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Meaningful change is when lots of people do lots of things like that at the same time, and suddenly that is now normal.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:16
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OwlFancier posted:Meaningful change is when lots of people do lots of things like that at the same time, and suddenly that is now normal. No, see, if I redefine change to only mean what politicians do then nothing good can ever happen! Where did all these concentration camps come from?
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Dec 9, 2020 00:19
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Cpt_Obvious posted:God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth. Stop shitposting.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:24
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Aruan posted:I guess we'll see in two months! But I strongly suspect that whatever neutered stimulus bill gets passed in the next few weeks, along with the prospect of "economic boom, vaccine!" will be enough to see us through the next four months without meaningful change. You see a potential shift, I see just further evidence that capitalism is so entrenched that even the prospect of twenty million people homeless isn't enough to shift the latest drama in Trumpworld or updates on the Bachelorette (it stopped mid season!) off the front pages. Your problem is that you're looking to the liberal capitalist consensus for signs of reflection and adaptation to the failure of the liberal capitalist consensus. You won't find any there, for the same reason that the consensus is unable to make meaningful moves to preserve itself: it's an ideologically stunted and ingrown place unable to consider the measures necessary to save itself and unwilling to contemplate the alternative it collectively faces. The mass media and social spaces of the ruling class will not recognize and adapt to their circumstances, so you will see discussion there of the obvious problems (wildfires, failed water systems, riots, and eventually military defeats and separatist incursions) but not of solutions that can actually stem the tide at the expense of their own economic and social advantage. The point at which tens of millions of people go into the gutter and start to starve while the liberal consensus frets about what's on the front page and the hot gossip on blue check Twitter is the point at which what's on the front page and the hot gossip on blue check Twitter doesn't matter anymore. There probably won't be an overnight collapse of the government; as there wasn't one in almost any prior collapse (that wasn't state sponsored). There will be spurts and shuddering lurches toward a collapse, and we're already seeing many of them. There have been signs of the decline and paralysis for years. I don't know whether the next Friedman Unit is going to result in a collapse (I seriously doubt it), but the trendline only goes one way. Maybe the upheaval will result in mask-off ecofascism rather than Full Communism Now, but there's no way out for liberal capitalism short of fantastical technological breakthroughs that put off the crisis for a few decades or centuries more. Edit: oh, or a leap forward in automation technology that allows the billionaires to dispense with the rest of us overnight and resolve the situation permanently. The Oldest Man fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Dec 9, 2020 |
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Dec 9, 2020 00:27
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It is going to be interesting to see how social media reacts to it though, it was very wild seeing how much of the documentation of the BLM protests went on there, I wonder if it is structurally capable of censoring things like that or whether it is driven by it. The idea of social media desperately trying to capitalize on the engagement that the collapse of capitalism generates is just mind breakingly funny to me.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:31
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The Oldest Man posted:Your problem is that you're looking to the liberal capitalist consensus for signs of reflection and adaptation to the failure of the liberal capitalist consensus. You won't find any there, for the same reason that the consensus is unable to make meaningful moves to preserve itself: it's an ideologically stunted and ingrown place unable to consider the measures necessary to save itself and unwilling to contemplate the alternative it collectively faces. The mass media and social spaces of the ruling class will not recognize and adapt to their circumstances, so you will see discussion there of the obvious problems (wildfires, failed water systems, riots, and eventually military defeats and separatist incursions) but not of solutions that can actually stem the tide at the expense of their own economic and social advantage. The point at which tens of millions of people go into the gutter and start to starve while the liberal consensus frets about what's on the front page and the hot gossip on blue check Twitter is the point at which what's on the front page and the hot gossip on blue check Twitter doesn't matter anymore. At what point would you consider your predictions disproved? I am not positing that capitalism will shudder on forever without meaningful changes, but to my ear this sort of prediction is hard to distinguish from Christian believers fervently awaiting the second coming.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:32
