I had some thoughts on this but then I realized I'm not clear on what you mean by "fell within one generation." You mean the US stays more or less the same as it is now in internal political landscape, but with the addition of losing global power? Or you mean the US as a state collapses?

It’s okay, I apparently made a faux pas trying to engage to learn here on this issue but this community is clearly more for comradeship like its name suggests rather than outreach.

You have received a lot of attention and information. What do you expect, for people to bend over backwards to talk to you about this on your terms? What person who takes learning seriously does this? Do you show up to a classroom and leave if the teacher does not re-frame their lecture on physics into the trolley problem? "Outreach" does not mean you change nothing about yourself and everyone else changes what they're doing for you. You could receive the ideal maximum of compassion, patience, and clarity of thought and word, but if you are only willing to approach it on your terms, then no matter what you tell yourself about your intent, the substance of your actions is that of reinforcing what you already believe, not learning.

And I am speaking from some experience here. I did not always have the views that I do and one of the most important things in changing that was doing more listening to people who are better informed. Philosophical questions like the trolley problem gives people a false sense of competence in understanding a given issue; that as long as you can abstract a problem to its component parts, you can overcome any ignorance of it and arrive at the correct position. This is not so. You must understand what is happening correctly, so that you can properly generalize. If your information on the fundamentals is incorrect, attempting to generalize will only obfuscate rather than clarify and give a false sense of confidence in your position.

Well, Trump and Biden are not substantially on different sides. They are two faces of the same side. If the parties were on substantially different sides, there would be some kind of actual holding accountable from the one to the other and preventing things from getting worse. Instead, what we get is blame directed at "the left" (a vague amorphous blob buzzword in these situations, similar to "tankie") for wanting anything different from the status quo. The democrats continuously show a near total lack of interest in doing anything about the depravity that they say the republicans are doing, even going so far as to do much the same things (if not worse) but with different PR branding, and then shame people for correctly understanding this means that neither party is meaningfully better.

Interesting thought. Probably possible, I think the main question there would be reliability for sensitive matters as well as security. Reliability meaning, if the AI is even a little off, it could cause a miscommunication with terrible consequences, and the best AI is probably still far off from comparing to an expert human interpreter (the best I know of that's fast and public is DeepL - similar to GoogleTranslate but arguably somewhat better - and then there are LLMs (Large Language Models) who can sort of do translation, but it's more of a gimmick than something they are designed for). There may be better though that's specifically in the sphere of Russian and Chinese language translation (I have no familiarity with AI translation tools originating from there). And security meaning, you'd need to be able to process what's said locally in such a way that it's not being sent off somewhere where it can be intercepted. For it to be local processing, it would require more local compute, which is going to be more expensive; might not be noteworthy difference between local and cloud compute if it's something like DeepL, but if it's a design more like an LLM, those can be greedy on GPU power.

So overall, I could see it being used as an assistive tool along with human translators to speed up the translation of especially long communications (if long communications is a thing in that context), but I doubt it's going to be replacing them meaningfully without worsening the communication process.

Fair and noted.

After watching the video and reflecting on it, I feel like "world police" as a term to describe the US may be understating the attitude. That it's more like the US has the attitude of a slave owner, where it views every country, resource, and people as a possession and freaks out when anybody wants self determination; which would fit with it never fully losing its slavery roots.

I'd hesitate to even call Biden polite. I haven't forgotten some of the clips of how rude he was during 2020 to certain people questioning him on campaign stuff. He seems really on the borderline of straight up qualifying as a "Republican" that liberals would love to hate on. The way he acts now and the way he has acted historically in policy, if he was a member of the Republican party, I don't think liberals would have trouble viewing him as one at all.

It seems to me that there is a concerted effort since sometime after his campaign started in 2020 to portray Biden as a polite reformer that he has never been in his political career. To be clear, I don't mean this in an arrogant way like I know it all or that I would have predicted he'd be this blatant about supporting genocide, but if we go back in time, I don't think the substance of him even in terms of decorum is remarkably different than what the Republicans are putting up. It's possible that by comparison, he qualifies as polite because of the Republicans leaning more into rudeness than in the past with Trump's full on crudeness, but in terms of overall liberal standards of decorum, it feels very much like being gaslighted into thinking he is that (not on your part, but on the part of the liberal faction of imperialist media).

With this said, I almost want to say it is more like between rude and crude Hitler.

