I also think people should be free to sign contracts to become lifelong slaves of other people.

After all everyone’s circumstances are identical, same genetic lottery and are born with equal opportunity of money, mind, health, physical ability, family and geography.

Exploitation? Sign away.

Hidden terms in obscure language? Sign away

Forced circumstances? Sign away

Asymmetric power imbalance? Sign away.

Debt slavery? Sign away.

Selling your children? Sign away.

That’s true freedom.

/s

You cannot arrive at a true communist state through violent revolution.

It’s possible that what you say is true but Marx himself in poverty of philosophy thought you couldn’t arrive without it.

I guess my overall point is that Marx was a man of his time with similar failings and sensibilities of men of his time - amongst other things he was homophobic, he was considering people in groups wholesale in a way that’s rather distasteful, and in a way that allowed later supposed followers to use these writings to fuck over whole populations.

I’m not sure why people are rising up to whitewash these things - they don’t negate the other insights anymore than Newton’s insane occult obsession negates calculus or the theory of gravity.

I mean while i agree with the premise of that argument this sounds a lot like ‘no true Scotsman’… which instances do you see as being in the true spirit then?

what

I’m not sure what you had trouble grasping - I explained the thought in detail in the paragraph following.

And if I quote him saying the same things about the peasant class

I don’t see how making the same horrible comments about another whole class of people counteracts the horrible comment about others.

“Your honour, and if I show that my client stole from other shops, not just the one he is being prosecuted for, wouldn’t you concede that that negates the theft from this shop?”

First I think what he wrote goes beyond them lacking the revolutionary potential and specifically being an active obstacle - I think the words were “significant counterrevolutionary force” and “more likely to sell out to reactionary intrigues”.

But either way, to be honest I don’t see a functional difference between Marx’s beliefs and every implementation of the communist manifesto known to date.

That is, it doesn’t matter what he wrote or believed in his heart of hearts if it can be interpreted in such broad strokes as to allow the implementation of the dear leader mindset with his writings as a touchstone without fail.

And it doesn’t matter what he thought should be done with the lumpen elements if he thought of them as less than, disgusting, parasitical, and even objecting to the cause, (his writings certainly show disgust in my opinion) - true believers to the cause will see them (as they have) as obstacles and will do whatever needs to be done to remove them - as they have.

Well - here’s the thing with “lacking revolutionary potential” and a dear-leader mindset… anyone dear leader deems lacking is labeled lumpen and thrown to the furthest gulag or has their rights removed and confined.

Eg in Stalinist Russia certain groups like the Roma, Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Koreans or homosexuals were labeled as such wholesale.

In modern times the Uighurs need reeducation etc.

But he did write quite extensively on Lumpenproletariat.

vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, swindlers, charlatans, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, procurers, brothel keepers, porters, intellectuals, organ grinders, rag-pickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars; in short, the entirely undefined, disintegrating mass, thrown hither and yon, which the French call la bohème.

That is quite a few groups he considered subhuman, where half the ‘cleansing’ operations under communism have derived their theoretical excuses from.

Seems unlikely given that ascetic hermits around the world are known for living to a ripe old age.

Look what they have to do to mimic only a fraction of our power!

I don’t mind Ubuntu server, though you’re right you need to clean it up a bit by uninstalling snap and killing the login ad of managed k8s, the LTS versions have been quite consistently easy to deal with and stable, but then again so has Debian.

By making him sound like an insane conspiracy theorist instead? Nah. He could have given a plausible answer like “it wasn’t going far enough” which would have been sufficient.

They’d support it quietly like they’ve done for many things in the past. You’d and 99% of the voting public would never hear about it unless you’re glued to the docket of the senate and the house.

The more likely scenario after the takeover is animal farm, not utopia.

You should have seen Japan…

You can see how this structure favours the most sociopathic members of society, as they are the ones that will take more risks without regard for others.

I’ll believe AI can replace engineers when I see NVIDIA firing them. But like the graphic says, the manager’s job seems a lot easier to replace instead.

Exactly. The calculus for taking risks is vastly different when there’s a safety net. You can treat it as a game and go all in.

On the other hand if there’s even a small chance of losing housing or getting in legal trouble or your family being destitute you take no risks - if you are a person with a sense of responsibility that is.

He had knowledge and connections to the upper echelons and he couldn’t make it, and when health concerns arose he went back to his money because it sucks to be working poor and in need of medical assistance.

The Indonesian President - if I’m not mistaken.

Brilliantly described. Just one more thing : be kind to yourself.

You are always listening to your own negative self talk and, if you find yourself in a big hole it can become overwhelming as you oscillate between absolutely abusing yourself, trying not to think about it, and giving up.

You wouldn’t put up with anyone else treating someone you love that way, don’t allow yourself to self-harm that way either.