Not a part of blahaj, but the impression I’ve gotten from what I’ve seen (primarily in the lemm.ee megathread) is that for better or worse hexbear takes the concept of radical transparency and debate to its fullest extreme. For the better, it can produce some intensely thought provoking discussions–I’ve had to reevaluate and reconsider my own personal ethics more in the past week or so than I have in the past few years.

But the downside is that it’s Just. So. Exhausting. I fully agree that everything they discuss has a political undertone to it in some way. It feels like they just cannot turn off, and I always have to be on my guard when they get involved in any discussion, even if it’s nominally about a completely non-political topic. Even when they’re making high effort posts instead of spamming emojis and pig poop balls, every discussion feels like a minefield, where the slightest misstep gets you punished with a “here’s a response that implies/outright states you’re woefully misinformed at best and a protofascist nazi at worst, here’s a link to an obscure book written by a communist scholar 50 years ago that you should read before even trying to discuss this topic.” Hexbear getting involved in a discussion is the discourse equivalent of a group playing 4-player FFA Smash Bros. with items on and someone rolls up and demands 1v1, no items, tournament ruleset only.

I feel like I just cannot relax when hexbear is active in a discussion, and it’s not even like I really disagree with their points–yes, the US is too powerful, yes, capitalism is bad–but I strongly disagree with their conclusions (supporting China and Russia because it weakens the US is the equivalent of voting for Trump because Biden/Hillary isn’t liberal enough.) It’s just that they are so laser-focused on debate and so ready to believe the worst in everyone (they called using “top kek” a holocaust denier dogwhistle FFS, that shit originated from freaking world of warcraft, and was popularized on 4chan back when it was just a shithole instead of a racist shithole! I occasionally use it because I’m an elder millennial and I like making dated references!) that even if you support their overall goals and philosophy, you still walk away mentally exhausted because of how carefully you had to parse your words to avoid stepping on a landmine.

Tbh I thought the admins of Lemmy.World were being overzealous when they preemptively defederated from HexBear before we even had a chance to see what federating with them would be like, but from where it stands now I think they made the right call. It doesn’t seem like anything of value was lost.

Despite apparent assurances from the HB admin team that their users are to be on their best behavior outside of their echo chamber, it seems they just can’t help themselves.

Hexbear is what happens when kids (I hope they’re all in their early 20s or teens, because otherwise this gets much sadder) spend years reading on leftist theory but have zero real world experience. They get intense, volatile, argumentative and have no idea how those points reflect on themselves and in reality. This is why they go around prancing those absurd beliefs and fencing anyone who disagrees out, while also dogpilling and swarming communities that don’t agree: They only know what its like to be leftists in theory.

The one person who made the “”“”““peace””“”“” thread had an earlier post here in Blahaj saying that since working under capitalism is coercion then everyone who solicits sex workers is a rapist, and that’s basically the level of being disconnected from reality that they operate in. Unfortunately for them, their echo chamber is going to go on and be the equivalent of a left wing /pol/. For us - and hopefully all other major instances - its a relief to be rid of such crowd.

Not entirely true, before the defederation I browsed their communities and I’ve seen casual threads about manga, recovery from Alcoholism, talking about insects… and everyone was polite there.

It’s just that when it comes to politics they get EXTREMELY loud, and everything else is drown out.

Authoritarian is a made up concept in order to make communism and fascism the same thing.

Yeah, they’ve created their own little echo chamber of propaganda + bots and lost touch with the real world.

Fuck 'em.

Fuck tankies.

I was absolutely against defederating and am only poking my head in every once in a while now.

The redditors that I left that site for are still here and they’re concentrated in 196. I’m disgusted that we’re okay with cis people telling trans people what is and isn’t transphobic, I’m sick of chasers being normalized, I’m done with people having bad faith interpretations of my arguments and claiming I can’t be from poverty or a POC just because I want real change in my country and for smaller countries around the world. (Which is the dumbest fucking possible interpretation)

On that last point:

Fuck the stupid ass respectability politics people play here, the next time some cumbrained fuck goes out of his way to let me or another trans person know he won’t fuck us because of our genitals (Genital preferences exist and are valid yes, but I don’t give a shit I will never fuck a cis man that trips over himself to let trans people know he doesn’t want to have sex with them at any opportunity) I will say whatever I need to even if it gets me banned.

It’s absolutely ridiculously hilarious that 196 is so against “tankies” yet their top posts frequently have anti-capitalist, anti-cop, pro-communism content on top of content that signals the desire for real system change, yet the one instance full of people that pose the idea that maybe sitting around posting memes all day isn’t going to cause change instantly gets marked as “tankies” and “alt-rightoids posing as leftists”. Disgusting.

Just to provide some clarification, many folk don’t know that “hon” is used as a slur by transphobes. The reason it is used as a slur is because “hun” used to be a common term in the trans community, for newly out trans women to provide affirmation for each other, and it is still used naively by some folk who don’t know the history

The user you’re debating appears to be the latter. I can find no indication of them being a TERF, a sock puppet or a transphobe. They appear to be a trans person, using the term without realising its history. For that reason, I sent them a message and asked them to drop the term, which they’ve done.