Yes thank you for adding this!

UNRWA is the primary mechanism by which Gaza receives aid and runs its own institutions. It is a thorn in Israel’s side because they want control over all of that as well and are pissed that Gazans can direct resources where they want.

Nationalism and hard Nation-State borders are a consequence of capitalism, a social development involving tons of idiots. So yes and no.

I’ll let you have the last worse I guess

This discussion is getting tiring and fragmented and going nowhere.

Because it is mostly a series of straw men coming from you at this point and an aversion to replying to what I say instead.

I will again reiterate that anarchist instances doesn’t mean that the admins always have the time to take the effort to sort them out in the most anarchistic way possible.

And there’s another! “The most anarchistic way possible”. If only someone here had said that.

Therefore some decisions will be taken as obvious and done directly to protect the instance members. Many anarchists will consider a tankie-haven like hexbear as valid an instance to block without further discussion as much as exploding-heads.

You are now telling stories instead of acknowledging it was one admin making a decision with no discussion or feedback, lmao. Just be direct and to the point if you don’t like things to meander or become tiring.

This is obviously accepted given the lack of outcry by their members.

That is certainly true! But it does not make it less funny and absurd.

There’s plenty of ways to handle these decisions and your inability to consider them in favour of trying to goad me with it being “funny”

Goad you? I said it right off the bat as a one-off observation and it has snowballed because you are not being direct.

just betrays either immaturity and complete inexperience modding large communities, or that you’re just trolling and I’m inclined to think of the latter.

Or maybe I just think it is funny and at odds with anarchistic thought.

The arguments you make in this thread and your insistence about the 20s betrays you as a Marxist-Leninist, but feel free to tell me I’m actually wrong and I would be surprised. Stranger things have happened. However as an ML, you have scant understanding of how anarchists work and therefore it’s impossible to take seriously your moderation suggestions as coming from an anarchist perpective.

“I expect you to be able to explain this without my input, as you are so certain, right?”

This is a topic that is entirely your deviation by the way.

Given that I think you seem to just be trolling to amuse yourself, you are a waste of time to engage with as there’s nothing constructive to be gained by reading you try to goad and gotcha me endlessly.

I agree that this is a silly conversation, but this is because you leave a pile of inconsistencies and illogic and guesswork and evasion at my feet and say, “here is my counterargument”, and I have to say, “wow look at all this nonsense” and then say exactly what is wrong with it. It is the opposite of trolling, I am trying to take you seriously. You aren’t making it easy.

And I said there’s plenty of other decades with “misunderstandings”?

And of fucking course the 20s and 30s are the primary focus because that’s the period with the last revolutionary potential which MLs squandered to build Capitalism again.

If you skip over what I say, you will end up making us go in circles. The next thing I wrote: “I am of course not saying “the only things are from the 1920s”, but that this is a primary focus. And when asked about the time periods you think of as primary, they popped up. Full circle, lol.”

No, an affinity group is an affinity group a bunch of admins is something else, but can also be valid.

Then acknowledge what I said before this and that you skipped over: “Right so they are anarchist instances. And they make important decisions about federation by fiat of a couple admins. And that is very funny for anarchists to do. Inventing scenarios that didn’t happen to say how they are reasonable is… not relevant. In many ways you implicitly acknowledge how silly it is, because none of your examples are, “a couple admins just decide it”, instead you talk about affinity group subsets.”

There’s plenty of scenarios where anarchists take decisions without voting.

Yes of course there are. This is not a real response to anything I have said. We have already long established that this is about making site-wide censorship decisions re: federation, not literally everything. That is just another implicit straw man.

I think, of course, that is it obvious that a site-wide censorship decision is an important one that it is very funny for an anarchist instance to decide via a couple admins.

Again, you don’t get to declare by fiat what is a “major decision”. But I’m glad you’re self-amused at least.

I do get to say, by fiat, what I think is a major decision. And I think it’s actually pretty obviously a major decision, which is why despite being 3-4 comments deep we still have to talk about things like “There’s plenty of scenarios where anarchists take decisions without voting”.

