this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Zdzisław Beksiński. Untitled, 1973

Certain strains of accelerationist anarchism, particularly those you find online, are just celebrating the oppression and death of minorities with a tacky veneer of “for the greater good” smeared over, change my mind.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

People assume that human rights are in the natural order. Human rights are fictional and can be revoked. There is no such thing as an inalienable right. It's so funny how many of the people who have this foundational belief aren't religious.

Edit: since I'm no good with words: Fascism bad. Human rights not guaranteed. You've gotta fight for your right to party.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Wait I’m confused can you explain how this relates to the post

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Certain strains of accelerationist anarchism, particularly those you find online, are just celebrating the oppression and death of minorities with a tacky veneer of “for the greater good” smeared over,

I'm commenting that this attitude is borne from the fatal misunderstanding of human rights. These people probably assume that from the ashes, a better world will rise.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

“Killing innocent people is chill sometimes because human rights are fictional and can be revoked”

That’s what I’m getting from you here, feel free to correct me but this is prettyyyyyy despicable sounding lol.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm apparently not communicating well. I'm saying the attitude that is willing to open the gates to fascism arises from a belief that human rights are assured. In the natural order, human rights are not guaranteed and must be maintained by people and civilization

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

okay yeah you might want to rewrite your comment lol I think I get what you’re saying but it was not at all clear from your first messages.

“passivity leads to fascism; human rights must be fought for in order to be maintained” might be closer to your intent.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Ehh I have COVID and the brain fog is real. Who knows what I'm even saying at this point. I read this interesting anthropology book that traced humanity from pre-homo sapien to present. It introduced me to the notion that human rights are a fiction. They only have any effect when we give them effect. Who knows if that's even the right effect/affect?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I hear you :( wishing you a significant and speedy recovery!

And affect is the verb, so you used the correct one here :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Coming back to this. This piece of art real stoked some great debate. Nice post.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Affect is also a noun. And effect is also a verb.

You have a flat affect.

You can effect change.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

yeah just using the more common definitions here, english sucks lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

people probably assume that from the ashes, a better world will rise.

If you're trapped in a slaughterhouse, the best you can hope for is that the giant death machine breaks before it gets to you. Even then, you don't have any more control over the situation than your fellow cows who consider getting turned into hamburger some kind of necessary evil.

At some point, maybe a country that exists as a colossal intercontinental war machine would be better off in ashes. Certainly, the US exodus from Vietnam and the end of Apartheid in South Africa and the collapse of fascism in Europe was better for the world than the alternatives, even if the immediate aftermath was ugly.

But getting mad at someone for hoping these industrial scale death machines fall apart is absurd. What the hell is someone's fucking wishful thinking doing to change actual policy or social function? Are you going to kick in Anne Frank's door and wag your finger at her because she doesn't realize how bad Dresden is going to be for the Germans? Are you going to shake your fist at Ayn Rand for daring to think the end of the USSR would make the world a better place?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Maybe my view is obscured by my own privileges, but I don't think we're in the slaughterhouse. The fact that you can write this long post calling for the potential end of America proves it. Do you think this type of rhetoric would be acceptable in Russia, the Soviet Union, or the Nazi Reich?

We talk as though we live in an outright fascist dictatorship. We live in a Republic in decline.

But getting mad at someone for hoping these industrial scale death machines fall apart is absurd.

I'm not mad at anyone. I'm just posing a cautionary warning to not throw out the baby with the bath water.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The fact that you can write this long post calling for the potential end of America proves it.

Lemmy exists because of the large scale capture and bulk censorship of social media. Hell, just ask what happened to Aaron Swartz.

We talk as though we live in an outright fascist dictatorship. We live in a Republic

Republicanism does not preclude fascist policy. Just ask the Russians or the Indians or the Columbians or the Israelis.

What we're doing domestically, and on an international scale, is fascist in all but name.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy exists because of the large scale capture and bulk censorship of social media. Hell, just ask what happened to Aaron Swartz.

But you can make these statements on Facebook, X, and Reddit too. You also don't need a VPN to access this information.

