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> I don't think there is anything actually political on the final /r/place piece other than country flags. There are various flags of different anarchist movem

> I don't think there is anything actually political on the final /r/place piece other than country flags. There are various flags of different anarchist movements, very long trans* flag, LGBT flags here and there. IMO, all these count as "actually political".

Navarr 10y ago
Anarchist movements I can see, but I don't think trans/LGBT flags count as "political." It's an identity, not a political statement. It'd be like calling christian crosses "political"
- grive 10y ago
  Identity is very tightly related to political views. Moreover, LGBTQ pride is definitely political, even in Western democracies (see contentions about gay marriage). LGBT activism is definitely marked on the left political spectrum in the USA. Christians values will inherently push toward traditionalism, so social conservatism. It is the same in many European countries.
- eropple 10y ago
  Christianity is a completely political phenomenon (as a cursory historical examination will demonstrate) and public advocacy of it is a political act. Similarly, most things, including fandoms, are political in nature whether they want to be or not. By liking Star Trek, you're buying into a box of propositions, some related to the art and some related to the real-world universe around that art. By (as in the Reddit experiment) working to expand it, you're making a political claim. People are political, people are never not political, and drawing an imaginary line to try to separate some political acts from others is pretty fruitless.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    This defines the word "political" to be so broad as to render it essentially meaningless. I can't like Star Trek without "buying into a box of propositions"? Really? First, you're going to have to tell me why I like Star Trek.
    - eropple 10y ago
      What I am saying is that politics is an externalization rather than an internalization--which is very far from meaningless. Your why doesn't matter (and it's one reason why the right wing's "but I didn't support the Republicans because of racism" is so hollow). Your what matters. And it matters to other people. It's inescapably political because you live in a polity and your decisions impact other people. See, for example, the useful idiots of GamerGate who provided air cover to people who sent death and rape threats to women who had the temerity to make video games. If they're the one in a figurative million, literally-few-thousand who actually cares about "ethics in games journalism", that doesn't matter in the slightest because of what they enable through their action and their inaction. Drawing those imaginary lines to segment off Some Topics (because otherwise one might have to defend them) is nonsense. People draw these lines anywhere from religion to fandoms to allegiance to political parties--but none of them are meaningful. You are your impact on other people and every impact on everyone else is inescapably, inextricably, definitionally "political".
      - Karunamon 10y ago
        >Your what matters. And it matters to other people. It's inescapably political because you live in a polity and your decisions impact other people. By the same standard, then, I can safely write off BlackLivesMatter as a group whose members are inherently racist, and in some cases engage in literal terrorism (definition: violence applied for political goals) with the sanction of the larger group? Why or why not? You are your impact on other people and every impact on everyone else is inescapably, inextricably, definitionally "political". Except most of these definitions of yours, that are entirely yours as far as I can see, don't have anything to do with the actual definition of the word political. To wit: relating to the government or the public affairs of a country. Where's the connection to government and public affairs and Star Trek? You did make that connection, and I'm curious to see how you go about defending it, especially since you called out this division of political vs not as a rhetorical device used to avoid defending things. On that same note, humans "draw lines to segment off topics" because that is literally the only way human reason about things. Your definition of politics implies that I can't watch a Goddamned fictional series about spaceships without a bunch of other ill-defined ideological baggage attached to it. I don't see the practical or metaphorical usefulness of this definition, and up to this point, you have not demonstrated it.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  I agree that being queer shouldn't be political, but as long as millions of people's politics are centered on being anti-LGBT, simply being out of the closet is a political act whether we like it or not.
rmccoy6435 10y ago
I think that's an interesting conversation to have. I didn't know there were anarchist flags on there, could you link me to some of them, I'm curious to see. As for the LGBT flags, I don't view those as political but rather as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags.
- kmm 10y ago
  At the left edge, somewhere above the middle, coordinates (0, 450) are a bunch of anarchist flags.
- c0nducktr 10y ago
  http://imgur.com/a/i9uS8 http://imgur.com/a/i9uS8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#/media/File:Anarchist_flags_and_stars.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#/media/Fil...
  - rmccoy6435 10y ago
    Huh. I obviously don't know much about Anarchist symbolism, as I had no idea what those represented after I was given the coordinates other than the Communist flag and the Black/Red Anarchist flag. I also never really looked at this portion of the board. Thanks for the insight!
- sooheon 10y ago
  > as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags. What is this if not politics? Politics isn't a dirty word you know...
  - rmccoy6435 10y ago
    To clarify: I do not view orientation or sexual identity as politics. In the sense of /r/place and their arrangements: that is politics, or more so rather diplomacy. They have common grounds and worked together, that's all.
AimHere 10y ago
Not to mention a small anarchocapitalist (black/yellow) flag under the snakes near the top left. Supposedly the Trump Supporters at The_Donald attempted to create a few Trump memes and Pepe frogs, but gave up and concentrated on keeping the US flag intact. Other than that, the right couldn't get much traction at all.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  Do you think they are angry about the US/Mexico heart?
  - smitherfield 10y ago
    That's Ireland.
NoGravitas 10y ago
Yeah, look on the Far Left (/r/TheFarLeftSide/). Reddit's radical leftist contingent spent a tremendous amount of time protecting the hammer and sickle, Comrade Party Parrot, and BLM from brigading by the far right. In fact, I'd argue that one of the reasons there wasn't more ugly trolling and hate speech is that the alt-right were mainly wasting their time trying to deface the FarLeftSide rather than producing anything of their own.
- hueving 10y ago
  >ugly trolling and hate speech is that the alt-right Or your preconceived notions of conservative people are wrong.
  - metamet 10y ago
    Have you seen any of the alt-right communities? The alt-right is not your traditional conservative. It's not a preconceived notion that /r/the_donald is filled to the brim with hate speech and trolls. You simply have to go there and look for yourself.
    - wutbrodo 10y ago
      I think the term "alt-right" at this point is just a catch-all derogatory for shitty people who happen to be a certain type of nationalist rightist, in much the same way that "SJW" refers to shitty people who happen to be associated with the social justice movement. Before the election, there was a narrower meaning, but as soon as the Clinton campaign mentioned it and the media picked it up, any hope of the term having any concrete meaning was lost forever. (This isn't helped by the fact that people love using it to attack arbitrary conservatives, in much the same way that SJW is sometimes used to attack anyone who expresses views supportive of social justice without behaving badly). EDIT: I don't let myself get worked up about downvotes in political conversations, but this one has me pretty curious. My comment wasn't even remotely offensive to any part of the political spectrum.
      - H4CK3RM4N 10y ago