Nonense

Yesnsense.

I’m pretty certain you’re a Marxist-Leninist, so you (critically?) support the usual suspects of USSR and PRC. Probably also Cuba and if you’re extreme enough North Korea. Am I wrong?

“I expect you to be able to explain this without my input, as you are so certain, right?”

That’s not a naturalistic fallacy. That’s me pointing out that this way of acting is obvious when you don’t decide by fiat why something is “major decision” for others.

I do get to decide my opinions by “fiat”, lol. Got the thought police in here. Why are you copying my terminology to use it inappropriately for other situations?

But okay, I will accept that what you meant was that it was obvious. I will simply disagree (for the 5th time), because I think it is obvious that site-wide censorship is obviously a significant decision.

No, I didn’t say that doing this justifies it. That’s bad uncharitable reading on your part to claim a fallacy. I’ve actually done “voting on every ban” so I’m familiar with how well it works. Have you?

My point, which I will say was not obvious, when it comes to voting on every ban, was that it would be better to overcorrect in the opposite decision.

Just for the record, do tell, what experience do you have running an instance or a comm?

I have experience with both. It’s thankless, isn’t it?

Do you know that for sure? Did you check when slrpnk defederated hexbear?

slrpnk did not defederate from hexbear. It blocked hexbear without announcement, by fiat of its main admin. It confirmed this blocking/“defedereation” in August last year. This was not something discussed nor presented, lol. It’s just one admin doing what they would like.

Again, why do you think you can declare by fiat what is a major decision?

lmao there it is again.

A censorship decision is of course major, it is about who your instance’s users can interact with via your website. If your federated social media website is anything at all, it is about users and how they interact, what they post, etc.

And again, non-anarchist instances have done this. It’s very very very funny that anarchists ones don’t.

It certainly is.

It is painfully obviously not. An admin quietly implementing a decision to block after the instance existed and then letting people know this is how it was last year is not in any way an anarchist collective where everyone’s just agreeing to those pre-existing bylaws by joining. It is just a website with an admin making the decision on their own.

Again, do you know when such instances were blocked comparative to the life of the acting instance?

Uh yeah?

Just because you disagree what is a “major decision” for other groups of people you don’t belong to, doesn’t mean you are right.

I think this straw manning thing might be a habit.

The impact of the decision and who gets to vote on it is determined by the people most affected by it.

Of course that is literally not the case here, is it? Or did slrpnk vote to block/defederate?

That’s the core anarchist principle you don’t seem to understand.

The core anarchist principle that nobody gets to judge who is anarchist unless they are a member of that particular anarchist group? I would love to see that core principle justified. Please show me your sources!

It would take a huge amount of space to do those 4+ things justice. I’ll share in some of them but I think it would pretty quickly be something deserving its own thread or maybe just some reading recommendations.

Re: Kronstadt, calling that a betrayal is just incorrect. First, they launched a mutiny directed at the Bolsheviks (“no Bolsheviks in the Soviets”, so the lines went), of course the Bolsheviks would act in opposition. It was a direct, oppositional fight, not getting stabbed in the back. In addition, part of the “betrayal” narrative depends on characterizing the Kronstadt mutiny as emerging from those who had fought at Kronstadt for the October Revolution, as in, it was the people who fought and died alongside Bolsheviks for freedom who were later jailed and killed by them. But this is also largely inaccurate. The Kronstadt sailors mutinying drew heavily from new recruits from the south that had never been part of Kronstadt during the revolution, they were building their own structures (many of them questionable) using the principles they learned from the diverse ancom traditions in the south. I recommend reading contemporary accounts and items as close to the Soviet archives as possible.

