I’ve starting working on a lemmy front end called lemmy-ui-leptos using leptos, a Rust UI framework with isomorphic support, and tailwind + daisyUI for the component styling. This could eventually replace the frankenstein’s monster that lemmy-ui has become.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like I understand socialism quite well. On one hand you have heavy top-down states like the USSR, and on the opposite end of the spectrum you have libertarian socialism as championed by people like Noam Chomsky (i.e. co-ops and unions in a pseudo-market economy). When I say "socialism" I generally mean the umbrella that covers both the former and democratic socialist states since both benefit from concentrating power into the hands of a few (e.g. look at how Western countries control information dissemination). Libertarian socialism just doesn't exist outside of universities, so I tend to discount it.

There's not a lot of profit motive to be found.

If you build it, they will come. Look at all the shilling that exists on SM, such as on Reddit, Twitter, etc.

In its current state, it's essentially a hobby project. I work on Lemmy-related projects because I find it fun, not because I'm trying to overthrow capitalism or anything like that. Likewise, I use Linux because it solves my problems better than other systems, not because I'm trying to rob Microsoft or Apple of a sale.

I consider myself a pretty laissez faire libertarian, yet my interests align with socialists. If you look around on lemmy, you'll find people from all stripes here, from anarchocapitalists to tankies, and everyone in between. The only people I don't see much of here are Trump loyalists and fascists, and I think that has more to do with moderation than the nature of the software.

the intentions to it are certainly wrapped in expression

And it just so happens that people from a variety of political leanings value expression, they just want to filter out expression they don't like. That's where moderation comes in. You can have polar opposite instances with the same high level goals, just very different moderation. Look at the difference between Lemmygrad and Exploding Heads, two very different ideologies using the same platform with very different moderation.

And that's what I mean when I say software isn't politics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So I'm stuck on a phone, you'll have to forgive my lack of quotes since you actually have nice formating!

This is a purely tautological issue, and a product of my pisspoor audiencing. I mentioned ethos and pointed out governance is often bad at implementation, but I don't think that's collated well.

So it might help to understand that your references to socialist are looking at the business end of building government of a historians philosophy. Which is to say, a little removed from the ethos.

My chief bone to pick is socialist governance rarely if ever in modern parlance acknowledges what the social is in direct response to. But the much better example here is the most profound socialist institution in all of the United States, your local public library.

So just to back up, Marx's contention was following capital interests throughout history, and specifically the Habsburg era, was a better indicator for why anything happened than any great man in the time. After all every great man has many powerful (or wealthy) men in his camp. And the Habsburgs were generally the wealthiest, even if their name wasn't on a ton of letterhead.

The socialism/ist ethos says why not run things to put people over capital interests. Most of what comes next in various local histories tries to figure that out, lots of which I wish I knew a lot less about.

But, to answer the question on the spot about why lemmygrad and exploding heads, common purpose. Both acknowledges having a corporate 3rd party is bad for conversation and is willing to remove the incentive from the platform and leave moderation for how much to put up from the users. But we're only talking about the platform, they don't need common reasons for it.

It's a cause (expression) at the expense of a business model, which in any sense is 'seizure of the means of production'. Which is all I'm pointing to, solidarity around a goal, or many goals, achieved with the same work. Now if you're talking about fediverse architecture we get a little more wonky, I made a long comment about how activitypub on Lemmy looks like pre Bolshevik soviets in actual structure that I stand by, but the point is the instances are flat using the same protocols.

Likewise I think if Linux meets your needs you're in solidarity with a similar if stalled project. The difference is Microsoft and Apple aren't going to tip over, reddit and Twitter aren't profitable before they had to complete with a free product, which you're helping make better.

As someone whose not in any position to do the work and just looks on: I am absolutely not trying to steal your agency, please do not stop because of me! Part of being the dope that studies how people organize is that I'm going to use words like politics and government rest of everybody, but these words are really about how we decide and how we organize at their roots.

I will say part of the dirty secret in socialist thinking is not to divorce the interest you have. The 'find solidarity' part of me would point out by keeping these projects in use and alive you make it a possibility for someone else interested later to also contribute or use it. Which in turn could be their own on ramp into future success. If you think something you're involved with should continue on without you, well... Why?

I'm generally cagey when it comes to putting myself on any political map for reasons that are probably immediately obvious from my profile. But I come from the land of Locke and Mill and would probably still agree the government that governs best governs least as a general purpose maxim, even if the caveats get longer every year.

What wrapped me around the donut hole was noticing Trotsky and Jefferson both had a real axe to grind on entrenchment, and finally sitting down to read Kropotkin and Bakunin. We don't have anything similar I ever found in the western canon.

I don't find an ism that rings especially true at all, but I know a decent cause when I see one.