How bad do we let things get? Should we wait until the planet can’t sustain life anymore? Should we wait until it’s 100 degrees F in the Artic? Until wildfires blanket entire continents or the last glacier is gone? Should we wait until fascist billionaires take even more from us? Until there are Flock cameras at every mail box? Maybe we should wait until the wells run dry or the tornadoes never stop. When is it going to be enough? I’m so tired of seeing things getting worse. Every. Single. Day. I’m ready. I’ve been ready. How about you?

How do we coordinate? How do we look after each other? What is the signal? If we don’t work together then we are just continuing our slow march to destruction to the drum of the parasitic billionaires. Please, for us, for the cats, the dogs, the birds and trees. The fish and the whales, the beatles and the centipedes. Please tell me it’s worth it to you, that you’re willing to get uncomfortable, that you’re willing to fight. There are more of us than them, and we are rapidly running out of time to make that mean something.

  • plyth@feddit.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    There’s no winning anyone over or changing minds if you’re not there to speak.

    I totally agree.

    Alternately, we need a vehicle that can go around all of the above. What does that look like? I don’t know. Alternate media like print perhaps? Or maybe just an outrageously good youtube channel? Pooling some cash and buying advertising space? Anything would be better than nothing.

    This is a valuable idea. How can we grow it?

    • Dejected Warp Core@lemmy.world
      2·
      23 hours ago

      I have no plan. Only a few concepts and tactics.

      Print newsletters keep coming to mind. Perhaps that’s me romancing a bygone era where sweat equity gets you distribution and readership, even if it’s just a single page. Then again, print has never been cheaper for the common-man, and sitting on top of global digital distribution would create an impressive reach.

      We can also start making “conservative alt accounts” in social media, in order to penetrate those spaces. Build a profile that gets you into echo chambers that you don’t want anywhere near your real life. At the very least, before all these damn photo ID features and laws go into place.

      There really needs to be a playbook for dismantling propaganda, and how to handle people that are programmed to parrot talking points. Like some kind of conversational aikido.

      Social media rides on optics, tagging, and vibes. It might be possible to co-opt the style and tagging of existing content, say Newsmax, and provide a palatable lean for recent topics for a conservative audience. This is nothing like going full-bore "The Onion"1, but rather, providing a positive framing or just undercut the lies that are in the same space. Report the exact same stories - move for move - just without the hyperbole, lies, and vitriol. Facts should speak for themselves. Buy a blue suit and rip off their look.

      In fact, more positivity online in general might be a big help to everyone. The algorithm rewards engagement, and while rage bait is 100x easier to create, stuff that makes people feel good (e.g. kittens) gets good traction too. Granted, that’s a high-effort and talent-focused operation - not for everyone.

      Lastly, it’s possible that we could see a great firewall go up around the US, or find de-facto censorship and de-platforming a huge problem to any attempt to better organize digitally. Once you’re a legit problem, the ban-hammers will come out. I think it prudent to be prepared to use mesh networking, radio, sneakernet, private couriers, (again) print, anything that works around a complete fascist takeover of the internet. Fortunately, the bandwidth and storage requirements for truth and information are shockingly small. It won’t take much.

      Edit: Lastly, attend rallies and protests and fucking network. You won’t find a better place for like-minded people that actually want to do something about all this.

      1. InfoWars has it right by laying out a massive all-onion buffet, but man is that a tough watch.
      • plyth@feddit.orgEnglish
        2·
        10 hours ago

        Good points. I think the biggest obstacle is that these require reliable structures from voluntary engagements.

        • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
          2·
          23 hours ago

          Zine zines.

          They are a solution people took back in the day to self publish. Publishing company’s act like moderators did back in the day. They rejected this arbitrarily and gate kept what people saw. So people would create zines of their interests and leave them all over town. Some became super popular

            • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
              1·
              2 hours ago

              But we’re in a digital world. Using paper in a digital age is like bringing a horse to Nascar. The left is hung up on this romanticized vision of coffee shop activism. It’s destroying us. Those solutions worked for the time they existed in. If don’t adapt we’re finished