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but since you seem committed to never admitting fault: a new topic something i was thinking on recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law Metcalfe's law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of connected users. we're entering a stage of capitalism where it's not simply enough to produce a commodity, you have to produce a platform. that is, a network, which you sell access to. This is not just true of social media, but also of tech companies in general, because technology is so interdependent. you can't just have a computer, you need an instruction set, an operating systems, end user software, etc. it all has to work together seamlessly, and capitalists have an obvious incentive to prevent that from happening, in order to maximize sales (since the value of a network is n^2, a smaller network has to provide extra value to make up for it's smaller users, disproportionate to the size of the network - a small network of 10 gets a bigger increase of value than a large network of 100, if they interconnect - the larger network can then simply demand that this difference be compensated, which is effectively impossible for the smaller network). the implication of this is the end of the market system, because the possibility of market competition goes to zero. since the value of access is dependent on the size of the existing network, when network companies sell access, they're not selling interchangeable commodities. It's therefore impossible for new producers to enter the market, and bring down prices by market competition, meaning each sector eventually converges onto an oligarchy does this suggest that capitalism will effectively end as a system, and be replaced with a more feudal structure, well before the possibility of revolution can be realized? rudatron fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 14:44
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A Big Fuckin Hornet posted:Is there anything worth reading that is critical of Furr or is he pretty much 100% correct He's correct.
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Jul 18, 2018 15:02
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can we start a pener vs rudatron thread
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Jul 18, 2018 15:47
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Pener v. Rudatron, 10 rounds, whoever loses gets banned!
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Jul 18, 2018 15:55
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Peanut President posted:Pener v. Rudatron, 10 rounds, whoever loses gets banned! no dont ban everyone else
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Jul 18, 2018 16:29
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Wheeee posted:no dont ban everyone else 
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Jul 18, 2018 17:55
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i think poverty reduction/overall wealth/whatever metric you want to use is a bad lense for evaluating those nations or any nation. people sometimes reduce socialism to "helping the poor" or "reducing poverty" but its the social ownership and control of society. a king can be very benevolent and reduce poverty and increase wealth all while concentrating power solely in his own hands. the problem is once that king is gone and another takes his place with all that power and a different disposition. thats a vast oversimplification, but thinking of it along those lines the better way to evaluate how successful socialist or communist parties are in their actions or rhetoric is to think about how their actions or rhetoric help to increase the organization and political power of the working class. in the case of china, i would not say workers have been empowered to any degree and have little say in their work or their community (not that this isnt true in the US and most other nations too). the same is true in cases like venezuela where maduro/chavez operated more like social democrats, using money from oil sales to purchase and provide consumer goods for the poor and working class. not saying thats not a laudable goal, but we see now the limitations of that strategy, such that now many workers are anti-PSUV and the trade unions are no more powerful than before. thats not to say the opposition is right, theyre fascists, but it does demonstrate the limits and failures of thinking only in terms of "helping" the working class, versus empowering the working class
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Jul 18, 2018 17:58
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apparently john brennan voted for gus hall, lmao
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Jul 18, 2018 18:35
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https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1018258900137775105
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Jul 18, 2018 21:15
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i'd like my line on furr to be 'the best thing you can say for him is he isn't any worse than a lot of anticommunist hacks who get better receptions due to flattering capitalist ideology' but i haven't read a single history book about the USSR by him or anyone else so i have literally no idea if that's true or not
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Jul 18, 2018 23:46
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Peel posted:i'd like my line on furr to be 'the best thing you can say for him is he isn't any worse than a lot of anticommunist hacks who get better receptions due to flattering capitalist ideology' but i haven't read a single history book about the USSR by him or anyone else so i have literally no idea if that's true or not I am actually going through blood lies rn and it's just him meticulously tearing apart this book line by line and it's thorough and well sourced and all very convincing. He doesn't seem to making any conclusions other than "This author is a motherfucker"
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Jul 19, 2018 00:18
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Karl Barks posted:can we start a pener vs rudatron thread you're posting in it
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Jul 19, 2018 00:29
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Summon the combatants back to fight about something else
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Jul 19, 2018 00:34
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A Big Fuckin Hornet posted:I am actually going through blood lies rn and it's just him meticulously tearing apart this book line by line and it's thorough and well sourced and all very convincing. He doesn't seem to making any conclusions other than "This author is a motherfucker" Read Getty or Fitzpatrick if you want Soviet history. Anyone is better than Furr, who is basically the communist version of Robert Conquest. Instead of being completely biased and unfair to the Soviets, Furr is a historical revisionist and denier of basic history of the USSR. I don't think anyone in academia takes him seriously.
