I think they clearly expressed they were going through some hard times. I don’t think that’s necessarily a sin. And I don’t think one comment we all disagree (landlords) is a good lone reason to ban. Did I miss something? Not trying to stir the pot I just think patience and compassion should always come first.
Like others said, he had some very negative views in his comment history. He had them for a while now and he was spreading a very negative message from time to time.
That being said, he also mentioned he was going through some hard times.
To me it always seemed like he was genuinely confused about some aspects of ML. I don’t think he acted in bad faith. He simply didn’t understand some things and coupled with some mental health problems he may not have been able to always see the point we were trying to make.
I’m not a mod/admin, so I have no say in this, but I personally think a ban is too harsh. He had some good contributions to the site as well, be it through posts or comments. I don’t think we should start banning people just because they don’t always agree with the popular take. Part of why I like this place is because I feel people can always discuss things, which is a great part of how we can learn over here. Engaging in debate is something that gets mentioned here a lot but somehow a user disagreeing with some points gets banned. I don’t think that’s right. Especially when the user is, in my opinion, not acting in bad faith.
Yes, we need to be better than the larger platforms that drove us for this exact reason (r/communism, Reddit in general, etc.). I remember forums like r/communism being much more diverse and open to differing opinions even a few years ago, and it was what made the community so accessible to a larger audience that wouldn’t have otherwise bothered. I feel like we need more of that here. We need to be more tolerant of people’s different takes on ML and socialism in general, while also using facts and evidence to disprove them.
I am also very in favor of this because of radicalization. I have absolutely no experience running or moderating any sort of online community so I can appreciate that this might be dumb, but to me I wouldn’t even ban openly belligerent liberals or fascists in hopes of working the long game and changing their perspective slowly behind closed doors (or, at the very least, the minds of silent lurkers represented by such people representing their ideologies having their points torn apart). I know the risk of corruption though, if for example GZD or lemmygrad had done that I would have been a severe risk of slowly losing its ML backbone, there’s definitely pros and cons to it.
I respectfully disagree but I do not have the time to write a well-worded/edited response (I have an appointment to keep) but I (1) don’t want to downvote becaues I agree with much of what you say, and (2) don’t want no other voice to be heard. Better some sloppily-written input than a downvote.
Quickly: I personally engaged with that account many times in good faith and it really was like talking to a brick wall. At a certain level we, on here, are not therapists and while the reality of the world is bleak and for some it can be a bit much no one is forcing people to spend time on here, and I am not going to police how honest I am about the world to spare someone else’s feelings. I can tell you right now, the world is even more bleak than that person realized but they were too busy spreading doomerist ideas to learn anything (e.g. the mass sterilization campaigns in California which began all the way back in the 20s)
To hear that they were a landlord apologist also makes me seriously doubt they understood much of any of this.
(1) ML is not a doomerist area of thought and it is not a bloodthirsty area of thought, it is simply ruthless in it’s aim of establishing a better world, because those who stand in the way are ruthless in defending their parasitic roles.
(2) Do you really understand how bad things are if you are a landlord apologist? I worked for and with mom and pop and larger landlords in my early investing days and I even intended to become one. While it may vary from case to caes, the mom and pop landlord who is nice is a complete myth. When the time to pay comes, they all evict (I know from covid times). Not to mention they represent a tiny fraction of landlords to begin with. The Chinese did not execute all the landlords btw not even close, but it was seen as a mark against them and I agree wholeheartedly with that. If you can harden your heart enough to be a landlord I don’t want you having a big role in the future of humanity. I have been a calculating business man and a lawyer for some time and even before i was introduced to ML thought I could never bring myself to be a landlord because it is just so unredeemably vile imho. it takes a special type of person, and not the good kind of special.
Visiting the apartment complexes of my “nicer” landlord co-workers turned me revolutionary. How could they harden their hearts to this reality and not thing something ought to change!?
Final thought: at a certain point being a doomer is a luxury. Currently hundreds of millions of people are cold, hungry, in pain, in refugee camps, under attack by military and police forces, etc. That emanates almost entirely from the imperial core. I will not throw my hands up and say “it’s depressing but there’s nothing I can do… it’s preordained” That is the ultimate selfishness to me. I can only help them deal with their personal anxieties so much, they must also be putting effort in themselves.
To be clear, I am not discounting mental health or saying it has no place on here, I personally engaged with this person at length on the topic with literally no response from them and saw the same hapen to others. I’m just saying that there is a way of going about it that is more conducive to a community environment.
I am certain I misspoke, made generalizations, and I am certain that if challenged I would change some of my stances stated here, but that is my initial, un-edited reaction. I personally support the admins on this.
I can see where you’re coming from. I saw his comments on landlords too and I even thought out a long reply disagreeing with him, but I didn’t post it (don’t know why really, probably because it was late already). I also don’t want my reply to be seen as a somewhat pro-landlord reply. I am 100% against landlords.
Maybe I am too kind for him. I try to look for chances in people and to me he did not seem lost or something, just in a bad place. But then again I have a lot of patience with people, sometimes maybe too much.
I still don’t fully agree on banning him but like I said, I’m not a mod/admin so I don’t have a say in that. It’s too bad because there were also good intentions from him, but I agree that he should also put in the effort to improve himself. We can only do so much. I hope he can adjust his visions and find some peace of mind.
Your “I didn’t post it” is exactly why I decided to go ahead and post even though I am waiting in the doctor’s office and was tempted to just not write anything lol. So thank you for taking my comment as it was intended. I just wanted to pushback on the consensus I saw forming in the comments with some of my thoughts, unformed as they are.
I definitely did not feel your reply was pro-landlord. My opinion is just that doomer+landlord apologist suggests a not very well thought out analysis.
I understand the being patient and kind I just think that when it is your responsibility to safeguard the community you see things a bit differently.
I can see merit to both sides of this conversation.
I guess to show all my cards this is just very personal for me because in several different ways I was a shitty person for a long time in my life. It took me a long time to change and a longer time for it to be obvious to an outside observer. I’m not a total idealist “all people can change!,” I know plenty of people IRL that if given the best resources that humanity has to offer for the remainder or their lifetime they would still likely be just the same, and the reality is people DON’T have the time nor such resources. But I try to repeatedly give people the benefit of the doubt and try really hard even when there is no surface level changes because I know how long it can take for something like that to manifest into positive change.
To be cold and pragmatic, “But is it worth the effort?” is also a reasonable question to ask, although it’s also hard to gauge somebody’s “worth” especially on the internet (not that I like thinking under such terms either).
Like I said, I can see both sides. I’m still not feeling about the ban but I’m not gonna throw a fit over it either and I respect whatever the final verdict is and the reasons behind it.