All in all, “Tankie” is just the modern version of “Pinko!” I’ve seen Anarchists called Tankies, every manner of Marxists, non-Marxist Socialists, and more. It truly lost all of its meaning and is just Lemmy’s Red Scare.
A huge portion of that comes from Lemmy.world, which is the largest instance to defederate intentionally from Hexbear and Grad, which has the presumably unintended effect of making Zionists and other far-right wingers feel comfortable in an Anticommunist instance.
Unintended may be somewhat true, in that nobody explicitly had that as a conscious reason, but it was an obvious result that they could’ve known beforehand. So I don’t think it’s useful at all to call it unintended. Just an easily understood and expected side effect
lemmy.world has comments in their community, where they call for the nuking of developing countries, when they read news of social injustice. By that logic, their ‘civilized’ country should be nuked thrice, because cartoonishly evil, rich scumbags like Jeffrey Epstein and their associates still have a free pass for raping minors in their creepy sex-dungeons.
I’m starting to realize one of the biggest issues with the fediverse is how much tribalism is going to play a part in interactions between instances. It seems like every instance is going to have some absurd stereotypes that get repeated as fact.
Some people in .ml and hexbear were labeled tankies, accurately or not, and now you’re all tankies. And this post seems to be in response to that, saying the word tankie isn’t even a real thing. And now we have comments suggesting lemmy.world is also a unified group promoting certain ideologies. It’s the largest instance, we’re gonna have one-off crazies saying stupid stuff.
I know it does makes a small difference being on .world vs .ml/hexbear. But most people in both are leftists if what I’ve seen is accurate. We’re just being stereotypical leftist splintering ourselves into separate groups over the smallest differences.
I just took a charter flight that didn’t involve going through TSA or the airport terminal.
Whatever happened on the flight itself was irrelevant as the sheer pleasure of getting on a plane without the standard anal probe far outweighed all other aspects of the journey.
A lot of people around me tend to parrot that a lot of the safety measures are not for explosives detection, but for drug trafficking prevention. I’ve always disagreed because nobody ever presented any evidence to it, and the measures in place do come from explosive detection (unless they have metal drugs now idk). But I’ve wondered whether there is some truth to it.
TSA literally says on their own website that they are not looking for drugs and will only report it to the police if it’s blatant.
TSA’s screening procedures are focused on security and are designed to detect potential threats to aviation and passengers. Accordingly, TSA security officers do not search for marijuana or other illegal drugs, but if any illegal substance is discovered during security screening, TSA will refer the matter to a law enforcement officer.
I’ve watched a video about this recently. The problem is, most detectors were based on X-rays in the past decades. Liquid explosives are pretty close to the density (and/or other properties) of water, and you can’t tell for sure whether there’s toothpaste or boom juice in that tube.
However, some airports started using expensive MRI MRI like X-ray* machines that can see stuff in more detail, plus, it lets you to make cross sections from different angles and therefore have a 3D model that you can rotate on your screen (it’s rather cool).
EDIT: I just realised someone else linked this, too. I would leave it here, it’s still educational.
I’d just like to clarify: the new machines aren’t MRI (the magnets in those would prohibit all metal objects being within 100ft).
The new machines are also xray; but the xray emiters and detector are now on a spinning carriage similar to an MRI. This allows you to build a 3d model of the object and calculate it’s volume, which when combined with the density measurements gives much more reliable material detection.
This also means your stuff doesn’t have to be removed from bags to ensure items aren’t blocking each other from the scanner.
I’ve seen Anarchists called “tankie” so at this point it either needs to be entirely redefined or done away with. Even suggesting people to read Marx can get you called a tankie these days.
You are not making a point by asking those questions…
If you think those where legitimate actions but generally think of yourself not as an authoritarian kind of person and in your book you don’t fall under the definition of tankie, you may very well think so.
I believe many people would argue that if you are in favor of any kind of violence against the own civil populations with the army this brings you over the edge. But even if so, this doesn’t make you as as person atankie, no questions asked, case done.