If you’re not ready to die for your ideology then may be its not really your ideology after all, and you’ve simply been tempted by the utopian fantasies of a bunch of dreamers?

First, there are people who are out there fighting who are risking their livelihood or even lives. Second, this is sort of a bizarre litmus test for ideological commitment outside of context and sounds more like a cult than something based around effectiveness; although there are situations when being willing to sacrifice everything makes sense, it's not something you do for dear leader (which again, sounds like a cult), it's something you do for the people as a whole and an organized and righteous cause of liberation. It's also not something you seek out like a badge of honor, but rather something that historically, the people have no choice on at times in order to achieve liberation.

The spirit of the quote needs to be understood in the context of communism being first and foremost a movement for the people's collective self determination and liberation and with a great love for the people. Not in a vague populist sense of "whatever the people want, we'll do it" (which depending on context, could just reinforce existing systems of oppression) but in terms of liberating from imperialism, from the capitalist class, and as part of that process, uplifting people and helping them get their needs met in a more consistent and systemic way. Part of this has to do with bridging the gap between splits that occur in class and caste of "intellectual" and "worker", educating the working class in general where necessary or specifically in terms of communist principles, such that the difference between the two becomes less pronounced. You might be surprised just how much material there is already existing on theory and practice. I emphasize this because when I speak of educating, I'm not talking about giving someone an elevator pitch on something pie in the sky and hoping they go for it, I'm talking about a lot of historical context and detail you can get into, as well as learning to use dialectical and historical materialism for analysis (which can involve extensive detail analysis by situation).

I'm not sure where you get the idea that this process would have no hierarchy or structure to the organizing involved. But it is also easier said than done. In the US, for example, there is a certain amount of what I'd call ideological splintering, where people have some vague agreement and overlap on philosophies such as "being nice to other people", but in the actual details, you could have distinctive variation based on what podcast or streamer someone listens to. There are also unique challenges geographically, with the layout of things, the way suburban implementation has made people more isolated and cagey. None of this is to say these challenges can't be overcome, but that it's helpful to examine the specifics of the situation and figure out how to go from there. We can't superimpose vague answers alone or do structureless experimentation alone, and get where we need to be. The combination of theory and practice is important here.

I can explain more later if need be, but some quick-ish thoughts (I have spent a lot of time around LLMs and discussion of them in the past year or so).

• They are best for "hallucination" on purpose. That is, fiction/fantasy/creative stuff. Novels, RP, etc. There is a push in some major corporations to "finetune" them to be as accurate as possible and market them for that use, but this is a dead end for a number of reasons and you should never ever trust what an LLM says on anything without verifying it outside of the LLM (e.g. you shouldn't take what it says at face value).

• LLMs operate on probability of continuing what is in "context" by picking the next token. This means it could have the correct info on something and even with a 95% chance of picking it, it could hit that 5% and go off the rails. LLMs can't go back and edit phrasing or plan out a sentence either, so if it picks a token that makes a mess of things, it just has to keep going. Similar to an improv partner in RL. No backtracking and "this isn't a backstory we agreed on", you just have to keep moving.

• Because LLMs continue based on what is in "context" (its short-term memory of the conversation, kind of), they tend to double down on what is already said. So if you get it saying blue is actually red once, it may keep saying that. If you argue with it and it argues back, it'll probably keep arguing. If you agree with it and it agrees back, it'll probably keep agreeing. It's very much a feedback loop that way.

"Resort to" seems like it's understating a bit the conscious choice of violence on the cops' part. These demonstrations have been putting nonviolent pressure on the university admins to divest, that's all. And the protesters are treated like an armed force who is inflicting violence. So far, as far as I know, the only ones starting violence have been israel supporting zionists who have shown up to UCLA (may have been other universities too, not sure) and based on reports and some clips I saw, attacked the encampment with fireworks, attacked people with baseball bats and wooden boards, assaulting them for hours, while security and cops either left or stood by and did nothing.

I can still remember somewhat when I thought like them (maybe not as egoistically as some, but still...). There's this noticeable blind spot in it that relates to what people are saying about state department talking points. "I do research and check sources" means little if your inherent assumption is that US and allied sources are reliable and anywhere the US calls an enemy is unreliable and suspicious. The US has crafted this narrative that impartiality and neutrality is possible if you simply decouple emotional tone from what you're saying, wear a suit while saying it, and outsource the narrative to someone who isn't a direct elected official of the government.

