@ex_06 Loving that half the responses are "yes I can" from people who clearly read only the article's headline. God bless the internet, may we never learn 🥂
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
1 points (100.0% liked)
Solarpunk
6696 readers
4 users here now
The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
Join our chat: Movim or XMPP client.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Thank you, really appreciated. I was starting to think I was imagining that almost no one read the article understanding it lol
When money-hungry people imitate each other's successful tactics to get more money, it can look like a massive conspiracy to do some other thing. But oligarchs really don't cooperate on that scale. They see each other as competitors, not allies. If one of them proposed locking the populace into an eternal doomscroll to keep them from fighting capitalism, the rest would think, "What's in it for him? How is he trying to take market share away from me?" The vast majority don't even want to fight capitalism, so it's a non-problem. Some oligarchs might go along hoping to individually get something out of it, but they would think it was alarmist bullshit.
If one of them proposed locking the populace into an eternal doomscroll to keep them from fighting capitalism
I didn't get to choose that preview, idk if it's a my bad thing or a lemmy thing
but still i didn't write that little sum up and it doesn't really represent the article
It's not just the little sum up. Let's look more...
"Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act." Wrong - persuasion is the exact purpose. Persuading people to donate money, buy more shit, stay brand-loyal... That's why oligarchs spend money on social media. Their alliances with each other are temporary, and meticulously defined to maximize their individual gain. Everything about their behavior says they aren't allies.
“Everything on social media is designed to make you think [you're the main protagonist in a sea of NPCs, from previous paragraph],” said Cross. “It’s all about you—your feed, your network, your friends.” Ahh, okay, so the reason so many people on social media think they're the main character isn't because they already thought that way and the anonymity lets them express themselves more freely. No no, it's because social media is "designed" to make them feel that way. Well alrighty then, more conspiracy. Social media didn't evolve like everything else, somebody had a grand design for it.
Gimme a break. What I feel is that I've spent enough time and effort on this.
you are kinda criticizing the finger that points at the moon (and to be clear, i too disagree with some of the rethorical stuff of the article) but doesn't really make sense to discuss with this:
Gimme a break. What I feel is that I’ve spent enough time and effort on this
You can't vote your way out, or peacefully protest your way out either. We are fucking cooked.
You could ABSOLUTELY have voted your way out. Others have.
You just didn't.
And now you have to dig your way out through other ways. The article does contain some interesting examples of how the fascist right seized power in accessible, local platforms. Granted, those will be much harder under the fascist regime you all enabled, but at least it's more practical than "we are cooked".
https://electiontruthalliance.org/
I firmly believe that no one voted for the "they're eating the dogs" guy, except for the die hards, and this was forced upon us by our adversaries and Elon Musk.
You can organize your way out. We are only cooked if we give up.
I got several comments removed and a ban from the Beehaw community for reminding Americans of their first few amendments.
Apparently, Americans won’t even listen to their own country’s constitution. Especially the part that talks about amendments made and rights to be exercised in the event of government tyranny.
Fix your shit because the moment your country crosses the border and starts shit with Canada, it will be open season on every single America.
Buddy i understand your rage but i'm not sure how it relates to the post...
p.s. Try sticking to the rules of the server please ^ - ^
It’s directly related to the topic of the post. Americans trying to post their way out of their own cultural endpoint and then over-moderating when they don’t like hearing that they may have to get off social media and start taking real action.
Please do inform me of any server rules that this broke. I’m always eager to learn.
Americans trying to post their way out of their own cultural endpoint
Oh i see. I did the post not focussing on americans tbf, i'm not one. The ''i know too much stuff everything is broken'' paralysis given by the social is real in the whole world where social media is present
then over-moderating when they don’t like hearing
ohhh ok
Please do inform me of any server rules that this broke
To me it looked like a non constructive rant born by a recent ban from other places and also ended up with a killing threat on an entire population (open season on every single american)
a killing threat on an entire population
Yes this is exactly what American threats against Canada’s sovereignty is. They are actively waging economic and information warfare on Canada with the intent on annexation. If you classify Canadians defending their own lives and sovereignty as a “killing threat” then that’s where we fundamentally disagree as I believe people should defend themselves when attacked, not sit there and take it as you suggest.
If you classify Canadians defending their own lives and sovereignty
Bro you are posting on an online forum, you are just ranting and coping. If you wanna take a gun and shoot someone go and do it but don’t write it here
not sit there and take it as you suggest
Sure, I was suggesting exactly that. Not like I was asking you to not wish death on 340mln people
Posting is an outlet for me, it helps me reorganize my thoughts and not do something rash.
I agree that simply posting isn't enough. But acting egregiously without strategy is potentially a problem too.
Have you tried acting egregiously WITH strategy? Or is this a case of "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas"?
not do something rash
Perhaps it's time to engage in rash behavior.
No, but posting can create a community of like-minded individuals who love to punch Nazis. It can also tell you where and when the punching is taking place, and which lawyers to call after the punching has occurred.
It's a call to action, not the action itself, but most action doesn't act unless called upon.
