Memes

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[+] agent_nycto@lemmy.world -6 points 5 months ago

Shitposting isn't propaganda

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[+] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world -8 points 5 months ago (4 children)

This may counter propaganda, but is also clearly propaganda itself.

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[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago (2 children)

China executes pedophiles and America elects them and worships at their churches. It's really not a complicated comparison. There is no gotcha here

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Fair, though I'm not sure it's as simple as that. I'm no fan of the US, but what do you think is the biggest issue plaguing China right now from a humanist perspective?

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[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago

Poverty (which they're alleviating), and the trappings of poverty (like poor labor conditions, corruption, and abuse).
Environmental degradation (which they are alleviating) and all the trappings that come with it (like greater impact on the poor, bad health outcomes, corruption).
Threats from state actors (which they are alleviating) and the trappings that come it (like selective repression of dissent, organizing, and collaboration, surveillance and chilling effects, etc)

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[–] DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk -2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Maybe both countries should stop executing people given that a non-negligible number of them are entirely innocent. Maybe capital punishment should have been abandoned long before the 21st Century and any country that continues it be a pariah state.

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[–] Dearth@lemmy.world 1 point 5 months ago

Im not a fan of corporal punishment at all. I don't think any state should have authority to end any life for any reason. I could wish for an end to state sanctioned murder in one hand and shit in my other. We all know which hand will fill up first

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[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Propaganda is just messaging, there's nothing inherently evil about it. The question is what message is being propagated.

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago

Absolutely - I did not mean to imply that this is evil propaganda.

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[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 9 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Literally anything that causes an idea to spread is propaganda. Advertising, calls for help, gossip, commentary, analysis, storytelling, hell public art or theater or even just public conflict. That's what the word means, the means of idea propagation.

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 1 point 5 months ago* (1 child)

Absolutely, that's my point.

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[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago (1 child)

So calling anything propaganda is pointless, because everything is propaganda.

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Exactly. And saying this meme is counter-propaganda is pointless, since it itself is propaganda.

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[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 months ago*

Ok, sure. It's exactly as propaganda as anything else

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[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago* (1 child)

Again, there is no cultural artifact that does not serve a propaganda purpose or espouse a worldview

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Indeed - Riverside's claim that this is not propaganda is therefore false.

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[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

It's not propaganda as we've been made to understand it in the west, because that's a meaningless vibes based category

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

Hmm, maybe I misunderstood you.

If all cultural artifacts serve a propaganda purpose, but this post is not propaganda, does that mean that this post is not a cultural artifact?

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[–] RiverRock@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 months ago

I'm saying we've been taught that "propaganda" is just another word for "lies" when the reality is that it covers basically any piece of art, culture or commentary. It's just any art or information that advances a specific view of the world. As a category it's hopelessly broad, so it's better to understand it as a function rather than a thing.