But... though there are elements of reality that are observably true with consistency, there is no such thing as being neutral. Every narrative has to choose what information to include or not include and how to include it. You can't include things on "both sides" and now you are impartial. For example, if one group has power and another has none, speaking about them as if they are on equal footing in a mutually-instigated conflict is not neutrality, it's implicitly taking the side of the group that has power.

Conscious fascists understand this and they choose to side with dehumanization, with systemic violence. Many a well-meaning liberal does not understand this and acts like they can rise above, extract themself from the fray, stand apart, and be clearer of mind for it. But the real clarity comes from understanding what the factions are, the sides there are, and choosing sides. When I thought like a liberal, I had to rely on forced attempts at universalizing complex situations and reducing them to vulgarized oversimplifications about "human nature" or "cultural trends" or some such vague thing. When I started thinking like a dialectical and historical materialist and learning about the movements and events that have come before, even with only a bare bones understanding of it, I got way more clarity than I ever got out of "do research and check sources" liberalism.

I think of that satirical idea, Last Thursdayism, that the universe was created last thursday, in such a way that it would seem like it has been around for a long time. That is what I would compare liberal "free thinker" thought process to. It behaves as if history began only a few days ago, as if everything runs on simplistic, unchanging universal themes, and if you just point at the themes and laugh, you'll be above the fray and can be content with knowing you're not falling for the tricks that those not-free-thinkers do.

As someone on twitter wrote: https://twitter.com/bitterarab/status/1785704132675813624

Oh my god this deal sucks get back in the tents 😭😭😭😭😭

I don’t want to be hypercritical because I am proud of every student taking part. But leaving it to a vote for the administration to have in five months (that means five months of genocide profiteering), that’ll probably end up in a no vote, is not a win!!!!

Go to reading festival if you wanna camp please don’t accept these ridiculous deals and set shitty precedents for everyone else. Look at your agemates at Hind Hall!

So yeah, this is not a win. It's the system being crafty, pretending to capitulate in order to disperse activist energy. If it was a vote within a week, I could understand. Then the pressure would be on them to act appropriately. Five months away with what's happening to Palestine right now and has been happening is plenty of time for them to wait for energy on the issue to weaken, for the situation to change dramatically by then so that it's no longer relevant in the same way, etc. Then they can silently vote "no" and have it be a footnote in some press thing.

I can feel that kind of way sometimes, though I don't think all that intensely in my case. This is one of those things where I could probably do with taking my own advice, but my thought would be: bring it up to them (preferably in person, so you can make it clear what's going on). And by bring it up, I don't mean tell them how you think they feel. I mean more like saying, "Hey, due to past bullying, sometimes I end up feeling insecure about our relationship in spite of you inviting me along and all."

It could be that affirming words mean more to you than for some people as well. In which case, you could consider taking it a step further, "I consider you a friend and if you consider me one too, having it affirmed in words sometimes would mean a lot to me. I think it would help ground me."

Whether insecure or not, it may help to remember that people express affection in different ways and value it in different ways, so working toward a consciousness of that in a relationship (if not there already) may help for getting your needs met and ensuring you both feel valued. I recall someone online who expressed that they tend to swap insults with others when they're most comfortable. Would never have occurred to me because for me, even friendly insults is never something I'm really comfortable with. The point here just being that people can have all sorts of ideas of what a secure relationship or bond looks like. Doesn't mean you have to accommodate someone whose idea of it is very different from yours. The idea is just to make it conscious and out in the open, where possible and safe to do so, so that it loses some of that trauma-induced reactive power over you.

Basically, we all need love and affection, and the trauma response may get in the way of taking implicit expressions of affection at face value, so you may need explicit expressions of affection more than some others do. But either way, it's normal to want communication lines to be clear and needs to be met.

That's a fair point and something I will try to be conscious of. It sounds like what you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is we need to have more of a mindset of connecting with the people than preaching to them from on high. And that once we, well to put it one way... once we investigate why it is they think the way they do and investigate what it is they want and the reasons they want it, then we can communicate from there. But without that, we are just guessing and that can go very poorly. What I think of is some people, for example, are in a more comfy position economically, so they may not see the rich/poor issue as being very pressing. While for some others, it may be that the security of their next paycheck is their most pressing concern. When we know, we can empathize, truly care, and show them how these things relate to a broader system. If we don't know, we can sound like we're expecting them to be something they aren't.

Hope that makes sense. Might sound like a lot to extrapolate from it, but kind of thinking it through as I type, to make sure we're roughly on the same page.

