Ultimately it's not a matter of him coming to the "right" conclusion, it's whether he can answer the questions posed by material conditions. So rather than saying his conclusions are wrong, describe some of the problems the USSR faced and ask how he would have dealt with them. Both of the sources I mentioned go through this in detail, I strongly recommend them to everyone.
This is the stage where he needs to read an in-depth study of any revolution. His theory has to be tested against the challenges real-world revolutionaries faced.
Imo the Russian revolution is the best one to study but it's more important that the source is good. Losurdo's Stalin is a good read. Proles Pod is in the process of a multi part series as well.
Rather than try to directly refute years of ingrained propaganda, start the process of building a better foundational understanding. The misinfo will be slowly abandoned when it starts to contradict his more complex network of knowledge.
People in this thread have already described how it's used as a semantic mechanism to obfuscate and mystify material reality. Reactionary politics of all forms (liberalism, monarchism, fascism) rely on dancing with signifiers to maintain hierarchies and prevent a critical mass of class consciousness from forming.
But strip away the illusion and there're still class complexities on a material level, one of the most important of which is the racialized and patriarchal class intersections, another being the dichotomy between developed/undeveloped nations. As Marxists we don't have any influence over the flow of culture and information, so we can't just brush over these material class differences in favor of working class interests, the way the bourgeois media can do so in favor of bourgeois interests.
We have to be strategic in where our finite efforts and resources are focused. That's why a nuanced class analysis has always been a key part of any successful revolutionary movement.
Interestingly, some of those who reject the middle class myth can fall into the same class reductionism as those who buy into it, which is a misguided, disproportionate focus on white male workers. The "true" subaltern in the US is likely composed of service workers, disenfranchised immigrants, and prisoners. In this sense the "true" middle class might be petty bourgeois, labor aristocratic, and professional managerial. Regardless, we shouldn't use such an empty signifier if we can avoid it.
Yeah the sentiment roughly matches my experience but the numbers don't seem right. They suggest there are more outright illiterate people than functionally illiterate people.
They don't cite any sources so the numbers are probably extrapolated from various studies with different definitions of literacy (if they aren't just made up).
If I had to guess I'd imagine the simple majority of people are functionally illiterate, potentially an absolute majority depending on what we mean by functional. Like most people are capable of reading road signs but that doesn't mean they can critically analyze a complex sentence.
I think I can count on one hand the number of people I know who read even one book a year.
Why listen to this when you can just watch the expanse?
The most expensive thing over time will be ammo. If you don't mind having multiple guns and all the fees that might entail, dropping $100 on a cheap 22 rifle and $250 on a tx22 will pay for itself in a dozen range trips. 22 can be found for ~5cpr, whereas 556 is gonna be ~50cpr and 308 ~70cpr.
AK is for style only and imo you can self express other ways. The cost difference between a decent AR and an equivalent or worse AK is better spent on sites, slings, mags, a gun safe, and training.
Imo just go on eBay, search (t430,t440,t450,t460,t470,t480), click buy it now, sort lowest to highest, and scroll until you find one that's in good condition and has any parts you don't want to buy separately (SSD, charger, battery, ram).
The search term can include the t500s and other lines too, I've personally always stuck with the 400 models. So I can't speak to the x1 or 500 or other lines.
For Linux browsing you can get by on 8gb ram, but I'd recommend a minimum of 12, preferably 16.
Depending on your budget the sweet spot is probably t450 to t480.
Tractors have been "self driving" for over a decade, they just need constant monitoring because things frequently break or get jammed. And last I worked in ag the driver still had to perform turns at the end of rows, idk if that's been improved since.
Which is to say that we've been (or had the resources to be) relatively post-scarcity for a long time, but to actually implement it would undermine the economic, racial, and patriarchal hierarchies that so many are addicted to.
Yeah that's actually a good idea, you don't deserve their or anyone's labor
You aren't wrong for having that opinion and your choice of words wasn't great but you shouldn't have gotten the childish response you did. The fact that your supposed comrades couldn't extend a tiny bit of good faith to try and understand your perspective (which shouldn't even sound extreme for anyone who calls themselves a Marxist) is disappointing. And the number of people who still refuse to engage with your meaning and intent illustrates that you were 100% right about the culture problem relating to cringe content.
Hexbear needs a cultural revolution. We don't deserve your labor.
