gradenko_2000 posted:

Is Bernie Sanders a Crypto-Communist? A Bayesian Analysis

FEATURED POST
Jan 29 2020

The word “crypto-communist” has a paranoid, McCarthyite connotation. But during the Cold War, numerous communist intellectuals and politicians deliberately concealed their commitment to Marxism-Leninism. Why? To be more successful intellectuals and politicians. A few crypto-communists even managed to become national leaders. Fidel Castro gained power in 1959, but only announced his communism in 1961. Nelson Mandela presented himself as a reasonable democratic reformer. Yet after his death, the African National Congress openly admittedly that Mandela had been on the politburo of the South African Communist Party for decades. Ho Chi Minh joined the Communist Party in 1920, but in 1945 he loudly posed as a moderate democratic reformer – famously quoting the U.S. Declaration of Independence to charm the West. Juan Negrin, last prime minister of Republican Spain, was also very likely a crypto-communist.

Which brings me to my question: What about Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders? Is he a crypto-communist? Sanders has sent decades worth of frightening signals – praising Soviet bloc regimes, honeymooning in the Soviet Union, and such. Indeed, he’s said and done almost exactly what you would expect a sincere Marxist-Leninist who wanted to be a U.S. Senator would say and do. Note, moreover, that Sanders came of political age during the 60s and 70s, when communism made a big comeback in the U.S. radical left.

True, this hardly proves that he’s a closeted communist. Alternately, Sanders could be a communist dupe, or a even a true believer in “finding the good in the bad.” The upshot: We have to settle for a probability that Sanders is a crypto-communist, all things considered.

When constructing such probabilities, Bayes’ Rule is usually helpful. As you may recall, the Rule states that: P(A|B)=P(B|A)*P(A)/[P(B|A)*P(A) + P(B|~A)*P(~A)]. In this case, we want to know the probability that (A) Sanders is a crypto-communist given (B) his track record. Piece-by-piece:

1. What’s the probability of Sanders’ track record if he is a crypto-communist? Here, I’d go high. Most crypto-communists in Sanders’ position would be look like him. I give this 75%.

2. What’s the probability of Sanders’ track record if he isn’t a crypto-communist? Sanders view have long been extremely unpopular, but quite a few non-communists on the radical left would have shared them. So I’ll give this 1.2%.

3. What’s the prior probability of being a crypto-communist? Even during the 60s and 70s, this would be low, but not astronomically low. .3% seems plausible.
4. What’s the prior probability of not being a crypto-communist? 100%-.3%=99.7%.

Plugging in to Bayes’ Rule, I get 15.8% – a low but hardly negligible risk that Sanders is a totalitarian hiding in plain sight. Needless to say, you can alter this final estimate by fiddling with the value of the numerical components. But you’d have to change them a lot to get the probability below 5%.

Which brings us to a big related question: When does the risk of crypto-communism become disqualifying for a presidential candidate? I say even a 1% chance should be totally disqualifying, but I fear that most Democrats – and many non-Democrats – will demur. So what risk would they consider acceptable? 5%? 10%? I don’t know, but plausibly revising (1)-(4) to get below a 5% or 10% threshold is no easy feat.

Karl Marx posted:

Our capitalist stares in astonishment. The value of the product is exactly equal to the value of the capital advanced. The value so advanced has not expanded, no surplus-value has been created, and consequently money has not been converted into capital.

uncop posted:

helpful things

Ferrinus posted:

more helpful things

namesake posted:

even more helpful things

Ruzihm posted:

ToxicAcne posted:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191115230624/https://lorenzoae.wordpress.com/2019/03/04/noam-chomsky-and-the-compatible-left-part-i/

Thought you guys might find this interesting.

Edit: And im' not sure if I totally agree with the article, but it's a bitter irony that Chomsky himself becomes of one of the incarnations of "limited but vigorous debate" that hes railed against his entire life. Also it seems that most prominent leftists alive today have really good analysis yet garbage takes on action. See David Harvey, Varoufakis, Chomsky etc.

Also I really want to read Parenti but I can't find most of his works in Canada? Any suggestions?

THS posted:

last night i tried to engage in chrono-psychological mindwar with the Willpower of joseph stalin. guess i should have known i’d lose that one

Sheng-Ji Yang posted:

https://twitter.com/CursedBoomers/status/1286044071430062080

FBI Informant posted:

One night we had a 6-hour meeting just on the contradictions of what makes a cup stay together; they get down deep into it. That seems ridiculous, but it is not; everything is completely thought out, why even you have thoughts and things like this. It is completely a Godless doctrine.

gradenko_2000 posted:

im too loving dumb to follow along with this discussion but critical support to apropros to nothing and I hope you never stop posting but more importantly I wish you success on your organizing efforts

GalacticAcid posted:

https://twitter.com/lakers/status/1292206836519563264?s=21

i say swears online posted:

redbeds.com

edit lmao that's worth pasting into the url bar

gradenko_2000 posted:

Pomeroy posted:

That's as substantial point as I'd expect from your type, but it does serve to affirm my least charitable preconceptions. Sincere carriers of the infantile disorder would at least try to make an argument.

Atrocious Joe posted:

https://twitter.com/GutianGang/status/1297899782208229376?s=20

Benagain posted:

veganism predisposes people to becoming trots and as such the best course of action is to preemptively purge those who don't eat the people's meat on the annual holiday.

Serf posted:

i have no issue eating all vegetables and maybe bugs/fish or whatever. vat grown meat would be cool i guess. but i know some people, whole families, who will not eat anything green. i'm talking literal years of fried chicken, steak, etc with nothing but bread and potatoes to break up the monotony. i knew a guy who accidentally got lettuce on his burger once and threw the whole thing on the ground. i'm not making any sweeping judgements about anyone here, i just personally know quite a few people who are absolute psychos about their food. a coworker of mine is in distress because she's trying to get her son to eat carrots and peas and her husband refuses to set an example for him and calls vegetables "girl food." death cult poo poo

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

https://twitter.com/mozsfashynipple/status/1311455689349492736

mila kunis posted:

jarofpiss posted:

thx for the clarification larry but i was already called a stupid liberal for thinking this election could represent any sort of barometer on where the american society is re: sympathies toward fascism or vulnerability to the rhetoric

and now i know better so you snooze you lose

GalacticAcid posted:

Does anybody have the “it’s time for another amerikkkan eleckshun! In other words, the enemy chooses its leader.” macro