That's a helpful reminder, thanks. If I try to put it in an analogy (metaphor?) it sounds kind of like there's this alluring light leading the people into the swamp and part of our fight is to convince them to move away from it, to recognize it for what it is, as an illusion put together to drag them under. When I think of it this way, it seems to me that a large part of the fight is dismantling imperialist propaganda first. In other words, rather than trying to prove a positive first to someone who is bent on viewing communism as evil, it may be more effective to focus on finding ways to show them what is dissonant about the things they believe in. After all, for all the accusations of communism or other expressions of anti-imperialism being "cult-like" (one of those "every accusation is a confession" things) the way some people view it as a good/evil dichotomy of "freedom" on one side and "tyranny" on the other is itself cult-like in its thinking; if you are viewed as an outsider to that, you can be vilified really easily. But there's also a lot of dissonance required to believe in that dichotomy, such as how in the US, some people will simultaneously believe the US is a bastion of democracy while also never being satisfied with who is president or being very cynical (and rightfully so) about how politicians behave.

Not that we can't do some of both, but it may be that helping people reach the point of anti-imperialism is far more important than preaching communism. Which would be in line with how, if I'm not mistaken, global efforts are more centered right now on an alliance against imperialism than an alliance in favor of socialist states (my impression is, BRICS is a core of that?).

Edit: wording

I struggle with this a lot online and don't know how to get better results. It seems to me that how it often goes is that if I reveal my position to be one of sympathy toward socialism or communism, and there is often an immediate and visceral resistance to it, as if I had said that I want to commit atrocities or that I live in a fantasy. I don't know how to gain ground from that.

It's possible I come off as too arrogant at times, I don't really know. I do my best to stick to a respectful line even when I'm being mocked or insulted for the position I'm taking, but it can be very difficult not to return it in kind.

I can tell with some of it that it has little to do with me as a person and everything to do with pre-existing prejudices. For example, I can recall a time where someone framed it as if I was in a position of desiring purity from others simply because of the position of support I had expressed for working class power over that of rich people. I had not even said anything specifically to this person on the matter, they just read the conversation and put me in a certain kind of box. I'm proud of myself for the restraint I showed in that particular conversation, but nevertheless, it felt like I got nowhere with anyone. It is possible I did and don't know it, but I can't judge effectiveness on speculation and that makes it very difficult to know what is working with anyone, especially considering it may take a long time for some people to come around.

Some of it may be a weakness of mine in being more information-minded than personable. I'm not the kind of person who has a "how was your fishing trip" type of relationship with lots of other people. I can be friendly, but I have trouble forming the kind of connections that would make it clear to them I'm talking from a place of respect. Many online seem primed to assume that if someone talks with a tone of authority on a subject, their desire is to "put someone in their place" and that's something I've tried hard to consciously move away from. But I still run into situations where people seem to assume that is the de facto intent, even if I'm using a plain tone of talking about information and accuracy of it.

Curious what others think on this. It is tempting to simply write a lot of people off as not worth the effort, but that doesn't raise political consciousness. I know I can't work miracles, but I don't want to keep feeling like my efforts are being wasted either (or keep dealing with little more than snideness simply for stating my position).

I feel like my comment is so vague as to not be saying anything

Nah, I get your meaning. I understand wanting to grapple with the issue as it impacts a lot of people now and will in the future if not addressed, but there's only so much you can do speculating about a future socialist project and it may not be the case that one solution would work for every school, even within the same socialist state.

We can certainly take an ideological position, such as that bullying is unacceptable, that it would be the responsibility of the state and the local community, and would need to be worked toward getting rid of entirely. But without being able to act on it now at a specific school, the most valuable first step probably would be looking at past efforts to eliminate bullying in existing projects, socialist or otherwise. Edit: As well as being clear on what is considered to be bullying, what is not, how something crosses over from being a mutual dislike or dispute to bullying and what are the needed differences in response to that, if relevant. Investigation is key.

Amazing. XD

Fine print: But only if the USA had a regime that was in opposition to the USA exploiting its citizens, land, resources, indigenous and otherwise marginalized groups. And then the USA would use a color revolution to justify couping the USA and create a brutal and suppressive government that was far worse than anything previous.

Surreal. This while Columbia University students protesting genocide are facing threat of the national guard being brought in, while students at University of Austin Texas are dealing with violent cops just for peacefully demonstrating.