MULTIVERSE is a PieFed instance for soulists. Our rules are designed to create a safe space for minorities, including those considered unreal by society. We are also an anarchist instance and do not allow tankie propaganda. We aim for transparent and fair moderation in line with the principles of anarcho-antirealism, and to be fertile ground for discussion of soulist ideology. We also aim to be intuitive to use for new fediverse denizens who don't care how federation works, and are just interested in the politics. Our manifesto can be found at http://soulism.net/.

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[–] Lauchmelder@feddit.org 6 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

I skimmed the manifesto because I felt like I was about to waste my time. Since reality is to be rejected, the only thing that matters is your perception, which you should subjugate to your will in order to.... well that's what the manifesto doesn't really answer. At least not satisfyingly.

Their objective is to spread kindness, so subjugate your perception to your will, in order to be more kind to others. An example was rejecting your perception of gender in order to be more kind to trans folks. It was a lot of words to basically say "change your views to accommodate other people's feelings abd make them more comfortable.

But finally, from my understanding of this ideology, yes, murdering others is okay, you can simply reject your perception of their rights. Hope that helps!

The manifesto fails to define any sort of metric of what is considered "kind" or "moral" (doing so would require a reality). But they do define "magic", and then declare that money isn't real, thus commerce is magic.

EDIT: The manifesto is kind of a ramble, hard to follow and doesn't even answer the question of what the hell this philosophy wants from me. Usually a philosophy implies an MO I can adhere to, but this one doesn't really do that. It lists examples of how this philosophy helps queer, trans and neurodivergent folks, but doesn't explain how. Just that it's possible. It doesn't explain why I would want to do that.

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net -1 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Anarcho-antirealism is a political philosophy building upon anarchism, not an ethical philosophy. I deliberately avoided inserting My own views on ethics, because I don't believe they're relevant. There are people with very different ethical views from My own, such as deontologists, with whom I believe a political alliance would still be very beneficial to both of us.

I may one day write a description of My own ethical philosophy on My blog, is that something you'd be interested in reading? I would assume anarcho-antirealism would be applicable to your own personal values if you're aligned with anarchism.

[–] Lauchmelder@feddit.org 5 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

If it’s a political philosophy, then what political points is it trying to make? Because most of the concrete applications of this ideology the manifesto makes are basically that it treats marginalized groups better. And it even fails at that:

Soulism can help us win ideological battles with transphobes who would do our trans friends harm, as well. No matter what assertions they make, we can simply choose to recognise them as not real. Whatever truth lies in their claims is subjective, and it is our choice whether to accept it. Gender, like consensus reality, is a social construct. We have the power of choice over our experience of gender, and this example to others is powerful.

This is honestly delusional. Pretending the transphobes bigotry isn't real doesn't help at all, they can still go ahead and harm trans folks in the reality they live in. I don't think that sticking your head in the sand is the solution to this.

“Magic is observable phenomena caused by things that aren’t real.”

It follows that transphobic hate crimes are magic. This entire section just feels pointless, I just skimmed that paragraph about wizards and dungeons and dragons, and when I read that financial transactions are magic I just stopped reading because I felt like I was wasting my time.

In my understanding, most of the examples given in the manifesto essentially boil down to "I will change my behavior and opinions, because I believe it is the right thing to do". The whole "reality isn't real" and "magic exists" stuff around this are just so confusing, because it is not at all clear how it relates to the examples. The beginning feels more like a rant or ramble about history and metaphysics.

The first conclusion, then, is obvious: Take power over reality for ourselves. Choose kindness, and spread kindness into the values of everyone you meet. Believe in a kind reality, and science will show you that same kindness. This is how you create a better reality.

This is equivalent to stating "be nice"; a request that clearly does not work. All the other stuff in that text about the realities and perception is just noise that distracts from the already very sparse points it's trying to make. I get the feeling that solipsism is a huge inspiration for this ideology. The main issue with solipsism is that it draws no useful conclusions from its main argument. If there is nothing I can extract from solipsism to act on, then it is pointless to advocate for it. Obviously it cannot be disproven, but it also cannot be explicitly proven

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net -3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Alright, here's a concrete example of using magic to help somebody in a clearly beneficial way.

[–] Lauchmelder@feddit.org 5 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

lol ok, i believe you're just taking the piss, and I'm sure it's not just my perception

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

No, they aren't.

People genuinely believe this stuff. Just like they believe in astrology. It's a form of magical thinking, it's a magical political theory. The core premises being 'liberation'... which just means being a delusional twat who thinks reality horrible and scary and the ideology helps then deny it.

In other words, it's the equivalent of a child ignore their parents requests res to do chores in the hope the parent/chores will stop asking.

[–] Grail@multiverse.soulism.net -1 points 17 hours ago

If you join The Outside on Discord, you'll meet many other antirealists and be able to ask them if soulism is a serious and helpful ideology. If the effort I have gone to in preparing these resources and the testimony of others in the community will not convince you, then I will bid you a good day.