A memes get shared, consequently removed from context and consequently misunderstood. And removed from context, op isn’t around to explain and most people aren’t willing to read or write this much.

You are right that a meme has to be somewhat simple. Which is why I believe memes should be seen as a somewhat dangerous medium to communicate politics. The radicalization of the right wing was heavily powered by memes.

As the meme depictes a conversation, it could encourage people to have the conversation like that, and such a conversation wouldn’t be productive.

Edit: op btw made it clear to me that they wanted to reach the people “here” with his message and seemingly don’t care about possible consequences. Their audience was exclusively intended to be “here”, what I would call the in-group and I am considered about the conversation of out-group and in-group.

Interesting response to a point that invalidates the response.

Also you understand that the nature of the discussion in this situation is vastly different to a normal conversation, or a non-ml forum. This forum is a very political, primary ml, environment. You are primarily talking to people who generally agree with you. My critic is about how people who currently don’t agree with you, maybe due to ignorance, will experience this meme, or the actions promoted in it. Making it bad agitprop. Unless your aim is to alienate the in-group from the out-group and not to recruit the out-group into the in-group.

Completely missing the point are we?

I am saying, if you intend to correct their misunderstanding, you should care for what they understand because then you can probably explain to them how they are wrong. If you don’t consider what they understand, you will talk pass each other and leave them as ignorant as they started.

I am not saying, they are right about their definition. I am saying, if you don’t approach then where they are, they won’t follow you.

That is my critic. Yes, obviously you can feel differently about it. That is how criticism usually works, people having different concerns and expectations.

But as usual with opinions on things based in reality, either I am right about my concerns that it promotes a way of conversation harmful to the cause that It want to promote, or I am wrong. If I am right, then framing it as “up to my standards” is obviously dishonest as yes, it wouldn’t be but because it is factually bad. “So capitalism isn’t up to your standards.”, you would probably say “yes, look at the fucking harm that it does”.

Obviously I could be wrong, but that doesn’t make the framing any better. Because either you know that I am wrong and you could respond with a proper argument, or you don’t know that I am wrong and then you should consider the possibility that I am right and argue the point, instead of dismissing it by framing it as “my standards”.

Please look at this conversation and ask yourself if you are engaging in the conversation with the intention to explore what kind of communication is best to promote your ideals, or just to dismiss my point. if it is dismissal, would I be justified to return the dismissal? Is that good for your cause? I think the answer is obvious.

There are 2 issues.

1. Memes don’t always get shared as a link with a comment section
2. I could agree that all GOOD agitprop does that, as my point is that it isn’t good agitprop.

The response in the meme is. That is my point. If I would think you guys didn’t want to teach, I would argue that given your desire to teach, you should be care to approach something like “capitalism is human nature” more carefully and generously than in the meme as you could change some minds with it.

They should be corrected but you should correct them and not just tell them that it is only 500years old as it ignores the misunderstanding and avoids having a proper conversation.

Saying “technically capitalism is only 500 years old and human societies are much much older, what exactly do you mean when you say capitalism?” Is encouraging communication, understanding and knowledge seeking.

Saying “it is only 500 years old” sounds like you tell them that it is 500 years old as a theory and not necessarily as a practice. Which is obviously not the point that the person is interested in, as they would be interested in the age of the practice and not theory. So they perceive you as dodging the claim with a distraction. (Important: I am not saying it is older as a practice but that someone could easily understand it as that)

Sorry to be like that but ignorance towards what your conversation partner expresses can only be solved by education. And without proper conversations, no education is possible.

Well, there we have a disagreement. I don’t think people press on like indicates a careful consideration of the argument and understanding of the argument presented. Look at how popular some of e.g. Elon musk’s dumbest posts are.

I am judging the comments as their display some understanding and you are probably right that there is a bias in the dataset.

In the end of the day, my argument boils down to, Do you believe that the average person saying “capitalism is human nature” uses your definition of capitalism? Or that they are just vaguely reference something that they don’t really want to argue?

I don’t know what you are trying to tell me.

Why is the ratio important? Is a anti-capitalism take on .ml being popular evidence for anything that is relevant to my comment or the discussion at large? If I had to guess, I would say you imply that people who up vote understand the difference between trading with currency and capitalism, which I would generally doubt that assumption. People liking trump posts probably don’t understand traffics. You get my point. Additionally, my confusion about the relevance of ratio is properly best highlighted by the fact that my critic was about the meme in general, how that meme gets perceived in e.g. this community is beside the point. Deportation memes are probably well received in trump communities. That doesn’t make them good arguments or an good thing to express. Could you assist me in understanding the relevance?

The second part, I agree with you and I disagree with the statement. Obviously it isn’t without alternatives.

I think this meme is a little unfair. For the sake of this comment, I am assuming that op is 100% correct about his definitions and I want to stress that I don’t claim that “capitalism” is human nature.

Op basically admits in his comments that the general public doesn’t have a good understanding of communism or capitalism and consequently how do define them. E.g. He keeps having to explain the difference between capitalism and trade with currency, highlighting the lack of understanding of what capitalism is.

