askchapo

~~oh boy another post for speculating about the future~~

Let's say revolution happens in the USA. How do things end up? Obviously, the ideal is essentially a second USSR. But is that possible? I worry that the world today is too jaded to repeat such an optimistic project. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to bash China or the Chinese model, and I know their strategy is based on their material conditions and trying to outcompete the West, but their cold pragmatism feels very demoralizing. I want a state uncompromisingly committed to workers' rights, the world revolution, and building communism, complete with a supranational proletarian union, but I'm worried that such a thing could never happen in the modern world.

What are you people's thoughts?

We've previously discussed the recent book Abundance and adherents recognizing that China has exceeded the US in terms of the metrics that actually matter: which country has the infrastructure and is at the technological frontier. Adherents effectively contend that capitalism can be sufficiently reformed to let the flow — and while providing a damning critique of US incapability to build any infrastructure whatsoever (e.g., California's million dollar toilet, housing crisis, and continued high-speed rail failures), still seem to contend copying China wholesale is not the best system because China moving too fast brings its own kind of issues (e.g., short-term visibility projects solely for local officials to get promoted, corruption to blame corporations for actual local governance failures, etc.) and following science with disregard for ethical/environmental/etc. consequences citing things like the one-child policy.

We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore, Mr. President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say, ‘No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more!’

— , probably

I'm assuming this is going to be a mainstream Dem candidate position, whether or not they actually claim to have any positions, and more importantly need to do some dunking IRL, but keeping in mind the Mao quote, would appreciate those who have investigated the issues further to speak on them. A year later, what are your favorite internal critiques of the Abundance lib position, even if we assume Dems will actually do something and try to implement such an agenda?

Obviously it'd be better all around if he never had a stroke to begin with but I feel like it's nice to hear his poems and notice the significant improvement in his dictation in each one.

So many people get shit that's impossible to recover from and strokes affect such a vital part of the person so it's just kind of nice to know someone's recovering nicely.

The source is a 10 second vid - https://xcancel.com/AnimalGeoLife/status/2037138022521864421

No music, and nothing that requires me to have to pay too much attention. Something fun and positive to take the edge off all the terrible shit happening would be cool.

I am slowly converting over to a vegan diet. I have really enjoyed a handful of vegan cooking channels, notably Thee Burger Dude and Sauce Stache.

What are some of your favorites?

He left Kernari pretty young so you think he'd just talk like his adoptive parents on Ferrix. But everyone on Ferrix has a British accent (well except Bix but idk maybe her family immigrated there later in her life).

(And yes I know the real reason is Diego Luna is Mexican, but I'm high an felt like being a pedantic nerd)

(And yes I know Fiona Shaw is Irish)

When it pops, will the current pervasive LLM and Gen'AI' slop dry up as their companies go under? Will LLM and agentic chatbots be removed from all the apps that have been shoehorning them into everything? Or will just some companies go under, some stocks lose value and people's 401ks are hollowed out

I really really want to get involved with the movement. I feel like I'm going through an immense political awakening at an extremely auspicious time, given the clear collapse of the empire going on right now.

Two issues, though.

A: I have no idea what I'm doing or where to go. The American left (and the left in general) is obviously fragmented and impotent, which certainly doesn't help. There's a local branch of DSA that I've seen flyers for, but I don't think I want to bother with a "big tent" organization like that. PSL is the only party I've seen mostly good things about here, but they only have a general branch for my state. If there are any smaller orgs, I have no idea how I'd find them.

B: As potential for revolution increases, so too does potential for arrest, and as a trans woman, that's a pretty horrifying prospect. I don't want to just sit around and do nothing, but at the same time... yeah.

I would really appreciate any tips, if any of this makes sense.

Boots on the ground or TACO as usual?

In the last year, I finally decided to drop out of the democratic party and work on politics more aligned with my principles. I'm trying to get politically engaged and stop being a keyboard warrior / lazy DSAer / bare minimum protest attendee and help organize... for the Revolution!

But so far I'm finding I'm failing to actually make it through the other side of the entry barrier. I've attended union organizing trainings and felt like I left a series of seminars and was now basically on my own. When trying to enter local socialist orgs, I'm getting tested on my ideological fit and they're making me do a lot of reading and interviewing.

