This is an opportunity for any users, server admins, or interested third parties to ask anything they’d like to @nutomic@lemmy.ml and I about Lemmy. This includes its development and future, as well as wider issues relevant to the social media landscape today.

Note: This will be the thread tmrw, so you can use this thread to ask and vote on questions beforehand.

Original Announcement thread

  • diamat@lemmy.ml
    English
    403·
    11 months ago

    Thank you a lot for building such an awesome platform! Here are my questions:

    How did you get into communism? Were there any events that had an influence on you becoming communists and what personally motivates you to keep working on lemmy even though you could earn much more as developers working on proprietary software?

    • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
      963·
      11 months ago

      Growing up during the US war on the Iraqi people, the jingoistic coverage in media for all US wars, then the subsequent alienation I felt after I started working, is the main thing that turned me to Marxism. Essentially, when the extremely untrustworthy warmongers start calling everything they dislike, “communism / socialism”, then it must be worth looking into. And I found that there was good reason they carefully steer populations away from Marxist literature, and deem it a heresy: because its a clear and straightforward description of how things actually work, and it threatens their fortunes. Nearly every communist grows up in liberal-dominated cultures, and goes through their own process of rejecting the world that enshrines property and profit over human lives, and how it affected them personally. Their stories are all worth listening to.

      I’ve worked in many different industries in software, and found the same issues in all of them, and just lost patience, especially seeing that all the work I did creating proprietary software was essentially thrown in the trash, and societally useless. I’d much rather be paid very little, and contribute something positive to the world; time is our most valuable resource, and we should spend it doing things that improve the world, because there is so much that needs doing.

      • StudioLE@programming.devEnglish
        381·
        11 months ago

        All the work I did creating proprietary software was essentially thrown in the trash, and societally useless. I’d much rather be paid very little, and contribute something positive to the world; time is our most valuable resource, and we should spend it doing things that improve the world, because there is so much that needs doing.

        This is very well put and mirrors the issue I keep coming up against in my career.

      • diamat@lemmy.ml
        English
        282·
        11 months ago

        Thanks for the reply! As a baby Marxist I just wanted to add that I recently listened to your Audiobook of Zak Cope‘s Divided World Divided Class and I thought that it was really eye opening as it for the first time made it clear to me, that there actually is a material basis for people in the West to buy into the liberal ideology. Living in the west one personally benefits from the bribes that the western haute bourgeoisie is able to pay its workers in inflated wages made possible by the super exploitation of labor and resources in the third world. (At least that is my understanding of the book, I‘m open for different interpretations)

        So thank you for making the book available as an audiobook!

        • Dessalines@lemmy.mlOPMEnglish
          323·
          11 months ago

          Thanks! Yep that book really did open my eyes too, that the process of colonial extraction of the labor of millions of super-exploited global south workers, to feed the imperial core nations, is still going.

          Glad I could help!

      • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.oneEnglish
        122·
        11 months ago

        Are there any countries at the moment that are close to what you’d describe as Socialist? I find myself interested in certain aspects of it, but wanted to know if there’s anywhere that practices some of it so I can see/research for myself to try and figure out where I sit politically.

        Another question regarding this - are there any links/similarities between socialist ideologies, and services offered by welfare (such as free transport, education, healthcare, unemployment benefits, housing)?

        Apologies if I’m mixing things up or anything, thought it would be quicker to just ask directly. Since I’m from a western country I’d assume the lens through which we view and understand socialism may differ

      • KFCDoubleDoink [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        41·
        11 months ago

        I’ve worked in many different industries in software, and found the same issues in all of them, and just lost patience, especially seeing that all the work I did creating proprietary software was essentially thrown in the trash, and societally useless. I’d much rather be paid very little, and contribute something positive to the world; time is our most valuable resource, and we should spend it doing things that improve the world, because there is so much that needs doing.

        Based rat-salute

      • sarsaparilyptus@midwest.socialEnglish
        510·
        11 months ago

        Very interesting that you describe your journey using almost identical language to how people describe their relationship with faith. Is that why you’re part of the LaRouche cult, or did you decide that you identify with genocide denial, Holocaust truthing, anti-semitism, and neo-fascism all on your own?