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.
I feel like you’re missing the point a bit. Living by values you hold dear is not losing, winning or even necessarily a cause. If your values happen to align with a cause, then supporting it in a way you can is at least somewhat fulfilling.
Now, there are definitely people who join a cause for tangential reasons. For example because they are a vehicle to what they want, such as someone who wants to build and use explosives can just as easily become a fundamentalist, anarchist or fascist. (And history has examples of these sordid folks.) They barely care about any of the causes and will drift wherever they can live by their own values, even if it’s about blowing shit up.
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.
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My dear friend, my entire life is a losing cause. :)
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.
Because I’d rather be right than win. Nice to be both, but the former is a higher priority for me.
This answer goes hard. I guess stubbornness is needed in some cases.
Many of the things you mentioned are not “loosing”. They are chugging along. Slow and steady.
Morality and ethical behavior are not defined by popularity
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.
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 know you phrased it as “losing” here, but it still made me think of that moment in Firefly when somebody refers to Mal having fought on the wrong side in a battle, and he says “May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.”
When a person has convictions and is put at a certain sort of fork in the road, they would rather do anything else before ever seeing themselves transform into the sort of person who would take one of those paths. Some would sell their souls to survive, and some know that their cause is worth several times more than their souls are worth, and the bill comes due at some point.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
I think you nailed it with the Firefly quote. I’ve always loved that one.
Even if our movements don’t succeed, I want to be able to say that I did my part and didn’t go down without a fight.
I don’t really understand why you think a lot of these things are losing causes. FOSS is the backbone of IT. Anti-car urbanism is common in some areas of the world. Lemmy and the Fediverse have been doing great over the last 2 years. Socialism/leftist ideology is on the rise alongside the fascist takeover—it would have been unheard of to have “the squad” in the 90’s.
So where you see losing, I see slow and steady progress happening alongside capitalist fascism that is trying and failing to stop it completely.
The part that gets me is why it’s slow. I figured it out, what’s taking everyone else so long?
Because you live in a bubble and your needs are not the needs of the vast majority of human on Earth. Also change is not a matter of opinions or conscience, it’s a matter of organizing and building power. Most people can agree on a topic without anything changing.
FOSS is the backbone of IT
FOSS is the backbone of a mlitiary-corporate monstrous machine of death and exploitation. I get that originally the movement was more concerned with the freedom of software than the freedom of people, but I would say “FOSS being a force for good” is definitely a battle that was lost.
Because I was raised on media that glorified the plight of the underdog, beset against on all sides by powerful forces. And my grandpa told me “The hardest things in life are the things most worth doing.”
When debating the efficacy of my privacy measures, my friend asked,
You know, what if it just is compromised already? By the NSA, Facebook, Google, and so forth.
And I said, at least I am making it known that I hate them all, I’ll stand up for what is right, and I’m not leaving without a fight.
I want to walk away from Omelas.
I learned about them, liked them, changed my views (if I had to) to reflect what I’ve learned.