You can be generally against nuclear power except in one very specific case, scientific long time submarines for example, this doesn’t make you a nuclear enthusiast. In my oppinion its the same with tankie, but if you find an excuse for every or nearly all instances (by socialist/left/eastern block) it paints a picture that suggests you may be generally in favor of such measures if they are done by an entity you sympathise with, which would make the term fitting in my opinion
If you believe the term can refer to entities who are not on the left wing side of the political spectrum, you may be in a minority. But one could of course take those positions… I would strongly disagree with this one personally though, and I don’t think this is how a lot of people use the term. I think most people use it to describe a portion of the socialist/communist spectrum, again the boundary is blurry but the direction is quite clear. (which gives you the answer for most of your questiom btw.)
Now let’s turn the table:
Do you think the terms “left-wing” and “right-wing” are meangless/useless?
If not could you please define them for me?
Edit: some typos Also: you keep referring to states, which of course helps some ways of your argumentation but I think its mostly used for people, not nations
It is my opinion that all violent events must be judged within their context and on a case by case basis. The Cuban government absolutely should have stopped the Bay of Pigs, while Chun Doo-Hwan absolutely should not have butchered his people.
As for Authoritarian, the word is usually thrown against Socialists without backing up what it means. If I say I am in favor of a Socialist Republic, which extends Democratic control to Production and eliminates the idea of the Wealthy influencing the state, does that make me an Authoritarian? Yes, according to those abusing the word Tankie.
For your question, leftism is support for Socialism and movements towards it, while rightism is support for Capitalism and movements towards it.
Cool that that’s your opinion, I have the opinion that one can generally judge actions by their nature. In my opinion raping someone is bad, Using nuclear warheads is bad, using the military against (any) civilians is bad, and especially if it is against your own people they are supposed to protect.
This doesnt mean I have to have a black and white opinion which will never under any circumstances change, but I generally condemned such actions. The goal in my opinion must always be to move towards a peacefull and just society without oppression, if the outcome is the killing/opressing of your own people there is something fundamentally flawed with the system which needs to be addressed.
To play the game:
I have seen people call capitalists “left” because they wanna make “social democracy” capitalism, I have seen people called right wing who literally wanted a dictatorship without markets. Those terms can refer to anything an are meaningless in today’s discourse.
What would you do when the “doppelte ausrufung der republic” happens in Germany? Would you say the socialists there where right wing because a lot of them were in favor of (deeply controlled) capitalistic markets?
–> you see, those ways of argumenting simply don’t actually make a point.
Tankie: Someone who is authoritarian to a degree he sees using the army (tanks) against the own civilian population as a valid and legitimate action. Sometimes used as slur by people against those measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory) or as (positive) self reference by people in favor of such measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory)
Woke: from civil right movement, someone who is weary of loyalty to the state and instead examines society/policy/politics himself. - in modern times used as slur against progressive and ecological conscious people by right wing people.
Tankie: Someone who is authoritarian to a degree he sees using the army (tanks) against the own civilian population as a valid and legitimate action. Sometimes used as slur by people against those measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory) or as (positive) self reference by people in favor of such measures (or generally highly authoritarian top down approaches of state theory)
Don’t know what your problem is defining both.
EDIT: Not to be confused with “I know exactly who a tankie is and who isn’t - my definition is 100% correct” or even “there are exact boundaries and conditions to what a tankie is”
Its like “peace”, " progressive", “right-wing”, different people will give you different definitions, my point is, that there is a concept to which the word refers and different interpretations/ambiguities don’t render the term useless simply by existing.
I assumed people would be smart enough themselfs to know that the term is directed at left wing entities.
My definition must be 100% correct and .ml and hexbear try to disprove it from every vector, people purposely ignoring the context and the rest of the comment, but Just stating “the term means nothing” without any arguments or evaluating further than “its like woke” appears to be a good argument to them…
Then my argument just is: “It means something” “its like >left-wing<” That should be equally appealing.
Yeah, a bunch of people misuse both ‘woke’ and ‘tankie’ as just insults so both seem to lose meaning. Especially with politically charged words, I think leftists have a knee jerk reaction to being mislabeled a tankie and come to the conclusion that it is meaningless and not just misused.
I’m pretty damn left leaning and I’ve never been called a tankie. I rarely even see anyone being called a tankie, except people who are defending authoritarians. The scope of the word “tankie” seemed generally pretty clear to me.
