extracting rent

That’s their right

lemmy.ml

Have I discovered a rare pro-capitalist user of lemmy.ml?

I appreciate the well thought out response. My main point of contention is the enforcement mechanism. I agree with point 3 as a strategy, and I have actually participated in groups that follow this general principle, but I have always had the option to simply leave and find another group or form my own. The problem arises when the group is the only permissible form of organization (such as, for example, if it is the one party in a one-party state). You actually see this problem in China, when the state cracks down on workers who attempt to organize on their own terms by forming independent unions. I see this as an unambiguous moral failing of the Chinese state, and is an issue on which I will not budge. Bureaucracy makes determining the will of the majority complicated (no democracy is perfect), but even if it is indeed the will of the majority, tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.

There are things more important than unity. I do not believe that a better world must necessarily come at the cost of individual autonomy.

It’s still a net positive for candidates like Mamdani to achieve electoral victories. Even if you believe that a true socialist can never make it to a high enough office to establish a socialist government (which I agree is likely correct), making the attempt and achieving some reforms in the face of very public resistance from the bourgeoisie is great for class consciousness. It sends the message “hey, it actually is possible to improve your material conditions, and the rich really don’t want it to happen.” Give people a taste and they will want more, which is why the establishment is so terrified of Zohran Mamdani.

Personally, I think that Democratic Centralism is too strict. I understand the idea behind ensuring the subordination of the minority to the majority, but as the party grows and especially after it seizes state power that subordination becomes enforced, and at that point it becomes oppression. It doesn’t get rid of factions either, it just hides them and fosters resentment towards the majority faction.

Just so we’re clear on what we’re talking about, here are the tenets of Democratic Centralism as I understand them:

1. That all directing bodies of the Party, from top to bottom, shall be elected.

2. That Party bodies shall give periodical accounts of their activities to their respective Party organization.

3. That there shall be strict Party discipline and the subordination of the minority to the majority.

4. That all decisions of higher bodies shall be absolutely binding on lower bodies and on all Party members.

I believe that point 3 should be a suggestion, and never enforced. It should be up to the individual whether any given disagreement is enough to warrant going their own way, and an option should be given to “stand aside” in cases where someone would prefer not to participate in an action but otherwise wants to remain with the group.

Point 4 is backwards IMO, and a recipe for authoritarianism. Any sort of elected authority should always be instantly recallable by the electorate, and any “lower” body should always have the autonomy to make their own decisions.

Factionalism is not a bad thing if you embrace it rather than trying to fight it.

I think part of it is that a lot of straight people who are allies but not as familiar with the queer community feel strange about using the word queer, thinking that it’s a reclaimed slur that they wouldn’t be allowed to say if they aren’t themselves queer. They don’t realize that the queer community has collectively decided that no “pass” is needed for the word queer.

If NYC uses ranked choice voting in the general as well and Cuomo learns from his disaster of a campaign then he might try coalition-building with Eric Adams or others to pull off a win by getting neoliberals and MAGA to gang up on Zohran. It’s a headscratcher for me because I never expect neoliberals to learn from their mistakes, and yet they might actually feel forced to because they never fail to pull out all the stops against progressives, let alone an actual socialist.

Why would Americans care about trains when they’re gonna be a billionaire any day now and have their own private jet?

/s

Allow me to translate.

I form my worldview on vibes alone and am incapable of thinking for myself. My perception of people is entirely filtered through memes and sensationalist media.

The CCP acts like just because the state owns major enterprises then the workers - through the state - own the means of production. That doesn’t hold up when the state does not adequately represent the will of the workers. Never is this contradiction more clear than when the Chinese state suppresses workers’ attempts to organize on their own terms.

China is communist in the same way that the US is democratic, which is to say that it’s a sham to keep up appearances that is suspended when convenient for the few who hold real power.

I would fund community-led projects that align with my values such as:

• mutual aid collectives
• community-run gardens, libraries, and clinics
• labor and tenant unions / cooperatives
• intentional communities
• food pantries / soup kitchens
• parks and other 3rd spaces
• art collectives
• sustainability initiatives (rooftop solar, heat pumps, microgrids, rewilding, permaculture / indigenous farming practices, etc.)
• public multimodal transportation infrastructure

My focus would be on empowering people to help each other even after the money runs out.

Capitalists have always repackaged and sold our liberatory art back to us, that isn’t new.

“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Is a quote paraphrased from a saying attributed to Lenin.

The writers are genuine in their messaging, the corpos just don’t care. When someone slips a revolutionary message into the stream of “content,” the appropriate thing to do is to consider it, turn off the TV, and act accordingly.

It would not bode well for the future of discourse if lemmy.world of all places gets shut down for radicalism. Our instance is significantly more radical than lemmy.world. Can you imagine some ecofascist idiot who posted on slrpnk.net a couple times committing a terror attack and getting the instance taken down? I can, which is why this news should be very concerning.

Edit: Just looked through some of the bomber’s comments and their replies and some users even pointed out that his rhetoric was reminiscent of ecofascism. Anti-natalism and ecofascism are ideological siblings. The backlash to this attack is going to catch environmentalist groups in the crossfire, with many environmental activists being accused of having anti-natalist views. Anyone who’s ever advocated for degrowth might get lumped in with them.

The problem is letting the AI digest the information for you. It is impossible to engage in critical thinking when you’re not actually doing the thinking yourself.

How do you publicly let AI do your thinking for you without even a hint of shame or embarrassment?

He was also a Nazi. Many such examples of Nazis being into weird pseudosciences, especially ones having to do with innate biological characteristics.

Either way, philosopher John Rawls concludes differently in his 1971 A Theory of Justice, stating that a just society must tolerate the intolerant, for otherwise, the society would then itself be intolerant, and thus unjust. However, Rawls qualifies this assertion, conceding that under extraordinary circumstances, if constitutional safeguards do not suffice to ensure the security of the tolerant and the institutions of liberty, a tolerant society has a reasonable right to self-preservation to act against intolerance if it would limit the liberty of others under a just constitution. Rawls emphasizes that the liberties of the intolerant should be constrained only insofar as they demonstrably affect the liberties of others: “While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger.”

That’s a whole lot of words to communicate what could be easily described by reframing the concept of tolerance as a social contract rather than a moral precept.

So they took over a building they don’t own, refused to leave, and had a list of demands?

Yeah, sounds like something the police should be called for.

Would you say the same thing about organized sit-ins in segregated buildings during the civil rights movement? Same set of facts, took over a building they didn’t own, refused to leave, had a list of demands. If not, then clearly you believe that if the status quo is untenable and the demands reasonable then the action is justified.

This is peaceful civil disobedience in opposition to an ongoing genocide being broken up by the police state.

Right, white people aren’t allowed to be activists. Instead they should bitch and moan in internet comment sections about activists not doing enough or not doing the right things while doing nothing themselves.

This is ridiculous. What would Greta have to do to earn your respect, huh? You’re really gonna ask “why wasn’t she on the boat” as if she planned for the humanitarian aid vessel to be drone striked the day before she was going to board it? The fuck are you doing?

She is both a climate activist and advocate for Palestinian liberation, and framing her risking her life to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians as a shallow attempt at staying famous is incredibly ignorant and arrogant.