I’m finally making the switch from Reddit. The Voyager app seems like a pretty seamless transition, but I’d love to hear any tips about using this platform, or what quirks distinguish it from Reddit as a whole.
I think (absolutely IMHO) Reddit commenting is more confrontational. Sure, we have that here, but on Reddit I would get slapped down often, because I’m not that smart and I make mistakes. My clumsy way was chum in the water for the sharks.
Not here. I feel like people here, EVEN WHEN THEY GET MAD, can be spoken to, even apologized to, and together you can be okay. Not agree necessarily, but not ugly or unkind.
I’ve seen a few new people here try the “smack em for being stupid” technique, and mostly it gets them downvotes and criticism. I really love that about being here.
It feels much safer for the sensitive.
That’s refreshing to hear actually. Reddit can be a pretty unfriendly place depending on what corners you spend your time. I think in today’s tumultuous and divisive political/cultural landscape we need neighborliness more than ever.
Try commenting on stuff here, fun times.
Be careful though because Lemmy is a great echo chamber 😅
You’re right.
By default it’s mostly politics and linux unless you browse for individual subs
I don’t like that…
I made a list of casual communities on Lemmy awhile ago https://lemmy.world/post/2216085 just subscribe to stuff you like and curate your own feed. Block the politics subs. Boom.
You’re gonna look around and see a few old accounts and think you missed the early bus. You didn’t. We’re still pioneering.
If you think “why isn’t there a community for this” or “why isn’t anyone posting to this community” it’s because we’re small and we need people like you to fix those issues!
Welcome!
Lemmy.world is the boring “normie” instance and you’ll find it much friendlier than this place if you’re not a committed Marxist-Leninist ( that’s what ML stands for)
There are a bunch of Anarchists on Lemmy.ml, as well as liberals and Social Democrats. Lemmygrad.ml is the Marxist-Leninist instance, Lemmy.ml is more of a generalist instance, but the users, mods, and admins lean Marxist.
Just being nitpicky, really.
You have to curate your feed yourself. Personally I use the all feed and block what I don’t like because I enjoy seeing new communities. I also recommend the jerboa app if you have an android, its free, open-source, made by lemmy devs, and doesn’t have ads.
Also many of us are communists or anarchists so prepare for political takes you aren’t used to.
And lemmy.ml communities are often managed by pro-communists and they don’t like if you don’t trash talk capitalism as much as they want you to
That’s a sad part of Lemmy
Time to make accounts in lemmy.ml
I don’t think they are that dogmatic too.
Like, they seem to support China lead by a Socialist/Communist/Marxist political leadership, that declares its aim as transitioning into socialism by 2050 or so.They often leave a dogmatic impression when someone says something which is completely normal to hear and say in (for example) the USA, but is unknowingly bigoted or ignorant misinformation. The .ml admins have no time for that and I think its unfortunate that there’s little attempt at linking them to resourced that explain why their post was prejudiced, because it’s usually not intentional or heartless.
One can absolutely critisise China there and you’ll probably end up banned if you aren’t critical of the Russian Federation. I’ve made posts on Lemmygrad challenging their notion of China’s form of worker democracy. But certain popular critiques are just bigoted or unfounded propaganda which the admins will ban people for, so it comes off as just shutting down opposing viewpoints. And that’s really unfortunate.
Said China doesn’t respect human rights because they’re doing a Uyghurs genocide, got banned from !memes@lemmy.ml
Yea, China #1, we love that they spy on their citizens, and don’t have freedom of speech
So you spouted the standard route “China bad” takes.
Sure. China bad, USA bad, Russia bad. So? Doesn’t make my criticism invalid, nor misinformation.
There’s just a biased moderation that censors people that have strong takes against some countries.
It’s the same tedious thought terminating cliches that western chauvinists are pre-progammed to repeat. Many of them are misinformation, (like the “Uyghur genocide” narrative), but most of them don’t even have enough substance to even get to that level.
Right on lol. I’m a socialist leaning democratic socialist but I can appreciate that communism gets a bad rap—and the current US administration is radicalizing me more than ever, so I’m happy to get pulled further to the dark side.
Since you did ask, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list after the US election in the hopes of helping those increasingly radicalized along their political journeys! I also wrote a post on how to determine if an overall system is Capitalist or Socialist, from a Marxist perspective.
As a side-note, Socialism is generally seen by Marxists as the intermediate stage between Capitalism and Communism, with Communism as a fully publicly owned, global democratic economy with thorough planning, and Socialism as a society where Private ownership has become subservient to the public sector and now Public ownership is the principle aspect, which is the method of getting to Communism. No country has achieved Communism, which must be global, but many have achieved Socialism.
A bit on “Democratic Socialism,” and how it differs from Marxism-Leninism:
Democratic Socialism usually can refer to either something like the Nordic Countries, which would technically better fit the term "Social Democracy* as private ownership of Capital is the principle aspect of their economies, or as Socialism achieved through electoral means, ie public ownership as the principle aspect of their economies.
I say “principle” as no system is “pure,” every country has a public and private sector, but the public sector in China and Cuba, for example, has far more power than the Private through having firm control of large firms and key industry, while in the Nordics the public sector is in support of the private. The Nordics also rely on international exploitation in order to fund their safety nets, meaning it isn’t a system that could be adopted by just anyone with the same results, it requires winners and losers.
As for how it compares to Marxism-Leninism:
- Both Democratic Socialism and Marxism-Leninism are democratic. The model of democracy most MLs support, however, usually isn’t focused on having many parties, but more direct influence from the workers within government at large. Here’s an example from the Soviet Union:
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Democratic Socialists usually wish to achieve Socialism through elections, while MLs are revolutionary. Just like you can’t just ask a billionaire to give you their money, MLs don’t believe you can simply ask them to implement a system that dramatically weakens and eventually erases their power when they control the State.
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Democratic Socialism is generally a far less defined, while Marxism-Leninism has a rich history of testing theory to practice, and changing over time. This is because Marxism-Leninism is almost always going to be the underlying ideology of any country deemed “Communist,” such as the PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, former USSR, and more. This means MLs are usually more in agreement than disagreement with each other.
And that’s enough to go off of, I think! Let me know if you habe any questions, though the reading list is my recommendation for a good place to start. It even has audiobooks for most of the listed works as alternatives, as well as links to epubs or pdfs.