Same, never experinced problems with misusage of the term (in real life). When i mentioned this in another thread, someone chimed in and stayed they were experiencing it constantly for no reason and also leftist around him would be called that. Later that discussion it was revealed that he thinks everyone who doesn’t agree with Stalins policy is not (true) left…
I hear waaaaayyy more complaining about the term tankie from actual tankies than I hear people using it as a general slur against left people.
I get called a tankie pretty frequently for anything vauguely left of biden on Lemmy. Ive never heard the term IRL, but I HAVE been called a communist IRL two or three times for saying a 40 hour work week should cover a basic level of housing.
HM… Are you defending (authoriatharian) policys of historical socialism a lot? Because i am in the the left side of the political spectrum too, and didn’t have this experience on Lemmy. Maybe its because I frequent European. Communities more often, where there is not so much red scare as in America.
I have also beend called a communist, also in real life, but this wasn’t meant as an insult but as a description. I argument in favor of a democracy without capitalism, maybe with councils (strange that there seems to be no English word for “rätesystem” which doesn’t involve worker or soldiers, which is to exclusive IMO), so calling me a communist/socialist is understandable and (apart from some very rare instances) wasn’t meant to discredit me.
I have never been called a tankie though, and have never (even online) seen someone get called a tankie who had undogmatic views. People will defend dictators like Stalin, then define everyone who doesn’t agree with Stalin as “libtards” and then get upset when undogmatic socialist who get mislabled that way call them tankies.
Sure, as with every buzzword misuse cases will exist, but most peoples argument is that they use the term for “everyone on the left spectrum” so its is meaningless, but for them the left spectrum only includes tankies, and they just define everyone else as not left.
Are you defending authoritarian policies of historical socialism alot?
Nope, but I do point out that most socialist countries fail due to direct US intervention, which is true but inconvenient to their narrative that socialism is a failure.
I have also been called a communist, but this wasn’t meant as an insult but a description
Are you familiar with the American concept of the “Bible Belt?” It’s essentially just the American Southeast, Texas out to the East Coast, up to mid-Virginia or so. (The confederate states, basically.) This section of the country continues to be hyper religious and hyper conservative. What I’m getting at is that in this neck of the woods, socialist and communist are used almost exclusively as slurs lol, for anybody who doesn’t have an almost comical conservative stance.
Hm seems like the local discourse seems kinda f up. I can imagine the same for conservative parts of Europe. Still IMHO we should not let terms (mostly used in interleft discussions) get destroyed by the far rights low insight in the details of left politcs
So, I haven’t been on Lemmy for very long, but one thing seems to be true here, just like on Reddit: People don’t understand nuance and are only drawn to extremes. There’s sooo much going on between facism and unchecked capitalism and communism, but so many people here are just willfully ignoring that, apparently 🙄
Lemmy was made by Marxists, and the FOSS community itself has lots of Marxists and Anarchists.
It isn’t that people here are willfully ignoring nuance, people have legitimate views that are considered extreme outside Lemmy, because Lemmy’s structure brings them here instead of Reddit.
or maybe you don’t have some especially well considered, enlightened perspective, and people here believe the things they do for reasons that align with their life experience and education, just as with yourself. taking a centrist stance is not some objectively superior position from which to view politics. you aren’t endowed with special insight for choosing the midpoint between ideologies that contradict each other.
It’s not the standard tho. Every style guide says this is an error it with the optional exception of single-character capital letters …such as Oakland A’s.
Same here. I spent about 30 minutes trying to play one (DoTA I think?) and figured out:
Each hero has a zillion upgrades and abilities
Each hero is basically on their own roguelite style upgrade path
The game has a dozen or more such heroes
icons and text too small to play on livingroom TV, controller play out of the question
at mercy of online match-making algorithm if I’m not in a league/clan/whatever
From this I could deduce:
There’s no way in hell this is perfectly balanced - too many variables, it may as well be MttG
Going to take 20 or more hours to dial in a personal play style
Going to take probably 50-100 to develop a play style that can adapt to most situations
League play will probably kick my ass, requiring another 50-100 hours of practice/training
Causal play is out; likely can’t pick up and play immediately due to lobby, variable match times
I’m not knocking the genre as a whole, but this is not for me. It’s too far outside my typical mode of gaming and is likely to just frustrate me more than anything else. I’m familiar with hard to play online games like Quake, TF2, and even Soldat. But those have small power systems that, even with gross imbalances, were still playable because there were usually only one or two scenarios you couldn’t overcome. Adding more on every axis just sounds like a wildly unbalanced system where the skill curve isn’t steep enough, costing a lot of time invested in bad strategies before you figure it all out.
