Soon after I joined Lemmy a few years ago, I searched for communities based on my interests and subscribed to the ones with the highest numbers of users to ensure they are active. Sometimes I joined multiple, but then saw that some people post the same thing to more than one, cluttering my feed, so I left the smaller ones.
It's only after my community ban from !games@hexbear.net for disagreeing about Ukraine that I was told about MeanwhileOnGrad, learning exactly what "the tankie triad" means and why big Lemmy instances have defederated from those. Lemmy.ml, where the ML probably stands for Marxist-Leninist, seems to have been defederated by fewer, possibly because it's run by the creator of Lemmy, Dessalines. Nevertheless, there is evidence of Dessalines holding the same authoritarian communist views as the rest.
Recently, there were two posts on !privacy@lemmy.ml about Signal, but then in both cases, admin davel (who is known on MoG for seeing CIA's hand in running Ukraine, among other things) and Dessalines linked (1, 2, 3) the same article by Dessalines, which not only argues Signal could be a CIA honeypot (as if it matters when proper e2ee is used), but also manages to shoehorn China even into that, claiming its government "prefers autonomy". This sort of portrayal of totalitarianism as sovereignty is the reason I unsubscribed from the community. As it has been said by others, ML is not a neutral instance but a means of pushing authoritarian views onto unsuspecting users.
Edit: Made the post title clearer.
Getting closer and closer to that! The reason I made this post to begin with is to do a PSA, because it took me months of being subscribed to games on Hexbear to notice it's not a leftist community as it presents itself, but authoritarian communist. So I can't be certain all of their users are in the know, but is it worth keeping the instances unblocked if the bad outweighs the possibility of good?
no you're not missing out on anything
these servers were some of the first which is why they appear to have a lot of communities
all the communities have moved on or been replaced on other servers so these servers are now a tiny fraction (faction? hoho) of the fediverse, exactly for the reason you experienced
Much of the “left” communities here veer towards the auth right with a light “left rebranding”
you can kick rocks with your horseshoe theory
Someone should tell their anarchists. If you only want to interact with pro-imperialism leftists, that's ok.
Are you aware Russia and China are imperialist too
Russia maybe, but imperialism doesn't just mean "big country does stuff" or what you're referring to with China; big country refuses to balkanize against the wishes of it's own population. We know what imperialism looks like in the neocolonial era, it's comprador governments kept in place with military aid, selling the people's labor and resources for pennies to their benefactors.
Compare the development of countries that work with China to mutually develop, resulting in production of higher-value products, verses say French Africa exporting raw gold and coco to factories owned by France for over a century, with as much poverty today as a century ago, or South America's century of "developing" without ever approaching the living standards the first world enjoys off their labor.
Russia definitely.
China definitely.
Your comment history seems to be full of trolling anarchist communities, so it seems you misrepresented yourself as the reasonable voice of leftism. And isn't that what the whole post here is about.
Yeah no if you're using such a silly definition, Cuba is Imperialist.
Mocking liberals and "anarchists" whose foreign policy aligns perfectly with their government isn't trolling.
I like how I linked to a specific part of that article that bypasses the typical rebuttals from trolls, so you had to pretend I hadn't.
And yes you are gatekeeping a community you clearly don't belong to. Quite poorly at that.
I'm pretty sure they didn't even click the link
Tibetans were invaded in an act of colonialism and live under colonial occupation. If you don't think so you haven't talked to many Tibetans about it.
They were a slave-based theocracy who was liberated. While I don't know much about current policy and recent history in the region, its hard to take any criticism seriously from someone who doesn't acknowledge freeing slaves as unambiguously good.
Nope, never been to Tibet. Have you? What Tibetans have you spoken to?
It was none of China's business and they didn't leave after. Cool motive, still colonizing.
Should have left so the US could airdrop their former slave-masters into the country with a shitton of guns, like they did?
They never should have been there. What part of "none of China's business" do you not understand?
You think people should just ignore literal slavery?
No.
But you don't think China should have liberated the people of Tibet from slavery?
Why are you asking questions I already answered? Quit wasting my time. Fuck.
Do understand how someone can be confused that you don't think they should have ignored it, but you also don't think they should have freed them?
Do you think China should have just written strongly worded letters to the Lamas?
Lived with a family in Ladakh for a month. They have an interesting perspective... and a society that presents a way forward from the medieval semi-feudalism you call slavery. They are also living under colonialism but with very different outcomes than Tibet.
I lived in Dharamsala for six weeks. I have talked to a lot of other Tibetans from the refugee diaspora. Their proposed modernization would look a lot like Bhutan. Are the Bhutanese slaves?
You'd have to compare Bhutan to Tibet in the right timeframe.
Early 1900s both were theocratic autocracies in the designs of the British Empire's sphere of influence.
Bhutan got absorbed into the British control. Tibet effectively became a vassal of the Qing dynasty in response to the British invasion.
Tibet pretty much was given autonomy through the rest of the Qing Dynasty, ignored by the KMT, and then after the civil war the CCP removed the system that placed the Dalai Lama as the head of state and government The Tibetan government in exile reformed over decades and only first directly elected a leader in the 2000s.
It's unnecessarily hyperbolic to call either the modern Tibetans or Bhutanese as slaves, either way.
That narrative does not align with the lived experience of Tibetans. It does align with Beijing.