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I mean, they have a point. But considering they run a whole journal on literal communism, it’s hard to take them seriously. The message falls flat when it comes

by poszlem 11mo ago

I mean, they have a point. But considering they run a whole journal on literal communism, it’s hard to take them seriously. The message falls flat when it comes from a different flavor of dangerous fantasy.

danudey 11mo ago
Nice "both sides" argument, very subtle.
- qwerpy 11mo ago
  When one side of crazies goes after a different side of crazies, “both sides are crazy” is an appropriate way to look at it.
  - micromacrofoot 11mo ago
    I guess if you want to completely abandon nuance... but at that point everyone is some variety of crazy. Half the US believes in ghosts.
  - numbers_guy 11mo ago
    There is obviously a huge difference between fascist-aspiring westerners and communist-aspiring westerners. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Tankies are crazy and I don't approve of their ideology, but they also do not dehumanize large swaths of the population.
    - lowkey_ 11mo ago
      > they also do not dehumanize large swaths of the population They dehumanize and kill everyone equally. I think the West (US especially) has a great system of government figured out, and I wouldn't try to say any group attempting to break that is better than another. It's not disingenuous to say that both are authoritarians who kill millions.
      - numbers_guy 11mo ago
        Please don't be childish. I have no love for communism and I get that you probably have some personal grudge against communism because of what your family has gone through. But the way you are expressing your hatred of communism is diminishing the evil committed by the NAZIs and the suffering of their victims, and that's just not right. And it's also not winning you any friends and you'd be better served if you showed solidarity with victims of other evil regimes, instead of trying to up them with your personal victim-hood.
        lowkey_ 11mo ago
        The above commenter's point was actually drawing a distinction between these, and "one-upping" by saying there was a difference, or worse one, out of these extremist ideologies. I disagreed and said that they are both equally horrid. Expressing equal hatred for people and systems that kill countless millions through starvation, gulags/concentration camps, and disappearing them, is not childish. I have a ton of solidarity with victims of other evil regimes.
        numbers_guy 11mo ago
        You're purposefully ignoring all the nuance. There is nothing more to say.
- antonymoose 11mo ago
  Sometimes both sides do suck.
  - lm28469 11mo ago
    One side is metastasising in the US government right now, the other has been long dead. "it's the same because they're both bad" ok...
    - philipallstar 11mo ago
      It's not been long dead. There's a communist who's just been elected to Mayer of New York.
      - dpark 11mo ago
        He’s a socialist. Painting all socialism as “evil communism” is reductive and dishonest.
        lowkey_ 11mo ago
        Mamdani has said that (1) they'll open government-run stores, and (2) the government will seize buildings from bad landlords. My family is from a communist country and I can assure you, that is communistic.
        dpark 11mo ago
        I would agree that government run stores falls into the communist playbook. Despite the communism boogie man, though, I don’t think supporting a couple of communist policies strictly makes a person a communist. Trump sent a bunch of government checks to people during Covid and no one called him communist for this.
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        > Trump sent a bunch of government checks to people during Covid and no one called him communist for this. Giving people money on a temporary basis is the opposite of the government opportunistically taking over areas of the market.
- poszlem 11mo ago
  It’s intentionally blunt. That’s exactly the issue right now: fascists and communists are going at each other and tearing apart what remains of our liberal world.
  - fukukitaru 11mo ago
    It's not particularly worth saving
    - poszlem 11mo ago
      I guess we have to learn every 80-100 years, that, actually it is.
  - almosthere 11mo ago
    I think "facists" is a tiring word to describe them. I would recommend christian nationalists.
    - poszlem 11mo ago
      I mean - obviously the modern day communists rarely use the original name too. But I guess we are adults and know that in reality, under all of that political marketing, we are talking about fascists and communists.
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
    - numbers_guy 11mo ago
      "Christian nationalist" is a term that on the one hand, insults Christians, and on the other hand flatters these power hungry grifters. Why would you use such a term?
  - numbers_guy 11mo ago
    > and communists Communists left the chat in 1989, grandpa. There are multiple factions competing for power but communists aren't really in the ring right now. It's mostly different flavours of establishment factions and alt-right factions.