Navarr 10y ago

Anarchist movements I can see, but I don't think trans/LGBT flags count as "political." It's an identity, not a political statement. It'd be like calling christian crosses "political"

grive 10y ago
Identity is very tightly related to political views. Moreover, LGBTQ pride is definitely political, even in Western democracies (see contentions about gay marriage). LGBT activism is definitely marked on the left political spectrum in the USA. Christians values will inherently push toward traditionalism, so social conservatism. It is the same in many European countries.
eropple 10y ago
Christianity is a completely political phenomenon (as a cursory historical examination will demonstrate) and public advocacy of it is a political act. Similarly, most things, including fandoms, are political in nature whether they want to be or not. By liking Star Trek, you're buying into a box of propositions, some related to the art and some related to the real-world universe around that art. By (as in the Reddit experiment) working to expand it, you're making a political claim. People are political, people are never not political, and drawing an imaginary line to try to separate some political acts from others is pretty fruitless.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  This defines the word "political" to be so broad as to render it essentially meaningless. I can't like Star Trek without "buying into a box of propositions"? Really? First, you're going to have to tell me why I like Star Trek.
  - eropple 10y ago
    What I am saying is that politics is an externalization rather than an internalization--which is very far from meaningless. Your why doesn't matter (and it's one reason why the right wing's "but I didn't support the Republicans because of racism" is so hollow). Your what matters. And it matters to other people. It's inescapably political because you live in a polity and your decisions impact other people. See, for example, the useful idiots of GamerGate who provided air cover to people who sent death and rape threats to women who had the temerity to make video games. If they're the one in a figurative million, literally-few-thousand who actually cares about "ethics in games journalism", that doesn't matter in the slightest because of what they enable through their action and their inaction. Drawing those imaginary lines to segment off Some Topics (because otherwise one might have to defend them) is nonsense. People draw these lines anywhere from religion to fandoms to allegiance to political parties--but none of them are meaningful. You are your impact on other people and every impact on everyone else is inescapably, inextricably, definitionally "political".
    - Karunamon 10y ago
      >Your what matters. And it matters to other people. It's inescapably political because you live in a polity and your decisions impact other people. By the same standard, then, I can safely write off BlackLivesMatter as a group whose members are inherently racist, and in some cases engage in literal terrorism (definition: violence applied for political goals) with the sanction of the larger group? Why or why not? You are your impact on other people and every impact on everyone else is inescapably, inextricably, definitionally "political". Except most of these definitions of yours, that are entirely yours as far as I can see, don't have anything to do with the actual definition of the word political. To wit: relating to the government or the public affairs of a country. Where's the connection to government and public affairs and Star Trek? You did make that connection, and I'm curious to see how you go about defending it, especially since you called out this division of political vs not as a rhetorical device used to avoid defending things. On that same note, humans "draw lines to segment off topics" because that is literally the only way human reason about things. Your definition of politics implies that I can't watch a Goddamned fictional series about spaceships without a bunch of other ill-defined ideological baggage attached to it. I don't see the practical or metaphorical usefulness of this definition, and up to this point, you have not demonstrated it.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
I agree that being queer shouldn't be political, but as long as millions of people's politics are centered on being anti-LGBT, simply being out of the closet is a political act whether we like it or not.

