Whoosh

“Everything is very good, actually”

“Quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself”

Are you really sure you want to be ascribing global trends to the US empire?

This bit is getting really tedious

Wait hang on what aliens

Not a chance lol

Most americans don’t know a single thing about China, but almost every one of them would tell you that it’s a anti-free speech hellscape.

The only thing that matters is that it originated in China. Nothing else they do could change the opinion of the american public.

Meta is already a willing partner of the USSD, they don’t need to ‘make an example’.

OK, so lets say they moderated it the same way here as they did in China… All good now?

I don’t think it matters at all how tiktok is actually being managed or moderated in the US - Americans simply do not trust anything Chinese.

The cold war never ended.

I honestly cannot tell if this is parody.

The point is that I have a genuine reason to worry about Russia and Russian propaganda — basically everyone has but if they make more of move on Europe, Imma be 30km from the frontlines, and with the current drone technology, I don’t like my chances in what I’m doing

I’m sorry you’re in that situation, genuinely. I don’t want to be one of those guys that confidently speculates about the future of geopolitical conflict, but Russia benefits a lot more from reactionary isolationists getting voted in throughout the western world and weakening resolve for joint sanction than they do with open conflict with Europe. They wouldn’t be able to march into Finland or Poland without NATO taking action, and they certainly do not want to get into open conflict with NATO - that’s half the reason they’re in Ukraine to begin with.

Sure, yeah, but you do realise what you sound like when you make statements like that? I’ll gladly discuss how fucked up Western politics are when I know I’m not talking to someone straight up worshipping Russia.

And i’d gladly discuss it when I know i’m talking to someone who understands that it isn’t just western ‘politics’, it is a matter of the internal contradictions within democratic capitalism itself. It’s not a matter of western nations ‘deciding’ not to be jackasses, they need to materially separate themselves from the needs of capital itself, and we’ll sooner sink to fascism than achieve that spontaneously.

Essentially he’s remarking that a lot of Asian countries are pretty authoritarian, but know that they need to rely on making bank, which is why they successffully employ capitalism, but impose some authoritarian features on the people owning the companies doing the trade. Not exactly monopolising trade, which would mean no capitalism, but basically… monopolising the people doing capitalism… so… it’s not gonna “play itself out”. How would China starve itself of people and business, while being so resource rich? Even with super heavy regulation and authoritarianism, they could go all the way down to NK level and still have… a population. So you know… you won’t be seeing “the end of” anything like that…

Err, yea… That is basically the only reason they’ve been as successful as a communist nation to begin with. I understand people’s apprehension to include China as a communist or socialist nation state given the idealistic non-violent vision that’s romanticized in the west, but the way in which they’ve enacted their “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is still consistent with a marxist vision of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. I guess we’ll see if/how that system would be implemented in a hypothetical communist/socialist western world, but so far their system has been significantly less violent than even the most charitable characterizations of western democratic capitalism. That’s why I don’t share Zizek’s fear of Chinese authoritarianism taking over in the west - not just because I think the west has greatly exaggerated it to great effect, but also they’ve been downright benevolent with their partner states in comparison to western democratic capitalist states. I think it’s naive to think a western implementation would be the same (but holy shit is that an insane hypothetical given where we currently are)

And the importance of actual war goes above class war, no matter how I’d like to kick up a revolution and start building barricades.

Funnily enough, that is the opposite of what that phrase means - but I can see we’re about to reach the limit on what we agree on so I’ll leave it at that.

I don’t see how you could say that any capitalism is favourable to another brand of capitalism. Well, except for perhaps saying that Western capitalism is definitely favourable to capitalism with Asian values, which is essentially capitalism deprived of individual freedom and monopolised by the state, ie authoritarian capitalism taking advantage of Western markets

I don’t view one type of capitalism as more favorable than another, but I do recognize the particular dominance and imperialistic qualities of western capitalism. In fact, I see the the current global conflicts in a similar lens to Zizek when he says:

[the existing western democratic capitalist] “system has lost its self-evidence, its automatic legitimacy, and now the field is open.”

