Y’all mind if I just uncancel myself like our lord and savior Jesus Christmas?

I love how this whole premise never gets questioned. By anyone. None of the super smartest people in the movie were like, “no that won’t work.” The premise just gets accepted as true, but it would be bad.

“I’m going to eliminate half of all life in the universe” hey thanos did you know that scarcity in modern society isn’t driven by population at all, and is in fact an artificial condition imposed on the lower classes by the ruling class that hoards those resources?

No its just like, “well killing people is wrong but it would probably work, people might be sad though.” No Disney, fuck you. Don’t let people believe this shit. Thanks for your endless support for cultural fascism, ya fucks

Nice

A wiggler? Did you learn that on the first day at sophistry class at fallacy school? Is that a technical term or are you completely, totally, irredeemably full of your own farts

Ah a rationalist. That’s what I love about rationalism, any relationship to reality is severely rationed

Irish and Islamic Arab scholars were widely sought during medieval era because their countries contained the last surviving copies of the entire roman classical canon and before, locked up in monasteries with monks and scribes copying them by hand, in all different languages, since the fall of Rome and the spread of the catholic and islamic religion into those areas.

In the dark ages, they were the only people with any access to information about the past, they spoke and could read and write many languages. Advanced mathematics were developed in Iraq in the 9th century, or even earlier in the vedas, and made their way to Europe in the 12th century. Fibonacci made a name for himself in Italy through these discoveries, which had a thriving intellectual culture in various regions for the larger part of the feudal era.

So no I dont think its a recent idea. The ruling class in every era has always needed the educated to interpret the world. The formation of an educated middle class is fairly recent, but as the middle class gets squeezed harder, look how the first thing to go is quality public education.

A sharp, curious and questioning mind is route to whatever passes for freedom in any age. Whether or not that opportunity is available to everyone is a sure indicator of a whether a society is more free, or more repressive.

Do you believe private property is a fundamental human right? If yes, Do you believe that people who own or run businesses should be able to pay a living wage?

Do you have a theory of political change? What is it?

Are you familiar with theories of imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism? Are you pro-reparations?

Do you believe economic degrowth is necessary to avoid climate change?

Are you opposed to the genocide in Palestine? Do you support a one or two state solution?

Are you a British Green or an American Green?

I worry that by asking these questions directly it might affect any answers but these are “further left” than your stances.

Based on what you shared I’d say you’re a “progressive liberal”, which is a right-leaning moderate position. But that’s where a lot of revolutionary leftists, including myself, started out.

What really matters to me when relating to progressive liberals is: If you’re willing to educate yourself, and getting involved in a political party like you’re doing could help.
if your positions are based on a real spiritual progressivism, or if someone acts fundamentally reformist/opportunist.

The powers that are driving this are actually planning 20, 30 years ahead. Market solutions is a cover for class war. Trump is cashing checks written by Bush, Obama, etc.,

The “line go up” meme is prevalent because the attitude is a flimsy cover for deeper relations and actual class conspiracy

“Machines were the weapon used to quell the revolt of specialized labor” – Karl Marx

Its literally 8 people that own half the worlds wealth

If you eliminate enough jobs and increase unemployment, wages go down across the board. But then you also do away with high wages for highly technical roles

I bought my son a cheap little computer, basically a windows version of a Chromebook. When windows needed an update there wasn’t enough memory to perform it, and the computer would no longer connect to WiFi. I thought this was very dumb so I figured out how to remove windows and install Mint. Was impressed by how well it worked.

When I needed a new computer I bought a $150 thinkpad and installed Fedora. Been a fedora main ever since

Become a class traitor, that might buy you a few days, maybe more if you’re really good at it

lack of human interest

When has that ever stopped anybody? Just spin up a million or so ai fans programmed to love it

I don’t understand your second sentence.

I don’t have any problem with the term “left wing of the ruling class”. What it refers to, is the section that does give in to working class demands. So you say there is no left wing of the ruling class there is only <my definition of the left wing of the ruling class.> I think you’re being pedantic. Please correct me, but however you define things my argument is the same.

You’re coming off as some kind of leftist, so wrt my statement being a contradiction: material conditions under class rule are inherently contradictory. Class rule is contradictory, the belief that any part of nature supercedes another is contradictory, that one man is better than another or more deserving of the fruits of labor, is contradictory. Socialized production but privatized profits is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, but the contradition drives it, not destroys it. How capitalism functions vs how it appears to function, is a contradiction.

