Radical Leftists Built Their Own FOSS Alternative To Reddit After It Banned Them (vice.com) 289
eeplox shares a report from VICE, adding: "Community-built sites like these are very much needed since Reddit announced they were going closed source": After r/LeftWithSharpEdge was taken down, ziq [one of the subreddit's members] decided to leave Reddit and create an independent anarchist community free from its rules. Raddle.me, which was originally called Raddit.me, is an "alternative that is focused on community building and openness, and not controlled by a corporation," ziq told me. The original name was intended to sound similar to Reddit, but was later changed to avoid potential trademark issues. Raddle doesn't have advertisements or run analytical software, so its size is difficult to calculate -- but that's by design. The site is meant to be an alternative to social networks that profit by monitoring user behavior and serving advertisements. "We have no ads, no tracking, no user profiling and we don't collect or share any user data with anyone," ziq said. The site is community-built and anyone can contribute to the code.
Ziq's commitment to privacy is an appealing virtue for Raddle's users. "I'm always very uneasy about the lack of concern for privacy online," Tequila_Wolf, a user who posts frequently to Raddle, told me in a direct message. "When you have friends on government lists who get harassed at every border because, say, they are members of Anarchists Against The Wall, you know you don't want to get on that list." Raddle ultimately came out of more broad problems ziq and Emma saw with Reddit. Ziq complained about how it has increasingly become a recruiting ground for the alt-right, the social network's overemphasis on America (r/politics, a major subreddit, only discusses U.S.-based politics, for example), and the fact that the site's code isn't open source, among other issues. Emma mentioned what she says is a problem with harassment on the site. "To me, the biggest problem with Reddit is how its administrators ignore the routine harassment and witch-hunts of marginalized people that takes place, with r/The_Donald being the most prominent example," she said.
Ziq's commitment to privacy is an appealing virtue for Raddle's users. "I'm always very uneasy about the lack of concern for privacy online," Tequila_Wolf, a user who posts frequently to Raddle, told me in a direct message. "When you have friends on government lists who get harassed at every border because, say, they are members of Anarchists Against The Wall, you know you don't want to get on that list." Raddle ultimately came out of more broad problems ziq and Emma saw with Reddit. Ziq complained about how it has increasingly become a recruiting ground for the alt-right, the social network's overemphasis on America (r/politics, a major subreddit, only discusses U.S.-based politics, for example), and the fact that the site's code isn't open source, among other issues. Emma mentioned what she says is a problem with harassment on the site. "To me, the biggest problem with Reddit is how its administrators ignore the routine harassment and witch-hunts of marginalized people that takes place, with r/The_Donald being the most prominent example," she said.
perfect NSA honey-trap (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:5, Insightful)
What they really dont like is the presence of anyone who does not agree with them.
So they have gone and made their own little club, out the in the back shed, where they can make sure anyone who does not agree with them will be kicked out (the equivalent of the 'no girls!' club sign). They will make their big plans there, all competing to out do the others in how 'revolutionary' they are.they will virtue signal until they are red in the face and their 'community' will slowly shrink as anyone who isnt revolutionary ENOUGH this week gets excluded.
Meanwhile the rest of the world will get on with actual life, something they will be less and less in touch with.
Sad? yes.
Pathetic? yes.
But hey, its no different 'because its on the internet', the only odd thing here is that someone thinks its newsworthy. Its not.
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What they really dont like is the presence of anyone who does not agree with them.
So they have gone and made their own little club,
I see no problem with this.
Meanwhile the rest of the world will get on with actual life, something they will be less and less in touch with.
Sad? yes.
Pathetic? yes.
But hey, its no different 'because its on the internet', the only odd thing here is that someone thinks its newsworthy. Its not.
The only odd thing here is that a media article admits to the existence of radical leftism. I've gotten so used to people pointing at radical left ideology and claiming that it's centrist.
An article that admits the existence of a radical left is newsworthy. The actual existence of a radical left is not.
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To be honest, a lot of the time it is centrists being called radical leftists.
Re:Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, a lot of the time it is centrists being called radical leftists.
I'm a centrist and i've never been called radical left, I only ever get accused of being rightwing. Apparently the view that rules should apply e regardless of race or sex is a rightwing view. Me saying that if black-only or women-only clubs are acceptable then so are whites-only or men-only clubs apparently makes me some sort of nazi (in my case a black one).