Re: Makhnovschina, this one really requires reading heavily, to get a sense of the oppositional forces. It is, of course, much easier to justify a betrayal narrative here given the repeated alliances and breaking of alliances, the Red Terror, etc. These were people who fought side by side against the Whites, there is no doubt, and the Bolsheviks went to war against the Blacks and heavily oppressed them. My gut inclination was initially to say it was simply a mistake, a wrong. But if you delve more deeply into the specifics of operations, what the realities meant on the ground, it becomes clearer that this was not simply a revanchist attitude by the Bolsheviks, but a direct, material opposition due to the need to feed the workers in cities. This is why the Red Army faced no resistance in the cities and why the Black Army’s entire operation was deeply interlinked with the peasantry, namely a petty bourgeois peasantry premised on isolation and, oddly, frequent entitlement to the products of the city, which the Black Army often stole in order to support the peasant communes run by their mayors. Rather than bridge this divide, the Black Army greatly exacerbated it, worsening starvation conditions. And this was not limited in impact just to the region of Machnovschina, as it had long been an exporter of grain to the north. This did develop into a sectarian fight, though it was also not simply The Reds breaking alliances to attack The Blacks. As autonomous groups, subsets of The Blacks often declared agreements to be over sporadically and took up arms and killed of their own volition. So if we call it betrayal, I would say a qualified one.

Re: Spain I would ask you to be more specific.

Re: IWW that publication is a lengthy polemic about every perceived grievance they could muster, and mostly not about the IWW at all, including the inaccuracies about Kronstadt that were belabored without merit until the opening of the archives. I don’t know what you would want me to do with it except to suggest reading extensively and not relying on pamphlets. Every polemical claim requires investigation and specifics.

It’s not lying and I agree folks can check out the link I posted.

I did correct what you said. The whole past 100 years have showed us lessons. Not just these dates. This is not hard to understand.

What I said initially: “Perhaps they are thinking of the “anarchists” that just watch YouTube videos to get angry at “the tankies” based on a misunderstanding of history in the 1920s”

I am of course not saying “the only things are from the 1920s”, but that this is a primary focus. And when asked about the time periods you think of as primary, they popped up. Full circle, lol.

The instances are anarchist because anarchists run them. They are not full of anarchists. An instance that is run by anarchists but open to others doesn’t always have to always require a voting by non-anarchists. There can be an internal affinity group handling this. There can be plenty of approaches to this, depending on the time and effort one can afford.

Right so they are anarchist instances. And they make important decisions about federation by fiat of a couple admins. And that is very funny for anarchists to do. Inventing scenarios that didn’t happen to say how they are reasonable is… not relevant. In many ways you implicitly acknowledge how silly it is, because none of your examples are, “a couple admins just decide it”, instead you talk about affinity group subsets. Or is that meant to be euphemistic cover for “a couple admins”?

Sure in a perfect world, everything would be done much more perfectly, but we do what we can with the time we have.

Personally, I don’t think “two people make the important decisions” is complaining about imperfection when it comes to an anarchist instance. It’s really just unexamined centralization that is otherwise an implicit part of the process of hosting software. And it’s very funny.

If only you would request the same level of purity from the authoritarian regimes you support…

The “purity” is “basic correspondence to the core principals of what you claim to be”. I’m not a big stickler, really. But please do tell me about the regimes I support and how I am inconsistent on this. I expect you to be able to explain this without my input, as you are so certain, right?

How is that a naturalistic fallacy?

A short version of the naturalistic fallacy is, “what is, is what should be”. That you justify what should be simply because it is how things are done. That is the logic you presented! “You don’t vote on each ban your> admins and mods take either.”

Did I prescribe something as “good” or whatever because of we’re doing it already? No, I said that the current practice is consistent with anarchist principles.

You did not say the latter, actually. But you did say that you don’t vote on each ban, as if this justifies the practice. It sounds kind of like these instances should!

To argue the opposite you have to argue 2 things. 1 that setting some rules as soon as the instance opens (including defederated instances) is anti-anarchistic. And that 2. Anarchist running an instance deciding that some instances are too toxic to federate with is a “major decision” that always requires voting.

