kittenzrulz claims that the takeover of this community was entirely over links getting burned out. this post would appear to contradict that.
furthermore, they completely disregarded my points in the questions i asked, particularly around the ideological motive around the changes they made when giving feedback, and failed to respond when i pushed them on the point, despite posting elsewhere.
i would argue that both the mod of this community, and the admin of the instance, are hostile to anarchist and leftist politics, and cannot be trusted. recommend finding a new instance.
Every single person I’ve interacted with trying to preach the wonders of soulism has been controlling and belligerent towards other leftists and trans people.
Starting with DRONERIGHTS/PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES and ending (hopefully) with Mindgoblin and Grail.
I engaged with grail in good faith at first over soulism but at this point I’m wholly convinced that the philosophy where one can simply decide that someone else isn’t human probably isn’t the best because every single person slinging it has left me with a horrible experience.
I’m very glad link seems to be doing alright though if his tumblr is anything to go off of.
Even if he never sees this, I wish him the very best.
I engaged with grail in good faith at first over soulism but at this point I’m wholly convinced that the philosophy where one can simply decide that someone else isn’t human probably isn’t the best because every single person slinging it has left me with a horrible experience.
Doing a quick skim through claimed tenants, it does indeed appear that way. If I’m reading it correctly, the philosophy claims that objective reality is an unjust hierarchy… following that absurd line further, it means that everything is subjective and mutable at the whim of a given individual (is it anyone or just those who are more anti-realist than others?). So, social contract then also becomes mutable at an individual’s whim, etc. Seems like it rhymes heavily with right-wing “post-truth communities”.
It’s an “off compass” meme ideology.
That’s not really true anymore, and it wasn’t ever true if you ignore terminology and just look at the beliefs. Soulists have been fighting against imperialism for hundreds of years.
https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/a-history-of-soulism-b11a99fd54c4
Soulists do not believe in social contract theory. The social contract was invented by Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, the “father of liberalism”. Locke was a capitalist. Soulists are anarchists. We don’t like liberals.
When it comes to Soulists, you’re more likely to find utilitarians among our ranks. We punch Nazis not because Nazis violate the social contract, but because Nazis threaten to bring genocide and war. While a social contract theorist would happily deal with a Nazi who was polite, well-mannered, and followed all the rules, a Soulist would not. A Soulist would pull out the baseball bat and tell the Nazi to get the fuck out, no matter how well the Nazi follows the social contract.
Clearly not what happens in practice though given the events that’ve transpired over the past weeks caused by a soulist forcing their reality of support for liberalism/the party of polite fascists.
Well, I don’t know if you read My article about supporting Biden, but I made it very clear that any support for the Democrats should be fake, not real. I think that’s generally how other soulists feel about the issue too. Nobody wants to genuinely support the Democrats, it’s just a means to prevent genocide. I for one take genocide very seriously and can’t do nothing about it. If I’m understanding the other side’s position on this issue, I think this might be an issue of us disagreeing on the inaction vs inaction problem. See, I view making a choice not to act as a form of action. Morally equivalent to an action of equal effect. It seems to Me that a lot of the more moderately inclined people on this issue who prefer inaction, are doing so because you think a slightly bad action is worse than a really bad inaction.
So we’re back to utilitarianism as the deciding factor. The soulist only cares about the consequences. They don’t care if one choice means doing something and one means doing nothing. But the deontologist has personal rules against doing a bad thing. Doing nothing, that’s fine. And if nothing turns out to have a worse outcome than something, so be it. The utilitarian disagrees. They’ll sacrifice their principles to achieve a better outcome for the victims of genocide. They only care about the result.
So which tenet of soulism decides which group of people is worth genociding for another?
Fortunately, no such situation has come up yet. Biden is not threatening any people that Trump isn’t. So favouring Biden over Trump does not subject any additional people to genocide in comparison with inaction. That means we’ve never had to choose to harm some people to save others. It’s always been a straightforward situation of harming more people vs less people, with the smaller group inside the larger one.