The legitimacy of western democratic capitalism is (rightfully) losing credibility, and I even think it’s currently collapsing. I don’t share Zizek’s skepticism of… “Chinese-Singaporean capitalism with Asian values”. He has had some questionable takes on racial/national identities in the past - it’s been a while since I trusted his geopolitical cultural analysis. At the very least I think the ‘Socialism/Capitalism with Chinese characteristics’ has yet to play itself out, whereas there’s about a dozen examples of western imperialist intervention ending in absolute squalor for the working class wherever they’ve been active.

The point is that from a purely ML perspective, there’s nothing to be gained by dragging that conflict out. The working class will be in no better material conditions under either outcome, even if we freely acknowledge their occupation and annexation is both immoral and illegal. So long as western democratic capitalism retains its global significance, there can’t be socialism without a vanguard party to defend against western capitalistic subversion, at least not one that lasts.

There is a lot of war beside class war. Mainly, people doing actual war in places with war. Like Ukraine.

“No war but class war” isn’t a statement about the existence of war other than class war lol.

@[email protected]

I literally cannot see anything you’ve posted after you were banned - an instance ban prevents any of your activity from federating. It isn’t that I ‘stop responding’, that possibility has simply been taken away from me because Dasus can’t resist russia-jacketing anyone who disagrees with them. I can only see your comments if I visit the post from any other instance url. Call it unhealthy curiosity, I figured you’d be shadowboxing in my absence.

I do not support Russia and Putin is a piece of shit - feel free to send a screenshot to the kremlin if it makes you feel better. The US isn’t getting involved out of benevolence, though, and Ukraine would be fucked by IMF and US aid conditions for the next century even if they were successful in repelling the russian invasion. But my material analysis about that conflict isn’t even at issue here, instead it’s your insistence that any analysis that involves Russia at all be sufficiently critical, else the speaker be condemned as a pro-russian stooge. It doesn’t mean I think that russian capitalism is preferable, it’s just an acknowledgement that it’s western capitalism that has historically -and is currently- obstructing the development of working-class solidarity across the globe, and exchanging Ukrainian (and russian) lives for its expansion is a shit deal to put it mildly.

No war but class war.

I’d imagine operating a quantum computer for blanket surveillance is cost-prohibitive, but yea, if you’ve given them reason to look at you just assume they have the means to break your encryption.

I’m not debating you bud, relax.

Pretty much my entire experience with your account is dealing with you accusing me of being a russian operative, even linking me into threads across instances in threads I had no involvement in.

I’m just pointing out the pattern here, though I’m grateful you’ve moved on to another target now.

edit because @[email protected] got himself banned on my instance:

I’ve repeatedly stated that I’m not russian nor pro-russian - but that’s the point. There is no way of addressing this accusation thoroughly enough to satisfy the accuser, which is why nearly every community/instance has a rule against it. Nevermind the hopelessness of trying to categorize/typify every anonymous user along some nationalist line of personal significance.

Confusing analysis for justification is a common enough mistake, but it’s an even more common bad-faith way of dismissing materialist analysis entirely. Following various users around to make those accusations is simply a way to force disengagement onto others and potentially solidify reactionary impulses against communism/socialism more broadly.

Haven’t i seen you cast these types of accusations before…?

My favorite postmortem take so far has been “why don’t democrats get in line like republicans do??”

It’s just such perfect mask-off liberalism, I just want to make a supercut of it for next election when libs are whining about why their unpopular candidate/policies aren’t winning.

Would be, but unfortunately all I have are fluorescent troffers down there. But a single extension and splitter cable might still be acceptable. I also thought about getting some usb battery banks - the cameras run off a 5v power adapter, I think a 15000mAh battery might last a couple days or even just one (not sure how many watts they draw running the custom firmware).

I was hoping for a cleaner solution but it might be one of those “pick two” situations.

But those reasons aren’t nefarious

I’m not actually sure comments get sorted by vote tally by default here.

I’ve always just ignored downvotes - I know when my opinion is unpopular, I don’t see the votes as validating. I’d be fine if there were no visible votes at all

Least islamaphobic liberal.