The left is now mostly a speech-suppression movement which is antithetical to a free society. For example, I am a lifelong atheist, but I have never in my life campaigned to prevent religious propagandists from talking at a university.
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I'm going to stop you right there, because, like most Americans I am pretty centrist as well. And I get called "extreme left" by the those on the right, ironically because they have moved so far right they can no longer even gauge what is where anymore, and I also get called "right-wing" by pretty much any liberal under 30, because I believe that the world is not black and white and there is nuance in eve
Re: Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:3)
The 21st century left is becoming a mirror image of the far right albeit with different scapegoats.
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This seems to be pretty much the way it is now. I've walked the same political path for over 20 years now. When Obama got elected I got labeled wing because I wouldn't get on board with the Obama bashing.
Now that I won't get on board with the rabbit Trump hating I'm suddenly a alt right nut job.
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Now that I won't get on board with the rabbit Trump hating I'm suddenly a alt right nut job.
Why would anyone hat on rabbit Trump? Rabbits are cute!
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Isn't sex segregation a right wing thing? Same with colour segregation.
As someone on the left, I agree with you that
if black-only or women-only clubs are acceptable then so are whites-only or men-only clubs
I also can't imagine campaigning to stop anyone from talking at a university, though I will ignore them and encourage others to do the same.
I think the problem is that America has a totally screwed up idea of what left is. There's actually people down there who think the Clintons are left wing along with the rest of the democrats.
Re:Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:5, Insightful)
As society as increasingly become more racially tolerant, the racial equity movements have had to turn to increasingly ephemeral explanations (micro-aggression, etc) to justify African American problems.
The broad hiring of Latinos nation-wide in low wage labor positions, the mass hiring of South Asians in IT positions and how it has mostly worked without broad resistance has really made African Americans reliance on "racism" as the principal source of their present problems increasingly less believable.
So they've turned to increasingly more comprehensive and inescapable explanations of white racism. Whites are generally now assumed to be racist in ways they aren't considered capable of overcoming. In the 1960s you could support civil rights and have black friends and easily not be considered racist -- in fact, you were probably considered suspect by conservatives. Now that's not good enough, you have to permanently accept your inherent racism.
Questioning this narrative of course makes you "obviously racist" and trying to seek alternative explanations for African American suffering (broken families, gang membership and high levels of criminal participation, poor work ethic in school or labor force participation) gets you shouted down or worse.
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Sadly, that's a pretty good summary. Many people (not just blacks but LGBTQ, etc.) are attempting to cocoon themselves into a status of "permanent victimhood." This is why so many of these groups have a particularly unique vitriol against Asians, often classing them, along with the evil whites, as the "bad guys" in their narrative. Most Asians refuse to accept victimhood status and instead work their asses off to achieve a high status both in academia and the professional world. They are definitive proof th
Institutional Racism (Score:2)
So you're saying that institutional racism doesn't exist, or that it's okay because no one is "trying" to be racist?
It must be acknowledged that "micro-aggression" is an extremely stupid word. However, if you don't think it refers to a real phenomenon, we can only ascribe that to inexperience.
We have to thank you for including "black people are lazy" in your list there. It certainly lets us know where you stand.
Re:Institutional Racism (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to keep the narrative of white racism alive, "activists" keep turning to more and more ephemeral forms of racism, most of which require no conscious action at all on the part of whites. Conveniently, whites can not refute these racist acts nor can they really change, they can only *atone* for their inherent racism. Racism has become a kind of secular "original sin" -- an inalienable state of being for which they may only pay penance.
Unfortunately as more and more non-white ethnic groups immigrate and rise within the United States, it's becoming apparent that the "race problem" isn't "white racism" as broad, whites vs. nonwhites phenomenon, but is instead something more like "Why can't blacks succeed when others have?"
And the laundry list of others is pretty long -- Latinos, many of whom *don't even speak English*, have managed to thrive in the United States. The Hmong, living like it was the sometime before the 19th century managed to get ripped out of their own country by the US war machine and resettled to the prairies of the Midwest and thrived. The *Somalis* managed to escape a live-action version of "The Road Warrior" and thrive in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in spite of the obvious handicaps of negative sentiment towards Muslims *and* being African (inheriting existing negative sentiment towards American blacks).
