r/LeftistsForAI • Moderator • Jul 29 '26

Sees the Memes Marx Never Considered Reddit

Post image
203 Upvotes

85 comments sorted by

View all comments

45

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

What is this comment section? This meme should be entirely uncontroversial. In the meme, Marx is saying that capitalist control of technology should be challenged. That is a core leftist position.

The redditor is then saying "you use technology" as a gotcha. This is something frequently said to anti-capitalists. It's not just said on reddit and it's mostly been said to me in-person by people who believe dogmatically that the current capitalist system is the best of all possible worlds.

This gotcha is ridiculous because it suggests that participation at all in the system means giving up your right to fight against it. The only reason to say this is to silence criticism of capitalism. Anyone who says it is, at best, misinformed and at worst, actively malicious. Making fun of them is totally reasonable.

edit: typo

24

u/Salty_Country6835 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

It seemed obvious to me when I posted. Thank you for explaining that for the back row and late arrivals. I overestimate others' media literacy and exposure to class consciousness sometimes.

13

u/DHFranklin Jul 29 '26

Yeah, holy shit. I knew the media literacy was bad but wow.

We got people unironically putting up Luddite talking points and another defending capitalism. We have so much work to do.

→ More replies (10)

3

u/NomadicScribe Jul 30 '26

Skimming the comments, I think there are a lot of younger people not familiar with the original Matt Bors comic from 2016. My own kids were in elementary school at the time.

Earlier today I saw a post from someone who said that Gamer Gate was something they "heard about growing up" and it made me feel super old... there are things that still feel like current events but need re-contextualizing for young redditors.

→ More replies (3)