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The Oldest Man posted:Your problem is that you're looking to the liberal capitalist consensus for signs of reflection and adaptation to the failure of the liberal capitalist consensus. You won't find any there, for the same reason that the consensus is unable to make meaningful moves to preserve itself: it's an ideologically stunted and ingrown place unable to consider the measures necessary to save itself and unwilling to contemplate the alternative it collectively faces. The mass media and social spaces of the ruling class will not recognize and adapt to their circumstances, so you will see discussion there of the obvious problems (wildfires, failed water systems, riots, and eventually military defeats and separatist incursions) but not of solutions that can actually stem the tide. The point at which tens of millions of people go into the gutter and start to starve while the liberal consensus frets about what's on the front page and the hot gossip on blue check Twitter is the point at which what's on the front page and the hot gossip on blue check Twitter doesn't matter anymore. The mass media and social spaces of the ruling class aren't just their spaces - they're the spaces of everyone. That's what I'm talking about, that capitalism has co-opted wider culture to such an extent that there are no alternative spaces left. The point at which tens of millions of people go into the gutter will also be the point at which well meaning people step in to paper over the crimes of capitalism, thereby blunting the worst of ill-effects, and the rest blissfully ignore it in favor of, say, anything else. I think the treadline points towards worsening material conditions for many people... but not necessarily a weakening of capitalism.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:32
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The desire to claim any specific event as The Big One is risky because it is always staggering to find exactly how much horror the prevailing order can bear without collapsing. But I think the general idea of the analysis is not wrong, millions of people with no means to subsist necessitates a radical change, either society has to be OK with killing millions of people or society has to find a way to safeguard the lives of millions of people with no way to live under the prevailing economic order.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:34
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OwlFancier posted:It is going to be interesting to see how social media reacts to it though, it was very wild seeing how much of the documentation of the BLM protests went on there, I wonder if it is structurally capable of censoring things like that or whether it is driven by it. I hope you're real excited for the Nike "#HomelessHelp" campaign when for every pair of sneakers you buy they'll donate $1* to Habitat for Humanity * Over 10 years.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:37
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I already help implement campaigns like that, so it wouldn't be very different.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:39
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OwlFancier posted:The desire to claim any specific event as The Big One is risky because it is always staggering to find exactly how much horror the prevailing order can bear without collapsing. I mean, it's not that different from 2008. They'll be some half-handed government help (which we're seeing right now), some charities will step in to help the most extreme cases, and we'll limp through the next six months until the next economic boom hits (which leaves the same twenty million who just lost their homes behind like the last one did) and capitalism emerges, stronger than ever. The problem is that for many people "losing your home" isn't synonymous with "dying in the gutter". OwlFancier posted:I already help implement campaigns like that, so it wouldn't be very different. The ability of capitalism to effectively monetize protests against it is one of the signs of its strength.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:39
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Aruan posted:The mass media and social spaces of the ruling class aren't just their spaces - they're the spaces of everyone. That's what I'm talking about, that capitalism has co-opted wider culture to such an extent that there are no alternative spaces left. The point at which tens of millions of people go into the gutter will also be the point at which well meaning people step in to paper over the crimes of capitalism, thereby blunting the worst of ill-effects, and the rest blissfully ignore it in favor of, say, anything else. I think the treadline points towards worsening material conditions for many people... but not necessarily a weakening of capitalism. We are literally talking in an alternative space right now. There are millions of Americans using tik tok and twitter, right now, to discuss things that capital has supressed for decades. If anything, our media and communication systems are more open than they've been perhaps in the history of the world. Never before would I have the power to ask a Vietnamese communist her opinion on, say, socialist praxis in her home country. Never before has anyone been able to congregate and communicate with people on opposite sides of the world whom they have never met before. You don't need to know anyone's phone number or home address or anything. You need internet access and a twitter handle. Think of the worsening of material conditions not as the fuel, but the spark. The fuel for the revolution are new technologies like the internet or the advancement of automation.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:40