How have all of these groups managed to establish working communities not defined by broken families and crime despite substantial cultural obstacles in mere decades or less while native African Americans continue to fail? Surely at some point we can start to talk about problems inherent to and unique to African American communities which cannot be blamed on "racism".
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If it really was systemic racism, then no non-whites would be able to succeed.
Non sequitur.
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It's relative.
In the US, the "radical left" means people who call for universal government-provided healthcare, a strictly progressive tax scheme in which those with the most income pay the highest proportion of it in taxes, and a well-funded system of universal education under direct government administration.
Here in Europe, we call those people 'centrists.'
In works the other way too: Those who are on the center-right in the US would be seen as a radical fringe in Europe. They support such ridiculous ideas
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you'd think christians would take this way as confirmation of being a christian, shame they don't practise what they preach.
Re: Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:2)
Jesus believed in free healthcare and wasnâ(TM)t a big fan of the wealthy and privileged. Iâ(TM)m sure heâ(TM)d be on board with taking from those people so that everyone would be able to get treatment when they need it including those people (something that you Randroids always forget)
Re: Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:2)
Nope just laughing at the idea that Jesus didnâ(TM)t believe in free healthcare. I often wonder if some of these loons have ever read the New Testament.
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'If they will not work, they shall not eat'
That new testament?
Re: Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:2)
Those are the words of St Paul. Who was I talking about again?
Re: Nope, just another echo chamber. (Score:2)
It will definitely be a miracle if Slashdot ever supports Unicode. You canâ(TM)t even support apostrophes? Seriously?
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It's relative.
In the EU, radical right means people who want minimal interference in their lives, the right to speak their minds, defend themselves, and the right to keep most of what they have earned.
Here in America, we used to call these people 'average americans.' Now, they're labeled 'conservative' by progressives masquerading as 'liberals' (another term tainted to the point of uselessness).
It works the other way too: Those who are on the center-left in the EU would be seen as a borderline communist fri
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I deliberately phrased my descriptions from a European perspective to highlight how American politics as viewed by someone on the outside. A touch of hyperbole seemed appropriate.
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I deliberately phrased my descriptions from an American perspective to highlight how European politics as viewed by someone from the outside. A touch of hyperbole seemed appropriate.
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LOL!
I was just going to post something about their moderation system consisting of Nazi ratings and here you are.
ROLMAO!
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To say nothing of the excellent 'Northern Columbia Donkey Fuckers' story.
No way to create communities. (Score:5, Insightful)
"turing the site into" (Score:2)
turning the site into a large echo chamber.
*walks into newly constructed giant echo chamber*
You know what the problem is with this place? It's a giant echo chamber!
*walks out of giant echo chamber as people stare after him*
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Yeah, but it's the perfect forum for everyone to sit around and agree with one another all day.
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That may be by design...either you're alt-left, or you don't join.
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I think you've just summed up the far left pretty well there.
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So... Like Reddit?
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I thought they aspired to be a circlejerk?
Re:They're too far to the left even for Reddit?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Reddit is too big to lump into a single category. It has multiple communities from all across the political spectrum.
Is /r/latestagecapitalism left wing? Yes. /r/thedonald left wing? No.
Is
Typically reddit puts up with subreddits as long as they don't advocate or end up used to commit violence. Both /r/politics and /r/thedonald want each other gone, but it's not happening until it becomes evident that purpose of the subreddit itself is problematic. It's not the level of political extremism, it's what the sub is getting used for and advocates for that dictates whether or not it's allowed.
Calling liberals or conservatives a "cancer on our nation that should just fuck off and die" isn't actually against the rules. Saying "so-and-so is a liberal/conservative, here's his/her address, go get 'em wink wink" is against the rules. If you have enough of the latter on your sub, it's getting the boot.
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I don't really care enough to look into their beliefs more, but what I find most surprising is that they were too far to the left even for Reddit.
Reddit in general is among the most left-leaning social media sites out there. Even expressing a centrist or moderate viewpoint in many subreddits will typically get you punished in some way, if not outright banned.
It's typical to find what any reasonable person would consider to be extreme left content posted at Reddit all of the time. In some subreddits you're lucky if you're only subjected to socialist content, rather than what should be considered outright Communist propaganda.