1. No I don’t and I already responded to that. This situation is not one of what people joined, it was a censorship decision, it required a change. Gotta flip that ‘block’ button and all that.

2. Yes of course it is, at least if you want to say you are anarchist. That’s a major decision and it is something that even “authoritarian” instances can accomplish. I know that anarchists could do it even better!

That’s exactly what we’re talking about! Just because we don’t do it in your approved manner doesn’t mean this isn’t exactly what we did.

No, it is not what we are talking about.

“And not everything is a major decision”, just ignore half of what I said, whydontcha.

It’s funny because while I didn’t ignore that, because I’ve already directly said in no uncertain terms that I disagree 3-4 times, you ignored my response to what you said: it’s a silly straw man.

A casual skimming of that thread shows 5 abusive DMs in screenshots alone.

Did you miss me saying “the whole” just before that?

No, I am just pointing out that I had already correctly described this initially and we have now come full circle. You entered this conversation with a sense of correcting what I had said.

OMG you are really deliberately obtuse. There’s anarchists on these instances but it’s not just anarchists. Cheezus crust!

I am not being obtuse, you are being inconsistent. When it suits your criticism of what I said, you call those instances anarchist. When I say it is funny an anarchist instance has such an undemocratic process, suddenly you say it is wrong to call them anarchist.

Sorry I’m too dumb, can please explain where I did a naturalistic fallacy?

By arguing that existing practice justifies it as not going against basic anarchist principles. It is all very confused given the apparent superposition status of these instances as anarchist and not anarchist, of course.

Anyway, it’s not a major decision to define what kind of instance one federates on init.

It is, of course, a major decision. It is censorship.

I did as well when I defed lemmygrad and exploding heads. If done on start, people know what they’re joining.

Yes, that is true. If you establish bylaws of a collective first and then people join they consent to them, initially. But of course we aren’t talking about that at all.

Again, a vote is not needed on everything and not everything is a “major decision” just because you claim it is.

Of course nobody said everything needs a vote. This is just very silly straw manning.

You did, of course, repeatedly throw abuse, and it was entirely in line with the instance rules to then ban you.

The whole but of course a ton of hard lessons learned in the 20s and 30s

So the period I initially noted.

Surprising concept I know but did it ever occur to you that slkpnk and dbzer0 is not just for anarchists?

Describing those instances as anarchist was your doing from two of your comments ago: “Hexbear can indeed be very offputting to anarchists, especially those who learned from history that “left unity” isn’t. It’s why slrpnk.net has outright blocked hexbear and they also managed to alienate all the admins of dbzer0. Likewise they get very little respect from anarchists in places like kolektiva.social.”

Now you’re just being inconsistent.

there’s plenty of decisions that don’t need voting, even between anarchists. You don’t vote on each ban your> admins and mods take either. This is all just hypocritical gotchas again

You probably should, given the above examples. Naturalistic fallacies don’t justify top-down fiats on major decisions.

As I mentioned, I would rather not. But if you request or demand it, I will.

They’re free to venture out and tell us. Or do you also claim they don’t come out of hexbear because the rest of us don’t accept “AES” and haven’t read enough Lenin?

I made that recommendation before I realized you had been banned for harassing people. So I would recommend that anyone else follow my advice.

Plenty of learning experiences throughout the last century.

So the whole last 100 years? Or are there certain decades?

Sure if you don’t understand anarchism and think one always have to make an affinity group instance.

Voting on site-wide decisions does not require modeling an affinity group, it is not unique to an affinity group. Anarchists create collectives with participatory decision making of many kinds. What they rarely do is have a couple people make the major decisions on everyone’s behalf without others having a say.

It’s also a very hypocritical argument when coming from MLs who routinely talk about giving “critical support”. I.e. they understand not everything can be perfect all the time, but when anarchists are not perfect, it’s a gotcall mere

It’s a complete absurdity, not imperfection.

Like what? Use your own words, don’t just link to a thread full of bad faith takes. Cmon, you didn’t even link to the first de-federation thread.