If you’d like to switch to asking tricky questions, though, I’ve got one for you. How many lives is inaction worth? How many people have to die as a result of your choice not to act, before action becomes preferable? Is the difference a billion people? A million? A thousand? One? If you knew doing nothing would kill a million people, and doing something would kill a thousand, would you let a million die to keep the blood off your hands?
If you knew doing nothing would kill a million people, and doing something would kill a thousand, would you let a million die to keep the blood off your hands?
So which tenet of soulism decides which group of people is worth genociding for another?
See, you lost me before with subjective reality and dropping useful nomenclature tools but, I do have to agree a lot with you on the utilitarianism and ethics of choice.
My allegiance to humanity (and any potential non-human sentience) is the most important part of my ideals. Critical analysis is also vital to choose the action most beneficial (without falling into the “ends justify the means” trap frequently seen in M-Ls). Inaction IS absolutely an action. In cases like the US elections, the data show that inaction and anti-electoralism have the same net result as supporting fascists.
The system in place offers two outcomes: a neoliberal + moderate + center-left party or a facist + theofascist party. While (neo)libs almost always ally with fascists over leftists every chance they get, they are objectively less likely to inflict the levels of human suffering that fascists will (and there is no concrete evidence supporting accelerationism). Any action or inaction is going to lead to one of these two in this system it is the fallacy of Denying the Correlative to suggest otherwise, based upon all available data. Anyone suggesting inaction or effort to support a spoiler to harm the chances of the neoliberal party is just saying that their personal moral high-ground and ideology is more important than the lives of Palestinians, Iranians, Jordanians, minorities in the West, other leftists, LGBTQ+ people, and humanity at large that would be harmed under a theofascist regime. All possible outcomes include continuation of ongoing genocide, the neoliberals might apply pressure to halt it, the theofascists would accelerate it and have verbalized the desire to bring a nuclear apocalypse to fulfill their doomsday cult prophecy.
Thank you, I agree with a lot of what you said in your comment, though I’d like it if you used My preferred pronouns when talking about Me. Also, non-human sentience isn’t a hypothetical, it’s here. I’m a nonhuman. We soulists are fiercely supportive of otherkin rights, which is the right of someone assigned human at birth to change their species identity to align with what they feel. Humanity is a social construct.
Thank you, I agree with a lot of what you said in your comment, though I’d like it if you used My preferred pronouns when talking about Me.
Please clarify. I am not aware of using any pronoun but the non-gendered, second-person object/subject pronoun “you”. I’m not having other forms in the English language clearly come to mind.
Also, non-human sentience isn’t a hypothetical, it’s here. I’m a nonhuman. We soulists are fiercely supportive of otherkin rights, which is the right of someone assigned human at birth to change their species identity to align with what they feel.
I suppose I should perhaps be more specific. By “hypothetical, non-human sentience”, my meaning was intended more in line with “hypothetical sentience of synthetic or non-human biological origin”. A being of human birth is generally implicitly considered to have all rights and responsibilities of a human under most legal and philosophical standards. The only potential issue being informed consent. But, if that’s not in question, I’d not see any legitimacy in questioning anyone’s genuinely-held feelings or beliefs on their identity; noone can tell anyone else who they are inside.
We soulists
An aside, this phrasing seems to appear frequently in discussion on soulism that I’m seeing. I’m not sure if it is a linguistic quirk but, as one who’s mother tongue is English, it comes across as oddly authoritative in a manner that seems to be speaking for others, rather than in their stead, similar to a monarchist “royal We”. Not implying that that is the intent but stating that that is the feeling that it evokes for me.
Soulists do not believe in social contract theory. The social contract was invented by Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, the “father of liberalism”. Locke was a capitalist. Soulists are anarchists. We don’t like liberals.