These people must be really, really, really, really, really far to the extreme of the extreme left if Reddit isn't a suitable place for them.
Why should this surprise you? There are 50+ extreme radical communists groups operating in the United States of America that I could rattle off. At least 2 of them have me on a public kill list. Pause for a second and think about that -- what kind of groups make public kill lists? I'm on those list because I'm a semi-public face on an organization that defends the first amendment, and will not allow the heckler's veto to prevent events if at all possible. For this reason the communists absolutely despise
Re:No way to create communities. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they ARE leftists you know.
Are they? Leftists are collectivists. TFA says these people are anarchists, which is the polar opposite of collectivism.
Re: No way to create communities. (Score:2)
Yes, anarchists that want free health care and college.
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Yes, anarchists that want free health care and college.
Which is not the oxymoron that you think it is.
Anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism, and many forms of collectivist anarchy could cover that function nicely. You're just so accustomed to everything being 'provided by' an overarching government that you can't fathom any other system. (These other systems may fail for whatever reason, but our current solution isn't the only feasible one.)
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Yeah, sorry, but that's not what they are arguing for, mostly because they are totalitarians masquerading as anarchists.
Oh, I totally agree with you there. They're anarchists in the '80s punk rock sense, which is just to use it as an excuse to break things. Most people seem to be pretty authoritarian and most governments seem to reflect that fact.
Re:No way to create communities. (Score:5, Informative)
"Are they? Leftists are collectivists. TFA says these people are anarchists, which is the polar opposite of collectivism."
These are not the anarchists you're looking for.
By the way, collectivist anarchism*1 predates anarcho-capitalism*2 by how much? a whole century?
*1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
*2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:No way to create communities. (Score:4, Interesting)
By the way, collectivist anarchism*1 predates anarcho-capitalism*2 by how much? a whole century?
*1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Very interesting link. So these people want to eliminate the government, and replace it with an organization empowered to coerce people into following a set of rules.
Wow. No wonder they can't get anyone to take them seriously.
Re:No way to create communities. (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, collectivist anarchism*1 predates anarcho-capitalism*2 by how much? a whole century?
*1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Very interesting link. So these people want to eliminate the government, and replace it with an organization empowered to coerce people into following a set of rules.
Wow. No wonder they can't get anyone to take them seriously.
Is that so different from what the Alt-right and most of the Republicans/Tea-Party want to do? They want to smash the current democratic government and all it's structures (or what remains of them) and replace them with and authoritarian leader or possibly a clique of political oligarchs masquerading as a democratically elected body that heads an organisation empowered to force everybody to follow their set of rules and their social norms. The only place where the Republicans/Tea-Party and the Alt-Right differ is that for the former the resulting social order has to be a christian theocracy whereas the Alt-Right is flexible on that point.
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"So these people want to eliminate the government, and replace it with an organization empowered to coerce people into following a set of rules."
No.
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To repeat the historical origin, which I'm sure you've heard but... I don't know man. Anyway: the terms "political left" and "political right" come from the French Revolution. Supporters of the king (i.e.: "the dude in charge," "the government," "the authority") sat to the right in the hall where the National Assembly convened. T
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Left and right of the French revolution are ancient history. The left won.
Even in France, the words mean something different now.
Re:No way to create communities. (Score:4, Insightful)
The existing power structures (big government, big business, big anything really) lead to people in power and institutions and systems who protect their own power. The most delusional political activists think that if only we wiped the slate clean we could rebuild a new world order where nobody takes advantage of anyone else and it'll be so great people will join voluntarily. Which I suppose is a step up from communism where everybody will be forced to work for the greater good. The problem is that power structures appear out of nowhere almost instantly, even in kindergarten you can observe leaders, followers and outsiders as well as the power of social influence and social sanctions. Having a valuable resource to use or trade that others don't is a power structure, obviously private property is power. Two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner is obviously a power structure, creating the rules for a shared resource is power. The only way to avoid power is if we all became totally self-sufficient hermits, the War Games solution - the only way to win is not to play.
