Cronch

I remember reading an article about a month ago about how Kenyan writers were getting mad about being mistaken for AI because that’s just how they write, and the Faith emails are all from Kenya.

I’m not saying it’s not AI but that might be the reason why they sound that way.

Not the captain, the political commissar.

“When is the last time you hit your wife?” ass question

It seems like all of the really old human fossils are young girls for some reason

If I killed a Nazi I’d steal his watch too

Cum

I don’t care if it’s antisemitic to say so, but I will never take someone named “Schlomo Kramer” seriously.

It’s what they’re called in the DnD 3.5e Monster Manual as well

I definitely agree with this - the point of Marxism is that your exact policies should depend on your material conditions. The Bolshevik Party is a good example of this. At some points, they advanced workplace democracy; at others, they returned Bourgeois managers to the factories. At times they supported individually owned farms, and at others forcibly collectivized ones, and at still others allowed for privately owned plantations. Lenin called for the party to participate in Bourgeois elections, but the vast majority of Bolsheviks took the ultra-left position and boycotted them. Sometimes decentralization is preferable - but centralization is often necessary! These are all dialectics that cannot be resolved dogmatically.

To explain my positions:

While sometimes reform can make advancements, the important part is that a Marxist must advocate for Revolution. Participation in Bourgeois elections is necessary to build a mass movement, but Marxists should never give them the legitimacy of claiming that their power will come from winning those elections.

Utopian Socialism is infantile. Socialism must be based in scientific, Marxist principles or you are at best a progressive Liberal. When your ideology is based in utopian ideals instead of scientific processes, you will make yourself unable to take the necessary steps to shepherd a Socialist society when it sometimes requires concessions.

Centralism is necessary, at least in the developing stage of Socialism, in order to combat reaction and quickly advance productive forces. Similarly to the Utopian vs. Scientific debate, perhaps decentralized authority would be preferable in a perfect world, and may be pursued in the latter stateless stages of Communism, but spells death and inefficiency in the short term. The failure of the Spanish Republicans to effectively ensure their mutual defense is the chief historical example

I don’t believe that Nationalism or Patriotism are inherently un-Marxist concepts, and can be encouraged among the masses to increase loyalty to the Socialist state. But Communists, especially those within the imperial core, must always remember that Imperialist oppression inevitably turns inward - and that when you preserve those Imperialistic policies under a Socialist state, you are preserving systems of oppression that will eventually demand expansion back into the motherland. In other words: flags and military parades are fine, but you must also support your international brethren, at least within the imperial core.

Under Socialism there should be a dialectic struggle between trade unions and the Party. Trade Unions, being non-ideological entities, will inevitably become a reactionary force under a Socialist government. In the stage of international struggle, the needs of the party must come first. But after, they must settle into a dialectic struggle - the Party ensuring the health of society as a whole with the Unions ensuring the rights and happiness of the workers.

I do not believe in silly notions about the value of the natural world beyond what is supported by scientific principles. So long as we have parks for the people to enjoy, the climate is stabilized, and the trees are producing enough oxygen for our breath and industry, the natural world has no inherent utility. Believing that the natural world is more important than building the productive forces necessary for the victory of Socialism and the happiness of the people is Eco-Fascism, even if those who believe in it paint themselves with an Anarchist or Socialist veneer.

I won’t spend too long on this point. Social progress is good and I do not need to explain why. But, especially in the early stages, Socialists must not turn too hard against traditional ways of life that practiced by the majority of people or cultural minorities. Crush the power of religious institutions, but do not demolish the churches. Encourage secular cohabitation, but do not outlaw marriage. Create public cafeterias to end kitchen slavery, but do not ban the sale of cookbooks.

Octopodeez nuts

I honestly felt that the weapon degradation was freeing in a way - that every item in the same was a consumable to be used and not an item to be collected and stashed away forever while you just use the Zweihander from the graveyard for 90% of the game. Even the unique quest items broke, but you could do another quest to unlock the ability to buy infinite versions! I thought that was great game design.

