I think there’s also an element of online spaces promoting the “extreme” version of every idea. The same way the right is so much more overt and unapologetic about racism, the “centrist” types go to the unapologetic extreme of, “The lesser evil, no matter how evil” with no concern about alienating people who aren’t on board with that. It’s like the one thing they get to have a “this but unironically” or “yes Chad” response to.

Which party do you think is most likely to see the light on them… hmm

PSL, duh.

I feel like there was a time when voting for the “lesser genocide” would have just been presented as a hypothetical to show the logical extreme of lesser evil voting, but somewhere along the line people just started advocating that openly and unironically.

As things stand, unfortunately, the far-right is significantly better armed and better prepared for a breakdown in government.

While I would prefer to peacefully reform the system, it’s increasingly clear that there’s validity to the saying, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The fact that the right is better positioned for a breakdown in order allows them to push further and further without fear. Civil war or revolution isn’t going to be something the left chooses, rather, if current trends continue (and it seems like they will) we may end up in a situation where it’s forced upon us and we are left but no choice to defend ourselves.

It’s not necessarily an all-or-nothing deal. There are methods of fighting back that are more effective than relying on the Democrats but don’t constitute full-on revolution, such as strikes. While strikes are non-violent, history has shown that they have potential to become violent, for example, if a boss hires mercenaries to force people back to work at gunpoint.

Likewise, if masked gunmen started showing up to people’s workplaces, demanding some of the workers to be handed over to be taken as hostages, workers need to be prepared to deal with that emergency.

Practically speaking, even if you wanted a revolution, there’s now way that would even be viable while practical steps for community defense have not been made. I’m not sure it’s rhetorically necessary to go further than that, particularly on a public forum.

Go: To what extent should you rely on AI reviews vs pro reviews?

AI is really, really good at Go, far better than humans, and it’s pretty undeniable that it’s a valid use case for the technology. It also makes it free and easy to pop a game into it and have the AI tell you which moves were mistakes.

But AI favors a “risky” playstyle, because it can read out crazy detailed variations to be able to tell when a dangerous position is actually fine. Humans trying to emulate that, without the superhuman reading capabilities, sometimes mess up and get worse results than if they used a safer strategy.

AI also can’t explain why one move is better than another. Humans rely on heuristics, patterns, and proverbs to point us in the right direction of finding a move. A professional can show how to find a move through a heuristic, which is more generally applicable. There can also ofc be the factor of wanting to support the community by paying for a teacher or going to a club and finding someone to help review.

The question comes when the human professional says something that contradicts the AI, who do you listen to? I’ve been in a room before where an amateur was getting a game reviewed by a foreign professional (for free, but at a paid event) and after the pro criticized a move, the amateur insisted that the pro was wrong because the AI agreed with the move.

It’s an interesting question, at least to me, whether or not that’s inappropriate. On the one hand, you’ll always have the AI’s input so getting a different perspective is valuable, pros arguably earn a certain degree of their respect from their abilities, and there are the issues I mentioned above with relying too heavily on AI. On the other hand, because AI is so indisputably good, many people see it as a sort of objective standard for evaluating moves, whereas individual players may have different styles of play. If you can see reasons to play a move and the AI backs it up, then if the pro doesn’t like it it could just be a stylistic preference. And of course the type of people who tend to be attracted to a competitive strategy game like this (especially Americans) don’t necessarily have a lot of respect for credentials on paper or social heirarchies, as opposed to whether you can back up your analysis by objective standards.

Communists made literacy campaigns a top priority, in every case.

Sounds like “propaganda works better to mobilize the illiterate, for better or worse”

Not really what it’s saying, both literate and illiterate areas mobilized.

This idea that the only condition necessary for (successful) revolution is for conditions to get bad enough, ignores the fact that conditions have been extremely shitty for large numbers of people for long stretches of time. There have been plenty of people suffering under colonialism or slavery, and even without that, people in the past were much poorer in general.

