The Quuuuuill

during the first big migration to lemmy a lot of folks were splitting between discord and here, and a really common refrain was “anything but old school forums” and i absolutely did not and do not get this attitude. old school forums were great! the discussions were always super relevant because everyone was there to discuss whatever specific thing everyone had signed up for, and the people posting were always super reliable, knowledge wise, because, again, it was a dedicated place for discussing something specific, and the frequently asked questions would always end up in a really good wiki. sometimes i wonder if people had bad experiences on those forums because they’re much more focused. like on reddit everyone would complain about the arch forums on r/arch, but none of what they said matched the actual tone of the arch forums. it made me think they posted short one liner questions as thread starters instead of giving a full breakdown of the error they were seeing, what they did to troubleshoot the problem, and what errors had come about during that process.

overall, i think we’ve had a shift in the architecture of the internet thanks to general purpose discussion sites like twitter and reddit. before, the internet was cathedrals filled with texts related to their specific topic. everything on a sportster related forum was going to be about the maintenance and modification of sportsters. maybe there was a subsection where people could talk about their other motorcycles, but that was more of a social lounge than anything, like the equivalent of the fellowship hall in my cathedral analogy.

after reddit and twitter took over those scenes, the internet became a mall. unfocused, impersonal, and only meant to pipeline you into purchasing products. none of the people up front are very knowledgeable because you don’t need to be knowledgeable to make sales, you need to be attention getting. especially when what’s for sale is disposable

spam bot. tho there is a funny timeline where she’s legit, just really excited about the fediverse, and all us are clowning her for it

how you recognize propaganda is that everything is propaganda. your comment, this comment, the original article, the concept that russia remains communist, it’s all propaganda. the key isn’t learning to recognize propaganda, it’s learning to analyze the biases of who’s presenting the propaganda.

here, i’ll tell you my biases. i’m an anarcho communist located in the united states. there. now that you have that intel, you can start to assess what kinds of propaganda you’d expect to see from me. more, when i don’t put out the kinds of propaganda you expect, you can question the following:

1. do i have a blindspot? are my politics and my propaganda out of alignment because there’s something that’s been normalized to me that you should point out in the hopes i’m capable of growth (that’s what i did when i said russia remaining communist simply isn’t true)
2. am i misrepresenting myself or my propaganda? maybe i’m just saying i’m something i’m not to get my propaganda to people who are susceptible to not knowing my misinformation is misinformation, and then they’ll be shifted. or, is my propaganda lie meant to draw people to my misinformation stream. in this case, it’s best to disengage. block+report+ostricize+move on. this is what i would have done if i thought you were a tankie
3. do you have a blindspot? are my politics and my propaganda out of alignment because you, the recipient, are missing some piece of the puzzle. do you need to look into the validity of my claims to find out if you need to learn and grow and change? the equivalent to this would be if i found your message and your politics compelling enough to change my views

the kinds of classes we receive on how propaganda works in elementary and high school are meant to get us to rigidly stick to the status quo that benefits the authoritarian rulers of society. they are, themselves, propaganda. in fact, this notion you have that we can talk about propaganda without context i actually find a little bit dangerous. by stripping context and discussion of origins of propaganda, we actually create the exact form of non critical environment that benefits the misinformation peddlar.

then again, you don’t have to find my perspective compelling. that’s why i told you up front what it was, as well as what my propaganda is.

where did i name call? i was just pointing out that it’s some tankie propaganda. i think your post was overall fine. ohhhh, wait did you think i was calling you a tankie? shit, i didn’t mean that, i just meant the propaganda was tankist in origin

i don’t think you’re evil. i just think it’s fascinating how pervasive “russia is still communist” is as a talking point when it’s decidedly not

russia decidedly does not continue to claim to be communist. putin’s parties have all been various forms of anti-comm far right nationalist parties. the idea that russia is still a champion of communism worldwide is some weapons grade tankie copium

Estonia

until we all start a major global conflict by invading you. also tradition

Ukraine has an instance: https://feddit.kyiv.ua/

Well then I guess we must sniff butts

Yeah! Here we’re not tech brothers, we’re tech gender neutral siblings, or even tech sisters

that’s what we want, yeah, but it won’t help us connect with the people we need to dislodge from the death cult.

it’s inspired by lemmy but seeks to addres; community concerns stemming from that programming is a form of communication and the things the lemmy project owners value as messaging are vile

Its like truth social

Beehaw is my main instance. That number doesn’t sound right at all…

Right. Exactly. That’s why who develops things matters. Conduct at a project level dictates what comes of the things developed. The fact that this platform is developed by transphobes is a big FUCKING deal and is why I have hope for PieFed and Sublinks because they have actual factual solidarity and decency as core values.

Privacy isn’t the right to say anything digitally to anyone without consequence. Privacy is the right that it has to be someone involved in the situation who discloses conversations and not a third party. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who thinks attaching a link to the creative commons license to all their comments does anything to stop an AI from digesting their comments wouldn’t understand what the fight for digital privacy represents

I’ll keep posting about Sublinks as long as Lemmy is primarily developed by people whom suck

Gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. You are not understanding right.

Okay. I’ll remember you’re a transphobe for later.

You know trans people as oppressed people are allies against our oppressors, right? Not granting them personhood benefits the bourgeoisie