You could share this sublemmy’s pinned post, or the megathread it links to:

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/10901

https://rentry.co/megathread

Ik it’s only anecdotal, but I played Brawl Stars when it was in beta and witnessed almost all its updates until global launch (and have caught up with some more recent updates here and there). It went from a genuinely fun mobile game with character and potential to a plastic husk primed for whatever monetisation and “engagement” strategies analytics says needs to be shoved into it next.

At the time I couldn’t fathom how all those updates that often made gameplay and progression less fun could ever be more “engaging” (the change from portrait to landscape in particular felt like straight up poor game design, trashing its unique mobile control schemes in favour of digital twin joysticks and “autoaim”), but in hindsight it’s clear what that really meant.

Oh I don’t doubt that those in power are complicit in the exploitation (I disagree with calling it feudalism, however). Ridding themselves of responsibility by blaming colonialism sounds akin to Israel deflecting criticism by claiming anti-semitism.

The statist perspective is unable to properly address these inequalities and injustices because it cannot reject the hierarchical power structures that caused them in the first place. Foreign intervention is just colonialism 2.0, but the more “reactive” alternative is just leading to a situation where measuring immigrants by their worth as ‘skilled workers’ and ‘ease of integration’ is pragmatic. I’m not gonna deny that there’s a kind of sense to this, because that’s exactly what makes it so worrying. At least with the old racist pseudoscience we can point and laugh at how nonsensical it was.

Ah, fuck, I usually at the very least skim things before I share but this time I just assumed from the title… my bad, the article has nothing to do with this topic.

Still, my general point is that European colonialism in Africa can’t be considered a “solved” issue, because of capitalism’s (and ‘western’ capitalists’) roles in continuing to exploit its natural resources and perpetuating systemic wealth inequalities. I think that profling populations by nation/culture is a fundamentally flawed way of approaching the difficulties of (mass) immigration, plus it’s an even more dangerous road to go down. Whatever the qualities of cultures and hegemonies that persist in whichever regions, populations aren’t homogenous, and states fail to represent their peoples.

Of course, there are many factors and actors involved in the many social instabillties / conflicts plaguing the world, and anything I might value as an anarchist (e.g. open borders and mutual / humanitarian aid) would be nonsensical to apply as government policies. I don’t have a ‘counter’ solution to propose.

lf all this is “thought terminating” in the sense that I’m unwlling to go down the path of ‘pragmatism’ in which peoples’ worth is profiled and measured and weighed, then so be it. As I see it, that kind of thinking as part of problem, not the solution.

Look, I’m always down for learning more about history, but who’s “Nigeria”? To who was “Nigeria” selling slaves to? Modern states are never representative of specific / homogeneous cultures, let alone individual peoples, let alone societies from before the state was even formed. After skimming a few wiki articles, it’s clear that the region has had its own fair share of struggles against authorities, slavery, and racism, even before European colonisation, some of which continue currently.

Still, none of this reached the scale of european colonisation / “the scramble for Africa”, and the continued political and economic influence and control that ‘the West’ continues to hold and wield (neocolonialism / recolonisation). I know nowhere near enough about critical theory, but I’m sure these processes can be understood as a form of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation (I wasn’t able to find a freely available copy, but this article seems like it could be a relevant, interesting read: Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization of the Orisha Religion in Africa and the New World (Nigeria, Cuba and the United States).)

Regarding Syria, “my approach” would be simply to support more movements / projects like Rojava (which is clearly not something that ‘western’ political powers are interested in doing). As an anarchist I don’t think liberation from state authority can be achieved through state authority.

Fix the laws?

Good joke!

So… are we gonna pretend that colonialism played no part, and continues to play no part (via capitalism), in today’s “material conditions”?

How many racisms does one have to do before they can be considered “far right” enough to be called a nazi?

Recognising mass-immigrantion as non-ideal can be valid if coming from a place of compassion. But with this perspective, mass-immigration is seen as a symptom of wider socioeconomic problems (or non-societal factors such as natural disasters), not as a problem in itself that needs to be “fixed” by sending immigrants “back home”.

Furthermore, seeing immigration as a cause for socioeconomic problems only comes from a place of racism, ascribing negative expectations to people according to their country of origin / culture / ethnicity. It is clear that you stand with this camp from how you phrased what you think “the left” thinks:

“Immigration is good from any country in the world and if you have any reservations what so ever you’re racist”.

It implies that a person’s country of origin plays a factor in whether or not they can be considered a “good” immigrant. That’s racist.

…and it was all a dream.

Well, you’re not using the typical meaning of the word.

Communism is really just a “stateless, moneyless, classless society”, built on the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. “Egalitarian” gets thrown around too but is considered inadequate by some for often meaning an equality of sorts between classes rather than the abolition of class.

“Commie” is just a derogatory word for “communist”. The distinction you’re making isn’t really meaningful.

Stalin and Mao were Marxist-Leninists. Perhaps they truly believed that a “vanguard” party controlling a totalitarian “socialist” state was the best way to reach communism. History of course proved them wrong - the way that they structured their states and economies unsurprisingly resulted in state capitalism.

Idk enough about Orban but he strikes me to be the same as Putin, a totalitarian capitalist.

What do you think communism means?

Horseshoe theory strikes again

When you talk about communism, are you talking about marxist-leninist / socialist states, or communism the idea(l) itself? Also how familiar are you with anarchism?

It seems that in the same way, people in this discussion have defined that communism is the mechanism for being generous and being willing to contribute to society.

You’re not far off, but yes that is more or less all that “communism” is:

a classless, stateless, humane society based on common ownership, follows the maxim “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

There is no prescription for how this may be achieved or how it might operate. Marxist-leninists want to reach it with a vanguard party and a socialist state, and this reflects how they see revolution as an event. Anarcho-communists instead see revolution as a process, and praxis takes the form of grassroots movements, aiming to bring about the necessary social change, building systems of free association from the ground up.

They don’t exist

Of course capitalism operates in a lot of gray areas, it’s how it seems freer than it actually is. “I need food” isn’t always a problem, but it is one often enough to be systemically problematic. Abandoning one’s hopes and dreams because one must be “realistic” is the norm.

Social democracy isn’t really socialist…

Anyways it’s just good to know that FOSS is built upon anarchist principles (of course, this doesn’t mean every FOSS project is anarchist) and is a great example of free association in practice. It helps demystify anarchism and communism.

Also what “delusions” are you talking about? Marxist-leninist ones?

I hope this is a lightbulb moment for you

Scandinavian corporatist-social-democrat*

deleted by creator