There is no way these people are real. I refuse to believe anyone can keep that psychological dissonance going.
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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Leftist wall of text incoming
In my experience, a lot of tankies are former conservatives who grew up brainwashed by their evangelical parents. When you realize everything you've ever been taught is a lie, you search for something to anchor yourself to. Lefties who properly shed their right-wing tendencies tend to anchor to data. It's a lot harder to slip back into right-wing tendencies when you follow the data.
But brains like shortcuts. They're just built like that. And when you're searching for something to anchor to, sometimes you find a shortcut there too. I think a lot of tankies anchor to the shortcut "america and its allies bad, everyone against them good." It's a comically simplistic worldview, but it'll get you surprisingly far, especially when you look to history and our involvement in Latin America.
But being a shortcut, it doesn't always work. That worldview breaks down (or rather, leads you to draw bad conclusions) whenever America & allies aren't the bad guys (Ukraine) or even sometimes when they are (Israel).
Brains like to understand stuff. Sometimes they find it easier to pretend they do than to actually understand something. We see this in religion and astrology — abstract the world into something that's easier to grasp. Doing that and dealing with the resulting cognitive dissonance is often easier than properly getting your head around something. There's no moral condemnation here; brains just work like that.
Anecdote time
When I started becoming a tankie at 17, the cognitive dissonance was pretty heavy. Tankies were the first leftists I could interact with when I was shedding my conservative evangelical upbringing. It felt like I was learning how the world actually worked but part of me was reserved about the way things were presented by them. Overall I was genuinely learning and understanding the world more though, so I kept listening to tankies.
That part of me that was reserved decided to start watching Vaush since they seemed to really hate him for reasons that I felt didn't scale well to how vitriolic they were. The way he presented things felt a lot more grounded in reality and I didn't have to upend as much of my existing knowledge or worldview to "make it make sense." I was worried at the time that that might be me taking a mental shortcut, so I still mostly listened to the tankies I hung out with online.
The thing that really shattered the illusion for me was realizing how detached tankies actually are when they called me a pedo for not denouncing Vaush and calling him one. I had been watching him for a little bit at that point and had gone through the Vaush Bad Masterlist™; he didn't seem at all like the picture they painted of him. I realized that they were just as dogmatic as the religion I was trying to shed, just less absurdly wrong about some key stuff — but still absurdly wrong about other key stuff.
I left the discord server then and there and haven't looked back.
Conclusion/tldr:
These people are real, and the cognitive dissonance does hurt. I think the best way to help tankies escape is to offer alternative narratives grounded in reality and let the people who can get out find their way out. Don't waste your time debating tankies all day. Plant some seeds and let them grow. You can't force progress.
Also a lot of tankies are just teenagers who haven't finished growing up. "You're arguing with a minor online" became a meme for a reason.
If they wanted to defederate why wouldn't they do it on their own? These people are fucking insane.
Big "I didn't even want to win" energy from this post.
That reeks of neckbeardism.
we maintain our perfect track record of not blocking real instances
Seriously shocking to see free speech absolutism referenced by anyone on the left. Why torture yourself with garbage takes?
Oh. Just defends the USSR in the post. There isn't anyone with a more trash take than that.
Circle theory is real
If you have realistic and normal leftist takes you don't end up going "farther left" to soviet bootlicking. I think tankies are just too closed minded / dumb / lazy / impatient to see the incremental path towards socialism that other leftists seem to focus on.
Shit, it doesn't even have to be incremental. "We need to overthrow all bourgeois states NOW" may be a ridiculous take, but it, at least, is a product of idealism, unlike, say, the position of "It was actually really vital that the Soviet Union killed all those kulaks for having 100$ worth of property" that tankies have.
Sometimes I wonder how much of it is right wing astroturf to make all progressives look crazy/stupid.
Don't get me wrong, I know Tankies are very real. But just how many of these people actually believe this shit?
Edit: Like I said, I know that tankies are real. My question is how many of them are real.
It's not really "right wing" astroturfing, as you seem to mean it. there are well publicized social media influence operations run by rogue states, with the apparent goal of steering and polarizing political discourse the US and Europe. and you are falling for it.
I'm falling for it? In what way am I falling for it?