Pointing out contradictions in others arguments in an attempt to invalidate them is literally bourgeois rationalism. It is a form of idealism, and I have zero time for it. Social contradiction exists. If you wanna argue that this society is rational, then if you consider yourself a leftist, that is a contradiction that alienates you from the real movement.

At the time of the new deal, a large enough section of the ruling class actually believed in a kind, humanitarian capitalism. This is because it was in their best interests to believe in it, and for a while it actually produced many rational reforms. But the contradictions of capitalist class rule, rolled back those reforms as the threat of immanent destruction disappeared and the endless search for profit continued. A good example of these beliefs is the interview [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/07/23.htm](Marxism vs. Liberalism.) I don’t like Stalin one bit but it is a funny interview and demonstrates what I’m talking about. This belief led to the social movements that embodied it. Of course it is a contradiction. Its contradictions everywhere, all the way down. Where there is contradiction, there is struggle, and where there is struggle, we begin our analysis and center our practical work.

Reformism is when the right and moderates of the workers movement join with the “left” of the bourgeoisie. Both the moderates of the workers movement and the left of the bourgeoisie are wrongheaded and idealist, but that doesn’t mean those movements don’t exist. Those movements appear over and over throughout history, and develop because of actual conditions and class interests.

I think you define things statically and by their “essential traits” rather than by the relationships that they have with their local conditions. I am vehemently opposed to this way of thinking, this essentialist, categorical objectivity. I will not give ground here.

So, if you’d like to continue to debate me, you will have to demonstrate more understanding than you have here. Debate like this isnt practical, but i would like clarification on the second sentence which I legit don’t understand.

It is functioning as it was intended to function. A thing is what it does

A class analysis is not absurd, it is based on actual conditions, not idealized ones. I said he was the left wing of the ruling class, but he was objectively even for his time, not in the left wing of the working class.

The interests of the capitalist class are in direct conflict with what is in the interests of the workers. Capitalists want to pay workers less to make more profit, workers want to be paid more.

Don’t mischaracterize me as saying the left is a club and I’m the gatekeeper. FDR was a gatekeeper. He let some white people through, but as I believe was stated elsewhere in these comments, he locked up a million Japanese farmers in concentration camps so that american farmers could buy up their farms for a song because they couldn’t compete with Japanese agricultural practices. He aided the forces that dismantled the american workers movement during ww2, he turned all common lands into federal property, to be given out to railroad tycoons and mineral interests. Blacks and immigrants were mostly excluded from the new deal. Social democracy for one group over all others isn’t left wing, it’s fascism. Just because you refuse to weigh facts on their actual merit, rather than idealism, treating history as a buffet where you can pick and choose the dishes you prefer, leaving the rest, doesn’t make me a left gatekeeper.

He made conciliation with the workers with his left hand but with his right he worked against us, for the benefit of his class. The left isnt a club you join by saying certain things. It isnt a set of beliefs we never act on. It is a practical program for taking power from the rich and delivering to the workers, forever.

What is absurd here is why you’re so committed to lionizing any president. I even said he wasn’t that bad, but I don’t have to be a fan, or believe he was a part of our movements. If you deny that we live in a class society, then that is absurd. There is practically no framework to determine what is real in our society and politics without a class analysis. Without it you believe that it was good and leftist that FDR gave us incomplete rights for few, instead of the workers winning full rights for all

Sure. Left wing for a president, even the left wing of the ruling capitalist class. Not the left wing of the working class.

But you’re absolutely right. He was the guy who did the thing at the time that was needed to do the thing. History isn’t made by great men. It is made by workers. My point is he sided with the winners.

But he hadn’t adopted the sensibilities and interests of the working class. It just so happened that a large enough section of the ruling class agreed with him at the time, not completely without his presidential influence, but that’s the whole problem right? FDR was hardly the first member of the the ruling class who had won over to the side of workers, many great socialists, including Marx, Lenin, were themselves members of the bourgeoisie. But there is a canyon of difference between the guy who led a revolution in Russia, and the guy who stopped one in america.

As far as presidents go, he’s not a slave owning mass murder, pedophile, complete nepo-baby, etc., the man wasn’t evil as far as presidents go, but he was only evef momentarily and conditionally on the side of workers. Populism isnt necessarily leftism

Bernie is a social democrat, which is left of the establishment, but he isnt an anticapitalist so a lot of leftists might not call him a left wing leader.

You don’t think someone is deliberately trying to make sane conversations impossible?