Your definition of socialism is more akin to a definition of social democracy, which is… maybe a form of socialism, depending on who you ask – it is historically contentious and generally accepted that social democrats aren’t socialists.

Socialism can have all of the things that you described, but it is decidedly anti-capitalist. It reorients how workers relate to the means of production. Under capitalism, the means of production are owned by the bourgeois class, while under socialism, they are collectively owned by the workers.

Yeah. If you scratch too much or too hard, you can tear the skin, so now you have additional itchiness from your body having to heal the tear.

Oh, here’s another fun fact for you: an ambulance ride can be so prohibitively expensive that many people actively avoid calling 911 for fear of having to pay the ambulance bill. This results in people experiencing medical emergencies either: (a) driving themselves to the hospital while having their emergency, which is incredibly dangerous; (b) opting to call a ride share like Uber or Lyft instead; or © not doing anything at all and hoping the emergency resolves itself.

I’d add that, more than anything else, leftist fixation on older theory is more than just idolizing people who are not very “saintly.”

I think, at its core, older leftist theory is still very geared toward an industrial society. It found purchase primarily among trade unions representing industrial workers, and in some ways, I don’t think we have adequately “adapted” to a post-industrial world.

Don’t get me wrong, the core tenets of labor participation, labor mobilization, and mass action will probably be relevant tools up and until mass automation occurs across the board. But we don’t have the same working class base we did a century ago. I’d be interested in seeing a greater emphasis on incorporating, in addition to traditionally working class people in trades and “unskilled services,” white collar workers that are nominally distinct from the former groups but are still nevertheless abused and exploited like everyone else.

Obviously, someone who makes $50k/year doing back breaking labor is objectively worse off and more exploited than someone making $100k/year in a computer science or similar field, but the computer science person is probably getting shit on too.

That’s kinda sorta how I feel about it. Kid is dumb, slap him with a fine. But the people who are very “rah rah throw him in prison” are intense. I understand that it’s a historically precious place from a bygone era, but I mean… The Romans themselves did this shit, maybe they’d be proud.

And writings don’t need to be physical writings either. An email signature could suffice in some circumstances.

So I’m still learning all of this too, but my understanding is this:

Your accounts on each instance get you access to whatever that instance is federated with. My mind goes to bundling, almost – e.g., if you have a Hulu subscription, you can access Showtime through it as well.

When the instances defederate, it’s like losing part of a bundle. Nothing stops you from making an account on that instance, though, while retaining your accounts on other instances.

So, in how it plays out: I have my account on reddthat.com. When I scroll through my feed, I get content from communities hosted on reddthat and from communities hosted on instances that are federated with reddthat.

But suppose I want to see content from communities on instances that aren’t federated. All I have to do is switch over to another account on an instance that is federated or to an account on that instance specifically. I still have both of my accounts and all I need to do is switch.

The talk about shadowbanning just means that if you’re trying to access content from an account not in federation, you won’t be able to comment or anything like that.

Again, I’m still learning all of this stuff, so this may not be right and I welcome any and all corrections of anything I’ve said that isn’t accurate.