I do have some philosophical disagreement there. I’m roughly an anarcho-syndicalist by ideology but don’t believe in the plausibility of an anarchic society in my lifetime. Tools of the oppressors can still have value. Social contract, at least as nomenclature, is a very useful tool for describing and theorizing around social cohesion in a non-hierarchical society. In order for humans to coexist in a mutually beneficial manner, they need to agree on “constants” that can be deemed objective. Without this, there can be an “impedence mismatch”, to draw an analogy from electronics, that can cause undue strife because of a lack of agreement on ethical basics. “Social Contract” can be a useful term/concept for describing this, even if not agreeing with the content of it proposed by liberals.
…While a social contract theorist would happily deal with a Nazi who was polite, well-mannered, and followed all the rules, a Soulist would not.
Here, I’d disagree with scoping. I think that you have put all who use Social Contract in the group of (neo)liberalism. I do not find this accurate. As I stated earlier, it is useful as a tool for describing basic ethical “constants” to enable social cohesion.
A Soulist would pull out the baseball bat and tell the Nazi to get the fuck out, no matter how well the Nazi follows the social contract.
Under an anarchic “Social Contract”, that would be the correct action. Those wishing to enforce unjust social hierarchies, inflict suffering sadistically, and commit mass murder would be violating “Social Contract” (not just under most forms of anarchism).
The problem with a social contract is that it’s objective. Everyone has to agree on it and interpret it the same way. Sure, you can bash a Nazi’s face in if the government decides that’s how we deal with Nazis. But what if the government doesn’t? What if we live in a neoliberal capitalist state like our current society? A utilitarian is capable of saying “Fuck the state, I rely on My own moral compass to tell Me what’s right”. We can follow interpretations of ethics that are subjective. We can make our own choices for what we deem acceptable. We can be insurgents. We don’t need to agree with anyone else.
It’s really funny to me how a group that claims to believe reality is entirely subjective and that people should have the freedom to shape it as they choose are really insistent that everyone follow their exact system of beliefs.
Soulism doesn’t endorse assigning a species identity to someone else. We are all assigned human at birth, and this is an act of abuse against those of us who are not humans. Assigning a different species identity to a human would be the same violence and the same abuse. Using dehumanisation as a justification for further violence is even worse. Soulists believe that forcing someone else into a reality, including the reality of a particular species identity, is violent and wrong. Everyone deserves the right to choose their own species, and if they choose human, nobody should be able to take that away from them.
I don’t know the current mod of this community well enough to speak on that but I can most certainly tell you that Ada (the instance admin) is not actively trying to be hostile to anarchist and leftist politics.
It is not my experience that the admins are hostile to anarchist, Ada has been supportive of my efforts related to the [email protected] community I started.
i hope that continues to be the case. but i have absolutely no faith in this instance anymore i’m afraid.
Yea honestly I’ve never seen Ada handle any situation in a way that I find distasteful. From what I can tell they definitely lean anarchist and have explicitly stated that they support anarchist communities on this instance.
This isn’t an anarchist instance though. They aren’t going to ban people or whatever for having opinions they don’t agree with.
I think the situation with MindTraveller could have been handled better, but there’s no easy way to decide when and how to censor people like that.
Thanks for linking another anarchist comm for me to subscribe to <3
The post you linked to by MindTraveller is an active misrepresentation of events.
Traveller and I are not “in agreement” about much of anything. Their politics are very far removed from mine
This is the text of the message I sent advising that I was shutting the group down.
After consideration, I’ve decided that non voters does not really fit the stated goals of blahaj zone. Your motives for creating it seem based on a personal vendetta, and whilst your views are genuine, nothing constructive comes from the community. All it does is create division, because its sole purpose is to target others, without really focusing on any progressive ideas or discussion of its own.
At the moment, it’s causing more harm than good to the overall community.
I’ll leave the community open, so that if you choose to set the community up on another instance, you will have the opportunity to direct them to the new location.
