Although, I’ve never been a fan of police, I used to believe that there were plenty of “good” police, and that changed during the George Floyd protests when I started thinking and reading about police more. I mean, there probably are “decent” police officers, but they appear to be an extremely small minority, and the systems they uphold are still evil. By and large, they are just another gang.
I’m still trying re-form my opinions on AI/ML/automation as well. I used to be very pro AI, and focused on ML in grad school. I thought extreme automation would be great for humanity and free us up to do things we enjoy. This current AI boom is focusing AI on the things people enjoy doing. It’s starting to look like AI may be able to find solutions to hard problems (e.g. the recent math problems solved by OpenAI), but it seems like the value of the result is much less than what would’ve been learned along the way if done by a human. I.e. if a human solved it, it would’ve likely surfaced new problems to solve, or new methodologies that could’ve been used to solve other problems. But, from what I’ve gathered, the proofs the AI made are unlike anything a human would come up with, and the problems are solved in more of a “brute force” manner that offers little further insights. So, the journey may be more important than the destination, or however that saying goes.
Maybe not a complete 180, but I used to completely believe in the whole “move fast and break things” mentality. If I think something can be better, I should change it.
But I’ve come around to believing more in Chesterton’s Fence - I need to understand why something is the way it is before I decide to move fast and break things. If I don’t, I have no chance of my solution being better than the current one
Used to be a Mulder. Now I’m a Scully.
Alien life, although likely to exist somewhere out there (Its quite literally mathematically impossible for it NOT to) in some form, even if microscopic.
But it has never and will never pop by for a visit. Its never been here. And has no reason to ever come here.
A civilisation that is technologically capable of making the trip is, by default, also technologically advanced enough to not need anything from some hostile primates on a malfunctioning planet.
I was hopeful of AI during its very early days and used to play around with having it run fantasy adventures. Yeah that quickly changed.
Existence of a god, especially a monotheistic one.
None of the stories we have of them adequately explain anything. Beings that are supposed to be omniscient get things wrong. They are immoral, bigoted, narcissistic, genocidal, and egotistical.
I truly hate myself for having held this view at one time but I used to think (being a stupid young man) that boys in highschool having sex with their hot teachers was awesome. I used to unironically say “where were all these hot and horny teachers when I was in school?”
Then I realized what exactly it meant as abuse of power and betrayal of trust. It’s literally child rape.
I fucking hate younger me for that.
People are inherently good.
Then COVID happened.
This one I still question. I’ve had so many people help me in life. Buy me gifts, tyres, games, get me jobs, apartments, take me to work, cheer me up, stick their necks out for me, etc. Some of those people we’re hardcore killers. So I’m not sure what to think.
I reassure you, only in the USA covid raised such hysterical reactions.
That’s just not true. There where anti mask protests and similarily stupid things in a lot of places. Here they went on the street wearing cow bells for some reason. The ‘how dare you inconvenience me to wear a mask just to potentially save a life’ thing happened in most european countries.
We made Covid infected people drink cow urine, insanity was a worldwide phenomenon.
dont you mean HORSE/cow ivermectin consumption, meant for farm animals.
I was talking about India.
My religion.
I took a very long sort of a pilgrimage to test my faith and find myself. I found out I believed in myself a hell of a lot more than a god that either doesn’t exist, doesn’t care, or can’t help.
I would share more, but this was an extremely personal and very painful moment for me. I don’t feel comfortable telling the entire story to anyone but my close friends.
I used to be somewhere in the neighborhood of anarchist/social democrat, the way most people on lemmy who aren’t MLs are. I was just as “anti-tankie” as anyone.
While trying to really define what I believed, I stumbled across Progress and Poverty by Henry George, and it really clicked for me. It made the case that no one should have a specific right of ownership over land and natural resources, so they should be considered publicly owned and used to fund the state. Without getting into the details of the idea itself, I was convinced that it could work, as a compromise that would fix the worst parts of capitalism and essentially get the best parts of both. That, if it were enacted in a few small countries and able to compete on a level playing field, it would prove itself successful and serve as a model for everyone to follow. But this raised the question of, if that’s true, why hasn’t it happened already?
This question caused me to take an interest in a bunch of random small countries around the world that had experimented with asserting state control over their natural resources, and using them to fund social spending for the benefit of the people. And what did I find? Let’s look at a case study.
Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran was the prime example for me, because he wasn’t a Marxist at all, he had no ties whatsoever to the USSR, and did everything right. He attempted to assert control over Iran’s oil, which had been stolen outright by the British on a massive scale, in order to use it to uplift the people, who were incredibly poor and destitute. He believed in and upheld democratic ideals, and that exactly how the CIA was able to freely operate in Iran and oust him in favor of a literal monarchy.
Mossadegh refused to censor the press, when the CIA controlled 90% of the newspapers in the country, which constantly printed negative stories about him. He refused to suppress demonstrations, when the CIA was hiring them to march, both against him, and for him while wrecking shit and turning people against him. Finally, a US diplomat fed him a false story about the embassy receiving death threats from his supporters, and he was so moved, and so concerned about remaining friendly with the US, that he put out a radio message instructing his supporters to stand down. The next day, the CIA attacked his residence and there was no one to come to his aid.
It took me a long time to really wrestle with the full implications of that case study, and the similar stories that I found all around the world. But what I eventually realized is that the reason so many socialist states are authoritarian is not because they just want to be, it’s survivorship bias. And while the US is able to act as a global hegemon, the kind of system that I idealized, the kind of system Mossadegh was trying to build, will never be allowed to compete fairly. In fact, it is precisely because it might work to fix the worst parts of capitalism that it cannot be permitted, because a lot of powerful people get very, very rich off of those parts. It’s not about the food, it’s about keeping those ants in line.
I would much rather live in the world where the Marxist-Leninists were wrong. I would love it if countries around the world could try out all sorts of different systems, without fear of outside interference, so that different systems could compete and rise or fall on their own merits. If, when I looked into history I had found something different, I’d probably still agree with the criticisms I did before. But, unfortunately, that’s just not the world we live in. When you actually study history, what you’ll find in nearly every case is that the US tried to meddle in their affairs, to the detriment of the average person, and they were successful whenever they were not suppressed by force.
And that’s how I became a “tankie.”
From The Jakarta Method:
This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask:
“Who was right?”
In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?
Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.
Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.
Capital commands a mind boggling capacity for violence, and any attempt to change power structures need to take that into account. A peaceful revolution is impossible because literally millions of thugs will be paid to stop it.
Yeah, you have to assume your new society will be under constant attack. The problem with tankies is not that they are willing to fight back. The problem is they are fighting for systems already as corrupt, or worse, than “western capitalist” systems.
The problem with the Western system is not just corruption, it’s that it’s built on a structure of neocolonialism that dominates the entire world. We are opposed to that social relation. You can compare, say, the US vs Iran and say that the US system is more progressive, but opposing the Iran War should not imply that we like Iran, or that we want to make US society more like Iranian society. But, while the Iran War seems to be unpopular enough to be an exception, in other cases this kind of line is often used against us, and against anyone who genuinely opposes the imperial project. Those who opposed the war in Afghanistan, for example, were branded as terrorist sympathizers, regardless of how they actually felt about Al Qaida or their actual reasons for opposing the war.
Every empire is expansionist, hence colonial. Not just the Western ones. China is colonizing Africa and parts of Asia. Russia has colonized the entirety of Siberia. Even Iran would like to expand if it could. Waging a war against an empire can be OK, even if it is fought by another empire. Fighting Nazis in WW2 was OK. Kuwait intervention was OK. Intervention in the Yugoslavian civil war was OK. Helping Ukraine against Ruzzia is OK. Mostly because they didn’t provide the USA (and “the West”) with imperial benefits, at least not that was plannable. And the people of the European and Pacific theatres , Kuwait, former Yugoslavia, and Ukraine got (or would get) a better life out of the interventions. As opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem with those wars were that they were fought for the wrong reasons, mostly greed. It smelled from the start, given that 9/11 was obviously a Saudi plot to destabilize the West, which has been a tremendous success since. Had the USA occupied Saudi Arabia, removed the royal family, put the oil fields under UN control, and made serious efforts, not just half-assed ones, to mend the rift between Islam and the West, e.g. by ensuring that Mecca and the pilgrimage remains unaffected, that would have been a war I would have supported. Had Al Gore’s presidency not been stolen, there was a chance that the USA had gone this way, instead of the money grabbing Afghan and Iraqi wars that the MIC convinced Dubya to do.