Perhaps the biggest misunderstanding is those who confuse perfect competition with laissez-faire capitalism, that regulation hampers competition and deregulation will lead to more and better competition. Let me try to put it bluntly: Perfect competition presumes that vendors will engage in an intense, cut-throat competition to destroy their own profits and livelihood without any structural costs, barriers to competition, transaction costs, lack of transparency and without creating or protecting any unique brand or features. It's an entirely fictional concept to begin describing basic elements of capitalism which is why a lot of people have heard of it but understood so little. Basically almost every class following it is about how that's actually not true due to reality like economics of scale or network effects, how actual customers are relatively uninformed creatures of habit that don't all instantly jump ship because the competition is $0.01 cheaper, how to create your own unique brand that people prefer like Coke vs Pepsi, how to protect unique features through intellectual property rights (IPR) and so on.
Particularly people fail to see how the prisoner's dilemma works when it's repeated, like if you lower prices and steal my customers I'll have to lower prices and steal your customers, we'll both lose money so let's not be idiots. Or when they all switch to terms that are unfavorable for the customers like forced arbitration. This kind of tacit collusion is why we need checks and balances, not just inside the branches of government but between the government and citizens, manufacturers and consumers, employers and workers and so on. If all the choices are bad you don't really have any choice, of course unless you have a gun to your head you in theory always have the War Games solution but practically it can be almost impossible. For example I doubt many people can avoid signing up for some kind of phone service, you can pick your poison but it's hard to not play the game. Unless you want to be a hermit in a cave again, something has to curb their ability to dictate terms, create lock-ins and shut out the competition. If they don't play nice now, they certainly won't play nice when the gloves come off.
I don't have a problem with this (Score:3)
I'm not afraid of opposing ideas. I'm afraid of people afraid of opposing ideas.
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What I do have a problem with is this weird alt-right slashdot summary. "Leftists" aren't even a thing in the US, and even using that term shows the post to be both political and outside the mainstream.
There is a lot of crappy stories we've put up with if we're still here, but I'd never hang out at a political site.
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Wow, a quip as clever as that will get you a standing ovation at next year's Oscars.
Re: I don't have a problem with this (Score:5, Informative)
SoylentNews was at least up during recent "offline mode" downtime of Slashdot.
Good for them. (Score:4, Interesting)
Listen - I may not agree with them on every position - and may even see them as harmful to some of their own goals... but I do see them as a somewhat helpful kind of crazy.
Why? Because for the past generation or so, we really haven't had any real forces of extreme leftwing pushing anything in the US. Not that this is a bad thing on it's own, mind you - but compared to the insanity of an extreme right wing pushing every button on every part of the societal machine, it's actually destabilizing to have the left version largely missing for so long.
Now, I certainly hear an opposing idea just while I'm typing this - that we have Democrats or college campuses, or something - and if you think of that as extreme left wing, you have no idea how the rest of the world thinks.
Without an extreme to exist as a philosophical sounding board, or as a 'wall' of what's too extreme to bounce against, the left of today in the US is largely crippled in culture - and obsessed with minor points of political correctness/friendiness to business, rather than actually tying to advance a real agenda of change.
I'd actually LIKE to have a crazy left to actually exist out there, willing to be grumbled about and dismissed. I'd like to have something Michael Moore can say "Geesh - those loonie lefties", then make a point that plots a 'sensible middle ground', rather than having nationalized healthcare like many modern democracies seem like some loony idea by reflexive 'moderate' idealists.
So go, you crazy folks - be extreme and let me disagree with you. It's cool with me.
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So explain Roy Moore?
Genetic experiment gone wrong? Dropped on head as a baby? Alien/human breeding accident? Donkey Goat fornication? I really got nothing....
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In point of fact, most terrorism is the US comes from right wing lunatics. [newsweek.com]
I hold no truck with antifa vigilante goons, but to suggest that any group in the US is regularly killing cops shows a disconnect with reality.
Re:Right has zero access to "societal machine" (Score:4, Interesting)
That's true to a point as long as you do a few things:
1) Group all anti-government, non-Muslim religious based attacks as well as white supremacist attacks into the far-right category while at the same time often miscategorizing other attacks such as classifying Fort Hood as 'workplace violence' even with Hasan's confession about his motivations. That actually required an act of Congress to have to the dead and wounded be recognized as victims of a terrorist attack and awarded Purple Hearts.