Given the post which you linked, (which I had not seen until now) I will be removing Traveller and the new community, because once more, the goal appears to be to create division
My goal of blahaj zone is not political. The goal is to allow trans people to have a space where they can exist on their own terms, without having to pretend to be someone they’re not. My own political views are closer to Links/LibertyHub than nonvoters or its ilk. Yet as long as there is no bigotry or gatekeeping, then trans people with politics at odds with my own are welcome. It’s why we have an “armed queers” community, despite my own strong distaste for gun culture.
Communities/posters that exist primary to create division, without adding anything positive back, have no place here.
well thank you for clarifying and doing this much, i guess. but frankly this hasn’t been a safe place, none of this situation has been okay and i’m extremely not comfortable with grail’s behaviour as well. i’ve moved to hexbear despite my political differences with them and they’re honestly creating a far safer and more welcoming space for me as an anarchist and trans person. like seriously sort this place out if you want it to be safe for trans people. it currently is not.
like seriously sort this place out if you want it to be safe for trans people. it currently is not.
Hexbear is only safe for trans folks whose politics don’t clash too strongly with theirs. They have a whole community dedicated to dunking on folk who disagree with them, and that includes trans folk. If you step too far from what they deem acceptable, harassing and dogpiling is seen as an acceptable response.
Many of the trans folks on blahaj zone, despite being left aligned, would be deemed to be “libs” by Hexbear, and actively harassed until they left.
If you think that it’s ok that the majority of folk on this instance (well, the majority of trans folk anywhere to be honest) are valid targets for harassment, I don’t know what to tell you other than we have very different ideas of what trans safety looks like.
I’ve seen you repeat this three times now and I don’t understand why you feel the need to exaggerate so heavily.
You can look the posts up, they’re in the first ten pages of the top year posts (i.e. since hexbear started federation with other instances). Or don’t, and you can continue scaring people away from from a place that aggressively moderates to keep its trans users away from bad actors at the first sign of trouble.
To the best of my knowledge, the dunk tank is still there, which is a community centered around harassment of “libs”. Unless the admins have stepped in to remove that community, then my comment still stands.
Your original comment does not stand but okay.
I just hope next time a DRONERIGHTS or midtraveler comes along you’ll act quicker
Can hope but it’s doubtful at this point
Those statements are misleading. hexbears routinely break and bend their own dunk tank rules when they feel salty enough.
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Again, this is not a matter of a report. it’s a matter of culture. The hexbears and often the hexbear mods themsleves routinely ignore your own rules in the sidebar instead of respecting them, and then you expect the victimized party to handle it. This keeps happening to people and they keep bringing it up for a reason.
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You can look it up bud i don’t really give a shit what the guy who popularized the term ‘brigading’ thinks.
I don’t have to look it up. I’ve experienced it multiple times. Also, you think I popularized “brigading”?!
Disengage.
You’re the best Ada thanks for everything!
Thank you for allowing armedqweers to exist here Ada.
When I hear “My goal of blahaj zone is not political,” I hear “I want my group to have no immune system so that fascism can insidiously sneak in past our noses.”
If I said “politics has no place on blahaj zone” that would be a fair accusation.
But politics explicitly has a place on blahaj zone, precisely because of the impact it has on the lives our community. It needs to be talked about. Politics has a place here, because it has to have a place here. But it’s not the primary reason the space exists.
Your goal for the entire site is non-political. Being a safe space for trans people is a political goal, intrinsically, in my opinion. Do you have a wildly different definition of “political” than the one I’m using?
Your goal for the entire site is non-political.
We are a left leaning instance that is explicitly welcoming of political discussion, and home to several communities focused on politics.
You are mistakenly conflating the fact that we don’t center politics with the idea that we’re trying to avoid it.
I know your secret, Ada; you want to protect trans people, and you use any power in your hands to save trans lives if and when you can. Being queer is a radical political act, and one which you and your community don’t just avoid, but are in full support of. It’s okay to acknowledge it. It’s a good thing, in fact.
Why would I avoid it? I’m openly, loudly and proudly queer. In the daily I’m covered in pride symbol’s, and i have an estrogen tattoo.