You want me to repost screenshots of you harassing people? I’d rather not.

yes. and no, it’s not the bare minimum. You perceive a very specific definition of anarchism

I don’t, actually. I accept a wide variety of how people approach what it means to be anarchist. But a person does need to actually know what it is in order to self-label as such. Otherwise you will find yourself surrounded by status quo-reinforcing liberals, even capitalists, using the term and confusing everybody.

and act like anything that’s not exactly what you know/do is just not anarchism anymore and is just wannabe edgy liberals.

If there is no threshold then the term means nothing. Trump could not call himself an anarchist and be correct.

How can you even fence so hard a term such as anarchism? just let people be and believe what they want.

I don’t think I’m being a very big stickler to say that to call yourself of an anticapitalist political tradition you need to know the basics of what it is. Of course anyone can believe and say what they want, and anyone can be wrong, and anyone can be counterproductive. It is better to become a critical participant that understands their claimed political tradition, at least at a basic level. And it can be harmful to claim to be of a political tradition and then act in full opposition to it, which is easy to do when you don’t know what it is.

you’re now just this conservative guy screaming in fear because the world is not what is used to be when you were at your 20s.

I’m screaming in fear?

cool down. It’s okay to be an anarchist just online, and it’s okay to take “irl actions”, as you call it, and not see yourself above everyone else.

It is cool to be an anarchist just online, but you will find it very difficult to become one unless you know the basics of anarchism and have done practice.

This is why online “anarchists” are often counterproductive. Getting hyped for NATO. Saying that someone is a cop because they asked another person to not pick a fight with someone right this second. Going all-in on capitalist electoralism for the greatest empire on the planet. Being a billionaire grifter that sells electric cars.

Rather than assign those reactionary things to anarchist, it is more correct to understand them as not anarchist at all.

Well it’s definitely just not mine.

So, we perceive, there are actual, material barriers blockading the way. These must be removed. If we could hope they would melt away, or be voted or prayed into nothingness, we would be content to wait and vote and pray. But they are like great frowning rocks towering between us and a land of freedom, while the dark chasms of a hard-fought past yawn behind us. Crumbling they may be with their own weight and the decay of time, but to quietly stand under until they fall is to be buried in the crash. There is something to be done in a case like this—the rocks must be removed. Passivity while slavery is stealing over us is a crime. For the moment we must forget that we are anarchists—when the work is accomplished we may forget that we were revolutionists—hence most anarchists believe the coming change can only come through a revolution, because the possessing class will not allow a peaceful change to take place; still we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a group of more like-minded people to have as a home base. Well I said nothing wrong, but I think it is actually very good to have such a space. While we have more power in unity, it is important to develop identity and improve positions through comparison to what we are not, or at least through critique, and that is easier to do if you get together with your closest-minded comrades. This begins to define who you are vs. who everyone else is and you can begin to experiment through the improved capacity for unity in action via consensus, whereas you may be pretty limited in action in coalitions or similar spaces.

Left unity is very important, though. It does not need to be complete, but we are much stronger together. Coalition building is essential to achieving anything when the left is as small as it is in most places. To disregard it is to massively limit the scale at which an action can be realized, sometimes the difference between mobilizing hundreds of people vs. 5 and the difference between having full cover for a very legal direct action wink wink and being completely exposed to police surveillance.

I’m sure where you are is both different and similar to the US in various ways. Capitalism is global and the police state with it.

Another common trait of the “anarchist as an aesthetic” liberal is that they call everyone cops for criticizing them.

To be an anarchist you do need to actually know what one is, what the principles are, and subsequently do work. If you don’t know what one is, you could never identify as one correctly. If you don’t know the principles, well I’m just being redundant, that’s essential to knowing what one is. If you don’t do work, you are anarchism sympathizer, but have nothing to show for your beliefs. Praxis is essential to anarchism.

The gatekeeping of knowing the basics of anarchism and doing real-life organizing work? Is that not the bare minimum?