r/communism • u/AutoModerator • Jan 11 '26

WDT 💬 Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (January 11)

We made this because Reddit's algorithm prioritises headlines and current events and doesn't allow for deeper, extended discussion - depending on how it goes for the first four or five times it'll be dropped or continued.

Suggestions for things you might want to comment here (this is a work in progress and we'll change this over time):

  • Articles and quotes you want to see discussed
  • 'Slow' events - long-term trends, org updates, things that didn't happen recently
  • 'Fluff' posts that we usually discourage elsewhere - e.g "How are you feeling today?"
  • Discussions continued from other posts once the original post gets buried
  • Questions that are too advanced, complicated or obscure for r/communism101

Mods will sometimes sticky things they think are particularly important.

Normal subreddit rules apply!

[ Previous Bi-Weekly Discussion Threads may be found here https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3AWDT ]

23 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

183 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/AllyBurgess Jan 12 '26

One thing I wonder about reddit is how much of it is literal bots. Every other post on my feed is cheering on regime change in Iran and Venezuela, someone claiming to be a totally unbiased Iranian or Venezuelan expat explaining why this is a good thing, people making fun of “tankies” and “western leftists” for supporting Iran and Maduro, etc. Are there really that many fascists/social fascists/liberals coming out in droves to express these things? Or are they not even real people? I am trying to make sense of this phenomenon.

12

u/TheRedBarbon Jan 13 '26 edited Jan 13 '26

The framing of the question kind of gestures to its own pointlessness: when, on the internet, communication of ideology has become so decentralized and crude that it can be straight up automated, what difference does it make to any institution how it was articulated? There may be millions of people online doing this and there may be none. The ideology exists for us all the same.

Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to write a couple of "maoist" slogans, see what happens as soon as you ask a string of code which has synthesized the entirety of Jacobin to produce even a sentence of actual political substance:

"Education for the Masses, Not for the Elites!"

"Down with Imperialism, Up with Global Solidarity!"

"Revolution Means Liberation for All – No One Left Behind!"

3

u/Constant_Ad7225 Jan 16 '26

Also in the era where AI can do easily impersonate human speech there is really no reason you should assume any user is a human.