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Jul 19, 2018 01:10
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so I was reading a biography of Ho Chi Minh, and something that came through in the text was that even he had some kind of strong animosity for Trotskyists and I'm wondering just how much of this was because of the Comintern/Stalinist party line, and how much of it was Trotsky actually doing something that was worthy of having that many people pissed off at him?
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Jul 19, 2018 02:05
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Infernot posted:Read Getty or Fitzpatrick if you want Soviet history. Anyone is better than Furr, who is basically the communist version of Robert Conquest. Instead of being completely biased and unfair to the Soviets, Furr is a historical revisionist and denier of basic history of the USSR. I don't think anyone in academia takes him seriously. what about suny
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Jul 19, 2018 02:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:so I was reading a biography of Ho Chi Minh, and something that came through in the text was that even he had some kind of strong animosity for Trotskyists and I'm wondering just how much of this was because of the Comintern/Stalinist party line, and how much of it was Trotsky actually doing something that was worthy of having that many people pissed off at him? https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/vietnam/pirani/hochiminh.htm not really interested in all these accusations of spies and so on, but trotskyist groups always seem self-defeating to me? i dunno i just get weird, bad vibes and this bit in the wikipedia entry on trotskyism of all places sounds right: quote:The way Trotskyists organise to promote their beliefs has been criticised often by ex members of their organisations. Tourish, a former member of the Committee for a Workers' International, asserts that these organisations typically value doctrinal orthodoxy over critical reflection, have illusions in the absolute correctness of their own party's analysis, a fear of dissent, the demonising of dissenters and critical opinion, overworking of members, a sectarian attitude to the rest of the left and the concentration of power among a small group of leaders.
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Jul 19, 2018 02:30
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Forums Terrorist posted:what about suny Would I recommend Suny? I assume you mean Ronald Suny, and from what I've heard his stuff on Georgia and the Caucasus is really well regarded, but I haven't heard anything about any of his stuff specifically on Russia. In terms of other people that I've heard that are good for Soviet history I'd definitely recommend Sheila Fitzpatrick who has several books from the revolution to specific periods throughout its history. Stephen Kotkin is pretty much the definitive historian on Stalin and has a three part biography he's been writing but I think the third has yet to be released. Kotkin also has a nice book called Magnetic Mountain that I've heard is great but I haven't gotten the chance to read it yet.
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Jul 19, 2018 03:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:so I was reading a biography of Ho Chi Minh, and something that came through in the text was that even he had some kind of strong animosity for Trotskyists and I'm wondering just how much of this was because of the Comintern/Stalinist party line, and how much of it was Trotsky actually doing something that was worthy of having that many people pissed off at him? for a period leading up to the revolution they worked together with the vietminh up until 1946 when ta thu thau and other leading vietnamese trotskyists were assasinated by the vietminh. theres a book called "revolutionaries they could not break" which details the history of trotskyism in vietnam
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Jul 19, 2018 03:45
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Obviously they did break them.