I kinda disagree. Social media, even this very harmless version of it, is great for building opinions. But it's not great for making stuff happen in the real world. I will never meet anyone from Lemmy. It might be comforting to write about guillotines here, posting angry articles, but we in general and especially you Americans need to leave this save zone and actually do something. Fast. With your bodies. In the real world. Show up! Being online is a trap, it makes you feel like you're participating while it eats you time and kills your energy. Greta Thunberg stopped going to school, wrote a sign and sat down.
Get Signal, gather some local people and do stuff.
The 50501 protests have mostly been organized through Social media. As was the Arab Spring.
At some point mainstream media and corporate social media can silence that movement if they wish, which would damage its ability to organize.
Federated social media would not be so easily silenced, and would be able to continue to operate and act as a place e I'd organization regardless.
That's a powerful ability to make things happen in real life.
The 50501 protests have mostly been organized through Social media
Are they working?
is any protest or rally or general strike working? to me looks like they became just another thing
in the past they probably worked because the threat of violence was real, now it's just walking together mostly. If you don't undermine their comforts or their money you can have as many people in the street you want but that's not gonna do anything if it's just showing up once and bye
I can't predict what the outcome will be. It might fizzle out, or it might gather momentum and produce a result.
We've already seen that it seems to be effecting Tesla's stock price. I think either way it's important for people to see others openly defying all this, if only to prevent the chilling effect that Germany seemed to go through by the lack of visible resistance to the Nazis.
imho, you are too deep down into the path to fascism right now. Stock prices won't change the plan of becoming Russia 2.0. Don't need capial market value when you have de facto slaves, oligarch power and isolationist economy.
btw i was talking about "protest or rally or general strike" in general, not only US. In italy they have not much value anymore. Indefinite strikes (i mean "we strike until you give us what you want") and focussed strikes (as in one single company) are the ones that work. + all the little stuff that won't make headlines or virality on social media because ''person convinced their whole department that that thing was bad and they fixed it'' is not cool enough
I'm not trying to suggest that we'll fix anything by lowering the stock price of Tesla, I'm just pointing out that it does seem to be having some measurable effect despite how low the turnouts have been for these protests in comparison to Trump's first term.
Don’t need capial market value when you have de facto slaves, oligarch power and isolationist economy.
Ehh, I can't say I agree with that. If the economy plummets, it would likely help to turn his base against Trump, which as much as I hate having to exist within this economic framework at all, would be a useful thing to happen. Even in Russia, the oligarch's grasp on their power is largely determined by their ability to continue their economic prosperity. If they can't pay the army/police, their tools to control the people are weakened tremendously.
Obviously the U.S. is nowhere near not being able to make those payments currently, but putting the hurt on the US economically, especially if a general strike were to happen as the rest of the world Tariffed us for a sustained period of time, would either force the government to capitulate or violently end the strike, which I can't imagine would end well for the government.
If the economy plummets, it would likely help to turn his base against Trump
I’m not that sure anymore :/
(I didn't downvote you, btw)
Oh np, didn’t even notice it because I hide downvotes on my main client
Let me put it this way - would you go protest if you weren't sure anyone else were going?
The likely answer is no, especially if it's a protest that would get you arrested.
Social media isn't great, but with the full oligarchical takeover of mass media outlets (Sinclair, Fox), it's become one of the few avenues left for the public to voice (and subsequently act on) dissent.
This is the overall point I'm trying to make - yes, posting won't get the job done, but it can help if you do it right. And without people constantly standing up and speaking out about what's happening, no change is possible.
Because no one wants to be the only person at a protest, and unless other people know its happening, it'll be a party of one.
You cant post your way out of trying to tell people not to try and post their way out of fascism.
Who knew that changing your profile pictures, sharing hashtags, and finding like minded people in your bubble to doompost with to tell eachother youre right doesn't actually address any real problems. Another way this was described is called the Information–action ratio... Which essentially means "meant to indicate the relationship between a piece of information and what action, if any, a consumer of that information might reasonably be expected to take once learning it"
Back in the day, most news was local which meant that the information you were given could lead to actionable results directly. Now because you have the entire world beamed at you instantly, everyone is bombarded with information where no real action can be taken. This leads to a feeling of helplessness, which in turn causes this cycle of denial and inaction to accelerate. It's all very much an intended effect of the modern news cycle. Over time it leads to a certain collective numbness towards very real issues and in a way kind of normalizes things by making you forget the past. Just think about the major stories over the past few months and how many of those are largely gone out of the current narrative. This is all by design and based on years of psychological studies and social engineering.
I don't entirely disagree with your assessment, but at the same time I think you may be overlooking some benefits of at least federated social media.
- Mainstream news and corporate social media are omitting more and more information about the world that doesn't benefit their aims. With a keystroke they can kill important news that might incite people to act, while pushing news and ideas that will pacify and normalize what is effectively dystopia.
- There are many places in the world where it's difficult to find likeminded folk, such as deeply rural areas in red states. Seeing that there are others out there can be a huge mental relief, and may even help them connect with others to enact direct action with.
Federated Social Media by its nature cannot be controlled for the sake of corporate interests, which is unfortunately a rare trait at this point in time. What this can effectively become is a new Citizen Controlled Media, as described by Noam Chomsky. This will become essential to spreading news of real events and of ideas on how to resist while bypassing the corporate filter.
view more: next ›