Jesus Christ saying an action gives "cishet white man vibes" is not calling any performer of said action a cishet white man, this is very basic reading comprehension.
It's a poor choice of words but it shouldn't be a difficult concept for supposed Marxists to understand that anyone can contribute to white supremacy, heteronormativity, and patriarchy. Cringe content is something we inherited from the predominantly cishet white male site we broke off from, so making that connection isn't a stretch at all.
Expecting your unpaid servants to grovel for the sin of voicing an opinion on how their labor is coordinated is frankly disgusting.
None of the mods were shitty, they just have opinions about the trajectory of the site they maintain and didn't communicate them effectively. Then a bunch of people read bad faith into the messaging and it spiraled from there.
A lot of the userbase enjoys react/cringe content, a lot of the moderation team doesn't, and that's been a pressure point for a long time.
We don't deserve all the work you do, but I do appreciate it. The news mega is one of the only consistently useful and educational places on hexbear.
Your labor gives you the right to have influence over the culture of the site. It also should warrant a higher degree of good-faith interpretation from the community, and I'm incredibly disappointed with the parts of the userbase that leapt to assume the worst rather than trying to understand intentions. Especially the ones that seemingly expect silent, neutral, invisible moderation from the team of volunteers-- wouldn't want the opinions of workers to interrupt the flow of entertainment!
I know this has been a learning experience for everyone, but I truly hope the lesson is about wording and methodology, rather than the fact that you had an opinion on the purpose and trajectory of the site you help maintain. It's pretty wild how many self-identified Marxists seem to put the wants of the consumers above those of the workers.
Interesting
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Trying to do anything with intrusive thoughts
Middle of a conversation
Let's think about the most horrible thing I could say and possible repercussions, instead of the topic at hand.
Having sex
It would be really awkward if I got fixated on an image of my grandpa and literally couldn't get him out of my mind, hope that doesn't happen. Better focus really hard on not thinking about that or a traumatic thing from my past or the terrible things happening around the world or-- shit I'm not enjoying this anymore.
Putting silverware away
Definitely don't want to wedge one of these between my teeth and pry it around. Gotta be careful not to skoop out my eyeballs too. Fuck I'm gonna finish later
Driving anywhere
The difference between me surviving this drive and not is a very slight angle change with my hands on the wheel. Literally turn the wheel a quarter of an inch and I die. Gotta grip it extra hard to make sure I don't decide to do that.
Fuck
Starting to think weeks where decades happen is just talking about getting old.
Amazing comment
The class distinction, if you want to call the social stratification of a niche website that, is between the users/mods/fake admins who can't even remote into the servers and the real admins who can take down the website with a single terminal command.
Yes exactly, there is no meaningful class distinction between the users and mods/admins. The only material distinction is people with/without backend access (I'll call them developers).
For that to be relevant, though, there'd have to be an example of the developers exerting undue influence against the wishes of the broad user/mod/admin group. Not just admins/mods deciding the manner in which they organize and focus their own labor (like the purpose and structure of the comms they moderate).
In any case, the idea of doing a power analysis of a niche website seems ridiculous to me, since most of the material interests and incentives of this tiny microcosm are going to be dominated by whatever the participating individuals experience in the real world.
The two tendencies I've mentioned are the superiority complex of reaction culture that we inherited from Reddit, and the petty bourgeois dismissal of workers, particularly service workers. The latter is the dominant ideology in the US so I'm not surprised it persists here. We've all internalized it to some degree.
In any case, both tendencies, in fact nearly all interactions here, are going to be dominated by external factors and interests. There's no "hexbear working class" and "hexbear owning class" in any meaningful sense of the words. The people putting labor into the site naturally get more sway in how the site functions, and as a communist I couple this natural flow with an ideological stance that they should get more sway since they are performing the labor.
Regardless of your opinion on the outcomes, I don't understand how studying these revolutions "doesn't work". Should we dismiss the French revolution with no investigation?
Both the Russian and Chinese revolutions succeeded in seizing the state, defeating the armies of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and surviving their attempts at sabotage and terrorism. How did they do so? What can we learn from these decisions? What might we have to do differently with our different circumstances?
If you think the revolutions failed, what caused them to fail, and what specifically should the parties have done differently? And we need concrete answers to the real problems they were trying to solve, not idealist hand waving.