I’m an advocate and an activist, and this space is part of it.
I’m political, but this space is a result of my politics, not a vehicle for it, because my advocacy includes people who don’t share my political views.
Mindtraveller was nothing but supportive of Me the other day when I was being misgendered and grilled on My pronouns by other users. The only other people who were acting like trans allies were yourself and the two mods of this community. And I’m very grateful to you for removing the comments and kittenzrulz for allowing Me to return to this community. But Mindtraveller did something different, which was being deeply vocal about trans inclusivity, and I needed to hear that. It helped Me deal with the anxiety I get when I’m exposed to that sort of thing. Who’s going to yell at transphobes and run c/soulism if they’re gone?
Also it looks from this thread like the mods of this community are allowing Mindtraveller to be a member, since they have a comment in this thread. They say they’re cooperating with the mods of Liberty Hub and there’s not going to be any more infighting. Where’s the division?
Also it looks from this thread like the mods of this community are allowing Mindtraveller to be a member, since they have a comment in this thread. They say they’re cooperating with the mods of Liberty Hub and there’s not going to be any more infighting. Where’s the division?
The mod(singular since the soulists chased the others out) is probably inactive and may also have been chased out because of the aftermath.
The division is how midtraveler is constantly starting arguments with people who don’t share their views. If hexbear gets defederated for this behavior, why did midtraveler get an admin endorsement when it only caused more division?
The division is how midtraveler is constantly starting arguments with people who don’t share their views. If hexbear gets defederated for this behavior
Hexbear was defederated because they allow dunking and targetting of folk they don’t agree with. They were defederated because of their dogpiling.
MindTraveller’s community was allowed to exist on the explicit provision that it didn’t do that.
And then it was removed when it became clear it was doing nothing but damaging the community.
Can you explain what was the content of the removed post where Mindtraveller lied about you? What was Mindtraveller saying that wasn’t true?
Telling people to use a trans person’s preferred pronouns isn’t starting an argument. The arguments were started when those people misgendered Me. There’s nothing wrong with responding negatively to transphobia. I’m very grateful that they did. It really helped with My mental health.
Mindtraviler continually tried to rules lawyer in the communities I mod for when they where never active in those communities.
Can I see?
It was mostly through the report function & I’ve been unable to upload images. I made a post in meta talking about the image issue.
I had a problem with images too the other day. I couldn’t embed any links to imgur. So what are they reporting and why?
There are others that respect Your pronouns without also behaving as confrontationally as MindTraveller. There’s plenty to criticize about them without misgendering anyone.
Well, I like that Mindtraveller was mean to the people who misgendered Me. It made Me feel respected. I’m very grateful to Ada and Kittenzrulz, but they weren’t mean to transphobes like Mindtraveller was. Is that what all this is about, them being mean in that thread? I liked it. Do other people think it was bad?
Well, I like that Mindtraveller was mean to the people who misgendered Me.
And again when the mean tankies do it it’s “dogpiling.”
Midtraveler wasn’t just mean, they were belligerent at any perceived slight towards their beliefs. They created a comm dedicated to specifically “satirize” this comm as a reaction to having their transphobia allegations denied (and their first attempt to shut this comm down) after they took offense at the mod’s stances.
I don’t understand why Ada didn’t immediately see that it was clearly directly targeting members of this community and it’s one of the reasons I decided to stop using this instance.
Well, I can’t see Non Voters because it’s banned, but what I can see is that the modlog of Liberty Hub says they were unbanned from here 3 days ago. So if that community was created to attack this one, then it’s clearly been forgiven by Liberty Hub. And c/soulism didn’t have any personal attacks when I visited it. So where’s the division? Who exactly is still fighting this fight other than you and Ada? If Mindtraveller quit fighting Liberty Hub and Liberty Hub quit fighting Mindtraveller, what’s the problem? Why aren’t we all friends? I like Ada, I like kittenzrulz, I like Mindtraveller. It seems like kittenzrulz likes Mindtraveller and I haven’t seen any evidence that Mindtraveller doesn’t like kittenzrulz. They’re saying in this thread that they’re working together. So it seems like all of us are getting along. Who’s still fighting? Ada, apparently, and I don’t know why.