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Aruan posted:The ability of capitalism to effectively monetize protests against it is one of the signs of its strength. I don't really think that is true, it can try to turn social justice into marketing but in so doing it ignores the actual material demands of social justice, so it can use it to market to people who don't really need it but as conditions continue to worsen that too, becomes hollow, useless, meaningless. It is not surprising that capitalism can and will try to squeeze into every possible space it can, and in so doing it defers its collapse, but there are not infinite spaces to expand into.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:43
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Cpt_Obvious posted:We are literally talking in an alternative space right now. There are millions of Americans using tik tok and twitter, right now, to discuss things that capital has supressed for decades. If anything, our media and communication systems are more open than they've been perhaps in the history of the world. Never before would I have the power to ask a Vietnamese communist her opinion on, say, socialist praxis in her home country. Never before has anyone been able to congregate and communicate with people on opposite sides of the world whom they have never met before. You don't need to know anyone's phone number or home address or anything. You need internet access and a twitter handle. Twitter isn't an alternative space and neither is Something Awful. Nothing you do here is anonymous and you are posting here with the implicit permission of the large corporations which have benefitted the most from the status quo (i.e. large tech firms). Twitter in particular is an excellent example of the strength of capitalism, both because (as I just posted) it's an example of how effective capitalism is in profiting off dissent, turning it into a commodity, and how easy it is to monitor and control. China, in particular, has shown how concentrating social media use in a few small, easily controlled spaces, makes it very easy to both monitor and shut down.' I don't really think that is true, it can try to turn social justice into marketing but in so doing it ignores the actual material demands of social justice, so it can use it to market to people who don't really need it but as conditions continue to worsen that too, becomes hollow, useless, meaningless. OwlFancier posted:I don't really think that is true, it can try to turn social justice into marketing but in so doing it ignores the actual material demands of social justice, so it can use it to market to people who don't really need it but as conditions continue to worsen that too, becomes hollow, useless, meaningless. It's not just that capitalism profits off protest, its that the act of profiting off protest also blunts the effect of the protest; i.e. Nike partners with Colin Kaepernick to sell sneakers (and by buying their sneakers you support #BLM!), which both provides an outlet for protesters - you're helping the cause! go Nike! subversive! - while also further entrenching capitalism into wider culture. I think what people are trying to say is "surely there will come a point where material conditions are so bad for so many people that they'll rise up!" but if there is such a point we're a long way from it. Owlspiracy fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Dec 9, 2020 |
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Dec 9, 2020 00:44
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By that logic the public street isn't an alternative space, because the government owns it, or a house, because a landlord owns it. "ownership" is only as effective as your ability to exert control over it, and one thing that is quite clear is that the government does not actually have the ability to exert ownership everywhere if really called upon to do it, not even online. It can monitor, sure, but structurally it does not appear capable of exerting control, or even necessarily effectively utilizing the information it collects. If it were capable of doing that there would be no such thing as terrorism.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:48
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Aruan posted:Twitter isn't an alternative space and neither is Something Awful. Nothing you do here is anonymous and you are posting here with the implicit permission of the large corporations which have benefitted the most from the status quo (i.e. large tech firms). Twitter in particular is an excellent example of the strength of capitalism, both because (as I just posted) it's an example of how effective capitalism is in profiting off dissent, turning it into a commodity, and how easy it is to monitor and control. China, in particular, has shown how concentrating social media use in a few small, easily controlled spaces, makes it very easy to both monitor and shut down. 1. Just because a capitalist owns the space doesn't make it not alternative. They profit off of everything: The food you eat, the water you drink, the rent you pay, the 50 hours you spend at work. What matters is how they control you. Certainly, there are moderation powers that capital flexes to stop you from, say, advocating violence. However, those powers are the weakest they've ever been in the history of the world. Can they stop you for talking poo poo on their platform? Maybe. Maybe they'll prevent some of the things you say some of the time. But just the fact that the platform exists and can (and has) be used for revolutionary purposes is completely novel. For proof, just scroll up and you'll see the property of Google being used to broadcast and organize popular uprisings against capital. 2. The Chinese Firewall is surprisingly easy to bypass. All it takes is a VPN (at least that's all it took as of 4 years ago, I haven't been there since).
