Socialism
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. This is a place for undogmatic and constructive discussion from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
A certain knowledge of socialism is expected, if you are new to/interested in socialism, please visit c/Socialism101 before participating here. Socialism101 will gladly help you by answering questions, providing resources etc.
Memes go in c/Lefty Memes
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!
Rules
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith discussion is enforced here.
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such,
as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavour.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" (read: Dengist) (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Xenial Xerus" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
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I never bought into "you have to suffer to save the planet" thing.
It's all about replacing fossil fuels with renewables and nuclear, not about "using less energy"
It's also about replacing the high-carbon car-dependent lifestyle that's making you poorer, sicker, and depressed with a lower-carbon walking/biking one that's better for you in all sorts of ways on top of being better for global warming.
I'm all for less car. However, when I think of all the shit me family normally buys every week on a supermarket on the other side of town… it already can sometimes be complicated getting it all up the stairs (and you better believe I am NOT gonna go for round two). I can't imagine how difficult it'd be… nay, IMPOSSIBLE, to carry all that shit on foot or bike across town
Granted, back when I had a job and lived alone, going by the supermarket on the way back home was easy. Did it on a daily basis, and never needed too much. Stack shit on my backpack and get going
Other than that, yeah, I walk around a lot. Don't drive much. I imagine, though, travelling could be difficult depending on destination. I can get places with public transport, but I don't know if a back and forth to the beach, for instance, could be easily done (though I've never checked)
I empathize with you and understand your position. That being said, if everyone in your community were to be willing to pay higher prices at a more local grocer, they would be able to reduce prices over time. That would also require zoning deregulation and such, but our capitalistic system demands that the larger corporation (with the ability to tank losses more easily,) amasses more consumer loyalty, and therefore drive smaller grocers out of business.
I don't know, I'm drunk and lost the plot halfway through this comment.
Yeah, there is a place close by. 2-3 min. on foot, if not less. But I hear it's pricier. I do go there from time to time, when needed urgent, but am big dumdum, no see price
The solution to sub-optimal regs isn't to discard the regulations; slap the Republican child-labour advocate who told you that.
Deregulation doesn't mean abandoning all regulations. It can also mean relaxing regulations. Such as the ones that regulate a large amount of square miles to residential only.
What if all that stuff were on every corner in smaller packages, or delivered on a regular train route right to your front door every couple weeks in the gratuitous quantities you love?
Not sure if you're proposing more local stores near people around cities, or a retro-futuristic tech bro supermarket delivery train idea (in the past, people will get their groceries via a mini-clay-tablet-thing called Oober Feasts, delivered to their door by a train.) Make it a subscription thing and we talking
If deliveries are regular and rails line every street, delivery stops being a luxury.
If food is collectivized, the corner store is functionally just a deep-storage pantry. Both seem fun.
So, what's the idea? Rails on every street, for a delivery train? I mean, getting stuff delivered at home like that seems fun. Though it also seems kinda lazy and removes an excuse to leave the house. And I sometimes enjoy seeing what up in the supermarket (and get some free tasting of food)
That's why the other thing was suggested.
We dont need most of the bullshit energy use of say AI, we should totally reduce it
How we generate it is the problem
Problem is, as you add new ways to use energy, often the addition of renewables is at a pace that simply covers that new use of energy, but isn't enough to actually reduce existing fossil fuel use. So it leaves you running in place in a world that desperately needs to lessen fossil fuel use to survive as a species.
Degrowth is necessary to actually lower energy demand so we can quickly get to net zero. Only once we reach that point should we consider being more wasteful with additional renewable energy.
And that's just your opinion.
It might be necessary to scrimp and save pennies
But doing that while you're still at the roulette table is pretty silly.
Its about having the political willpower to enact radical change that risks the bottom line for the wealthy.
Sorry but that’s not going to solve all of the problems. Microplastics pollution and freshwater shortages won’t be solved by renewables. Copper prices and critical minerals shortages will only get worse as the push to more renewables accelerates. Problems with grid loading, grid forming, and grid energy storage only get more challenging with more renewables replacing base load fossil fuel plants and more EVs and electrified household heating and cooking come online.
And last but not least is the issue of NIMBYs who will not go away if all the billionaires suddenly disappear. “Let’s get rid of a few thousand rich guys” is now looking more and more like “let’s get rid of half the population” which really means a brutal civil war with the billionaires siding against you. Sounds pretty bad!
I'm talking about the general method of solving problems.
Just use biodegradable packaging. No need to live like a monk
This is a renewable resource. We will never "run out"
The general method of problem solving doesn’t put more copper in the ground for us to mine. It doesn’t get rid of all the toxic slags produced by refining electronics critical minerals (which is why no Western country wants to touch them; the reason China has cornered the refining market).
Microplastics come from a lot more than food packaging. Car tires, for example, are a major source of microplastics.
What happens when fresh water ends up in the ocean? Or polluted with microplastics or other forever chemicals? Now we need to put in more energy to clean it up. That may be affordable for drinking water but it’s absolutely not so for agricultural irrigation. And guess what? Climate change alters rainfall patterns which ends up drying up the freshwater reservoirs.
Anything synthetic - especially but not limited to microfleeces we've been collectively adoring for 30+ years now - constantly breaks down into microplastics which are embedded in your lungs, your loved one's lungs, and every water source on Earth. Damn depressing. Try not to let your young kids around microfleece, we put it everywhere around their mouths :(