My pet theory for these is that they’re like a test of skill for metalworkers, and that they would be put on display as proof of their capabilities. They were often found in safes with coins, which I think supports this theory. You wouldn’t want some rival metalworkers stealing your skills display and making it so nobody trusts them anymore.

I don’t reject relationships with other people, but I think they should be between independent individuals who associate with each other only because they both want to. (Violating this principle is sometimes necessary but always undesirable.) You appear to think otherwise, and I suppose that’s a fundamental value difference that can’t be resolved through debate

I also believe in autonomy, but everyone has relationships with people they did not choose to associate with due entirely to unavoidable circumstance. This doesn’t just apply to family, but to everyone on earth to varying degrees. You are just as dependent on community as you are dependent on nature, a complex web of relationships of which you are a small part. Refusing to acknowledge that these relationships exist because you did not choose to enter them is childish, and it enables you to behave selfishly because you do not take responsibility for your externalities. This is the same pitfall that capitalists dive into to justify pollution and all manner of horrible things.

The bunker-building impulse demonstrates what’s wrong with libertarianism very well, an irrational attachment to individualism in all things. Libertarians refuse to acknowledge the positive role of nature and community in their lives, instead focusing on the negatives and spending all their energy fighting the very thing that keeps them alive. How long do you think you can last alone in a bunker without any support?

Fun fact: in The Sims 3 you can give your sim the “insane” trait, allowing them to talk to themselves and fulfill both the “fun” and “social” needs bars.

In my experience it’s not nearly as effective irl… :(

Silicon Valley techno-libertarians (a group I identify with)

I hate to break it to you but these are definitely the worst ones. It’s what the Gadsden flag waving canned food and gun hording preppers turn into if they end up with tons of money. These are the morons that build bunkers in New Zealand and try to brainstorm ways to keep their post-apocalyptic security guards loyal to them with remote-detonated bomb collars or holding their families hostage.

The idea of preventing private ownership and rent-seeking of communication platforms is.

I respect it but if you’re American and trying to take the word back, I’m afraid you’re a little too late. It’s a political party now and they’re all-in on corporatism.

Lemmy is an inherently libertarian platform

This is an interesting perception, because if you mean American libertarianism then this doesn’t really make sense. Lemmy’s creators are communist and intended it to be anti-corporate. It is designed in a decentralized manner specifically to avoid situations where companies can own and profit from it.

The kinds of platforms I would see as being libertarian (in the American sense) are the diaspora of privately owned social media companies.

This is a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow that Allende choosing reform over revolution is what resulted in the US interference. The US has been known to interfere in revolutionary movements as well.

Why can’t my state be near the top of a good list for once.

Perhaps the file is missing an extension, and those are the only apps OP has that accept files without an extension?

I’m from Kentucky and I feel pretty alien most of the time. Would not be surprised to find out my ancestors came here in a flying saucer instead of a covered wagon.

Let me approach this from a different angle. If a military defeat is necessary to create revolutionary conditions, is it not then in the best interest of the working class in each imperialist power for the other to win, and does that not then put the working class in each imperialist power at odds with one another?

Don’t you believe in internationalism? Solidarity?

How many hundreds of thousands of lives does it cost to create revolutionary conditions, and how can you be so arrogant as to cheer while they’re fed into the meatgrinder, believing with such certainty that it means you’ll get your chance at revolution?

Kindly point out where I expressed critical support for western imperialism.

So does “tankie” and “woke.” I used mine correctly, you are indeed a tankie. When a chud calls a left-wing political activist woke, at least they’re using it correctly, even if they don’t necessarily know that they are.

You called me a liberal for - let me check - opposing imperialism regardless of who’s doing it. Interesting, do you think that fits the definition?

I thought it would be obvious I was mocking you by repeating the viewpoint you expressed without the air of pretentiousness that you surround it with, but I guess I was the stupid one for thinking you were capable of recognizing sarcasm.

Also “critical support” for what, Russian imperialism? Why does Russian imperialism deserve “critical support” while western imperialism deserves direct opposition?

You’re right we should be running dogs for western imperialism instead.

Ah yes, because there are only two options, you’re either a running dog for western imperialism or a running dog for Russian imperialism. But being a running dog for Russian imperialism is actually cool because it will lead to communism somehow. Don’t ask what happens in between, that’s not important…

And yes it will improve revolutionary conditions as the contradictions become more aparent

Wow that’s incredible, why don’t we just skip waiting for the imperialists to do it and carry out the genocide ourselves. That’ll really make those contradictions more apparent, I can’t wait!

And libs often seems to function for tankies in exactly the same way. I’m an anarchist but when I argue with tankies I get called a lib even as I call for the overthrow of capitalism. Funny how that works, almost as if the problem is dogmatism.

You’re right, the Soviet Union joined the allies against the Nazis because they were explicitly not revolutionary defeatists, which cannot be said of a large number of modern day tankies.

Revolutionary defeatism is just accelerationism with academic window dressing. Thinking that the defeat of western imperialism at the hands of Russian imperialism will improve revolutionary conditions is moronic and dangerous.