The appeal would be with a limited albeit large set of characters, items, & rules, you can have effectively an infinite set of outcomes due to the dice rolls of teammates but also champions/heroes chosen on team. It is almost impossible to see the same game twice unlike. There is skill expression & build mechanics that allow a player to outplay or recover matchups & adjust to the state of the game on the fly. With every game starting over at zero, you don’t get invested in building a specific character, but in mastering the gameplay which can go from micro mechanics to macro. I think a lot of folks liked it coincidentally at a time with better broadband for communications for this style of game, developers doing frequent patches to force meta shakeups & e-sports + streaming also taking off. But also a sunk cost fallacy of having invested the time to git gud not bothering to learn any game too similar.
Should I play Noita if it mostly caught my eye because of the cool physics? Hades and Vampire Survivors are the two roguelikes that finally clicked for me.
Haven’t tried the other two, but I would say yes if you do roguelikes. The physics and reactions are the half of it, the wandbuilding mechanics let you build some completely bizzare and powerful wands, and with a little luck can start getting a godrun fairly quick… but you’re always vulnerable.
Highly recommend going in blind, there are a lot of secrets to find, different sidequests, etc, winning the game once is a milestone.
I think its largely the chip manufacturers, but ARM is still making money on licensing fees for Nvidia’s new ai chip (with an integrated 72 core arm cpu) for example
ARM is in the perfect place where, if a company using their architecture succeeds, they get tons of money, and if the company fails, they lose nothing.
I’m happy with a 17" laptop, though I’m having to use a usb keyboard. Also playing a game from 2015, Rebel Galaxy. Nothing really stands out, but it’s interesting enough for my tastes.
It’s an ok game, I think the first and biggest letdown is the 2D movement. While broadsides are fun, automatic turrets are taking care of everything for me so I only need to keep turning around to keep shields up.
I was so anti gaming laptop for years but my wife swears by them. I think I just got burned from crappy laptops around the 2000s - 2010s, because her latest laptop is a beast. Not to mention most PC games aren’t trying to push to cutting edge specs anymore.
So I’ve turned around and I think gaming laptops are great!
I can relate. For a long time, I was all about a tower desktop, because I could upgrade it as needed. Last one I had I built in 2014, but didn’t upgrade it in any capacity until 2017, when I gave it to my brother. If I wanted a better graphics card, I’d have to get a new PSU, and I also needed a better screen over my then 12 year old, 15" LCD screen. I didn’t buy anything new outright as I was short on cash, so I spent the next 2 years using a laptop I bought back in 2012, which even played Fallout 4 on medium! That time with it really made me appreciate the form factor and portability
I moved to towers for the same reason years ago, but I basically never do major component swaps like I thought I would.
I’ve since realized that having a tower is really nice for other things though, namely maintenance and cleaning/airflow. My rtx 2060 seemed like it was on its way out a year ago (thermal throttling, even on way lower settings than it used to be able to run just fine), so I took it apart and replaced the thermal paste. Runs better than when I first got it. Got some new case fans recently as well and the whole thing runs cooler, quieter, and they use less power than my stock ones, which is nice.
Obviously the thermal paste thing applies to laptops as well, but laptops can be very tough to get open and dig around in.
Gaming laptops are great for those who don’t understand they’re getting a slower, harder to upgrade and more expensive system than a desktop.
Unless a college student in Tokyo with half a square foot of desk space, or travel a lot and like to game at the hotel, there are very few reasonable justifications for a gaming laptop. And even with those justifications they are a less-than-ideal situation. A desktop is always a better solution when feasible.
The thing I don’t like about laptops are 1. Noise and 2. The bursty CPUs just don’t mesh well if I want to run a swarm of VMs or need to just run a big compress/decompress process. I watched one laptop slowly throttle itself all the way down to 700mhz while I was messing with a bunch of VMs and it really made me miss having a desktop where it can just chill at 5x the speed at 100% utilization and chew through whatever is being thrown at it
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