That’s a fair point and something I’ll need to keep in mind. There are plenty of game developers I’ve walked away from over the years because of their views and behaviors. While I’m sure there are plenty who’ve never said the quiet part out loud, I’ve divorced myself from those who do.

I’m no programmer and I understand that open source is a significant shield against weighted algorithms and behind-the-scenes shenanigans, but I also know where Lemmy’s roots lie, not just the developers, but the initial communities they created.

To me, kbin already feels like a fork I’m happy with. I’m not trying you be dogmatic, but for now, this is where I’m comfortable.

I’m just saying someone new in software development reading the comment I replied may misinterpret part of what they are saying as “all open source software is trustable” and reinforce that notion.

I’m not saying that lemmy devs have a higher chance of doing it bc they are tankies or whatever, no. They have no history of doing that and the project is so big and important that they really wouldn’t risk it; it is indeed a bit silly to defend my point in this specific thread, now that I think about it.

also, like @minimar said, it’s not how it works. most kind of obfuscation in open source code actually makes it easier to identify it as harmful. they are also found in libraries 99% of the time, not at the open source software repo itself. also, rust has no history of any harmful library.

anyway, sorry if I gave the wrong idea haha. just looking out for people who might have that notion, like I had.

Tankies isn’t a cute catch-all term for Communists who do have various goals, beliefs, and methodologies of how to transition to, create, and maintain a Communist state. They’re Stalinists and/or Maoists who deny well-documented genocides and claim that everything against their ideology is a Western conspiracy theory and the only correct sources of information come from Russia and/or China. In a similar way that Neo-Nazi’s claim everything is a Jewish conspiracy theory and the only correct sources of information come from their biased as all hell Alt-Right/Neo-Nazi sources like Stormfront.

This is the exact type of ignorance that I’m talking about when I say people defend Tankies because they were taught the Holocaust in school but never taught about the Holodomor.

E: “The US government is evil so the people the US says are the bad guys must actually be the good guys and are undoubtedly correct about everything. There is no such thing as CCP or Soviet propaganda - that’s propaganda from the CIA. Read this article from the CCP explaining it all.”

I don’t like lumping them together because in my experience current tankies tend to be people who want good things, but are wrong about large chunks of history and current events. Fascists just want power and to enforce oppression so go with whatever story or lie they think will get them there as truth is immaterial to them.

If we’re going to get academic about it, the political compass is an imprecise tool and it’s a fool’s errand to take an absolutist approach to assigning political ideologies on the spectrum. :P Just because an ideology is generally in the authoritarian-socialist quadrant doesn’t mean it can’t crib notes from a philosophy in a different quadrant. The authoritarian axis is more anchoring here than socialist/conservative.

“Tankies” are not communists, they are fascists with red masks on

This is like a small child’s understanding of politics

I mean if you want to get academic about it - I suggest you talk to some people in academia. Nearly all of those who say “Fascism is different.” self-describe themselves as Marxists or are Stalinist apologists - such as Michael Parenti or Sheila Fitzpatrick. Gee, I wonder why Marxists would want to distance Communism (and more specifically - Stalinism) from being compared with other fascists regimes like the Nazis. Maybe they don’t like how it makes them look bad?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nazism_and_Stalinism

No really - read the above link and anyone who is cited as saying Stalinism isn’t fascism check their wiki profile. Without a doubt they’re a self-described Marxist. They’re quite literally the only people who deny that Stalinism was a form of fascism and play apologists for all the atrocities that took place.

A disturbing amount of Communists see attacks on Stalinism as an attack on Communism and so make all sorts of mental gymnastics to defend Stalinism.

Edit:

I much prefer the “That wasn’t real Communism!” brand of Communists over the “That was real Communism and here’s why the mass murder they did was justified or never happened (despite being well-documented by the Stalinists/Maoists themselves)!” brand of Communists.

Absolutely, when I first arrived… seems long ago but wasn’t! The “tankie” talk was thick and I was hearing all kinds of wacky perspectives I’d never heard before and presented pretty heatedly. I do think they’ve been drowned out now with the influx.

But are you suggesting this somehow impacts Lemmy?

Mostly irrelevant in this context, because the topic at hand is the developer denying that they condone these practices and insisting that it is a manufactured narrative. You are replying to a rebuttal of this.

Your opinion is a completely fair one to have, but we don’t need to shift the conversation back to it every time someone provides a rebuttal to “the dev never actually said that” with receipts.

Yeah I know, I don’t think them being tankies is really a problem for Lemmy as a whole. I was just annoyed that all they had to say is “no we aren’t tankies” and people just took them at their word lol

I guess it kinda matters in that people like me certainly won’t be giving any code contributions, which for an open source project can be critical to its long-term health.

But devs also tolerate and use tons of code and the licenses that Richard Stallman wrote, even if he’s a huge creepball that a bunch of other free software orgs had to back away from.

So we’ll see. I also wouldn’t rule out a fork of it just so that it’s officially ran by a less controversial group.

It impacts as long as those problematic instances are federated

What does it mean to be “weirdly anti US”?

I don’t have an issue with the developers being Tankies as long as it doesn’t affect the software

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