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Dec 9, 2020 00:52
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What you are arguing is essentially just doomerism, that there is no hope, because all possible signs of change are insufficient, all signs of distress in the structure of society are not indicative of real weakness, and of course this is a very easy position to argue because you get to be right exactly up until the point where your position is rendered utterly laughable by reality, at which point nobody is going to call you out on it because they've suddenly got other things to worry about. It's very much like arguing that climate change isn't real, that mass plagues aren't a thing to worry about, that major wars cannot happen any more, or any other position based around "everything will be the same in the future." Which is to say you can get plenty of traction for that position right up to the point that it doesn't matter any more. It is a very capitalist mode of thought, I think.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:53
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Aegis posted:At what point would you consider your predictions disproved? Are we talking Marx's predictions about capitalism writ large here? There have been a few discussions about that up-thread. The existence of a stable ancap 'state' for example would be pretty much impossible to reconcile with Marx's predictions in general being true. If you're talking about my specific predictions and the timeframe, there are plenty of things that could forestall the slide for a while (potentially beyond the time horizon where I think it's a useful prediction to make) - a really, really charismatic leader like FDR pulling together a social-democratic coalition and winning the presidency and both houses of Congress in the next ten years or so could delay things by decades if he or she was willing to knife fight the conservatives procedurally and get a bunch of new capital dividend social spending passed. An overnight breakthrough in clean energy technology could make direct carbon capture economical such that maybe we get to dodge the biggest society-busting effects of climate change, at least until Peak Phosphorous or one of the other incipient century-scale environment crises materializes and threatens to blow everything up again. I think you would need both to some degree for the current structure of our economic and political system to survive to end of the century since you wouldn't be able to deploy a new energy or climate stabilization technology at the scale required in the time available without government support and doing so under the auspices of a neoliberal regime might fix the climate issue but it's pretty clear we're teetering on mass immiseration even without it. Aruan posted:The mass media and social spaces of the ruling class aren't just their spaces - they're the spaces of everyone. That's what I'm talking about, that capitalism has co-opted wider culture to such an extent that there are no alternative spaces left. The point at which tens of millions of people go into the gutter will also be the point at which well meaning people step in to paper over the crimes of capitalism, thereby blunting the worst of ill-effects, and the rest blissfully ignore it in favor of, say, anything else. I think the treadline points towards worsening material conditions for many people... but not necessarily a weakening of capitalism. I'm going to stop engaging with you on this since you don't disagree with me on the material reality I'm hypothesizing against and there's nothing useful to discuss with you from the basic position that capitalism is invincible, there's no possible move to make, and material conditions will worsen to any degree for any number of people without them becoming alienated from the narrative of the ruling class and adopting one or more alternatives despite evidence to the contrary. If you're right, I guess we'll just try to prevent a few people from starving to death for nothing.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:54
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Fundamentally what makes twitter twitter is the fact that it is quite open about what you can post. If they started censoring it too much it would cease to be as popular. The laissez faire approach is what makes it a monopoly, same with youtube. And the question I think is very open whether or not our current society is capable of intefering with its own business interests in the name of perpetuating the dominance of the social order. If anything I would suggest that the tendency of many aspects of capitalism to try to adapt to the protests against them means you are just as likely to find google launchign Revoltr, the app to help you coordinate your domestic terror cells in the hopes of securing a favourable positon in the revolutionary government or something loving insane like that.