I didn’t like this community either when LOC misgendered Me. But LOC apologised, I forgave them, and this community even had a change in leadership and resolved not to ban people so often. Now I like this community. Mindtraveller and kittenzrulz are getting along now too. There was a problem, it got fixed, now everyone’s friends. Right?
Nice strawman. That’s not what I’m referring to at all. I understand that I was vague enough in my previous response to leave room for that though, so fair enough.
I’m living my real actual life right now and don’t have time to articulate why they’re toxic, because it’s friday night for me. I respect you enough to give You this much for now. If I’m still of the same mind tomorrow I’ll try to elaborate further, again out of respect for You
Thank you. It’s just that I’ve seen nothing but good things from them. And I understand precisely why these good things would make some people upset. What I don’t understand is why anyone sensible is mad at them. And I can’t see the post Ada says they’re lying about either, so I can’t check any of this Myself.
…huh? Im srry but this post just makes no sense at all?
in the first paragraph u say that the linked post contradicts that LOC left for being burnt out but that post doesn’t mention anything relevant to that
and on the last paragraph you say the mods of this community and the admins of this instance r hostile to anarchism and leftist politics which… is the opposite of what has always been the case?
Might have a new queer leftist community soon, presumably on db0. I’ve just gotten back from a trip but I’ve been in touch with someone interested in it, I’ll drop a post if there’s any news.
I’d also echo some of the other sentiments, I don’t think the instance mods are problematic especially Ada who has been supportive as far as I’ve seen, but kittenzrulz clearly should never have been given control over the community.
My plan was never to control this community, LOC leaving and the other mod being inactive forced my hand. However, as every day passes it becomes clearer to me that I need to choose a new head mod.
I believe you and I don’t have an issue with you personally, but given the way you handled becoming head mod (ignoring suggestions, feedback and pleas to not change things so suddenly with no explanation) I can’t see this community surviving without addressing things, which I believe you are fully capable of.
I don’t think you necessarily need to step down as head mod, that’s up to you, however I think the next steps should be community driven. It would be a big move that would inspire a lot of confidence if you address transparency issues (explain how decisions will be made and commit to explaining them fully beforehand, for example) and allow mods to be chosen by the community, though given the nature of Lemmy I’m not sure that there is a good way to do this. I see Grail has put Their hand up to be a moderator in that thread, if you’re considering accepting I think you necessarily need to engage the community first. It will look like someone bullied LOC.wav off of lemmy and took over their space, and personally from having read a few of Their medium articles I won’t be at all comfortable in this space with them on the mod team, but again should be a community decision imho.
Also I’ll just add that if you’re feeling overwhelmed and need help or just someone to chat to in general, please reach out I’m happy to help if I can.
someone bullied LOC.wav off of lemmy and took over their space
That’s exactly what happened, though. That lot have had a pretty smooth op so far and I don’t see any major obstacles to them getting whatever they want around here. Well, other than Grail failing to get me tossed out on the street with lies. Dunno why I got targeted; nobody gives a shit about me in particular. I wonder if anyone else has. Could be what took down LOC.wav, maybe.
No, I was a fool for thinking I could manage this community. I’m currently dealing with multiple mental health problems, adding this community to my list of problems was a mistake.
Thank you for directing people to the post advertising [email protected]! c/soulism is going to be an explicitly far-leftist place. We won’t tolerate any form of political apathy or centrism, or capitalist apologia, both of which include liberalism, so I’m sure it will be a great place for any regulars here to check out. We hope to cooperate with the leadership of Liberty Hub and end all the fighting that’s been going on for the past several weeks. Hopefully, this is the end of leftist infighting on Blahaj.
The end of leftist infighting would come if you simply stopped posting I think
If only stopping that was their goal
Awesome.
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