Unless melanin levels play a part in the story (Huck Finn, Mockingbird etc) then there’s no reason to even think about it. Describe to me how the following character looks: they go by the name Jordan and work in a Japanese restaurant in Cape Town. Everybody will picture someone different…

And certainly don’t use Apple Maps to look at the property in question in its full glory with no blur.

Next time? Lol

I only mention it as for the last forty years or so every time that someone has said left or right I’ve twitched my hands to work out which one I hold a pen(cil) with. Takes less than half a second and I don’t need to look at them either. It’s not unique not immediately knowing which is which. Live with it.

Do you “write” with your “right” hand? That’s how I remember.

A mute point or a moot point? You have (accidentally?) made a language pun there.

I think one of the issues might be if you’re subscribed to an active community of a few hundred people the fear is that community would mutate if suddenly a few thousand new accounts joined it and you could lose what you’d made.

Having said that, would I like a world where a ‘gram influencer stumbles in to a hexbear or .ml community and posts some vapid “sponsored content”? Yes. Yes I would. Would I like to see an evangelical turn up at Blahaj (sp?)? Yes. Very much so. Not for the drama - but to discover the contrast to their own personal truth. But, like you say, the tool-o-meter is already throwing out readings as it is, so everything would probably descend into name calling and bad faith arguments.

I don’t have a FB or Insta account… for a good reason. I don’t want one. Apart from Meta existing solely to maximise shareholder profit (which sits weirdly with the fediverse) there is its user base to consider. Whilst undoubtedly there are a lot of them, how many would bring actual quality as opposed to quantity of posts? Also, the Zuckdroid. Need I say more?

Or, perhaps, they’re of a centrist position? Like, literally, on neither side.

For the record the word Libertarian has a different meaning in the US to that used in the rest of the world.

That’s incredibly grim and it disturbs me - whilst I do (kind of) see where you’re coming from. I’m not gonna try and give you counselling or advice. I’m neither qualified nor know anything much about you to do that. I sincerely hope that in a decade or so a happier you looks back on the immediate future (as it is now) and just takes a deep breath and puts it down to another blip in humanity’s long and winding road. That would be nice.

What I’m saying is that whilst actual Tankies did, and still do, exist you do not have to be one to be called one. It’s now become a catch-all slur applied well outside of its original target.

You don’t. If you’re even entertaining the thought that there is more to learn than what you already know you are displaying intelligence. Stupid people “know” they’re NOT stupid and intelligent people constantly question their own intelligence. This is why a grown adult with the reading age of a 12yr old can spend twenty minutes online and become the world’s foremost authority on… 5G, vaccines, international geo politics, chemtrails, why the Nazi party were “ackshully” socialist etc. etc.

Another classic example of a technically correct answer missing nuance and context.

Whilst things do appear quite bleak across a lot of the European continent right now at least with a parliament that’s receptive to multiple parties there is a hope that one could quickly rise-up from the ashes of those defeated should the AfD (? + others) lurch the country far from the centre in the not too distant future. My confidence isn’t that high, but it is a possibility.

You genuinely have never heard it used in a pejorative way against any red? I never said all commies were tankies. I explained the words etymology and then its subsequent broad (mis)application in current online parlance. Hope you’re not reading theory with those comprehension skills, comrade.

Nice. I was hoping it might look a bit like this. Thanks for researching / posting.

Tankies were originally members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who were in favour of Soviet tanks mowing down first Hungarian and secondly Czechoslovakian ( as they were then ) protesters. These days it’s used as a pejorative towards anyone who has a good thing to say about communism / socialism etc.

That’s incredible - thanks. The idea of the ultimate endgame of capitalistic monopolies looking suspiciously like communism always confused me as it seemed they were just doing the communist legwork before the state intervenes. I’ll probably have a go at section 2, Engels / DiaMat, fairly soon.

Thanks. I’m passingly familiar with Lenin and the New Economic Policy but I’d like to better understand the key differences to Marx’s Communist theory that it had/s. Also, without wanting to be controversial, a good piece about China. Is it Marxist / Communist or not - or is it more complicated than that?