2) Assign political motivations to non-political attacks. Not all attacks by right wingers are motivated by their ideology in the same way not all attacks by left wingers or Jihadists are motivated by theirs; sometimes an attack in a parking lot is just road rage with no deeper meaning.
3) Start tracking after 2001 and stop tracking after 2015.
4) Change the definition of threat as it suits your needs. In some reports "threat" is based off of actual deaths and in others it's by incident. So when you need a bigger number you count the 5 times someone was harassed on the street (with no injury) and say that is a bigger threat than a single shooting that killed multiple people.
There is also the fact that many Jihadist plots are stopped before the threat ever materializes due to the massive manpower dedicated to just that while far right attacks are not due to their limited nature and next to no dedicated special policing (they seem to be mostly of the "lone gunman", small or single target variety which are very difficult to prevent) . i.e. it's hard to stop a crazy person with a knife until the attack starts vs someone trying to buy large quantities of explosives.
It's just another case of statistics telling you whatever you want them to and not necessarily the truth.
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The radical left here pretty much built their platform from scratch with a dash of FOSS from reddit, you're telling me there's no radical right than have the technical know how to do the same?
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Then why doesn't the right build their 'societal machine'?
They have. The bailout of 2009 triggered a strong reaction on both the left and right. On the left, there was OWS, which never had coherent objectives, and has faded away as a movement. On the right, the Tea Party was formed, which today effectively controls the entire Federal government and dozens of state legislatures.
The radical left here pretty much built their platform from scratch with a dash of FOSS from reddit, you're telling me there's no radical right than have the technical know how to do the same?
So you are impressed that the left setup a sub-Reddit, but you think the right is incompetent because they are merely running the country?
Re: Right has zero access to "societal machine" (Score:3)
The "Tea Party movement" is reality TV. Meaning it's fictional, scripted, staged, with no reality at all.
The financial oligarchy controls all levels of government, now and before alike.
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The financial oligarchy controls all levels of government, now and before alike.
If this was true, Jeb Bush would be president. The FO would have prefered even Hillary to Donald. Do you really think that Goldman Sachs wanted the US out of TPP?
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Exactly! The thing that gets me about my fellow left leaning folks is that they think bitching on the web of marching in the streets will cause change
I can't remember which show it was, maybe it was Fresh Air, but I remember hearing on NPR a conversation with retired congressman Barney Frank. He went to a few Occupy Wall Street events to check out what people were saying. They were generally dumps, but there were a lot of people singing and protesting. Thinking back to his similar experiences walking through Tea Party gatherings, he asked the OWS organizers there why there weren't any voter registration areas like he'd seen in the Tea Party events, ways
Psst. Democrats are right wingers too. (Score:3)
You mean Democrats. Democrats are not left wing. Democrats are right wing. Democrats despise people who work for a living just as much as Republicans do, they're just less honest about it.
Trump was elected because Hillary was nominated. Hillary, who was a right-wing trainwreck of incompetence, warmongering and corruption.
Re:Psst. Democrats are right wingers too. (Score:5, Informative)
Antifa and BLM are regularly killing police? On what planet?
I would guess he's talking about the high-profile shooting of five Dallas police officers [wikipedia.org] and the subsequent victims' relatives' lawsuit against BLM. However, we don't have any evidence the shooter was a member of BLM, just that he was angry over police shootings of black men. He was once a member of the New Black Panther Party, but they kicked him out because they thought he was too dangerous.
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The shooter was ex-military, too:
Yes, you are completely batshit. (Score:3)
JFK slashed taxes, sent thousands of "advisors" to continue France's colonialist occupation of Vietnam, and lied his ass off about a "missile gap", that dramatically escalated the cold war. He also forgot to mention in his televised speech on Cuba that the entire reason the USSR wanted to place missiles there was to counter the nuclear-armed Jupiter missiles the United States had just installed in Turkey. He was also happy to play the racist card in a primary debate: "You say you are
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FTFY: [salon.com]
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You have got to be joking. The Left has a firm chokehold on EVERY button of the "societal machine", which is the reason Trump was elected -
The societal machine that voted the right wing into both houses and the president? That's one hell of a chokehold! If the right wing was able to swing into such a strong position, then the left pretty much by definition didn't have a chokehold.
You can't logic your way into the right being in power somehow showing how the left is in power.
