OK, got it! I tried going on a microblog post and opening the original URL, and sure enough, I landed on a Mastodon instance. Makes sense, I was sort of surprised at the amount of microblog content on kbin.earth, that explains that.

Awesome - thanks!

I checked the global microblogs page, but I’m mostly seeing things posted to [email protected], with a couple of things posted to some Lemmy instances, but nothing posted to mastodon. Maybe I’m understanding the whole concept wrong? (Or I’m blind?)

But I did look at the Linux Experiment channel - and realized that I have seen their videos in my feed - awesome! And there, it makes sense that not as many of those pop up, since there are way less videos being created than posts made. But I now know that that works - cool! (And now I’m distracted by another of his videos…)

OK, odd. So I guess something is off on my end.

Don’t quite understand. That would be in a separate feed then?

Good to know about the sorting, that explains why I barely see microblogs. The mixed feed is what I’m generally using, but I only ever see microblogs from kbin.earth and not anywhere else. I’ve checked to make sure it’s set to all instances, as well as all magazines as mbin calls it, but still, only kbin.earth. Even if I just show microblogs. And I don’t ever see anything from peertube. So I guess mbin does it, I must be doing something wrong somewhere…

As someone who works for the railroad, this is mildly frustrating.

No, accessing content is directly what I’m looking for. I would specifically like to avoid having multiple accounts if possible. I’ll have to check it out.

Interesting discussion, I’ll have to check it out, thanks!

Ah OK, but it seems like you have to follow them first? I’m kind of looking for it in a general feed. Or am I maybe doing something wrong?

Cool! (And not sure why the hell someone downvoted that)

Would that also apply to content that you’re not directly subscribed to (in a kind of “all” feed)?

Honestly, the state of mobile OSs is quite sad. Everything is locked down, it’s a duopoly of shit and shittier, and the Linux alternative just isn’t daily driver worthy for the vast majority of users. And that’s not because the development isn’t going well - it’s because phones have so much more proprietary shit that needs drivers, and that’s if you can even unlock the bootloader in the first place, otherwise you’re SOL.

yt-dlp has an option to list everything it downloads in an archive file (so that when a video is downloaded once it isn’t downloaded again), and also has an option to download playlists. That way, it should be possible to set up the command to do what you want.

Honestly, it’s not really a part of my vocabulary, but I think a bit of history on the term is interesting here.

The word “woke” actually came from a certain segment of the left, originally, to describe themselves. They were using it as to say “we’re awake and are aware of the way things are”, almost the way some people (with vastly different opinions) talk(ed?) about being redpilled. Mind you, it was often used as a kind of virtue signalling, which already gave it a fairly snobby undertone. Add to that that it implied that everyone else was asleep or dreaming, and it was not well received by many, not just amongst the right. That’s where it was picked up by the right to be used to this day as “anything that seems left of my position that I want to rail against”, taking advantage of that poorly received undertone and painting everything to the left of them with that brush. Meanwhile, it’s been ages since I’ve seen someone on the left use the term to describe themself unironically.

because the ruling class of the USSR was the same as the majority of society

If you’re part of the ruling class you’re no longer “the same as the majority of society”. Simple as that. And the ruling class was definitely not controlled by the rest of society as I explained earlier. It didn’t stop their propagandists from trying to display it as such though.

When you have a small class that dominates production and the state, any legislation “checking” capitalism is done with the consent of those it is supposedly checking.

With proper checks, it doesn’t need that upper class’s consent, because power and production are separated. That’s precisely what proper checks do, and your entire argument is based on the concept that it’s impossible, when it is very well possible. Ironically enough, in the USSR, production was centrally controlled - by the state, so you had that very combination of production and power, the very same combination which you rightly claim leads to major problems.

the DDR was run by the majority of society, the proletariat

Except it just simply wasn’t. The majority of society had no real say, as I had explained earlier.

People generally left the DDR mostly because they could get free and high quality education, and then make more money in West Germany.

They left everything they had, their friends and their family, knowing they might well never see them again, and put their life in serious danger, just to make more money? And that by the millions? I mean, seriously, give it a serious thought, because that simply doesn’t add up.

Never mind that west German education was pretty good as well, these people generally left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They arrived in West Germany essentially in poverty. And didn’t stay in poverty. That says something.

Western Germany continued much of what was going on under the Nazis, encroached on East German territory, and played a pivotal role in destabilizing East Germany. This is what caused the rise in the Stasi.

Honestly, the more you talk about it like that, the more you make the DDR sound like an abusive partner. “I am protecting you, everyone else is dangerous and wants to do bad things to you. When I seriously hurt you? Oh, no, that’s not my fault, that’s other people interfering in our relationship, that’s just the natural consequence of that! Plus, everyone else would hurt you even more. But don’t you dare leave me, or I’ll kill you.”

You’re focusing on definitions when I am talking about what exists in the real world.

