There’s a lot of people on here who are part of what I’d call losing causes, causes that run counter to the consumerist capitalist mono-culture, I.e. socialism, veganism, FOSS, anti-car urbanism, even lemmy and the fediverse.
I want to know what made you switch from being a sympathizer to an active participant. I believe it’s important for us to understand what methods work in getting people involved in a movement that may not have any immediate wins to motivate people to join.
EDIT: A lot of people objecting to my use of losing so I’ll explain more, all of these causes benefit from popularity and are weakened by there lack of adoption and are thus in direct competition with the capitalist consumerist mono-culture, a competition which they are currently losing.
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Socialism on a small scale cannot solve the inherent issues of a capitalism that surrounds it.
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Veganism benefits from more people becoming vegan and restaurants and grocery stores providing vegan options.
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FOSS, or more specifically desktop Linux, benefits from more people being on it and software developers designing for and maintaining applications for it.
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The more people that use transit, the more funding it gets and the better it gets.
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the fediverse benefits from more people veing on it and more diverse communities so those with niche interests besides the above causes can find community here.
On the flip side the capitalist consumerist alternatives to all of these benefit from there popularity and thus offer a better value to most people. The question is about what made you defer that better immediate material value in favor of something else.
I wouldn’t say Palestine is a losing cause. All the ones I listed are minoritarian, some in the low single digit percentage of people, especially in the US. A majority of people in the US and a large majority of the world want a ceasefire. It’s not failing due to lack of popular support, its failimg because a small minority of very powerful people really want this genocide.
A majority of people in the US and a large majority of the world want a ceasefire.
That is only a very recent development though. And “a ceasefire” is very different to an actual free Palestine anyway
thanks, johnny silverhand.
Hope that the work we do will over time become the shade of a tree our grandkids will be able to enjoy.
Sir or Madam, I’m a fan of the Cleveland Guardians and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Both of those are losing causes and will probably be forever.
I’m stubborn as shit and kind of a masochist.
Also in video games I like the adrenaline rush that comes with being on the losing side. Usually you just lose but sometimes you manage to do some badass shit and come out on top and that gives you one of the highest highs there is.
I’m a hipster.
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Minor addendum, historically arguments for socialism, at least from the Marxist viewpoint, have avoided the moral argument in favor of the scientific argument. The moral argument can be framed as perspective, the scientific argument cannot, and is much more solid. That doesn’t mean socialism isn’t morally correct, it is, it’s just also scientifically indisputably correct.
I understand people making choices despite popularity, it seems a lot of people here are of that category, I’m concerned with the people who are choosing not to join a cause because of its lack of popularity, leading to the issues mentioned above. I think this second group is a larger percentage of the population then the first group. I think we can agree that these causes gaining popularity is good, even though they can have value without popularity. So getting that second group into the cause would be good.
I think what your advocating is to just evangelize the benefits and then people will come. But I think there are a lot of people that even if I could explain every benefit of Linux, they’d still stay on windows citing one of the above benefits of popularity, same with a lot of the causes listed above. If we are to say evangelizing is the best/only method then we leave a lot of those people for which education is not enough.
I was looking for people who were at that point of being educated about a cause, but weighed it it less then those benefits of popularity and continued on in the capitalist consumerist system. Then maybe something else pushed those scales to the other side and they chose to join the cause. What was that experience? Was it having a child? Was it an experience with death, spiritual experience, revelation, drug trip, etc. I guess that’s the question.
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How is (F)OSS a loosing cause?
Same for cars.
That may be true for car-centric countries/infrastructures like seemingly in the US (never was there. Only know what I read here) but Europe is not as dependant on the car.I expected “transit” to refer to non-car public transit, but I’m not the OP. That is: the more people on trains, buses, and such, the more routes and times. The route with 5 riders per day gets cut as too costly.
Let’s see… a few capitalists and their horde of miseducated lackeys vs 1400000000 socialists + lots of other people around the world. What’s the losing cause here?
I disagree with the notion that these are “losing causes.”
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Socialism is necessary. Not only is the largest economy in the world by PPP a socialist country, and is using it to dramatic effect, capitalism and by extension imperialism are dying systems that have no future. Despite governing more of the world, capitalism is in decay, and is thus the “losing side.”
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Veganism is ethically correct. Not only is animal liberation a valuable pursuit, but it has far lower of an environmental impact. It isn’t a “side,” it’s the correct conclusion.
