Ask Lemmy

Well I can't speak for others, but I'm on lemmy.ml because the instance says it's "A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy's developers". And in my experience that pretty much checks out, for all the talk I see from others about how it's a den of authoritarianism and whatnot the actual amount of that I see on the actual instance is minimal. Yeah moderation sucks sometimes, but so it does on most every other instance though. Their approach to defederation seems to be avoiding it, and I don't have to see any Nazi stuff or shit like that, so I'm good for now. Pick your poison.

The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.

Well if you look a bit closer at the history of the cold war you will find that "the West", mostly in the form of the CIA, destroyed a lot of nascent communist or even just social democratic governments worldwide through covert means, and sometimes even militarily. In the face of such a threat you are basically forced to become even more authoritarian, if you want your communist government to survive that is. So "the West" instituted a process of selection through political (and military) pressure if you will. Hence why there are no surviving liberal communist states left to discuss.

Anyway, I don't think there is much of consensus here on lemmy.ml whether these countries are good or bad (or even something more nuanced). What I think often happens is that someone voices "critical support", as in they say something like "Iran has a right to self-defence" although they don't agree with everything else Iran does, and someone from another instance comes along to read it and confirmation-biases that into "typical lemmy.ml user, fully supports that theocratic regime".

I mean just look at the straw man you build in your OP, supposedly I'm supporting the Islamic regime in Iran, and the anti-Islamic regime in China!? Bit of a stretch there mate...

In my experience the attitude of many of the more prolific users there is something like "America and the West are doing evil things, so their enemies must be the good guys". Atrocities by Western-aligned states are readily accepted as facts, but those committed by countries on "their" side never happened and are merely Western propaganda. They'll cite North Korea's constitution to "prove" that it's a free and democratic country, but when you point out reports showing that the reality on the ground is quite different from what's written in the constitution, that's of course just Western propaganda and the people who fled the country are being paid to spread lies. That dismissive attitude makes it impossible to have a serious discussion with them.

That said, I now have a solid blocklist of their "worst offenders" and found that there are plenty of people with way more balanced opinions as well.

Tiny penis syndrome.

Define authoritarian in a way that excludes the US and Europe but includes any country you listed.

.ml Is made by and ran by Marxist-Leninists.

Marxist-Leninism being an entirely made up bullshit ideology from Stalin to paint any and all actions he committed as "communism" or "progress to communism".

Its also the adopted "ideology" of every self proclaimed communist state such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. Any contradictions of the ideology between how these states practice it is brushed off by M-L fans as "Marxist-Leninism with <INSERT COUNTRY> characteristics".

To a M-L fan, none of the core principles of communism actually matter, and are never actually pursued. They don't care about::

1. Proletariat ownership of the means of production
2. Elimination of the system of Capital
3. Proletariat rule of society

And both hilariously and bafflingly, they will point to what benefits a respective M-L country has as "proof" that that country is following or pursuing communism, even if that country blatantly shows it refuses to adopt those big three above. They also blame the West, specifically the USA for those faux communist countries failing to achieve communism.

I.E. M-L fans fall for bread and circuses very easy as long as they're told its a communist bread and circus

So TL;DR, .ml's are Marxist-Leninists who don't actually care about socialism or communism and are voluntary NPC propaganda machines for authoritarian regimes that abandoned a pursuit of communism long ago.

I don't have an answer to your primary question, however...

I'm not at all in support of the Iranian regime, but be careful with that 30,000 number. It appears to be propaganda and falsified evidence created to help instill support for the ongoing war. There is also evidence Mossad incited the protests and created a false flag within Iran.

Do your own searching. Or don't. But I'd take that 30k number with a grain of salt.

A note on my biases: I am a leftist. I am generally "anti-authoritarian", but I have read some theory and listened to enough commentary to understand why folks are pro-authoritarian (and why Authoritarian is a label only applied to enemies of american hegemony). I am on .ml - which I don't think matters, anyone's account can be anywhere: fediverse, baby.

Lemmy.ml is a website hosted on a server. Why do its mods and some users hold those beliefs?

Many of those people are communists. Opposition to american hegemony is the main reason, or critically supporting other actually existing socialist states. They may think China isn't perfect, but they're attempting socialism and are standing up to the US and have the best shot at success. In the case of North Korea, they may think that attempt at socialism is genuine and much of the bad stuff they do is falsified or exaggerated for propaganda or just be giving critical support to a country that has been destroyed by the US via war and sanctions.

Or, in the case of Russia & Iran, they have stood in firm opposition to American hegemony, military bullying, etc. even though they are not Communist/Socialist. So, even though they do a lot of bad things and don't have socialist values, they are a lesser evil than America. For Russia, them pushi g back against NATO is seen as a direct war against the advance of global capital, even though Russia is capitalistic and fascistic (much like a weaker version of the US).

In all of these cases, when a person supports these governments, they are not really saying "Country good". They are saying "I critically support Country in opposition to American hegemony and global Capital". There's a lot of memes and jokes, and some people just really support Russia and NK uncritically - humanity is a rich tapestry - but that's the gist of it.

Understanding this POV requires an understanding of history (re: socialism & US interventionalism), critical theory (re: media), and an ability to be generous to edgelords online who are not always the best messengers of this (valid) viewpoint. It is socialist realpolitik, not idealpolitik - a view where current events can be interpreted in a way that their outcomes may foment the material conditions favorable to socialism.

Now a question for you: How can a democratic & socialist country exist in a world where American hegemony exists and America is hell-bent on maintaining the global capitalistic order?

Given the US' massive power and history of destroying socialist movements with tremendous violence (military and economic), can a country maintain its status as a real democracy without the US:

• covertly funding extremist groups to coup the democratic government (Iran),

• committing direct election tampering to elect a pro-US party (Venezuela),

• launching proxy wars to murder their people (Vietnam, North Korea),

• destroying the country's economy with sanctions and completely disconnecting them from global trade - causing mass starvation and poverty (North Korea, Cuba)

The answer is that without a country capable of standing up to the US, they do not. These countries that still have socialist goverments have to hold on to power in a world where US hegemony is a fact.

99.99% of users here do not love the regime in Iran, people oppose the war on Iran which goal is to create a failed state that would result millions of death.

Poople who love russia/china believe in the fairy tale of the real world being about good versus evil. Sometimes is about good vs good , sometime bad vs bad and sometime good vs bad

The iron curtain was not a literal wall. The Berlin Wall was brick and whatever came to hand mostly.

They’re entitled to their opinion. It is wrong, but they are entitled to it. I’ve blocked that instance.

Just block all .ml instances and move to something not lemmy based. Piefed is good. Plus blocking an entire domain fork thing, whatever you call these, is as easy as one click.

Just set an instance block and move on. I blocked lemmy.ml a year ago and I am mentally much better not having to see their bullshit every day.