Amygdala? I hardly know 'er!

Belief that heirarchies are natural and desirable because some people are better than others is the worldview required to be vulnerable to the lie of fascism, it’s the precursor to all supremacist thinking.

It isn’t because “some people are better than others”, it’s because some people are better than others at leading. Leadership is a skill, and it can be learned and practiced just like any other skill. You could say, “Hey, Mary is good at fixing things, let’s put her in charge of repairs. Margaret is good at planning projects and organizing people, let’s put her in leadership.”

And no, it doesn’t imply that the person leading should have total control over everything or that they can’t be held accountable.

If you look at opinion polling across countries, die-hard support for supremacist candidates hovers around 25-40%.

You said “humans who want hierarchies” and you’re equating that with “support for supremacist candidates”. Does that mean that if I support a centrist or a left-wing candidate, then I don’t want hierarchies? I can tell you, there are certainly not that many anarchists in the world. 60-75% of the population?

Look at it this way. One of my values is having the courage to help others. So, I would admire somebody who risked their life to go into a burning building and save somebody. I’m doubtful that I have the same courage, but I hope that I would. It’s something that I aspire to.

In the same way, somebody who admires Musk has a value of “being rich”. They’re doubtful that they’ll ever be as rich as he is, but it’s something that they aspire to.

“Just about everyone”. What percentage of people are anarchists?

This, but unironically. As a sub who is anti-Trump, it becomes a bit uncomfortable when the conversation turns into “Conservatives are just subs who want to be dominated!” Yeah, okay, maybe there’s some truth to that. The problem is that there isn’t any safeword I can use on Trump.

I’d like to see how you got to “hierarchies = fascism”. I also think that the people who want hierarchies are much higher than 25-40%.

It raises the question. Begging the question is this.

It seems that populism/fascism is ‘ingrained’ in our simple minds.

These are not mutually exclusive. Right-wing populists can also be fascists.

This is what the US tried to do in Germany after WWII. There were “denazification” efforts. Unfortunately, they did a shit job of it, which is why Germany still has a problem with the right wing.

This is the same logic as “If I give the bully some money, then they won’t take all of my money”. If they can get some, why wouldn’t they take the rest? Appeasement doesn’t work. They just push for more.

You don’t need AI to do this…but they’re probably using it, anyway.

There also seems to be something about the echo chamber that has a weird reinforcing effect. It can become really pathological. People talk about the “reddit hivemind”, but it doesn’t really strike you until see people acting crazy.

One incident that really stuck out for me was a post with a woman holding a sign. I forget what the entire sign said, but the phrase had the word “stupider” in it. I went into the comments, and a ton of people were making fun of her for using that word. Why? Because they thought that it was grammatically incorrect. You’re supposed to say “more stupid”, they said. Well, that’s wrong, and I pointed out to them that it was a word according to any dictionary. I had people arguing with me that the dictionaries were incorrect.

Then there are the AI detectives. These people are fucking insane. It doesn’t matter if you have a statement saying that you don’t use AI. They don’t believe you! They can tell. If they were doing this to my artwork, I would be livid.

Why can’t you comment while on a VPN? I’m on a VPN right now and I’m commenting.

Also, I hate to tell you this, but reddit is the way it is because it’s so popular. If we had the amount of people necessary to make niche communities thrive, it would be just like reddit. Well, at least as far as the people posting and so on. There wouldn’t be any of the weird administrative stuff because it’s run much differently. But the fact that the system is just like reddit’s means that it attracts the same kinds of people and encourages the same kind of behavior.

You read some classic fucking Lemmy, that’s what you read.

Get cooler friends.

The mindset that there’s one person who’s going to save us is something that the left has to just get rid of. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Mamdani or Bernie or AOC. Putting anybody up on a pedestal like that just means that they’re inevitably going to disappoint you, because they aren’t gods, they’re human, and the machine that they’re a part of is so much bigger than they are.

No, he isn’t “controlled opposition”, but he also isn’t some socialist ubermensch who can’t ever be corrupted. What is important is the movement, not these figureheads.

We don’t talk about midichlorians.

Hate to break it to you…but so is Star Trek. Instead of the Force, it’s psionics (Vulcans), telepathy (Betazeds), and “things that science can’t explain yet” (Q, all of the god-tier aliens that Kirk had to deal with). A lot of times, there is no explanation for why an alien can do magic other than they’re an alien.

I’ve never even seen a weapon on a train. The worst I saw was some lady ranting about the anacondas, but she was mostly just annoying. She didn’t hurt anybody.

I have never been stuck in traffic on a train.

I’ve never had the train stop or slow down due to a horrible crash of another train.

None of my friends have ever been killed by a train.

No, that is not my argument, which you would’ve seen if you’d read to the end.