Also, I can openly discuss US massacres against indigenous populations. Can Chinese citizens openly discuss the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs? Can Russians post pictures making fun of Putin? Russians can't even be gay.

My point is that, while America isn't great, it's not as bad as some of the fire eaters make it sound.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

But you can make these statements on Facebook, X, and Reddit too.

Maybe. Unless a LibsOfTikTok account comes by, flags it, and unleashes a legion of flying monkeys to report hysterically until it's taken down.

What you're describing isn't free speech.. It's security through obscurity.

Also, I can openly discuss US massacres against indigenous populations. Can Chinese citizens openly discuss the Chinese genocide of the Uyghurs?

Firstly, no you can't. "Woke" academics, teachers, and journalists routinely lose their jobs and platforms for openly discussing US genocide. From Donahue to Katy Halper, we've got a decades long history of people getting sacked for questioning our police state at home and wars abroad.

Secondly, yes they do. Unfortunately, it is very hard to get Chinese national news and social media via American search tools because it is routinely censored. The best I can give you on short notice is Al Jazeera coverage of Chinese coverage.. But the idea that people in China just don't know anything is happening in Xinjiang is about as absurd as claiming Americans don't know what's happening in Palestine.

Same with Russia. They get round the clock news coverage of Ukraine, both through domestic and international press. They are well aware what Americans accuse them of, in the same way we're aware of what Iran and Syria accuse us of.

while America isn’t great, it’s not as bad as some

It's not so bad, because we're not the ones getting the business end of a military crusade.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

All valid points. I'll admit, I just don't have the bandwidth to stay up to date on Chinese media, so no doubt some of my view is colored by US propaganda.

Regardless, you should know that I really like your username.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Honestly, I was just shooting from the hip. But I'm glad you like it.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The idea that there's rights you're entitled to just because you're a human being who deserves a basic standard of decency from your fellow humans is not actually just made up nonsense.

Some bastard with a stick can pretend they're revokable, but when the revolution comes for them, it'll be their head on display in the public square as the people celebrate the triumph of their liberties over some warlord with a deficiency of moral character.

Yes even if they're some faux intellectual who justified it with ass backwards "theory."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Where do those rights stem from? If people suddenly accepted they didn't exist would they still exist? Rights must be vigorously maintained.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The "pretending" is fully real, but perhaps temporary.

There will be no deus ex machina to protect rights

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Accelerationists when the country they wish would seppuku doesn't just slip quietly in the night or disappear like they never existed and hundreds of millions of people die as a result of its death throes:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Accelerationists

An accelerationist is just a nihilist who see a silver lining at the end. They don't have any more control than the rest of us.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The ones with bunkers and space ships definitely do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

American billionaires are currently wrecking New Zealand by pumping everyone's brains full of fascist bullshit.

But they're not building any kind of long term base of operation. They're locusts. All they know how to do is eat, fuck, and move on.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If it's any consolation, arrogance is one of the most enduring traits of America, and we've endured this long. I remember reading a book back in college about the foreign affairs of the US in its first 30 or so years of existence, and one of the things that always stuck with me, just a minor part of the book, a minor event, was a Spanish ambassador coming away from a meeting with American diplomats bemused at how highly they thought of themselves and how casually they treated him.

We don't have to collapse. Not yet. We might always be a little insufferable though.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I'm still ticked off that user had the gall to celebrate collapse and call others racist. You don't support minorities when you want their circumstances to suffer.

That and they were saying something about natives running the country like they read the phrase land back once and imagined their own fantasy version of the movement.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Yeah like they are entitled to their opinion, whatever, but digging in and doing attacks calling folks racist for not 100% concurring was… rough. Did not love.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Which post are you mentioning? I must have missed it cause that sounds wild.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It's on 196

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Honestly I think they're betting they can threaten the lowlies who'll be in actual danger into compliance with their interests.

They see us as pawns, and when we refuse to be used as such they'll let us be martyrs to their cause long before they'll even tolerate us as agents of our own.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Probably a good idea.