This should make you question what a person means when they say that capitalism is human nature. Do they mean capitalism or their understanding of it? The answer is obvious.

So what do they mean? Given that people don’t just walk around saying “capitalism is human nature”, it is probably fair to see it as what it attempts to be, a justification. A justification usually follows a critic. And what is that critic? I think it is fair to roughly assume that it is a justification for the usual critic of capitalism. The degradation of human life by encouraging a competitive environment which leads to exploitation and hierarchy. That exploitation is powered by the violence of controlling limited resources.

So the question becomes, could the person saying “capitalism is human nature” mean that humans are competitive hierarchical animals who will use any means to control, oppress and exploit it’s environment, including economical violence. If yes, then the age of capitalism is irrelevant and ancient Rome is probably what the person would identify as what they believe to be human nature.

In short, I think the response in the meme doesn’t accurately engages with the challenge of the claim and would probably fail to convince anyone and probably makes you seem intellectually dishonest from the perspective of the conversation partner.

I don’t believe cowbee is intellectually dishonest, but that they fail to consider the issue from a different perspective, as we all do daily.

I think it is a weird focus because it was irrelevant to your point, and the discussion at large. I could point out that American christians are far more likely to support trump than non-christians, but why? When we talk about the idea of the us electorate (that you chose to equate to american in your comment to the other guy. So I will say American too)

The collective in question was defined, “why do you think that about Americans?” To move the focus to white Americans is odd in that context. Imagine I would have said, “well republicans are far right”. You would have told me that we don’t talk about republicans but Americans. That I couldn’t and shouldn’t judge a collective by a subgroup. Yet that is what your focus on white Americans does in this conversation. It is not a bad observation, it is just a weird focus in this conversation.

And yes white Americans have voted trump in power, 61% of Americans identify as “white (not mixed)”. 71% of Americans identify as “white”. That is a huge part of the us electorate. If 57% (according to exit polls) of 71% of the us electorate vote for a fascist, of course, that is relevant and it should play a part in how I judge the us electorate.

But in the end of the day, all of that is more complicated than needed to answer the question, why do I believe the us electorate is far right. Trump won the popularity vote. You can break it up. But then we aren’t talking about your initial question, why do you think that about the us electorate? Instead we would talk about e.g. the white us electorate, certainly worth while exploring but not the topic at hand.

If you are unhappy with that, then don’t frame it as you do. I am answering your question precisely. Ask me a different question if you want to talk about a different topic. But don’t dismiss my answer because you don’t like it and claim that your comment didn’t focus onto white Americans and that the majority of the us electorate didn’t vote for trump while blaming white Americans (the absolute majority of the us electorate) for voting for trump.

I am sorry but the us is mostly white and fascist. That is what informs my opinion on us citizens as a collective.

Edit: you also seem very offended by the idea that I judge the us electorate based on a popular vote, saying that not everyone is that way. While happily blaming white Americans based on exit polls, ignoring that not everyone is that way. That is odd. Why can’t I judge the us electorate but you can judge the white us electorate?

If you need to pay for something, it is a huge red flag.

Weird focus on white people if it adds nothing to your point.

Not voting is certainly not an indication that they didn’t want trump and when dealing with a far right fascist, that is interesting. But we all can have some copium, so that we don’t need to accept that a shocking amount of people are dumb as rocks and that consequently they don’t quite care about stuff like due process, and don’t mind a fascist Leader.

At some point, we need to accept that currently the general public is conservative because they know the old ways and care too little to learn the new ones but get scared of change.

The majority voted for trump, a fascist. Idk.

If you tell me you are a good person, I will require evidence. If you tell me you are a bad person, I will trust your word.

I liked harry Potter. I just can’t enjoy it because of her. Her being who she is, ruins it for me.

Why would the artist or the poster be trans? If they were trans, why would it form your opinion on “trans people” and not the individual in question?

I really like that sign off.

Piss on carpet

It is kinda funny how people understand that hyperbolic and scandalous language grabs our attention, their attention gets grabbed by hyperbolic and scandalous language and then they laughing at those who used that language. You got played. They aren’t wrong as much as you didn’t understand what they are doing. An investor is rewarded for having the correct opinion but only if everyone else is wrong. They are professional liars. So they get money because they misled the public and they get money for the attention that they generated. They cashed in twice.

Personally, I do think china will face great economical challenges in the near future though. E.g. The collapse of evergrande and the consequences on the whole sector will make some waves. Let’s hope the public won’t suffer.

Before anyone wants to jump at me for shitting on china and praising the west (I did neither), I think e.g. america is a dumpster fire economically speaking and the eu is struggling at best.

If anyone is interested to share with me their opinion on a (in my opinion, a very probable) collapse of Tesla will impact the EV market, especially the Chinese market, please do!

It is so fucking odd, how many people are claiming that e.g. the male loneliness issue is blaming women and then agree with your post.

I agree with your post. I just don’t understand how so many people here can agree that the patriarchy is harming men and is e.g. isolating men, but then turn around and act like mentioning the symptoms and talking about them, makes you misogynistic.

I don’t get it. Women have my support, I just hope I will have theirs too.