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Jul 19, 2018 03:46
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:here's some of ho's letters blasting trots: i cant speak for all of them but trotskyist parties operate under democratic centralism. tourish is talking about the cwi and as a member i can say theres a lot of dissent on a wide range of issues, which we spend a lot of time discussing. however were democratic centralist so when we embark on a strategy or tactic we do it all together. like when we ran kshama and other candidates its not like there werent members who disagreed with the idea, but they ended up losing the decision and theyre still members and still contributed to the campaign. in the recent head tax battle in seattle there were comrades who disagreed with the strategy but they were in the minority and again, didnt leave, werent forced out and still contributed to the campaign. in terms of expecting a lot from members, were revolutionaries and we organize like them, specifically we use the bolsheviks as a model so yeah we do spend a lot of time and effort but i still have time to post here and play video games and exercise and lead a normal life. in terms of sectarianism, i think if you ask anyone in our area how they feel about us theyd be pretty positive, we work closely with groups whenever we can and actively work to build trust and good will whenever we can
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Jul 19, 2018 04:06
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a lot of people who leave or are kicked out of or just know of dem/cent orgs accuse them of being cults or not tolerating dissent. in fairness, there are some parties and orgs out there that do behave pretty horribly. this is usually the case in smaller parties though as the bigger they are generally the more professionally they're run and the more paid staff they have to actually address grievances and harassment issues when/if they come up. in many cases though, the person left because they were mad they didnt get their way, or they were kicked out because while holding a dissenting view, they got in the way of doing the work that needed to be done or acting undemocratically. if you have a contentious issue that is debated for a long time, voted on, and a plan is put into place to act on it, then it becomes very difficult to implement and assess how effective youre being if someone insists on re-litigating the debate over and over again. its fine for people to have dissenting views, its fine for them to talk about them and try to win people to their side, but its not ok if they try to hijack work or dominate conversations undemocratically.
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Jul 19, 2018 04:15
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it's a difficult organization problem, because you have to be willing to tolerate dissenters enough to acknowledge valid criticism, and prevent certain individuals from taking over. but you can't tolerate people who won't play ball. having said that: i don't want to suggest that you're lying, but relying on character-based accusations to deflect criticism, suggest to me that there's a lack of a systemic solution to the problem. you could be 100% correct on the issue, maybe they are just crybabies, i don't want to dismiss that. But what institutional devices exists to sort out the crybabies from the people with legitimate grievances? the system as a whole should work, and converge onto a just outcome, even if everyone is a craven opportunist crybaby revisionist strasserist socdem, is how I'm trying to approach the problem here. also, did no one find the metcalfe's law thing interesting 
rudatron fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Jul 19, 2018 |
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Jul 19, 2018 05:24
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rudatron posted:also, did no one find the metcalfe's law thing interesting almost but im not sure you're generalization of platform == network checks out. metcalfe's law applies to networks that can be represented as a complete graph. this can apply to some social networks, but not all (notably, the failed decentralized social networks created by libertarian dorks with no conception of human interaction, like Diaspora and Mastodon, where metcalfe's law cant apply). but im trying to apply this to tech and kinda failing.arguments can be made about the successes and failures of different models (such as closed ios ecosystem vs open android ecosystem), but i can't see how metcalfe's law fits in
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Jul 19, 2018 05:59
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Karl Barks posted:can we start a pener vs rudatron thread since rudatron has a special gift of locquaciousness and a weakness for double posting, a Pener/R. Guyovich vs rudatron would probably be more even and slow more threads down. that, and one where goons can keep stalking that rich gay autist instead of rehashing it endlessly in the DSA/Chapo threads
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Jul 19, 2018 06:01
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can someone tell me what was at stake in the last few pages?
