing to claim when people pointed it out ).

    Is that proof positive that those people are working for the Russians? No, not really. Is it “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they are working for someone? Yes, to me. Certainly in conjunction with all the other circumstantial evidence about the way they behave. You use the standard straw man of “anyone who disagrees with you” being put in this category, but that is not at all what’s happening here. I disagree with people on Lemmy constantly and I very rarely think that this is what’s going on. However when I run into a very particular confluence of factors and ways of behaving, I start to think that the person might be a paid propaganda account.

    But regardless of that, talking about the problem in general is surely okay. Your implicit threat to have the mods shut us all down is a waste of time. Talk to the mods (I am sure that some people have), tell them about the post, let them do what they’re doing to do. This is 100% an active and important problem on the Fediverse and talking about it is no kind of bad faith. I do actually, halfway, agree that singling out any particular user to accuse, could be a problem even if you’re extremely sure. But that’s not what this is.


  • I am highly curious to know what’s really going on there. Maybe it’s like 3 really influential accounts that are all very confident in themselves, and 50 other people who are looking for that all started imitating them, and at this point it’s mostly self-sustaining just from confused leftists. Maybe it’s a little team of 5 people all assigned to Lemmy, and they take shifts but only 1-2 of them are active at a time. Maybe it’s just one guy. Maybe it’s two whole separate teams, one for China and one for Russia, and they coexist with each other without being bothered or trying to coordinate all that much. Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe some of them are American? That seems unlikely, I don’t think any GOP operation is this in-depth at this stage and some of them periodically make slip-ups that reveal that they’re not from the US even though they’re claiming to be, but who knows.

    I really would like to know the answer. I think I never will find out, but it would be fascinating.










  • It has absolutely zero impact on conditions in Palestine.

    Impacting the policies of the United States is probably the single biggest thing on the planet that someone can do to help Palestine. A mass movement to spread awareness and force discussion of the issue is, I am sad to say, probably the best out of all the slimmest chances of being able to effect that.

    It will not be very effective, because of awful problems in the US government, but I literally cannot think of anything at all that any person could do that has any better chance of helping the Palestinians than effectively organizing protests in the US that are as big as you can make them. The only other thing that I can even think of is a massive paramilitary attack on Israel, and I think that would be much more likely than not to backfire and be the end of Palestine.

    Oh, also, not letting Trump get in office would have been a big thing, but we sure fucked that up, and God help them now.



  • I don’t think he gives a shit whether they are powerful. I think he needs them to be on his team and is giving them slush so they will do so.

    I will hold on to some hope that he is too dysfunctional to maintain a lasting friendship with them. Some precinct in Minneapolis will refuse to round up some migrants for Don Jr. to shoot for sport or something, he’ll declare the “THE POLICE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE A DISGRACE” and the surplus military kit he was supposed to be sending them will be a bunch of pallets of MREs, and they’ll experience the same sad realization as everyone else he’s ever cultivated as a “friend” about what his intentions are.

    Maybe. I hope.





  • straw man: cuckoos are really eager to put words into your mouth, and try to force you to defend claims you never did in first place

    This one is a really key tell. The people who spend most of their message emphasizing what it is that their opponents believe, and only in passing deal with what they believe (which tends to be along the lines of “well they all want to kill Palestinian babies but I don’t want that, so clearly you can see the difference”), and immediately start telling anyone who talks with them what they believe also… that’s an important signal.

    I think it is so popular because it is substantially lower-effort than engaging with anything the person is actually saying, and also it works on anything. You don’t have to be on the right side of the argument, you can just assign your opponent some awful crazy shit, and then get to work disagreeing with that.

    Edit: Just for some examples. Here are things people have told me today:

    your attitude that good people who would absolutely give you their last meal for days or literally stand in front of you to take a bullet that you may or not deserve are disposable lives

    (Literally no idea what this is about)

    I don’t think it’s unconscionable that the police are minimally held to that expectation

    (I, also, think that the police should be held to the expectation they’re talking about, and said so repeatedly)

    you were unnecessarily bringing race into this discussion

    (I wasn’t, I did bring BLM into a discussion about the police)

    Your saying things like “don’t refuse to give ID” or “Just talk with them. Tell them what you know, help them figure out the situation.” as a blanket suggestion

    (I said the exact opposite of that)

    I don’t mean to condescend to liberals – shouldn’t have used “libs” I guess – but I think of them, in the US, as primarily just trying to get the democrats back into power and then mostly disengage. The most outspoken of them tend to have much more energy to fight universal healthcare and other the social democratic reforms of a Bernie Sanders rather than actually take aim at the capitalist, state, and other hierarchies making our lives worse.

    (I wasn’t explicitly included in this grouping, but this person was explicitly talking to and about me when they said this. Obviously none of this has anything to do with anything I think or want. This is a form of indirect strawman “You are group X and all group X people think Y and Z” that is particularly hopeless to ever have any kind of success in disagreeing with)

    So kindly fuck off with your genocidal apology nonsense

    (I pointed out with alarm that there is literally 0 food in Gaza currently and people are likely to start to starve on a mass scale this month)

    And so on




  • And your attitude that good people who would absolutely give you their last meal for days or literally stand in front of you to take a bullet that you may or not deserve are disposable lives

    Literally no idea what you’re talking about here.

    One of my neighbor’s lives is worth a million of yours, because we know_compassion_.

    Were you the one saying that it’s okay if everyone in Gaza dies this month because of Trump coming to power and making things way worse for them, because it’s all the Democrats’ fault for not being good enough to vote for and that’s what’s really important? Or was that someone else? Maybe it was someone else.

    Eta: let me see you throw those fat, juicy watermelons up on a truck in 100+ f heat. Without water until next 10 minute break

    I’ve had early stage heat exhaustion from working outside. I’ve gotten bleach in my eye cleaning up and still finished my shift. I’ve worked a lot of different jobs. You don’t know anything about me.


  • Cool, have a good one.

    Edit: Actually, I will make one point: This whole mentality “Okay maybe it is producing harm but that’s not my fault because I am reacting to someone else / someone else in some other time period did something worse” is a really bizarre and bad take.

    I saw it from the same people refusing the vote for Democrats, acknowledging that Trump would be infinitely worse and visit a bunch of horrors on the world, but saying “Well the Democrats should have been better, then.” It’s the same. “Sure this is going to escalate this guy’s situation and get him a bunch of felonies when the cops did nothing wrong, but it some other cops’ fault and not his and not the cops on scene… so we good!”

    Sure. Great. Sounds good.