I took your comment to mean you believe it is actual right-wing (e.g. Republicans, etc) astroturfing, as opposed to state-sponsored trolls. But perhaps you think of those governments as right wing and that's what you meant.
the kind of places that say "Ukraine should be destroyed at all costs" and blame the "west" for Putin invading Ukraine and commiting genocide are now calling lemmy.world zionists, well that's the least surprised I have ever been
YES!!! .world being based as usual. And to see that person having such an insecure meltdown over a network of linked forums that nobody posts on is just so pathetic. And LOL at the 500 Palestine flags, further proving that their celebration of Israeli kids lying dead in their country’s southwest is what sunk them. Did a Jew fuck that lemmygrad OP’s girlfriend once?
we are one of the tamest instances when it comes to banning people and deleting comments/posts.
Uh huh.
Bet you don't even know where the [word] totalitarian comes from or who coined it without looking it up.
Adolf literally Hitler could've coined the term, and that wouldn't change a goddamn thing for how it is used to accurately condemn a genocidal dictatorship. Do you... do you think projection decides what's real? Like if someone's the first person to make an accusation, any form of "no you" is false?
we retain our perfect track record of not blocking real instances
Well yeah, your stated agenda is to shit up other conversations. You're part of a harassment campaign echo-chamber halfway down the gradient from lemmy.ml's erudite atrocity apologia to hexbear's openly enforced tankie hugbox.
Palestine will be free a month from now
Really?
Yes comrade, and the month after that Putin, having completely taken over Ukraine somehow and then inevitably sent its whole population on a one-way trip to Siberia, will use his icebreaker fleet and what’s left of his navy to liberate Alaska’s 5 ethnic Russians, immediately decimating our they/them army before they even get there by simply being straight so that within mere hours they secure the entire state and, after inevitably wiping out the native Alaskans and all of Anchorage’s gays, hold a free and fair referendum where 109% of the remaining population votes to form the Alyeska People’s Republic. Then they’ll somehow sneak past the narrow and well-guarded Puget Sound without getting hit by missiles from a mountain or running aground in the fog and then create the Sietl People’s Republic (all without having their cheap uniforms soaked in the rain and dying of pneumonia), gobbling up all those tech and airplane manufacturing secrets (so we can finally see actual innovation without capitalistic monopolies yay!) and going on yet another homophobic killing spree, this time spanning several cities. The PNW shall be free from capitalistic US tyranny!!!1
Meanwhile, China will claim that since Hawaiians are descended from Taiwanese aborigines, it historically owns Hawaii; the american-mainland-hating locals will defs be on board with another continental imperialist stealing their land and turning it into a state-sized tourist resort again- this time peppered with a few boarding schools and sterilizations. It will be the beginning of the end for the American Empire™, I can’t wait!
/s
Of course. As soon as Putin finally gets the position as Speaker of the House he'll advance a bill that switches the US from capitalism to communism, which will go so well that the EU follows suit within days. This is about one week from now.
Then the unprecedented collaboration of the world having shrugged off the yoke of capitalism will solve nuclear fusion gaining total energy independence. That's going to be about two more weeks give or take a few days.
Oh, and all Christians will have given up their religion for atheism of course in the interim, so middle east policy based on Revelations goes out the window.
At that point the US and EU will withdraw their support for Israel and instead give their support to Palestine, no longer having any reasons to need a strategic ally in the region.
The paperwork and inevitable killing of Israelis may take about another week after that, but with a bit of luck in the scheduling, it will be wrapped up a month from now.
Mark his words.
Who’s Mark? And why does he have words?
I recommend you make an account on a third-party instance that federates with us, like ml or ee until they also defederate from us because we have principles
But .ml is literally the "Marxist-Lenininst" instance, why do they automatically expect conflicts with them as well? Some of these people have a persecution complex.
Well, tankies are pretty good at eating their own, even when they agree on 99% of stuff.
Also, tankies don't know Marx from their own asshole, if they had any damn sense they'd be able to tell that the USSR wasn't communist because it never moved past the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' phase if it can be said to have even started in the first place. Stalin took over and never had any intention of letting that happen, Khrushchev did in fairness try to fix some of the damage done which makes some sense because he actually fought in the Russian Civil War as a Bolshevik, but Brezhnev killed all that
How about because they're not actually particularly Marxist-Leninist, but simply red flavored fascists and everyone with two neurons to rub together can see that?