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Jul 19, 2018 06:42
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apropos to nothing posted:i cant speak for all of them but trotskyist parties operate under democratic centralism. tourish is talking about the cwi and as a member i can say theres a lot of dissent on a wide range of issues, which we spend a lot of time discussing. however were democratic centralist so when we embark on a strategy or tactic we do it all together. like when we ran kshama and other candidates its not like there werent members who disagreed with the idea, but they ended up losing the decision and theyre still members and still contributed to the campaign. in the recent head tax battle in seattle there were comrades who disagreed with the strategy but they were in the minority and again, didnt leave, werent forced out and still contributed to the campaign. in terms of expecting a lot from members, were revolutionaries and we organize like them, specifically we use the bolsheviks as a model so yeah we do spend a lot of time and effort but i still have time to post here and play video games and exercise and lead a normal life. in terms of sectarianism, i think if you ask anyone in our area how they feel about us theyd be pretty positive, we work closely with groups whenever we can and actively work to build trust and good will whenever we can
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Jul 19, 2018 07:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:so I was reading a biography of Ho Chi Minh, and something that came through in the text was that even he had some kind of strong animosity for Trotskyists and I'm wondering just how much of this was because of the Comintern/Stalinist party line, and how much of it was Trotsky actually doing something that was worthy of having that many people pissed off at him? What's the book/any good?
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Jul 19, 2018 10:26
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:Obviously they did break them. Lol
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Jul 19, 2018 10:28
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:that sounds cool sign me up controversial opinion: i have several friends in houston salt and they are cool and fine. we've gone to the same actions and managed not to hiss at each other like stray cats
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Jul 19, 2018 10:33
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https://twitter.com/MaoistRebelNews/status/73936019300417536
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Jul 19, 2018 11:38
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Peel posted:i'd like my line on furr to be 'the best thing you can say for him is he isn't any worse than a lot of anticommunist hacks who get better receptions due to flattering capitalist ideology' but i haven't read a single history book about the USSR by him or anyone else so i have literally no idea if that's true or not He actually is worse than those guys. For all its flaws you will learn something about Soviet history reading The Great Terror, but you would literally be better off remaining ignorant than reading Blood Lies.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:12
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Autism Sneaks posted:rich gay autist gently caress I thought you were referring to musk at first
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Jul 19, 2018 15:20
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Sheng-Ji Yang posted:What's the book/any good? the author is Le Van Yen, and the book is "Ho Chi Minh and the strategy of international solidarity in the national liberation revolution" the English is a bit rough at parts, and the prose is quite dry, but the insights into Ho Chi Minh's activities is supremely interesting.
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Jul 19, 2018 15:22
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Thug Lessons posted:He actually is worse than those guys. For all its flaws you will learn something about Soviet history reading The Great Terror, but you would literally be better off remaining ignorant than reading Blood Lies. I'm already looking into those recs from homex but I guess the question I wish I asked is, is he wrong about Snyder and Bloodlines? I am indeed ignorant as heck but I still am reluctant to believe any Soviet history that I can read in English
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Jul 19, 2018 22:03
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Snyder is in fact very bad and Bloodlands also sucks. This is not a fringe view and you can find critiques of Snyder from liberal sources like the New Republic or Jacobin.
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Jul 19, 2018 22:15
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A Big Fuckin Hornet posted:I'm already looking into those recs from homex but I guess the question I wish I asked is, is he wrong about Snyder and Bloodlines? I am indeed ignorant as heck but I still am reluctant to believe any Soviet history that I can read in English there are far better critiques of conventional Soviet history than Furr, don't waste your time.
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Jul 19, 2018 22:28
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https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/1020301966512181249
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Jul 20, 2018 14:52
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Thug Lessons posted:He actually is worse than those guys. For all its flaws you will learn something about Soviet history reading The Great Terror, but you would literally be better off remaining ignorant than reading Blood Lies. this is garbage. whenever Furr makes a positive claim about soviet history, he goes out of his way to include the primary source he used (in both russian and translated english) specifically so that the reader can interrogate his claims in an informed manner. the biggest cudgel he wields against pseudo-historians like Snyder is that they're incredibly lazy scholars who constantly assert claims with no basis in reality, and the least you can say about Furr is that he always takes care to cover his work from the same attack.
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Jul 20, 2018 15:07
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Ho probably got angry because the trots came and tried to sell him newspapers while there was a guerilla fight with the japanese or some such
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Jul 20, 2018 15:07
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