Ask Lemmy

Lemmy, the social network, started off as a leftist hangout spot.

From the perspective of "Open Source developers who are anti-Reddit pro-Fediverse", it makes a lot of sense for Leftist/Communist and anti-corporation leaning people to hang out.

After all, the more extreme the viewpoint, the more driven to action (ie: write tens-of-thousands of lines of code and release for free) people get. In some regards, its the nature of Open Source + volunteer effort to attract a more extreme ideology. IE: Free Software is driven by ideology, not by money. So you get ideological people, especially when the software is small and niche.

The July 2023 Reddit Blackout was a big challenge for Lemmy's old community and the new community, as the new community basically "invaded" a large scale leftist hangout spot. But hopefully we all learn to work together and the nature of our neighbors moving forward.

I think anyone here (likely everyone?) is at least on the anti-corporate anti-Reddit side of the discussion. Which is enough of an alliance to keep us together, for now.

It does mean that we'll have to keep up with the far-left old-timers on this network who wish to push their viewpoints. But they are the legacy and the start of Lemmy in some respects, even as the hypergrowth (starting in July 2023) has moderated the community pretty severely.

Multiple reasons.

1. Lemmy was crested by and is maintained by Marxist-Leninists.

2. Lemmy's structure and rejection of the Profit Motive is in line with Communist ideals, and attracts Communists and other leftists over Reddit, which is Capitalist.

3. FOSS in general is supported by Communists and Anarchists.

Be careful where you tread here. You must be careful to separate "communists" (people who believe in economic reorganization away from the power of capital) and "tankies" (those who support corrupt regimes that project the illusion of communism).

There are indeed quite a few communists and various other alt-camp political spectrum believers on here. They do have quite liberal beliefs but don't typically cause much of a fuss, because rational people can coexist with differing beliefs... and i dont mind them one bit. But the tankes, like lemmygrad, hexbear, etc, do stir up an anti-west "commie propaganda"fuss every chance they get, without being related to actual communism, especially if one mentions a hot button like Israel or Ukraine. And if you get into an argument with a tankie, they will just sling mud on you and call you a Nazi.

The cool part is, you can filter a lot of the chaff by just blocking the ugly instances from your user settings page (since Lemmy supports that now), blocking frequent flyers, and trimming/moving your subscribed community list to other, often smaller instances. A minimal amount of effort VASTLY increases the quality of content you'll see on lemmy.

Especially people who never lived in a communist state

Communism is by definition a society without a state, so nobody has ever lived in a communist state and I doubt there has ever been a communist society in recorded history.

I've lived all my life under capitalism and I hate it.

I've read Marx, (for real, grab the book and read it!) and I see the dude does have a point.

Because there are a lot of communists on lemmy?

Some can be very annoying. If you haven't blocked hexbear, I highly recommend it. They got exiled from reddit years ago and have been stewing in a tankie echo chamber ever since.

Guys please check the list of the communist countries and come back to me to tell if you want to live in there, ok?

I'm beginning to see why people call lemmy.world the Reddit of the fediverse

“I’m 17 and I hate communism”

😂 enough said. Come back when you’re a bit older and a bit wiser.

Why do you hate communism?

Nobody has ever actually done real communism on a national scale. The closest is probably the USSR, but that was a disaster because it was an authoritarian dictatorship that funneled money and power to the top. People only got token representation, the people were not actually in charge of anything, they got no real say in their leadership. Doesn’t matter that it was structured like communism says it should be, the reality of it was anything but communism.

Real communism would probably be pretty decent. There wouldn’t be too much to hate about it other than what you’d dislike in any government.

The problem is the humans running it. It’s a constant battle against power-hungry and self-serving people being in charge, just like any government, and no nation espousing communism has ever managed to prevent authoritarianism and basic kleptocratic people from settling in and running the show.

• I am not for communism or here to espouse any virtues it might have. The concept of communism certainly has appeal and presents many benefits, however the reality of implementation and human nature virtually guarantee it will never achieve its intended form.

It is a communist platform, you will find communists

why not? if you'd like a more capitalist experience you can always go to reddit. don't forget to download their shitty app that no longer has competitors.