Not to no true scotsman this shit, but does anyone self-identify as "Leninist" who isn't a Stalinist?
Marxist is a pretty tame word, all things considered. Marxism is a pretty broad tent that fits a lot of people. But I don't think I have ever interacted with a self-described "Leninist" that wasn't authoritarian and against civil rights. This coming from a guy who regularly quotes Lenin.
"Parties are dumb anyway" says loser, after being booted from a party for being an insufferable twat.
Why do all the crazy people think debates fix things?
Theyre insecure about their intelligence and theyre posturing.
When your entire strategy in an argument is to be disingenuous and dishonest as all hell, you ALWAYS feel like you win the arguments.
It can trick a person into thinking they are a good debater.
In other words, it's easy to win a debate when you were only aiming to convince yourself.
Watch out guys, he's read things.
They love that tactic and treating it like it means something. Like a libertarian claiming to be experts in capitalism because they've read every work of fiction Ayn Rand ever published. And I'm like, it's great you read and all bro. But do you understand. And inevitability they don't.
Or they have read things but cannot place it in context eg The Communist Manifesto was a response to problems Marx and Engles saw in capitalism whereas Smith was responding to issues with mercantilism.
Well that and of the ultimate problem when it comes to things of sociology and economics. No matter how many books you've read or by who. Having read and commit those books to heart. Means you know nothing more than what the people in those books say. Whether or not we agree with what they say or hold it true. It doesn't make it true or valuable in itself.
That most ideologies no matter how rational or logical they seem. Are often impractical due to the assumption of rationality and logical thinking.
Your post makes it seem like you think sociology and economics aren't sciences. Economics in Marx's time was certainly closer to philosophy but that hasn't been the case since the 1960s.
The problem the Marxists who are not formally educated in philosophy or science face is that they don't realize economics in the modern age isn't concerned with the kinds of thinking Marx engaged in because it isn't based on empiricism.
They aren't. Not in the same sense of physics and chemistry for sure. That doesn't mean that they are without value. It just means that they have no authority to predict anything. Empiricism and determinism are sort of the core of science. If you mix a set proportion of materials at a specific temperature you will always get the same products. An authoritarian a leninist and a Communist walk into a bar. And you'll get as many different punchlines as there are people who attempt to answer it.
Nothing changed in 1960. Economics is still largely philosophy. With the hindsight those sort of things give we can often try to understand why things might have happened. Maybe even offer insight into something like it perhaps happening again. But certainly not predict it happening. One of the best indicators that economics is largely philosophy. Is the fact that for these last 50 years conservative in the United States to have babbled on incoherently about bullshit supply side economics.
Oh, so you're one of those. You don't know anything about modern economics or philosophy if you think the two are even remotely similar.
Seriously a question in modern economics would be "did the tax policy instituted by placeistan in 2008 positively or negatively impact school enrollment?" While a question in philosophy would be "is the tax policy instituted by Placeistan an ethical or nonethical policy?" Those aren't the same and the only reason why you would think the subjects are similar is if you know nothing about either one.
Im willing to be you know little about what constitutes a science based on the ignorance you have displayed so far.
Prestidigitation is not part of science and it is weird that you think the inability to predict everything is somehow unique to social sciences.
Oh, so you're one of those. Getting all pissy, unable to address what was said. Instead making accusations and strawmen.
Your example is just silly. That's just asking someone to make an observation and personal interpretation. How would you justify that interpretation. How would you test that hypothesis? Is it repeatable? Wheres your control group. Economics fails/doesn't adhere to basic scientific method. And isn't SCIENCE. No disrespect econ major. It isn't. It's a social science. That's a significant difference. Saying economics is a Science. Full stop. Is like saying your hatchback is a formula 1. Though if you can prove otherwise I'm willing to listen despite your rudeness
He knows the origin of the word “totalitarian” without looking it up. Because memorization is obviously the cornerstone of critical thinking
I love that pointing out that a fascist invented it is somehow a gotcha
I learned where it came from in high school. Is that checkmate?
unfortunately not since everything taught in high school is a lie. the only way to learn things is to read things after graduating (as long as they aren’t written by high school teachers or any other educated person)