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Dec 9, 2020 00:58
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OwlFancier posted:What you are arguing is essentially just doomerism, that there is no hope, because all possible signs of change are insufficient, all signs of distress in the structure of society are not indicative of real weakness, and of course this is a very easy position to argue because you get to be right exactly up until the point where your position is rendered utterly laughable by reality, at which point nobody is going to call you out on it because they've suddenly got other things to worry about. I'm not arguing there's no hope, I just think that hope lies outside waiting for the coming revolution, or hoping that internal conditions will finally tip things towards a crisis point after which everything changes. I think improving the lives of as many people as possible, as well as continued education about the problems of capitalism, will make meaningful differences in the lives of millions of people. I also think a large enough external shock could destabilize capitalism, i.e. a true climate change crisis. If you're looking for concrete examples, I do think there is value in things like co-ops, local organizing, grassroots organizing, local political action, charity work, etc. Making things better for people is good! I get the sense that some people in this thread believe that the actual crisis point which leads to a seachange is just out of sight and is rapidly approaching, and I'm sorry but I just don't believe that. Edit: I also think there's some hope for a post-scarcity system. quote:The Chinese Firewall is surprisingly easy to bypass. All it takes is a VPN (at least that's all it took as of 4 years ago, I haven't been there since I'm talking about how the Chinese government was able to seed Twitter with disinfo to disrupt protests during Hong Kong, and then use Twitter to identify and target protesters. Owlspiracy fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Dec 9, 2020 |
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Dec 9, 2020 01:02
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Also maybe the Israeli General was right and we're about to hear from aliens.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:09
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I think that dismissing everything as not significant is likely to lead to you still doing that half an hour before the revolutionary guards storm the white house. I also think, more importantly, that it robs you of the opportunity to learn from major crises and how people respond to them to understand why they do or do not lead to desirable change. I have no idea when a massive change is going to occur, for all I know I'm already living through the initial stages of one, but I am absolutely hopeful for the people on the ground working to make it happen and I also, possibly in a somewhat morbid fashion, want to see what happens. Because I don't know what the outcome is going to be, I am open to being surprised, I do not have an emotional need to dismiss everything in advance. And whatever happens I believe it will advance my understanding of how the world works and bring me closer to being able to see a way that it can be made better. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Dec 9, 2020 |
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Dec 9, 2020 01:11
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Aruan posted:I'm not arguing there's no hope, I just think that hope lies outside waiting for the coming revolution, or hoping that internal conditions will finally tip things towards a crisis point after which everything changes. I think improving the lives of as many people as possible, as well as continued education about the problems of capitalism, will make meaningful differences in the lives of millions of people. I also think a large enough external shock could destabilize capitalism, i.e. a true climate change crisis. If you're looking for concrete examples, I do think there is value in things like co-ops, local organizing, grassroots organizing, local political action, charity work, etc. Making things better for people is good! A lot of Marxists already do those things, though. There's a reason so many of us advocate creating mutual aid and dual power networks.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:13
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Aruan posted:I'm talking about how the Chinese government was able to seed Twitter with disinfo to disrupt protests during Hong Kong, and then use Twitter to identify and target protesters. The only new thing about counter intelligence operations is how ineffective they are relative to historical examples. That's nothing compared to American successes in destroying leftist apparatuses in the United States like labor and civil rights movements. Law enforcement has been shutting down protests and movement for decades, and it's getting worse and worse at it because of new material conditions that have sprung up recently, specifically new technologies and the rise of poverty.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:15
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OwlFancier posted:A common liberal refrain is that they are not ideological, they are pragmatic. Particularly nowadays (or perhaps moreso a decade or so ago) they make a habit of decrying everyone else for being "too ideological" while saying that they are not, their views are always rooted in some material thing, very sensible. This is interesting for me (as well as what another poster said about liberals denying the reality of class conflict) because in my experience growing up in a mostly liberal environment, where even the Tories were mostly liberal Tories, liberals seemed to be driven by an underlying drive to “let’s all get along”. Of course, nowhere is a utopia, and liberals like this tended to become extremely frustrated whenever anything threatened their sense of perfect rural harmony, whether that’s a real class conflict manifested on a tiny scale (look who baked these amazing cakes for the school bake sale and made everyone else look bad! That’s right, it’s Wealthina!) or the suggestion of inequality beyond something happening somewhere else that we can organise a charity drive for. All this is an attitude born of privilege of course, not that rural middle class liberals of this kind would ever recognise that. For liberals, it seems the appearance of a lack of conflict is more important than confronting real conflict in their lives.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:24
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Purple Prince posted:This is interesting for me (as well as what another poster said about liberals denying the reality of class conflict) because in my experience growing up in a mostly liberal environment, where even the Tories were mostly liberal Tories, liberals seemed to be driven by an underlying drive to “let’s all get along”. Yes, I think this is very true, they do not at all like the insinuation that there are conflicts that cannot be resolved by talking about it or making minor changes, which I think is a big part of why they deny all other ideologies because if they had a real basis that would suggest that their point of view can not describe the entire world.