Point is, oppose or support wars based on their premise and goals, not by who is fighting them. I am yet to see a war fought by Ruzzia that was for the good of anyone but the Ruzzian elite. China hasn’t fought wars recently, but their expansion in the Third World is as cruel as the 19th century Western colonialism was.
China hasn’t fought wars recently, but their expansion in the Third World is as cruel as the 19th century Western colonialism was.
This is completely and utterly delusional. Outrageously false. You’re clearly ignorant of the practices of Western colonialism during that era, which included literal chattle slavery. Look up conditions in the Congo, for example, where workers were frequently punished by mutilation just for failing to meet a quota. Which countries is China subjecting to anything remotely similar to those practices? You’re attempting to whitewash this past by pretending that everyone is just as cruel, when the reality is completely different. Even modern day Western neocolonialism is nowhere remotely close to the absolute horror of 19th century colonialism.
The reality is that China offers development loans, which it has on occasion forgiven, and which, unlike Western loans, aren’t conditional on agreeing to anti-worker domestic policies. It does not hold monopolies on the means of production, as is the case in many neocolonies of the West. When the old system of direct control and administration was replaced with the current system, generally, the natural resources that had been stolen through overt force remained in Western hands. This is why, even compared to Western neocolonialism, China is much better for the underdeveloped world.
But forget about China, if you’re going to whitewash the actual history of slavery and colonialism like this then I’m not interested in discussing anything further with you. Nothing comparable in scale and cruelty exists in the modern day (with the possible exception of Israel, being a holdout from “old-school” colonialism).
Uyghur slave labor camps say hi.
Socialism isn’t authoritarian when done right. It should follow what works for the majority, like Nordic models and other places have done well for the people and the measures show it. Good systems use science and research to lead policy for healthy people. It’s not dualistic but demands proof, and real truth withstands scrutiny. The bad examples became authoritarian and benefited the wealthy rather than the majority, but there are good examples to follow and not repeat the same bad histories. The good ones upgraded their education systems to teach critical thinking and other good things for a healthy society. They’re not perfect but try to improve and great policies to start with.
The Nordic countries are allowed to do what they do because the cost benefit calculation was that it was easier to secure their loyalty by allowing them some progressive policies (likewise, this is why the US historically invested in a handful of regions like Germany, Taiwan, and South Korea). But there are many countries in the global south that have tried to follow the Nordic model, the trouble is, they’re not allowed to because the cost-benefit analysis is different. When they try, the CIA overthrows them and installs a dictator who will enact exploitative policies and keep the cheap goods flowing. When they take steps to stop that from happening, Western leftists denounce them as “authoritarian.”
Science and research are followed in AES (actually existing socialism) countries. Look at the response to COVID, for example. While in the US, people where crowding into stores to panic buy toilet paper, Vietnam was delivering free groceries directly to the doorsteps of people under lockdown.
What are the examples of “bad” socialism “benefiting the wealthy rather than the majority?” Socialist states, including Vietnam, Cuba, China, etc have implemented policies that have improved people lives by any objective metric, literacy, life expectancy, doctors and teachers per capita, etc. Granted, they sometimes have little choice but to allow some economic concessions, as a condition to participate in the global market. China’s reforms in the 80’s lead to 800 million people being lifted out of extreme poverty, for example. When a country doesn’t make such concessions and gets sanctioned or blockaded, things tend to go very poorly for them, which also gets held up as a “failure of socialism.” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
If you actually evaluate AES countries, based on reasonable expectations or on what they had before, they are not failures at all. The problem is that people don’t understand the challenges and threats that they have to navigate, and so they have unreasonable, impossible expectations of them. Again, I wish we lived in a world where it was possible to simply copy-paste social democratic policies into the global south, but it isn’t. History has proven quite clearly that that isn’t the world we live in. Y’all just never bother to actually study the histories of global south countries, so you don’t understand the severity of the threats they face.
I dont understand how the US doing stupid evil shit makes you go from Georgism to tankie? Its the same argument american cuban expats use to fear monger about communism (except in their case they cite cases of the USSR doing stupid evil shit). To me economics and politics are correlated, but not that strongly. You can have Georgism without hegemony. You could have evil socialist hegemons (look at some of the nationalistic Israeli kibbutzim).
They very clearly explained their position, your lack of understanding is a comprehension problem.
i pivoted from a deep loathing for christianity to quiet distrust and fleeting respect once i learned a little history and realized how truly awful society was before they came along with their brand of nonsense.