psunavy03 11mo ago
Interesting that this is being downvoted considering "Thiel is a right-wing loon" and "Jacobin are a bunch of left-wing loons" are not mutually exclusive statements. They're both wrong, just in different ways, and observing this is not "bothsidesism."
- observationist 11mo ago
  Yeah, expect this to get flagged and vanish. This has nothing to do with anything even remotely interesting except to those who are emotionally invested with pwning their political or ideological opposition. At this level of discourse, they're all batshit bonkers.
- noelwelsh 11mo ago
  As you observe, the original comment is wrong and as such it contributes nothing useful to the discussion.
- estebank 11mo ago
  Discussing the messenger instead of the message is a common strategy to derail conversations away from the message.
- bananapub 11mo ago
  it's not interesting at all - the comment is very stupid (jacobin is not "whole journal on literal communism") as well as such lazy both-sidesism everyone is dumber for having read it. there's lots of stupid brigading on HN, but sometimes dumb comments get the downvotes they deserve.
tanjtanjtanj 11mo ago
Jacobin is not a whole journal on literal communism. It’s a magazine with a professed socialist view point but it’s more aligned with left-of-center American politics. Think Sanders or Mamdani rather than Stalin or Mao.
- psunavy03 11mo ago
  For the US, that's still "far left" as opposed to merely "left of center."
- gishh 11mo ago
  > Jacobin is not a whole journal on literal communism. It’s a magazine with a professed socialist view point but it’s more aligned with left-of-center American politics. Think Sanders or Mamdani rather than Stalin or Mao. > Sanders or Mamdani Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment, such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao. The mental gymnastics you’re doing to blunt that fact is absolutely incredible.
  - dragonwriter 11mo ago
    > Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment No, they aren’t. They are about as far left of center as you can get and be competitive in US elections, maybe, but that’s a very different thing. There’s a lot to their left (as you an see from the by the opposition from leftist as sellouts to capitalist/imperialist/etc. institutions both have.)
  - rsynnott 11mo ago
    > such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao. ... Oh, come on now. I can't tell whether you're extremely confused about Sanders and Mamdani, or extremely confused about Stalin and Mao. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/25/bernie-sanders-rally-bird-portland-oregon-portlandia https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/25/bernie-sande... would have gone very differently if Sanders was Mao, for a start.
    - 11mo ago
micromacrofoot 11mo ago
The core belief in communism is "collective ownership for the common good" which feels like a far cry from "the literal antichrist is coming." I could follow an argument that Jacobin is naive, but it seems silly to make the direct comparison to someone who thinks we're approaching some predictable end of days and say they're the same.
- MiiMe19 11mo ago
  100M+ dead ideology
  - hearsathought 11mo ago
    Not sure why people keep bringing this up. Every ideology has blood on their hands, but communism is nowhere near #1. Try comparing the death tolls/genocides/etc of the capitalist/anti-communist side with the communist side.
    - MiiMe19 11mo ago
      Communism and its associated pairings have killed far more than capitalism ever will. Communism only ever exists when paired with an authoritarian government and cannot exist without one. Capitalism can (and does) exist without an authoritarian government. There is a reason why the only people that defend communism have never lived under it.
      - hearsathought 11mo ago
        > Communism and its associated pairings have killed far more than capitalism ever will. Ever will? The "capitalists" have already killed far more. Did communists wipe out a continent full of native americans? Did communists killed more people than the Nazi germany, the US, british empire, chinese empire, japanese, etc in ww2? Did communists kill more people during both the vietnam wars? > Communism only ever exists when paired with an authoritarian government and cannot exist without one. Capitalism can (and does) exist without an authoritarian government. Fine, that's an actual argument that can be discussed. But why lie outright about reality. But pretty sure the natives would have loved to live under their own authoritarian government rather than being wiped out by the capitalist paradise. > There is a reason why the only people that defend communism have never lived under it. Must be why you are so good at lying. Because you grew up under communism?
KumaBear 11mo ago
Here comes another person throwing out words like “communism” yet using the term inaccurately. Please invest in a dictionary.
tech_ken 11mo ago
Jacobin is to communism as Gary Johnson is to JD Vance. "Left politics" covers a lot of ideologies and they all hate each other.