Mismanagement and abuse by the king and aristocracy was by no means a new thing. All across Europe, throughout the middle ages, kings got into long, bloody, expensive conflicts that left them unable to pay their debts. The solution, generally speaking, was to blame the resulting problems on Jews and use them as a scapegoat to cancel the government’s debts and expel them from the country, seizing whatever assets they had in the process. Or just don’t pay your soldiers what they were promised, which happened often (in spite of the risks). In the meantime, of course, you remind everyone that they will get to enjoy eternal paradise, but only if they accept their lot peacefully.

The French Revolution started because the king got involved in a very expensive conflict, the American Revolution, which created a debt crisis. That part was nothing new. What was new was that the bourgeoisie class had developed substantially and possessed much greater wealth and power than they ever had before. Furthermore, literacy allowed people to question the narratives that had previously kept them loyal and passive. They weren’t going to accept, “We can’t pay you what we promised, sorry, the Jews did it” and they had sufficient power to back it up.

Crucially, it also allowed for communication and unity between the politicians of the National Assembly and rural peasants. Without that, rural peasants might see them as persuing their own aims in a way unconnected from their own problems (and contrary to their traditional beliefs and values). This would in turn discredit the National Assembly and make it harder to see them as representing anyone or negotiating with any power behind them.

“When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” If you lack imagination to think of a way things could be different (and how to get there), then you will only double down on the frameworks and solutions the system provides you with. Prayer, racial scapegoating, etc, no matter how illogical they may seem from the outside, without literacy, the only solutions you’re likely to find are the ones based on things you already believe.

The less literate districts were notable for mobilization against rumored but nonexistent invasions, whereas the most literate districts nurtured attacks on the central social institutions of the Old Regime.

“Mobilizing against rumored invasions” doesn’t exactly sound revolutionary. Isn’t “attacking the central social institutions of the Old Regime” kind of… what a revolution is?

Then instead of judging China’s foreign policy on its own merit

Hi. I’m willing to discuss China’s foreign policy on its own merit.

China has been at peace for decades. Before that, they had very shitty foreign policy, and their current approach of peacefully trading with everyone while avoiding conflicts is in part a reaction to that. This approach has it’s flaws, like a tendency to avoid getting involved in Israel/Palestine rather than supporting the Palestinians, but overall it’s been fairly effective and positive. It’s also nice that they’ve invested in poor countries and forgiven debts.

What part of their foreign policy is supposed to be “aggressive” exactly?

Certainly. I criticize China for some things. But I also critically support it and refute misinformation about it. That’s what makes people call me a “tankie.” Having a single kind word to say about anything China does tends to be enough to earn that label. The way I see it, to not be a tankie, you have to be completely and uncritically opposed to everything they do.

So, no, you can’t.

If every state that opposes Western hegemony gets labelled as “authoritarian” in practice, then I fail to see the distinction.

It’s only in a purely hypothetical fantasy that you can imagine a state that opposes Western hegemony that you wouldn’t call authoritarian. As soon as that state actually came into being, you’d fall for propaganda about it, and it would have to engage with real world challenges with countering foreign subversion that y’all don’t like to think about.

At best, the only anti-imperialist projects that “anti-authortarians” seem to support are the ones that fail, or last for about a week, because then they can be imagined as being perfect.

Can you provide a single example of non-authoritarian country that’s against Western hegemony?

Even from that perspective, don’t you see how having “illegitimate” socialist countries makes it easier for “legitimate” attempts to survive?

The US can’t effectively sanction countries if those countries have the option of just taking their business to China. A multipolar world allows smaller countries a greater degree of freedom to experiment with different systems because they have options of who to turn to for trade and security, while in a unipolar world the US could just impose whatever conditions they want because they’re the only option.

Most normal people just realize that all systems are imperfect

Vanguard partyism

Might as well just define it as, “Has socialist in the name” at that point.

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a giant essay no one will every read

Well, this certainly explains why you have such a bastardized understanding of Marxism-Leninism. You certainly didn’t get it from actually reading theory. Some Youtuber told you this nonsense, right?

Why do you think that has anything to do with Marxism-Lenism?

Why do I think Stalin’s book Foundations of Leninism has anything to do with the Marxism-Leninism term coined by Stalin? Do you hear yourself?