Can you explain what you mean by this? The way I see it, Christianity has been nothing but a negative on society. How did it improve anything?
sure ill try a bit, but I’m no scholar! before christianity, society was brutal and cut throat. imagine walking down the road to visit your family member and passing by literal abandoned infant corpses left to rot in the elements, picked clean by animals or bedding left empty from slavers finding free inventory. christians were the first ones to say “hey…maybe we shouldn’t leave babies abandoned?”
in the early days, christianity was not a dogmatic religion coopted by power as everything becomes it seems. it was a small movement of people who believed different, and frankly better. at the time, THEY WERE THE ATHEISTS. when christianity first began, the world was FULL of gods, gods literally ruled over society as pharaohs and emporers. they said actually…all those gods aren’t real and those rulers are manipulating you for power. THAT’S why they crucified him. It wasn’t because their religion was so crazy or anything–it was because they were SPECIFICALLY saying “no–you are not a god. you are but a man” to the god-kings and that’s something i can get behind.
usually its the opposite for everyone. why? because the ones that pratices it uses it to impose it onto everything and everyone. what why do you think society was better with christianity, you sound like one yourself. POCs, lgbtq+ have all been affected by christians in a very negative way. indigenous americans fared the worst.
That you should always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I grew up that turning the other cheek and taking the high road was righteous. It was freeing to realize that even though it might not be 100% someone’s fault; sometimes a racist is a racist, even if they’ve never had the opportunity to broaden their horizon. The alcoholic is choosing not to get help, even if they have a good reason to want to drink. That asshole is an asshole, even if their father beat them as a child.
I hadn’t realized what an emotional burden I’d taken on trying to excuse the bad behavior of others until I came to the realization I needed to stop.
I drink, and there is no help in the US.
Alcoholism isn’t an addiction: truly it is a disease. It starts as a mental issue that then turns physiological.
Then your body stops producing GABA inhibitors.
You see, with smoking, some people quit cold turkey. And that’s fine. But with alcoholism, quitting cold turkey could mean death: Amy Winehouse is an example. It is the culmitive hangover that sends your body into shock.
So to properly detox, it takes about three days of medical attention. They monitor your blood pressure, basically.
But even after release, you require about three more weeks of monitoring. This is the “pink elephant” phase.
My sister stayed with me for the first week, and while I knew she was familiar and I wouldn’t dare say it: I honestly didn’t recognize her. Literally. I had logic to know that I should know her; she was on my couch.
But I honestly just didn’t recognize her.
Now, that was me coming out of my worst point: a fifth and touch on another fifth, chased by 6-8 beers a day.
Thankfully from ASA, I got a chance to clean up. Obamacared!
But while sober, I didn’t have any support once the physiological side was done.
So the mentality that caused the dependence came back.
And this is why groups like AA and NA pair you with a mentor.
The truth is the mentee is also helping the mentor.
So, with another example, I smoke cigarettes. I smoke about a pack a day, if left to my own devices.
I went on a date last week, and she kept me so entertained that in five hours, I only smoked one cigarette. She was a social smoker and bummed one.
I with vocal hesitation gave her one. I really like this woman. I don’t want her to take back up smoking. Greater than my drinking, smoking is the biggest regret of my life.
But she kept me entertained and engaged that I wasn’t wanting whiskey, beer, or cigarettes.
I was happy. I had physiological nags, for sure, but she was removing the actual root cause of my behavior.
I know I have basically written an essay, but my point is that sometimes, in heavily specific arenas, you should give people the benefit of the doubt.
Get them engaged and feel love, and watch those worries just wash away.
And we are going to have dinner on Monday. Wish me luck. She might be my cure, and not leftover thanksgiving tips.
Good luck! May happiness and peace of mind find you regardless of the outcome.
It’s definitely something you have to be careful with. My ex basically used to it to financially and emotionally manipulate me.
I think it’s still healthy to an extent. My current conclusion is understand why someone behaves in a way doesn’t excuse it, just informs the actions you should potentially take.
This ties into a lot of the Boomer-hate out there.
