I have never before heard the term tankies used and before today would not know it meant a hard line communist.
@HubertManne The term “tankie” was originally coined to refer to pro-USSR communists who supported sending in the tanks to destroy Hungary and Prague’s counter-revolutions in the 50’s and 60’s:
The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising, or who more broadly adhered to pro-Soviet positions.
The term is also used to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the crimes committed by communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Kim il-Sung. In modern times, the term is used across the political spectrum to describe those who have a bias in favor of authoritarian states with a leftist legacy, such as the People’s Republic of China, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Additionally, tankies have a tendency to support non-socialist states if they are opposed to the United States and the Western world in general, regardless of ideology. source
The person above is correct that is has been a thing since the 1950s, but for most of that time it was a relatively rare term used to refer to the UK’s communist party (which hasn’t even existed since 1991) and occasionally for hardline old-fashioned leftists in general, again mostly in the UK. It’s only in the past couple of years that it got picked up by the internet and went everywhere, which is probably why you haven’t heard of it. I’m from the UK myself and I haven’t heard of it until recently.
Thanks as that really clears it up. Seems like a not to uncommon type of thing I see. Something batted around and people talking like its been a thing forever and has some history but only in recent times has become a thing.
I’m not sure if it matters if the software is open source and if politics do not interfere with the development of the software. Even less so because the devs don’t control the federated instances outside of their own instance. I’m sure I don’t agree with a lot of developers of software that I use on a daily basis and I actually don’t really care, as long as it’s not actively harming people or limit how I use the software.
That being said, I don’t know much about them and I might be unaware of some really serious things that they’ve said or done that might change my mind.
One point in favor of the devs, they do so far seem committed to keeping politicization isolated to the instances they run themselves (the two .ml domains), and have publicly claimed a few times that they are committed to supporting anyone who runs a lemmy instance regardless of their political ideologies.
I’m not sure if it matters if the software is open source and if politics do not interfere with the development of the software.
Generally I tend to agree.
However - the devs are asking for donations - and the Lemmy code contains links to their donation page (https://join-lemmy.org/donate), so every Lemmy instance admin (tankie or not) is unwittingly advertising and promoting links to their donation page.
If you’re donating, it’s probably nice to know who is receiving your money.
I’ve heard that they’re hard line communists. Tankies, as the kids say these days.
The kids have been calling tankies “tankies” since the 1950s.
I have never before heard the term tankies used and before today would not know it meant a hard line communist.
@HubertManne The term “tankie” was originally coined to refer to pro-USSR communists who supported sending in the tanks to destroy Hungary and Prague’s counter-revolutions in the 50’s and 60’s:
The person above is correct that is has been a thing since the 1950s, but for most of that time it was a relatively rare term used to refer to the UK’s communist party (which hasn’t even existed since 1991) and occasionally for hardline old-fashioned leftists in general, again mostly in the UK. It’s only in the past couple of years that it got picked up by the internet and went everywhere, which is probably why you haven’t heard of it. I’m from the UK myself and I haven’t heard of it until recently.
Thanks as that really clears it up. Seems like a not to uncommon type of thing I see. Something batted around and people talking like its been a thing forever and has some history but only in recent times has become a thing.
They used to, but they still do too.
Tankies are Red Fascists.
I’m not sure if it matters if the software is open source and if politics do not interfere with the development of the software. Even less so because the devs don’t control the federated instances outside of their own instance. I’m sure I don’t agree with a lot of developers of software that I use on a daily basis and I actually don’t really care, as long as it’s not actively harming people or limit how I use the software.
That being said, I don’t know much about them and I might be unaware of some really serious things that they’ve said or done that might change my mind.
They do control two of the larger instances though. Lemmygrad.ml and Lemmy.ml.
One point in favor of the devs, they do so far seem committed to keeping politicization isolated to the instances they run themselves (the two .ml domains), and have publicly claimed a few times that they are committed to supporting anyone who runs a lemmy instance regardless of their political ideologies.
Actions speak louder than words, so time will tell.
Generally I tend to agree.
However - the devs are asking for donations - and the Lemmy code contains links to their donation page (
https://join-lemmy.org/donate), so every Lemmy instance admin (tankie or not) is unwittingly advertising and promoting links to their donation page.If you’re donating, it’s probably nice to know who is receiving your money.
If you’re worried about where your money is going you can use Open Collective to donate, which provides transparency of where and how funds are used.
Thing is you can just donate to your local instance instead
Well, this was in regards to the Devs of the actual Lemmy backend.