rmccoy6435 10y ago

I think that's an interesting conversation to have. I didn't know there were anarchist flags on there, could you link me to some of them, I'm curious to see. As for the LGBT flags, I don't view those as political but rather as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags.

kmm 10y ago
At the left edge, somewhere above the middle, coordinates (0, 450) are a bunch of anarchist flags.
c0nducktr 10y ago
http://imgur.com/a/i9uS8 http://imgur.com/a/i9uS8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#/media/File:Anarchist_flags_and_stars.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism#/media/Fil...
- rmccoy6435 10y ago
  Huh. I obviously don't know much about Anarchist symbolism, as I had no idea what those represented after I was given the coordinates other than the Communist flag and the Black/Red Anarchist flag. I also never really looked at this portion of the board. Thanks for the insight!
sooheon 10y ago
> as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags. What is this if not politics? Politics isn't a dirty word you know...
- rmccoy6435 10y ago
  To clarify: I do not view orientation or sexual identity as politics. In the sense of /r/place and their arrangements: that is politics, or more so rather diplomacy. They have common grounds and worked together, that's all.

AimHere 10y ago

Not to mention a small anarchocapitalist (black/yellow) flag under the snakes near the top left. Supposedly the Trump Supporters at The_Donald attempted to create a few Trump memes and Pepe frogs, but gave up and concentrated on keeping the US flag intact. Other than that, the right couldn't get much traction at all.

sqeaky 10y ago
Do you think they are angry about the US/Mexico heart?
- smitherfield 10y ago
  That's Ireland.

NoGravitas 10y ago

Yeah, look on the Far Left (/r/TheFarLeftSide/). Reddit's radical leftist contingent spent a tremendous amount of time protecting the hammer and sickle, Comrade Party Parrot, and BLM from brigading by the far right. In fact, I'd argue that one of the reasons there wasn't more ugly trolling and hate speech is that the alt-right were mainly wasting their time trying to deface the FarLeftSide rather than producing anything of their own.

hueving 10y ago
>ugly trolling and hate speech is that the alt-right Or your preconceived notions of conservative people are wrong.
- metamet 10y ago
  Have you seen any of the alt-right communities? The alt-right is not your traditional conservative. It's not a preconceived notion that /r/the_donald is filled to the brim with hate speech and trolls. You simply have to go there and look for yourself.
  - wutbrodo 10y ago
    I think the term "alt-right" at this point is just a catch-all derogatory for shitty people who happen to be a certain type of nationalist rightist, in much the same way that "SJW" refers to shitty people who happen to be associated with the social justice movement. Before the election, there was a narrower meaning, but as soon as the Clinton campaign mentioned it and the media picked it up, any hope of the term having any concrete meaning was lost forever. (This isn't helped by the fact that people love using it to attack arbitrary conservatives, in much the same way that SJW is sometimes used to attack anyone who expresses views supportive of social justice without behaving badly). EDIT: I don't let myself get worked up about downvotes in political conversations, but this one has me pretty curious. My comment wasn't even remotely offensive to any part of the political spectrum.
    - H4CK3RM4N 10y ago