Now, I don’t go out of my way to defend people who treat others poorly - I’ve been hurt by the generations before me as much as any Millennial has been. However, realizing just how shitty the parents of Boomers were to them really opened my eyes. My mother’s far from perfect, but her father was strict in a disturbing way. The control that fathers in the 1950/1960s had over their kids (in the US at least) seems to be glossed over nowadays, but in those times Dad was THE authority… and my grandfather personified that attitude.
Questioning what parents said meant “getting the belt” or other corporal punishments. I used to wonder how my mom went so long without examining the ideas she grew up with (for example, the tradition of married women taking their husbands’ names.) But now I can see that, for her generation, asking such questions was pretty much as invitation to a beating. Baby Boomers’ childhoods were soaked in indoctrination and obedience to authority.
It’s no small wonder that when Baby Boomers came of age, they turned around and followed the model they had growing up, except with them “in charge.”
Anyway, long story short: even our grandparents got fucked over long ago, we can all simultaneously be both victims and perpetrators, We Didn’t Start the Fire, yadda yadda.
I used to think progress in tech will solve societies problems, now I think it concentrates too much power in the hands of some of the worst people in society and needs to be federally regulated at some level with safeguards and checks.
Depends on the tech I think. Old school p2p tech (e.g. Gnutella) was more decentralized. ActivityPub is more decentralized than Reddit. This kind of tech is more of a “public good,” so there’s less money in it and capitalism de-prioritizes it. I suppose cryptocurrency could be a counter-example though; decentralized tech that none-the-less got heavily centralized. The Internet itself too.
I’m mostly talking about massive centralized closed source tech like Uber, Facebook, Instagram, windows, Reddit, Google Suite and much more, because most of these platforms cannot run without a big investment to scale up with data centers only the wealthy can bankroll them and fully control them, they have and will always be used to benefit the rich at the expense of the working class. I recommend people migrate to open source and offline or decentralized or self hosted tech if they want something that doesn’t data mine their life for profit or force them into constantly inflating lifetime subscriptions or just simply get abandoned with time.
This is the same for me, I wanted to believe that technology would be used to help the average individual in the USA but with what’s happening with data centers is clearly broken. Without proper regulations and redistribution of gains, many people will suffer terribly over the next couple years if we don’t get on top of it over the next year.
I used to hate the very concept of love and romantic relationships, and hate it with passion. For me, the whole dynamic of such relationships felt… I’d say utterly awkward and strained. Nothing about it was appealing for me, it felt so out of place; vibes were just off. How in the world can people even be so pushing and assertive towards each other…? So gross! When someone was flirting or cuddling, or talking about romantic dating experience, I felt nothing but repulsion. In my perspective, romantic comedy was one of the worst genres ever. I could only stood a kissing scene if it was a cathartic resolution of cosmic-scale events or something like that.
But then, suddenly, in a blink of an eye, like a spark of instant enlightenment...
I’ve discovered yuri!
It was a long time ago, but I saw that the real truth does set us free from all the baggage, pain body and misplaced shame and guilt of controlling systems that have dry sand foundations, are unfalsifiable and phony. They claim good intentions, but it’s wrapped in indoctrination, conditional belonging and it colonizes the mind to self-police and prevent actualization, real integrity to unfold one’s DNA. They call it submitting and claim it’s noble, but it’s actually unhealthy to deny reality in so many ways for invented reasons. Enough people benefit from the punching down hierarchies that they keep supporting them, even though the alternate is much better and healthier.
Yes, our loved ones indoctrinate too, just like they was done to them, but it’s not the healthy way and causes so many mental health issues and suicides. Truly tragic how the fables are used to cause all that suffering to death. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself, as Sagan said. You can learn all this and be free too!
A long time ago, I actually believed in the myth that if taxes are lowered for the rich, they’d have more capital to spend.
With that extra capital, I was taught that they’d use the opportunity of lower taxes and more money in their pocket to invest in the economy, with the understanding that we’d all benefit from what they invest in, such as higher wages, private control over public services (after seeing them decline for so long), fostering in a freer market due to fewer regulations over it.
So what blew off the cover of that lie? Seeing, over time, that a lot of what George Carlin observed about American society and government rings true.
This got the ball rolling while working regular jobs. Noticing the behaviors of the typical CEO, reading up on the stagnation of wages since 1980, and the prospect of societal control through a poorly educated populace went a long way towards painting a clearer picture of what we’re all facing now.
they end up hoarding money more like a dragon, and turns out they are cheapskates as well.
