I also remember The New Atlas essentially saying that this whole thing was a bluff and really only a means of trying to scare Russia into settling for less out of fear that NATO would be totally committed with masses of equipment(and even possibly manpower). This has… really corroborated that theory.

…to be fair, the brazillian military(as many bougeois militaries are) is fairly right wing, from what I remember.

Honestly not an expert, but here’s a relevant excerpt from Lenin’s The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion:

“Marxism is materialism. As such, it is as relentlessly hostile to religion as was the materialism of the eighteenth-century Encyclopaedists or the materialism of Feuerbach. This is beyond doubt. But the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels goes further than the Encyclopaedists and Feuerbach, for it applies the materialist philosophy to the domain of history, to the domain of the social sciences. We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism, and consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way.”

I personally agree with Lenin’s overall sentiments in the article, both that religion should be a private matter from the perspective of the state but not the party, and that Marxism itself is materialism that is atheistic and promotes atheism by default. I don’t know to what extent this agrees or disagrees with existing beliefs on Lemmygrad on the relationship between Marxism and religion, but I just wanted to vaguely put this out here.

Overall I really like this stuff! I love mathematics and have always thought about Marxist class ideas in a vaguely mathematical sense.

Unfourtunately, the article does seem to suggest this socdem “just tax them like 3%” mentality. Oh well, it still gives me a easy response to “we just need a freer market to create a fairer world” people

I will be the first to absolutely despise the taliban and what they have done over the last 40 years, but i fucking hate the phrase “educated and free thinking”, as it really is a one way trip to “the colonialists freed them” or “the colonialists educated them”… which is exactly what they want to do, I guess. colonize them

also, of course, the US bears a lion’s share of the blame for the current situation in afghanistan, but it’s been an overall really weird situation - even China supported the mujahideen back in the day. would be cool if it were still communist, as it was up until 1992 :/

China is accusing USA of being a threat to the world, while continuing to trade with them. Hypocrisy works both ways.

to be fair, I like China’s approach by using capitalism against itself, as American capitalists cannot help but benefit China through trade. I have a lot of respect for Deng and his reforms - I think they are the reason China is even able to stand up to the United States in the first place.

Also, sanctions are a western imperialist tactic - I would not argue for sanctions on any country, as we know sanctions hurt the people, not the governments. The Soviet Union, too, traded with the United States and other NATO countries.

“isn’t it crazy that stalin had a whole city named after himself?? what kind of insane country treats their leaders like that??”

this guy should stick to his guns - let China launch a nuke at him and see what happens

in reality he himself would never do that, because he knows the truth, but he’s a propangandist who makes money off of bringing copium to racists who believe that no one nonwhite can make a nuke

I generally agree, but as the empire collapses, my hope is that some white proletarian libs, as they notice the cracks start to show and start to watch their imperialism fail, turn away from fascism and towards communism. The idea of an explicitly fascist nuclear power is exceptionally dangerous - whats stopping the United States from holding the world hostage with nuclear weapons?

I can only hope that human empathy and sensibility win in the end, and that requires believing in at least a few white libs.

Agree with the sentiment, but I do have to echo Sankara here, that we must never stop explaining. We can’t give up on all libs - our movement can’t succeed without the support of the people.

But yea, honestly, the only place I feel like I can genuinely criticize revolutionaries is here - I am genuinely willing to defend Khrushchev in front of libs, and I really don’t like ceding even a little bit of ground whenever possible.

The only exception is in the case of actually reactionary regimes that I happen to critically support. I am not going to pretend that women’s rights and especially LGBTQ+ rights are respected in Iran to the degree that they should be - that doesn’t mean that I don’t critically support them, but it does mean that my discourse around them is critical because i don’t want to seem like a patsoc/strasserist

Not going to go over this very long(and expanding) post in its entirety, only focusing on the particularly cohesive ones, as I don’t feel like you totally understand my point. I am not saying “AI art good”, but rather that I think the root problem is capitalism. So the answer to this question:

Do you honestly see socialism being integrated into the US (at least) any time soon?

has nothing to do with my point.

It is creepy to just deduct humans to chemicals and meatsacks. Where is the empathy?

I do not think that this is a position devoid of empathy - I find myself able to love myself as a sack of meat, as I do not treat myself as more than I am. I understand that I care about other sacks of meat, in other words, other people. But I do not hesitate to claim that I absolutely am driven by chemicals, electrical signals in the brain; my ideas come from reality, from material processes, just like that of a computer.

What will people do? Tell me what a typical day will look like if literally everything, including art, is automated?

Talk to their friends, play games, eat food, fall in love, study science, literature, and culture, and create art, and share it for the sake of human communication, not work and production. You yourself mention this is an important aspect of art, and indeed AI art does not even take away from this aspect. In fact, even in the status quo, people don’t need to draw fantastic things that are on par with professional artists to share art as a form of socialization, and similarly, people don’t necessarily learn to draw in hopes of making it a profession but just drawing to draw for yourself and for your friends. I myself have drawn something terrible multiple times and shared it with my friends - that’s fun, and under socialism, even with AI, this would be no different!

the people complaining about AI art are not complaining about AI - they are complaining that AI is taking away their livelihoods. But the problem here is capitalism. Under socialism, and eventually the final stage, communism, everyone’s lives will be ultimately provided for, giving them the freedom to explore art as a hobby, for fun, and for whatever drives them.