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FOSS isn’t losing, it doesn’t need mass adoption because it doesn’t need profit. FOSS is growing though.
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Anti-car urbanism is improving, socialist countries like the PRC are building huge amounts of effective urban transit. Between the car centric society of today and the urbanist future we desire, there is a transitional period marked by electrification and building up urban transit.
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Lemmy/fediverse is healthy and stable, and already does what it needs to: provide an alternative for those who want one.
At the end of the day, framing movements as “winning” or “losing” purely on adoption rates is an error. What is important is trajectory and the material basis for transitioning from the present state of things to the next, ie how do the problems of today make the solutions of tomorrow physically compelled? For socialism, it is the decay of capitalism due to its inevitable contradictions, as well as capitalism’s centralization making public ownership and planning in a post-capitalist society remarkably effective. How does that apply to others?
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I’ve been vegan foss-using anti war anarchist since high school, once I figure out what’s right social pressure doesn’t particularly sway me. In addition to all of the above I’m trans and still mask too.
I can’t really point to anything in particular that “switched” other than legitimately not caring about fitting in.
1: Because it’s historically been the nature of these causes that they’re losing right up until the moment they win. Seems impossible till it’s done, journey of a thousand miles, single step and all that.
2: pure spite towards the smug, arrogant and cruel status quo supporters. I will.never give them the satisfaction of falling into despair, from hell’s heart I stab at them
Because it’s historically been the nature of these causes that they’re losing right up until the moment they win. Seems impossible till it’s done, journey of a thousand miles, single step and all that.
That’s survivor bias. Sometimes it goes like that, but in the vast majority of cases you just lose. This narrative is toxic because it keeps people stuck into an anti-strategic mindset, turning politics into morality and making all of us worse off.
No, it really is just the nature of socialist struggle that you’re getting stomped on for the first 90% of it. Every successful revolution started from some of the worst and most squalid conditions with the worst odds imaginable: illiterate, starving, under the thumb of theocrats and warlords, war-torn, hyperexploited. You seem to think I said that bad situations always and inevitably lead to victory, which…???. History is pretty clear about the conditions that need to be met for success, and they’re not “moral” ones.
That’s the narrative after the fact to justify successful revolutions.
Many revolutions have had setbacks at times, but showed regular growth in the participation of organizations building them and growth in the resources they could mobilize.
Most professional revolutionaries, like Lenin, Ho Chi Min, Guevara etc were middle-upper class who could commit their time and resources to build structure. Revolutions never start from the poor, because the poor are busy working. The best they can do is rioting or protesting, but protests never change things.
What I’m saying is that with this narrative about losing we justify a tolerance for defeat, ineffectiveness and spontaneism that pamper and console people in their powerlessness, breeding activists and protestors instead of organizers. While nobody should be judged for not winning, we also shouldn’t be so comfortable with losing. It’s also very alienating for normal people: if they have to give up their time and energy to chase a higher goal, they want to win, they don’t want to “lose better”. Nobody wants to be a loser, except insular dirtbag leftists with an outcast attitude.
So what you’re saying is that a bad situation does not always and inevitably lead to victory, and that there are certain material conditions that need to be fufilled? Cool, not sure why you needed 3 paragraphs to say it
Revolutions never start from the poor
Lol
insular dirtbag leftists with an outcast attitude.
I’m sensing the presence of some personal beef I’m not privvy to and don’t care about.
I wish it was personal beef. It’s a systemic pathology throughout the left, reason why I abandoned those spaces to organize elsewhere.
ok, best of luck with your…organizing outside of the left?
I want to live in a better world. You can’t change the world (win) by giving up. You can’t change the status quo easily and I can’t live with myself if I do nothing.
I don’t think of them as “losing causes”. While it’s important to be realistic about the current state of your cause, framing it this way assumes they have already and permanently lost, so nothing can ever change. Assuming a mindset of defeatism is demoralizing even if it is only in the language you use.
I don’t agree with causes to win. I agree with causes because they’re correct. If everyone stopped believing in gravity I wouldn’t follow suit.
I still object to your definition of losing. Ethics diets are on the rise, and if Linux became less popular at any point that’s new information to me. I’d say we’re underdogs but things are going well.
As for actually answering, I think I just have a weird attachment to abstract conceptual correctness. Or rather, other people don’t seem to, and that’s why they can ignore things like animal welfare and creepy digital mega-corporations even if they know, on some level, that it’s inconsistent with their stated priorities and values.
Morality and ethical behavior are not defined by popularity