To quote your earlier post:

capitalists definitionally hold power over the media, production itself, and more to gain what they want [emphasis added]

Oh, and of course capitalism can be checked. There are many examples worldwide, from anti-monopoly legislation to environmental regulations. Of course, as with everything in that regard, there are more and less effective variants.

As to your data: again, these trends exist in many other countries, including more capitalist ones. So yeah, maybe it’s not the socialism (or rather, your preferred form of socialism) that was the deciding factor, or at least it wasn’t the only factor. If you don’t even compare and contrast to other data points, your analysis is deeply flawed.

But at least you finally explained how you believe capitalism naturally turns into fascism… Or at least, how unchecked capitalism turns into fascism. But again, it’s possible to keep capitalism in check.

As to your Hitler argument: that’s an overly simplistic account that most historians worth their salt would deeply reject. There is so, so much important context that you’re leaving out - the stab-in-the-back myth, the massive reparations demanded from Germany and subsequent economic problems, another economic crash after that, and yes, the loophole was a gaping one (you could pass emergency legislation which could be overturned by Parliament, but you could use that emergency legislation to prevent Parliament from convening - something that many other constitutions have measures in place to protect against), and more. Ignoring all these other factors is, well, ignorant.

And Germany has only been democratic in the DDR? I know people who lived in the DDR, and they would want to have a word with you… Let me explain to you how elections worked in the DDR: voting was compulsory, there was a list, but you couldn’t actually choose anything - you just threw that list into the urn. Technically, voting was secret, but if you tried to cast your ballot in secret, you were immediately suspect as an opposition member. And yes, people got disappeared in the DDR, ICE-style. So there was absolutely no way you, as a normal person not part of the ruling class, could change anything. That’s not democracy by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a false legitimation of an autocratic government. Yeah, there’s a reason (or rather, many reasons) why many, many people attempted to leave despite the DDR making it deadly, and many people got shot just for the crime of wanting a better life than they could get in the DDR.

Words have definitions for a reason, and authoritarianism is pretty well defined. And all definitions posted pretty much boil down to the same thing. At this point it’s just sealioning.

Whelp, I was away for a while, didn’t realize this thread was still alive. So, here we go.

in the case of capitalism, capitalists definitionally hold power over the media, production itself, and more to gain what they want.

You’re talking about the marxist definition of capitalism, which is far from the generally accepted one. The standard definition of capitalism doesn’t have capitalists in the sense that you describe. It doesn’t contain a capitalist class, either. The general definition talks about private citizens, meaning anyone in society. Which is the whole point: that anyone could use it to improve their financial situation, provided a sufficient amount of intelligence and rigor. Now, unchecked capitalism definitely doesn’t work like that in practice (at least not for long), but let’s not distort what capitalism is in the first place.

As to your statistics: you’re removing absolutely all historical context and attributing everything to a false capitalism-socialism dichotomy. Look at the statistics for other countries, you will find similar patterns just about everywhere due to other factors: a lack of wars, baby boomers, etc. If things were so much better in the USSR, there wouldn’t be a need to literally shoot people who dared want to leave.

I believe you mean fascism, not imperialism, so correct me if I’m answering the wrong question. The decay into fascism generally happens when the state begins nakedly applying colonial methods to the domestic population. In the US, for example, this involves mass incarceration of ethnic minorities, attacks on queer people, mass deportations, and the attack on left wing organizations. In Germany, it involved the brown shirts killing communists, and rounding up Jews, Slavs, queer people, disabled people, and mass murdering them.

You still haven’t explained how capitalism leads to this. You’ve just said that it is that way but in more detail.

Voting doesn’t stop this. Hitler was handed power

Again, you’re distorting history. Hitler never got more than around 40% of the vote in the time where Germany was democratic. His ultimate rise to power came through an extreme situation and a loophole in the constitution.

Could you please define this. As it stands authoritarian is the thought terminating cliche of choice for the unintelligent and uneducated to avoid having to investigate and reckon with the questions of substance such as class content of the state, state form, satisfaction of the people with the government etc.

Normally I don’t respond to low level comments like this, but the intellectual laziness here is mind boggling. Dictionaries exist for a reason.

The people hold them accountable, through the mechanisms I described previously

So, free and fair elections. Well, now we’re back to square one, and pretty much describing how Western democracies work.

Nordic countries offer sizable concessions to their working classes because the Soviets were right next to them, and already offered better safety nets.

Ah, yes, the soviet Union, definitely not imperialist. Sarcasm aside, they literally did not allow their population to leave. They killed people who dared to leave. That’s not a sign of things going well, to mention just one.

The state serves private interests in capitalism

Just because you repeat it a hundred times doesn’t make it true. The very mechanisms you described are used (with varying degrees of success depending on how well the democracy functions) to keep the state accountable to the people.

you’re again giving examples of concessions given largely because of working class organization, not through the “democratic processes.”

So then why are these mostly things that parties campaigned on, got voted into power for and then implemented?

Fascism is a result of the decay in capitalism and imperialism

That’s a very, very broad interpretation that many historians would disagree with. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it’s the case. How do these capitalist structures decay into imperialism then?