That sand was Trump
And both hou
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The Right has the levers of power we're allowed to vote on. The rest of society we don't vote on, and they're hard left dominated.
All those bible belt religious grass roots churches etc are left wing? Huh! TIL!
As a Leftist told me recently:
Yeah maybe, but that round like a right winger's idea of what a leftwinger sounds like.
Lather, rinse, repeat (Score:3)
It's all well and good to make another site, but let's be honest: reddit does about as good a job as anyone is going to do with a centralized discussion service. The only possible way to improve it is to create a decentralized alternative.
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S/N ratio.
It's generally better now. But the first rule of Usenet is don't talk about...No carrier.
Fools (Score:5, Insightful)
>"We have no ads, no tracking, no user profiling and we don't collect or share any user data with anyone
Two things will happen if the site survives a significant length of time:
1) Whoever is funding it will become a dictator, deleting posts and banning posters with whom they disagree, without admitting they're doing it and in fact doing their best to keep the fact a secret.
2) When the money runs out, they'll convince themselves that 'just a little bit of advertising is OK', and slowly sell out.
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Unverifiable claims are not to be trusted. (Score:2)
The claims of "no ads, no tracking, no user profiling and we don't collect or share any user data with anyone" is unverifiable and possibly already untrue. It's not wise to put much stock in such claims. This is one of the problems of the modern website: even altruistic admins who want to set up a valuable service that genuinely does not advertise to user, track users, profile users, collect data, or share data about users can't be trusted. StartPage.com and Ixquick.com are websearch sites run by the same o
"Leftist" banned from Reddit? LOLOLOLOLOL... (Score:1, Flamebait)
On the flip side all you have to do is question the status quo and you can be banned if you're not drinking the lefty kool-aid.
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Did you just assume a gender? You’re worse than hitler.
As an insult, a "cunt" can be either male or female. (See especially The Hound from Game of Thrones)
Wait, wait ... leftists are now being banned? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then what's left on Reddit?
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Anti-left isn't pro-right. Just because I don't like Stalin doesn't mean I'm a fan of Hitler, dammit.
Get it into your thick skull that being against one kind of cancer doesn't automatically mean that someone adores a different kind. They're BOTH abhorrent. I know that it's unfashionable to look for a middle ground and that you treat those that try like the blue-helmet soldiers that try to stand between Israel and Palestine, getting shot at by both sides.
And frankly, I wonder why I stand here. Please go ahea
Great, more echo chambers (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, that's just what we need now.
Reddit is already leftist (Score:2, Flamebait)
I'm not clear. (Score:2)
Just what is a radical leftist? Additionally, what differentiates a radical leftist from a radical rightest? Does the radical mean you act on your beliefs instead of just espousing them?
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Both are actually good examples of radicals. We could simply sum it up with "Radicals are people that resort to violence to solve disagreements" though even that mostly ignores pacifists who are radical in their ideology ("Healthcare must be free and paid for by the government for all living organism in the universe" would be a radical position for instance).
Depends if you think radical is a synonym for extremist or absolutist, or if you want radical to stand on its own.
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> We could simply sum it up with "Radicals are people that resort to violence to solve disagreements".
That definition has some difficulty with its broadness. It includes the homeowner who shot down the drone over his private property. It also includes the Allied military freeing the Holocaust victims at Dachau. It also includes divorced people who murder their former spouses.
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>> Just what is a radical leftist?
Same as a radical rightist, (other than political agenda). Those that attempt to silence anyone with views that don't exactly mirror their own.
>> what differentiates a radical leftist from a radical (sic) rightest?
Political alignment/agenda, that's all.
>> Does the radical mean you act on your beliefs instead of just espousing them?
No, because everyone acts on their beliefs at some level.
Voat? (Score:4, Informative)
So, I'm guessing Voat wouldn't have them, either? That alone should probably tell you most of these people are fuckwits of the highest order in the first place.
Leftists are doing Ok generally (Score:1)
It's anyone expressing skepticism about "prolitariate of all counties unite" who has to worry about their jobs, web hosting and physical safety. Being a socially centrist libertarian or a 90s Democrat seems sufficient to prove wrath of the revolutionaries.