by poszlem 11mo ago

danudey 11mo ago

Nice "both sides" argument, very subtle.

qwerpy 11mo ago
When one side of crazies goes after a different side of crazies, “both sides are crazy” is an appropriate way to look at it.
- micromacrofoot 11mo ago
  I guess if you want to completely abandon nuance... but at that point everyone is some variety of crazy. Half the US believes in ghosts.
- numbers_guy 11mo ago
  There is obviously a huge difference between fascist-aspiring westerners and communist-aspiring westerners. It's disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Tankies are crazy and I don't approve of their ideology, but they also do not dehumanize large swaths of the population.
  - lowkey_ 11mo ago
    > they also do not dehumanize large swaths of the population They dehumanize and kill everyone equally. I think the West (US especially) has a great system of government figured out, and I wouldn't try to say any group attempting to break that is better than another. It's not disingenuous to say that both are authoritarians who kill millions.
    - numbers_guy 11mo ago
      Please don't be childish. I have no love for communism and I get that you probably have some personal grudge against communism because of what your family has gone through. But the way you are expressing your hatred of communism is diminishing the evil committed by the NAZIs and the suffering of their victims, and that's just not right. And it's also not winning you any friends and you'd be better served if you showed solidarity with victims of other evil regimes, instead of trying to up them with your personal victim-hood.
      - lowkey_ 11mo ago
        The above commenter's point was actually drawing a distinction between these, and "one-upping" by saying there was a difference, or worse one, out of these extremist ideologies. I disagreed and said that they are both equally horrid. Expressing equal hatred for people and systems that kill countless millions through starvation, gulags/concentration camps, and disappearing them, is not childish. I have a ton of solidarity with victims of other evil regimes.
        numbers_guy 11mo ago
        You're purposefully ignoring all the nuance. There is nothing more to say.
antonymoose 11mo ago
Sometimes both sides do suck.
- lm28469 11mo ago
  One side is metastasising in the US government right now, the other has been long dead. "it's the same because they're both bad" ok...
  - philipallstar 11mo ago
    It's not been long dead. There's a communist who's just been elected to Mayer of New York.
    - dpark 11mo ago
      He’s a socialist. Painting all socialism as “evil communism” is reductive and dishonest.
      - lowkey_ 11mo ago
        Mamdani has said that (1) they'll open government-run stores, and (2) the government will seize buildings from bad landlords. My family is from a communist country and I can assure you, that is communistic.
        dpark 11mo ago
        I would agree that government run stores falls into the communist playbook. Despite the communism boogie man, though, I don’t think supporting a couple of communist policies strictly makes a person a communist. Trump sent a bunch of government checks to people during Covid and no one called him communist for this.
        philipallstar 11mo ago
        > Trump sent a bunch of government checks to people during Covid and no one called him communist for this. Giving people money on a temporary basis is the opposite of the government opportunistically taking over areas of the market.
poszlem 11mo ago
It’s intentionally blunt. That’s exactly the issue right now: fascists and communists are going at each other and tearing apart what remains of our liberal world.
- fukukitaru 11mo ago
  It's not particularly worth saving
  - poszlem 11mo ago
    I guess we have to learn every 80-100 years, that, actually it is.
- almosthere 11mo ago
  I think "facists" is a tiring word to describe them. I would recommend christian nationalists.
  - poszlem 11mo ago
    I mean - obviously the modern day communists rarely use the original name too. But I guess we are adults and know that in reality, under all of that political marketing, we are talking about fascists and communists.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - numbers_guy 11mo ago
    "Christian nationalist" is a term that on the one hand, insults Christians, and on the other hand flatters these power hungry grifters. Why would you use such a term?
- numbers_guy 11mo ago
  > and communists Communists left the chat in 1989, grandpa. There are multiple factions competing for power but communists aren't really in the ring right now. It's mostly different flavours of establishment factions and alt-right factions.

