Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.
Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.
Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?
It’s illuminating. I used to be a hardcore anarco-capitalist/radical libertarian and that community had exactly the same thought pattern:
… and so on, so that it becomes a given truth that everything the government says is a lie, no matter what.
So then COVID comes along and all the libertarians are “FAUCI LIES! COVID IS JUST FLU!”
A few months (and a lot of Russian influence ) later, these people are believing that mRNA vaccines cause heart disease, etc etc etc
ANYWAY, what’s interesting to me is how these two diametrically opposed ideological communities – Tankies and AnCaps – have almost exactly the same group dynamics pathology.
You think Tankies were anti-vaxxers?
If not, how do you account for that difference?
Me personally? I’d say it’s because Tankies have critical thinking skills.
Tankies and ancaps both want to be unrestricted in their capacity to dominate others. The only difference is their proposed mechanism of domination.
Sure, that’s why the absolute greatest poverty alleviation programs have come from Tankies
Yeah, it’s so easy to solve poverty when you just kill all the poor people, take their grain, and distribute it to everyone who passes your purity test as a True Believer (which is everyone you didn’t kill)
I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of “anarcho-capitalists”. Glad it’s past tense for you.
Wait until you read what real anarchists think of AnCaps.
ofc you understand AnCaps feel the same way about AnComs; that they’re fundamentally a contradiction
If one lacks compassion, then of course they won’t understand how someone can choose to support their community even without the government making them do it.
It’s not so much not being able to understand how an individual could choose to support their community without being compelled.
But if you fail to consider the likelihood of enough individuals choosing to do that to make it work, then you’re walking in blindly.
And to assume that everyone will just chip in and do their part out of pure altruism is to be radically out of touch with the way people tend to be.
Come on now. We’ve all met people. I grew out of my days of utopian idealism a long time ago.
Horseshoe theory strikes again
Horseshoe theory is agitprop, no academic takes it remotely seriously because it’s patently bullshit with no support. If you believe horseshoe theory, congratulations, you’re uncritically consuming accelerationist propaganda.
it’s because they want to feel special.
the root of so much of the people that get caught in these delusional thought pattern is simple massive insecurity. and by clinging to a delusion you can mask it with a feeling of superiority because you KNOW THE TRUTH.
same reason people get recruited into cults. the cultists specifically target insecure people they can emotionally exploit and isolate. they are not interested in secure people who are grounded in reality, because there is nothing for their manipulation tactics to work on.
Relevant Contrapoints: https://youtu.be/teqkK0RLNkI
Telling on yourself
Oh God yes, this this this!!
The Conspiracy folks all really get off on being Smarter Than You because the have Access to the Secret Knowledge. Once you have seen the evidence (eg “Fahrenheit 451”) and started associating yourself with “like-minded people”, then you too will become an Anointed One.
Culty culty cult
It is very seductive for people who feel their intellect and insights are not being seen.