Automation is always good under socialism as it only increases human capability, and can be managed by the workers. Just as automation in many cases replaced many other forms of production that I’m sure people cared about, there should be no difference or special status given to art.

I am frustrated by the notion that art is different from any other form of human experience. I think this is the least materialist way of understanding art possible. In fact, I see a few users parroting a very idealist and individualist conception of art - acting as though it is about seeking a so-called “creativity”, which in my opinion feels like a petite bourgeois mindset that relies on seeing art as above the material and functional, and independent of the mode of production. Their attempts to differentiate themselves from other proletarians, for whom under socialism automation would be a massive benefit, is personally, asinine. ESPECIALLY BECAUSE UNDER SOCIALISM, NOONE WILL STOP ARTISTS FROM DRAWING FOR FUN - ONLY THAT THEY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DRAW FOR THEIR WORK. If these artists are truly not creating because of their desire for money but because of their love for art, they should be able to tolerate another job. Especially because, for example, in the USSR, workers were already working extremely short hours relative to western countries of the same development level, and socialism was reducing them very quickly - they would have plenty of free time for art.

Finally, the “stealing art” argument, which is equally infuriating to me. In my personal opinion, as someone who regards science as the only truth, the process through which human beings, as meat sacks full of chemicals, produce art from references throughout their lives, should be considered not particularly different from the process through which AI(especially as it becomes more sophisticated) creates art. As if human brains aren’t also following some mathematical/physical process(which, again, if you believe in science, and not some metaphysical “soul”, should absolutely be true!) to remix the things they have seen in their lives.

Also, intellectual property is bullshit. if you believe in intellectual property as a principle, you are just straight up not a communist.

I do personally think China’s take - that all automated art ought to be watermarked, is good, but purely for the purpose of combatting disinformation. It should not be prominently visible. In fact, I think AI art allowing non-artists to enjoy the feeling of getting to create unique and vaguely coherent images is cool, good, valid, and just a natural consequence of technological progress.

TL;DR - under socialism, automation is good. proletarian artists are oppressed by capitalism, not automation(just like all other proletarians)

My takes might not all be good, and I don’t mean to be hostile. I’m sure this will at least be a controversial post, if not one that gets me mass downvoted, but I don’t think I’m the only one with this opinion.

In particular, I think the problem is not the technology itself(it rarely is; in my opinion, it is always the application of the technology), in the same sense that advances in automation of production are. The problem is capitalism - under capitalism, automation causes people to lose their jobs and thus their livelihoods, and under socialism, automation decreases the amount of work humans must do and instead leaves them able to explore other hobbies that are not tied to their livelihoods.

There are certainly actual applications of AI art technology that are interesting and/or could be useful, and I think turning it into just a question of “AI art good/bad” is not a particularly insightful question and one that does not really get to the root of the problems with AI art.

…I don’t actually think he particularly cares about that - might as well move aside for the next generation of fascists while making extra money off of his worshippers

it works, this is a cool resource. it did look somewhat suspicious, though…

“me at 3am thinking of ways to destroy the russian state and collapse any semblance of order within it, leading to endless violence and living conditions worse than that of the 90’s, because i love imagining dead russians”

in all seriousness, these people really prove the point that all europe and amerika ever wanted to do was plunder russia into occupation zones rather than their supposed aims of “bringing democracy”. i can’t believe people say that american imperialism isn’t real and yet think thoughts like this are anything but overt fascism

one of the funniest things to me is that anticoms often act like they’re free thinkers for hating communism, as if they are a bastion of free thought against an army of communist drones, when(for these people, who generally reside in the imperial core) the situation could not be more the opposite

we live rent free in their heads partially because at some level they have realized that we have a point and thus are rebelling against their subconscious and logical areas of their brain, then calling it “free thought”; it’s almost as though they know 1+1 = 2 but are acting like geniuses for saying 1+1 = 3, truly horrifying how indoctrination/political socialization led by the capitalist class works

as always, no actually engaging with the logic or history there; even western historians will acknowledge the role that socdems and centrist parties played in the nazi rise to power. hell even in my lib history class we learned about this, though of course the socdems are usually painted as the good guys and why didn’t they voot harder for them smh

hoi4 is a fun game, and i will admit that I’ve enjoyed painting the map red as the soviets, but god does it induce some of the biggest lib cringe moments

In particular, while I would hesitate to label him a comrade, as its hard to assess how much he’s changed ideologically, his takes come from an academic point of view, which should serve to validate the truth of our claims. Just as scientific publications from bourgeois institutions are still worth citing(and often support all kinds of communist talking points), I think it is easier to use his recent takes as a way to introduce people to the deep contradictions of capitalism.

I think a lot of non-communists can still have based takes, especially if those takes are just “America is imperialist/violent/evil”. As long as their takes don’t serve reactionary standpoints(e.g. american “libertarians”), in my opinion they deserve at least some degree of critical support. I do respect his courage and hope that he helps radicalize people against US imperialism.

from my experience in the US this is true as well. Remember that these people are Taiwanese that want to pursue closer ties with the West and that plenty of Taiwanese interact closely with the mainland in terms of business.

map porn is so lib infested, half the maps are maps of ukraine and such, this isn’t even close to the first racist propaganda posted there

the funniest thing is that they posted this as propaganda but accidentally ended up admitting taiwan was part of china