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Dec 9, 2020 01:26
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Aruan posted:there is value in things like co-ops, local organizing, grassroots organizing, local political action, charity work, etc. Making things better for people is good! honestly doing this kind of stuff when im able to is the only thing stopping me from falling completely into despair-driven suicidality
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Dec 9, 2020 02:01
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Cpt_Obvious posted:The only new thing about counter intelligence operations is how ineffective they are relative to historical examples. That's nothing compared to American successes in destroying leftist apparatuses in the United States like labor and civil rights movements. Law enforcement has been shutting down protests and movement for decades, and it's getting worse and worse at it because of new material conditions that have sprung up recently, specifically new technologies and the rise of poverty. wasnt there an effort post about how american intelligence apparatus is slowly collapsing in the cool zone thread in cspam
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Dec 9, 2020 02:02
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Purple Prince posted:All this is an attitude born of privilege of course, not that rural middle class liberals of this kind would ever recognise that. For liberals, it seems the appearance of a lack of conflict is more important than confronting real conflict in their lives. I think this really cuts to the 'center' of it. The reality is that conflict means the possibility for change, which makes liberals unhappy. They like the way things are now, and the idea that things could be improved is an inherently antagonistic idea to them. The suggestion that someone else suffers causes them guilt, and it is easier to make a perfomative gesture towards improvement than it is to actually improve because doing so might make them less wealthy. OwlFancier posted:Yes, I think this is very true, they do not at all like the insinuation that there are conflicts that cannot be resolved by talking about it or making minor changes, which I think is a big part of why they deny all other ideologies because if they had a real basis that would suggest that their point of view can not describe the entire world. Coherent ideologies have goals that haven't already been achieved, and that means an outcome that differs from what is already happening. To dissuade any attempt at change they deride all ideologies as flawed and adopt a strange version nihilism as their central tenant. Nothing is possible, nothing is better, nothing is will ever be different. And they like it that way. Kanine posted:wasnt there an effort post about how american intelligence apparatus is slowly collapsing in the cool zone thread in cspam It was probably Ice Phisherman, he does a lot of great effort posts that seem well researched. I would beware of his timeline predictions, however. He suffers from the same Leftist tendency to, in his own words "predict the last 11 out of 3 revolutions".
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Dec 9, 2020 02:45
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Found it. Cross posted with permission:Ice Phisherman posted:Honestly it is a little more than that and depends on how security works. I talked with a friend of mine about how security works with the feds recently and how the CIA has been eating poo poo because they're all sigint nerds these days, short for signals intelligence. They rely on tech for security and running ops, but if that tech fails, then you can dance around them.
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Dec 9, 2020 03:11
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It is part of the contradictions of capitalism. The capitalist system is destroying the organisations that should protect it, in order to make a few more pennies this quarter.
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Dec 9, 2020 04:21
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Aruan posted:Here's the challenge though: what does "doing something" even mean in 2020 - particularly when I'm concerned that doing "something" is actually (i.e. a works co-op) strengthens capitalism because it provides an outlet for organizing spirit while also effectively providing a band aid for the inequities under a capitalist system. There is no armed struggle (or really any struggle) in the United States, there is no organized worker's movement. I forgot who wrote this, but I read a very grim, but fairly funny, critique which argued that the only praxis left is theorizing about what could be done. I also feel that the natural ideological conclusion here is accelerationism, not activism, and certainly not trying to improve people's material conditions. Your grim attitude is borne out of what Mark Fisher called "capitalist realism": a desire to "be realistic" on the terms that today's liberal ideology sets, and shut one's eyes to the potentials of what is already happening. When you say there is really no struggle in the United States in a period of historic upheaval, that's what you're doing. You don't really think there's no struggle, you think the people who are struggling are being so unrealistic that they don't warrant consideration. But really, even the most hardened third-worldist's ideology points out a way forward: moving elsewhere and naturalizing into their society. Accelerationism also would have an activism of its own if it was a honest ideology rather than an excuse to stay comfy. What is modern China if not the world's largest accelerationist experiment? "Doing something" means not being afraid to believe in things, not being afraid of looking foolish, not being afraid of hardship, and most importantly, *respecting people who have conquered such fears and seeking their mentorship*. The people who say thaf the only praxis left is theorizing actually harbor a deep disrespect for the