The man who did 9/11 died a couple days ago

My personal belief is that a contradiction between the professed ideology of a governing party and their actual ideology cannot last for very long. If the membership of the Party are Communist and can articulate Communist ideology, it’s a Communist Party and if they’re the party in charge, it’s a Socialist state. The idea that entire parties (of a relevant size) can exist whose members don’t actually believe what they say they believe is Liberalism.

Many Socialists and Communists have ideologies that are revisionist or ineffective but this doesn’t make them not Socialists, it makes them revisionist, ineffective Socialists. Their stated aims should be analyzed according to Marxist dialectics to determine if any given group is still truly Marxist, and there will always be some wiggle room with this.

Personally, I believe that the MPLA is still a Marxist-Leninist party, it’s just a mildly corrupt one. There is a difference between it and just any other “Social People’s Democratic” party in some post-colonial African state. The reason Angola is not typically counted among the “ML States” is because it is not a single-party state; they hold elections where other Parties can and do participate and could hypothetically win.

Vietnam “opened up” after the fall of the Soviet Union, Korea did not. The common consensus among the average Western “academic” was that Vietnam had abandoned Socialism and was embracing free market Capitalism.

Now, real G’s understand that a worker’s state with a free market is not wholly contradictory, as we can see in China. But to the average Capitalism fan, Vietnam’s “opening up” was seen as Capitalism’s triumph in that country through peaceful means.

The same could be said for China, of course, up until very recently - when I think those same academics are coming to the stark realization that markets and Socialism are not incompatible and that, in actuality, China is not the Western neocolony they thought it was but is instead a Socialist state that has used markets to propel itself to a preeminent world power.

They have yet to come to this same conclusion with regards to Vietnam but I believe this represents a contradictory worldview which will resolve itself in the coming years.

I want to preface my comment with saying that I’m a political activist who has been part of the local movement for Transgender rights for years, I have many transgender friends, I consider myself non-binary, and have dated both trans men and women. I’m not a transphobe.

Within Marxist, especially Marxist-Leninist, philosophy and political thought, there is a division made between Communitarianism/Collectivism and Individualism. With Collectivism being considered proletarian in nature and Individualism being a Bourgeoise abomination.

Much of our modern philosophy around gender is steeped in Bourgeoise, individualist ideas, because North America and Western Europe are dominated by Capitalism and, with it, Bourgeois Individualism.

Concepts within gender science such as Self-Identification and a desire to “buck norms”, the idea that people have a right to express themselves however they want without consideration for their larger communities, would be considered Bourgeoise and individualist. Some Individualism is fine and even necessary within a Communitarian society, but not when taken to an extreme.

I believe a Socialist society should advance Collectivist ideas of transgender acceptance. If the majority of a community accepts a member’s transgender identity but there is a vocal transphobic minority, it is they who are acting Individualistically and should be persecuted. Gender presentation should not be based in mutual ostentatiousness but in mutual modesty; women wearing pants, not men wearing eyeliner. Vanity is individualistic and Bourgeoise.

The power of the State should be used to advance Transgender rights, including free healthcare for gender transition and education on transgender issues in public schools. Public schools and state media are the primary means by which a Collectivist society can alter public consciousness and both should be used to advance the idea that some people have a medical requirement for gender transition.

You say this ironically, but there are several relatively recent U.S. presidents or people in their administration who have said things that would get them branded tankies today.

I’m thinking specifically of a speech Jimmy Carter gave where he said it’s no wonder North Korea ended up the way it had, considering we bombed every building over two stories into the ground.

Kissinger is also obviously evil but only because of his realpolitik - by modern ideological standards where any anti-Western power is treated as worse than Hitler by even social Democrats, his dispassionate readings would get him labeled a Marxist.

Marxism is the only valid framework to analyze the world.

They’re answering like that because they’re trying to be kind and give you the benefit of the doubt - but no, lol, no one here over the age of ten believes in magic anymore lmao. If that’s the straight answer you want