I appreciate the education and all, and the people have been nice and generous with their time, but after attending an intro meeting or two I have to ask: is there any there there? Once I actually get let in, is it still people sitting in rooms reading theory at each other? Is it just more meetings? When will it get pragmatic? When will I actually be doing something useful? Or does that come later and right now I'm a liability / not educated enough to contribute?

Appreciate perspectives from those that have been down a similar path and open to suggestions and recommendations.

• it is in existence for many decades, multiple generations
• culture as a whole is integrated with the military via conscription, then many related employment opportunities later in life
• military not some sort of symbolic peacetime standby thing, but a way where majority of citizens are indoctrinated and jumped in as children or very young adults.
• israel has enjoyed almost a century of careful special treatment despite their crimes and atrocities being widely known since day dot
• immense internal/external propaganda force
• fake it til you make it -- the fascist method of reality. rather than discovering truth, as with science, you create it. israel being a prime example.

I remember when I first entered the adult world paying my bills online was super easy.

These days, I feel like half the time I log onto some doctors office or mechanics website to pay a bill the site is like "yeahhhh, idk why but I'm just not going to accept your credit card. Also the button to the 'finalize payment' screen is grayed out even though you filled out everything."

And they you email tech support and they're like "idk delete your cookies I guess? That didn't work? Guess you gotta mail us a money order."

Hi friends. Is it fucked up to flirt with someone with no intention of taking it further? I'm in a long-term monogamous relationship. Sometimes I crave a little validation from strangers. I'm not going to cheat on my partner, but I do have a need to feel desirable to others. I don't feel like a bit of flirting is a betrayal of my relationship, but I'm less confident about how other people feel. Like, I don't want to waste someone else's time, but I guess maybe I am leading people on a bit if I chat with them without mentioning my partner.

Mine is when someone tried to tell me that superannuation (my countries version of 401K I think) is communism

What historical figures (recent or ancient) can compare to Trump?

Liberals will of course say Putin (which of course they know nothing about), but in my limited knowledge, Putin gained support by reighning in oligarchs and stabilizing the country. Trump is doing the opposite of this.

In my limited knowledge, he seems most like Boris Yeltsin. A complete dolt and perfect avatar for the terminal stage of a failed empire.

I think certain traits are unprecedented. He may be the most anti-social leader in history. His administration is doing things that don't make sense on a societal level, like defunding research for extreme weather and disease prevention.

Maybe this is just the most extreme form of narcissism on history: the entire world can end as long as I get what I want.

Maybe this is too fedposty (and let me know if it is), but I've been thinking about this a lot, especially with how things are going in Iran. It seems like modern warfare is basically just "my drones strike your drones", and if either side has drones free to not strike other drones, they can instantly kill whoever they like. With this in mind, is it even really possible for a revolution in the US to escalate into a civil war without simply being air-superiority'd into oblivion with modern sensors? Is guerilla war viable anymore? The main counterpoint I can think of to this possibility is that the US military is A: incompetent and B: mostly a colonial garrison force, but I don't know.

(And yeah, I know a revolution in the US would have a whole laundry list of prerequisites and is significantly hindered by the fact it can't be tied with anti-imperial nationalism. I'm talking strictly in terms of if it actually happened.)

I mean If ever there was a time, right? Might as well put a materialist understanding of the world to work.

I did a reverse image search - I don't know a single concrete detail about the photo.

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Edit

Counted 25 ICE officers (most with ERO vests) during my 26-minute wait in the LGA Terminal C Touchless line this morning. every one of them was either standing doing nothing or slowly walking the length of the line doing nothing. at least four were in masks.

https://bsky.app/profile/greenwell.bsky.social/post/3mhsma252rk2q

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/11136332

Edit: I'm from the Global South, I should've clarified that on the post. The lesson has been learned.

Many leftist movements, legit or not, call themselves either Trotskyist or Maoist and keep dissing Stalin for his “socialism in one state” policy and “ruining” Comintern and Deng Xiaoping for his “liberal” policies.

I want to know what they are trying to do by distancing themselves from the USSR and PRC while fetishizing Cuba and Vietnam—you’ll only hear them talking about the Vietnam War, btw—and following either the guy who lost the power struggle or a literal Marxist-Leninist who supported one of the refused countries and founding the other.

Graaaaaaaaainnsss