Cross-posted from “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution” by @Db0@dbzer0.com in !dbzer0.com@dbzer0.com

I see tankies keep trying to argue with people about “Actually Existing Socialist” states like USSR and China and try to argue with me or others about how “they were good actually”. It’s bad enough when most of their arguments are whataboutism, but it grinds my gears when I hear then prattle on about all the statistically significant material improvements the life of the people received. It’s like listening to a terminally-liberal prattle on about how “statistically, the life quality actually increased under capitalism”.

Why is this bothering me so much? Because tankies completely suppress the freedom aspects of those states. Sure the improvements in life quality in those nations improved compared to the feudal/agrarian societies they had before, much like liberal capitalism also improved those same metrics.

But the freedom of the populace barely improved improved whatsoever because that freedom is anathema to authoritarian regimes. When anarchists talk about our ideal society, we mean both positive and negative freedom together together. It’s not enough if your health expectancy is increased and infant mortality is reduced, if you have to constantly fear the secret police knocking on your door. It’s not enough to have food on your plate, when the state determines what you can create and where you can work. It’s not enough to get a free car and internet, if your family member got shipped to the concentration camp for criticizing the movement leaders online.

Tankies explicitly avoid this. They are desperate to argue that “authoritarianism is not a thing actually”, hilariously and endlessly promoting the worst socialist essay ever written to justify this. But authoritarianism is very much the crux of the problem here. A society with a hierarchical structure like capitalism or marxism-leninism (i.e. state capitalism) can never be good. It might be better than other states, but it will only get worse and worse as power concentrates to fewer hands and the grip of authority tightens the more control slips through their fingers.

We keep seeing this historically both in liberal and ML states. Clearly material quality of life is not enough to justify the system, or even be stable long-term, when actual human liberty is the sacrifice for it.

  • araneae@beehaw.org
    112·
    10 days ago

    I wholeheartedly agree with you and wish this post had gone better for you but it has to be said your point was obliterated by your obstinate defense of your complimentary AI image. Clearly people do not agree with your stance that your AI, though locally grown, open source, and energy efficient, is not in theory stealing. In my opinion, unfortunately, it sort of is stealing unless you source the input data yourself. I read somewhere in the thread you possibly did source your own data and thats really cool if so. But I think that it just goes to show that at least on Lemmy your receptive audience just… doesn’t like AI art in principle. I’ll say it universally looks groddy to me and I had the same gut reaction to seeing the art even though I like what it depicts and love the message (and title!).

    Another thing is… Know your audience. The premise of this thread already means you were going to be engaging with prickly Marxist-Leninists to begin with… Since they do practice whatabohtism as you stated, they just need a thing to dig into to discredit you, and you sort of gave it to them. Not saying you have to be the perfect flawless diplomat with how you comport yourself online (god knows I’m not) but to an audience who aren’t receptive anyway your defense of your practices while not broadly clarifying the source of your training data is just going to lead them to thinking of you as a reactionary in favor of art regurgitation, indicating you are more about your aesthetic than your message. I think you have pirate party politics and I respect the long term vision of a world without constraints on how art is shared and understood, but this specific tool we’re discussing requires far more attention than not in order to be wielded ethically. People are gunshy just seeing it, even if theoretically they don’t know what you’re showing them is a home made original piece with original constituent data.

    You can’t really wear a big hat on the internet that says ASK ME ABOUT MY ETHICAL OPEN SOURCE AI but perhaps you could have user flair in your nametag. On your blog you could caption your art with a disclaimer and a github link to the resources you use/used to build it.

    • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPM
      101·
      10 days ago

      There’s no argument I can make towards the GenAI haters that will work. This is a situation where people have dug in their heels about their position and see neither arguments nor nuance.

      I don’t particularly care if some people dislike the disposable art I use for my blog. I also don’t think “people disagree” with my use of GenAI. It’s a few ones that do but they’re very loud when they do. Most other don’t give a fuck about it either way.

      I understand that moralizers won’t like how I work, but I’m used to hear these bad faith arguments from anti-pirates for decades now. I’m used to it.

      • inv3r5ion@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        52·
        10 days ago

        “Disposable art” see, you’re telling on yourself about how you view art and artists. There’s a reason people aren’t a fan of this even if you’re doing it as “ethically” as possible.