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It's anyone expressing skepticism about "prolitariate of all counties unite" who has to worry about their jobs, web hosting and physical safety.
That's absolute utter rot.
Lessons of history (Score:3)
Even though nowadays those leftists may look ridiculous, in certain conditions such as a massive war, division of society into poor and rich, widespread homelessness, famine, etc. these ideas may again attract a public attention.
At least, the history demonstrates that it is a realistic possibility. Besides, it is proven already that the overeating causes health problems, spending time in a luxurious house as opposite to hiking, running at a stadium, etc. is also problematic. So, perhaps, an investment in helping people in need could be a good insurance against losing everything.
They forgot about what (Score:3, Insightful)
"To me, the biggest problem with Reddit is how its administrators ignore the routine harassment and witch-hunts of marginalized people that takes place, with r/The_Donald being the most prominent example,"
Never mind that Reddit has done a lot to silence that (and other non-leftist) community under that exact excuse. After they dealt with the Violentacrez incident, they went from a user-driven site to an admin-driven site with highly-left leanings.
Re:Liberals create echo chamber (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think Liberal == Radical Leftist, then you have your head up your ass.
Peoples' political views can fall across a wide spectrum. It's convenient to demonize your opponents by shoving them all to one extreme end of that spectrum. Convenient and wrong.
Re: Liberals create echo chamber (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a colleague who said "fucking liberals" when I told him it's stupid to think that electric car technology isn't going to improve in the future.
To him, liberal is just an insult, he has no idea what it actually means.
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To him, liberal is just an insult, he has no idea what it actually means.
Not surprising. Here is what it actually means:
lib-er-al
adjective
1. open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values; favorable to or respectful of individual rights and freedoms; (in a political context) favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform; (Theology) regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.
2. (of education) concerned mainly with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rath
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Used to mean 'In favor of Liberty'. Not for a long time though.
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Not for a long time though.
For some sure, but for a lot of us liberals it still does. I've never told said colleague to shut up when he starts talking about coons, sand n*ggers, spastics, etc. I just walk away - he's free to believe that some people are intellectually inferior based on the colour of their skin, and I'm free to think he's a horrible human being.
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The leftist-run forum exists because they're not happy that Reddit won't ban posts they disagree with, so they created their own forum to do so. This is exactly how the left operates.
Yeah, just like that paragon of sensibility, Conservapedia!
D-bags of either side do the same thing, they just pretend they're justified when they do so.
Re: How typical of leftists (Score:5, Insightful)
Left winger here. I'll happily debate politics with people interested in a calm (if passionate) rational discussion. I will not waste my time arguing with somebody spewing racist dogwhistles with no intention of listening or thinking about the points made.
Re: How typical of leftists (Score:5, Insightful)
I prefer to not call people nazis unless they are actually nazis. I find it lessens the impact of the term to misuse it.
And rational does not mean they agree with me - far from it. Rational means their arguments and positions support their professed viewpoints, nothing more or less. I have no interest in having arguments with people that won't be honest with themselves or me.
If somebody tells me that public health care is bad because the government wastes tons of money despite heaps of evidence to the contrary, I cannot have a debate with them because they do not believe in research, logic, or honest debate. If they tells me public health care is bad because the government's role is not to provide health care, then I can talk with them, because while I disagree with that viewpoint there's nothing wrong with the logic itself.
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Ah, yes, so you get to set the terms of the debate before it even starts. Agree with me, or I judge you lose before it starts.
I usually describe this as: "Do as I say, not as I do." It invariably creates a blind spot for the "invisible" activity, but also undermines the ability of the mind to see the truth in general because the mind has become used to lying to itself so it won't see the things it is not supposed to see. Obviously, at this point, the mind itself cannot detect truth and falsity, because
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He said a rational debate, not a parade of strawmen. If you're not willing to assume good faith, then you're right, you're not going to have any kind of discussion.
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Again, typical of the left. Can't debate the substance of the posts so you respond with labels. You label my post a troll, just like the left freely labels anyone who disagrees with them a racist
You swing in, casting aspersions about a huge number of people you don't know, throwing insults around casually, and then start crying when someone fires back. (Oh my God, he called you a TROLL. How will you survive?). Not to mention the crying over the anticipated moderation of your flamebait trolling.
You are the flakiest of the very special snowflakes.