psunavy03 11mo ago

Interesting that this is being downvoted considering "Thiel is a right-wing loon" and "Jacobin are a bunch of left-wing loons" are not mutually exclusive statements. They're both wrong, just in different ways, and observing this is not "bothsidesism."

observationist 11mo ago
Yeah, expect this to get flagged and vanish. This has nothing to do with anything even remotely interesting except to those who are emotionally invested with pwning their political or ideological opposition. At this level of discourse, they're all batshit bonkers.
noelwelsh 11mo ago
As you observe, the original comment is wrong and as such it contributes nothing useful to the discussion.
estebank 11mo ago
Discussing the messenger instead of the message is a common strategy to derail conversations away from the message.
bananapub 11mo ago
it's not interesting at all - the comment is very stupid (jacobin is not "whole journal on literal communism") as well as such lazy both-sidesism everyone is dumber for having read it. there's lots of stupid brigading on HN, but sometimes dumb comments get the downvotes they deserve.

tanjtanjtanj 11mo ago

Jacobin is not a whole journal on literal communism. It’s a magazine with a professed socialist view point but it’s more aligned with left-of-center American politics. Think Sanders or Mamdani rather than Stalin or Mao.

psunavy03 11mo ago
For the US, that's still "far left" as opposed to merely "left of center."
gishh 11mo ago
> Jacobin is not a whole journal on literal communism. It’s a magazine with a professed socialist view point but it’s more aligned with left-of-center American politics. Think Sanders or Mamdani rather than Stalin or Mao. > Sanders or Mamdani Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment, such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao. The mental gymnastics you’re doing to blunt that fact is absolutely incredible.
- dragonwriter 11mo ago
  > Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment No, they aren’t. They are about as far left of center as you can get and be competitive in US elections, maybe, but that’s a very different thing. There’s a lot to their left (as you an see from the by the opposition from leftist as sellouts to capitalist/imperialist/etc. institutions both have.)
- rsynnott 11mo ago
  > such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao. ... Oh, come on now. I can't tell whether you're extremely confused about Sanders and Mamdani, or extremely confused about Stalin and Mao. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/25/bernie-sanders-rally-bird-portland-oregon-portlandia https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/25/bernie-sande... would have gone very differently if Sanders was Mao, for a start.
  - 11mo ago

micromacrofoot 11mo ago

The core belief in communism is "collective ownership for the common good" which feels like a far cry from "the literal antichrist is coming." I could follow an argument that Jacobin is naive, but it seems silly to make the direct comparison to someone who thinks we're approaching some predictable end of days and say they're the same.

MiiMe19 11mo ago
100M+ dead ideology
- hearsathought 11mo ago
  Not sure why people keep bringing this up. Every ideology has blood on their hands, but communism is nowhere near #1. Try comparing the death tolls/genocides/etc of the capitalist/anti-communist side with the communist side.
  - MiiMe19 11mo ago
    Communism and its associated pairings have killed far more than capitalism ever will. Communism only ever exists when paired with an authoritarian government and cannot exist without one. Capitalism can (and does) exist without an authoritarian government. There is a reason why the only people that defend communism have never lived under it.
    - hearsathought 11mo ago
      > Communism and its associated pairings have killed far more than capitalism ever will. Ever will? The "capitalists" have already killed far more. Did communists wipe out a continent full of native americans? Did communists killed more people than the Nazi germany, the US, british empire, chinese empire, japanese, etc in ww2? Did communists kill more people during both the vietnam wars? > Communism only ever exists when paired with an authoritarian government and cannot exist without one. Capitalism can (and does) exist without an authoritarian government. Fine, that's an actual argument that can be discussed. But why lie outright about reality. But pretty sure the natives would have loved to live under their own authoritarian government rather than being wiped out by the capitalist paradise. > There is a reason why the only people that defend communism have never lived under it. Must be why you are so good at lying. Because you grew up under communism?

KumaBear 11mo ago

Here comes another person throwing out words like “communism” yet using the term inaccurately. Please invest in a dictionary.

tech_ken 11mo ago

Jacobin is to communism as Gary Johnson is to JD Vance. "Left politics" covers a lot of ideologies and they all hate each other.