mental capacities of the rest of the world. There are millions and millions of acting socialists around the world, each having achieved their own definition of serious success in TYOOL 2020 (Rojava, China, Bolivia, Venezuela, the 50 year long insurgency in the Philippines, a 250 million person general strike in India, unionizing this or that job, small but growing insurgent mass work projects in the USA...), but what if they're all idiots embarrassing themselves? What if there's nothing out there to do that isn't just an embarrassment? What if I'm the only sensible socialist in the world, and correct praxis is what doesn't make me feel embarrassed or inconvenienced? All in all, it's about learning from people whose attitudes and real accomplishments you can believe in, and following their example. If you can't muster belief in anyone, that's on you. If you stop at wearing them as an aesthetic instead of going through with the hard work of following their example, that's on you. Of course not everyone is right and millions of people actually are embarrassing themselves, but the right to denounce others' efforts is reserved for those who are walking the walk. uncop fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Dec 9, 2020 |
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Dec 9, 2020 07:48
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Cpt_Obvious posted:2. The Chinese Firewall is surprisingly easy to bypass. All it takes is a VPN (at least that's all it took as of 4 years ago, I haven't been there since). This is somewhat tangential to the current topic but I do want to point out that the "Great Firewall of China" is not primarily an instrument of social control, as China watchers would have you believe. Indeed, it's very easy as a private individual to circumvent the firewall - but it's NOT easy to do this if you are a business, which points us towards the firewall as a form of digital protectionism. They successfully managed to isolate their domestic internet space from the likes of Google, Facebook, eBay, and Amazon as business entities, which has allowed them to develop their own home-grown social media sites and e-Commerce industries.
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Dec 9, 2020 09:23
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I just reread The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Short Course) for the first time in a decade, and I forgot how great and essential it is to Marxism. I would rank it up there after The Communist Manifesto & Anti-Duhring for beginners looking to understand socialism. It has a compilation of the best writings of Lenin throughout along with Stalin’s infamous essay Dialectical and Historical Materialism. It was fascinating to read the USSR’s reaction to the ascension of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan at the time; not to mention just how completely surrounded the Soviet Union was by hostile capitalist states trying to undermine and provoke it at every turn with their intelligence agencies and border skirmishes.
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Dec 9, 2020 19:04
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Loveshaft posted:I just reread The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Short Course) for the first time in a decade, and I forgot how great and essential it is to Marxism. I would rank it up there after The Communist Manifesto & Anti-Duhring for beginners looking to understand socialism. It has a compilation of the best writings of Lenin throughout along with Stalin’s infamous essay Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Since there's already been a request for a reading list, I'm gonna add this to the OP. If anyone else has any suggestions, please leave them below or send me a PM or whatever.
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Dec 10, 2020 02:22
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gradenko_2000 posted:This is somewhat tangential to the current topic but I do want to point out that the "Great Firewall of China" is not primarily an instrument of social control, as China watchers would have you believe. Then why is political speech so heavily regulated online in China?
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Dec 10, 2020 05:40
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CelestialScribe posted:Then why is political speech so heavily regulated online in China? This claim about election fraud is disputed.
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Dec 10, 2020 06:24
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CelestialScribe posted:Then why is political speech so heavily regulated online in China? I'm not suggesting that online political speech in China isn't heavily regulated, or isn't regulated at all, or that the firewall itself isn't used for that among other things. I'm saying that the economic rationale for the firewall's existence is far too often unmentioned or understated.
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Dec 10, 2020 06:32
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The Oldest Man posted:This claim about election fraud is disputed. Alright, break it up! This protest is illegal!
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Dec 10, 2020 06:34
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Cpt_Obvious posted:This is 1000x the central tenant of liberalism, at least in its current form. I know the discussion is moving on from this point, but there's a new quote from Obama's book that illustrates this point so  https://twitter.com/curaffairs/status/1336759614101200899 The pretense toward an absence of ideology has become massive liberal shibboleth, and yet they will act one out like robots every single time without question. The idea of ideological struggle is therefore untenable to them since they're running a program having never built or been robbed of the capacity to inspect it.
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Dec 10, 2020 06:36
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