[-] [email protected] -2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)
[-] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

And when you say collective action is the only way, which, if I am not mistaken is a core authleft belief.

It's a core Marxist observation, based in history. Every system that has ever fallen has fallen because of the organized action of a class or a set of classes, not necessarily in a party, since the very notion of a party is extremely recent, but organization in some form. It's a process that is always violent, usually doesn't happen all at once and may not be definitive, but that's how things have happened so far. There's no evidence that it will happen the way you think it will, but honestly, good luck with that. It would be great if we could move to a fairer system without all the burden of having to organize and having to respond to reactionary violence in the same level.

I do take special exception with your notion that these egregors come into being out of conscious and renewed informed consent.

I don't know exactly what in my answer led you to the conclusion that I think so, but that's not the case. In my opinion, these "egregors", which I call ideologies, arise according to the need that material conditions require. As material conditions change, mainly because of the sophistication of the means of production, new ideologies emerge from the new socioeconomic conditions produced by this change.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Every aspect of human society exists because we, as a society, believe in them, including society itself. The very tools we use to measure the world beyond man are human fabrications. However, the maintenance of a social model does not necessarily depend on all its members believing in or agreeing with it, only on continuing to work for it. Cultural, social, and physical constraints exist and are very real. For example, it was common a few years ago in the "Free Palestine" online community to say that Israel is not real, but this statement has never stopped any of Israel's oppressive actions from happening. Understanding that all systems are fabricated is a fundamental step towards the possibility of replacing them with better systems, but for this to happen, realization needs to evolve into organized action: the only tool capable of changing the world. And yes, it is only possible to replace one system with another, and it is not possible to live without a system, because what makes us human is precisely this characteristic: we created the social system to overcome the evolutionary system.

And to rationalize the world we live in, we create rules to legitimize our other creations. We can use any factors to generate these rules, but to avoid chaos, we agree, in materialism, to use historical, cultural, and economic factors to justify the control of a territory by a nation state. Considering these factors, in a comparative sense, the control of the United States over any of its constituent territories is much more illegitimate than the control of Tibet by China. Does this mean that we should dismember the United States and return its territories to their original owners? No, it means that someone who believes that China should grant independence to Tibet should also advocate for the dismemberment of the United States. Since in this case the decision came from the United States government, which, I imagine, has no intention whatsoever of dismembering the United States, we can conclude that the only motivation for this is to antagonize China, and it does not stem from a concern for the right of peoples to self-determination.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In fact there are NO countries in the world immune to the “you displaced a previous civilization” argument. They’ve all done it.

Yet, some did it much more recently than others, and many of the peoples they stole from still exist and are still being exploited (not China-Tibet case). At the very least, one would expect countries not to go around questioning the legitimacy of other countries' territories when their own have no legitimacy at all.

[-] [email protected] 50 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

CN lawmakers pass bill that questions US's claims over Hawaii

Imagine if that was the headline...

The problem is that any claim by the United States to any territory is infinitely more absurd than China's claim to Tibet. I used Hawaii as an example, but it could be Puerto Rico, Alaska, Texas, California, New Mexico, all the way to the entire country that has been despoiled of its indigenous population.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Transition to paperless office

The problem is there is people who say bullshit like this unironically.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

regime that makes US surveillance seem like a walk in the park

There isn't such a thing as "good surveillance", or "better surveillance", if you do surveillance you can't pretend a position of moral superiority to others who do the same, even if you still don't chase people who say certain things online, it's on the horizon. Thanks to Snowden sacrifice we know some of the USA government surveillance. He didn't "back down at the first sign of trouble", what he did made him lose the life he had, I'd like to see you in his position.

I don't care about the messenger, I care about the message, if it's true, it doesn't matter who's saying it. If Putin says the sky is blue, it won't turn green. Can Snowden have another intention when he talks about what Adobe is doing? Maybe, I personally doubt it. The point is: this is irrelevant. This does not change the core of what Adobe is doing in any way, nor does it make what it is saying a lie. Just as Stallman defending a member of Epstein's list does not make false anything that he has said about big corporations, privacy and freedom.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago

My logic is survival, you know, a human instinct. And nothing you said about Snowden makes his statement wrong.

[-] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Don't be ridiculous. The US government is doing everything it can to convict Assange of treason and he is not even American. Manning denounced soldiers, and things were light on her because of the direct intervention of President Obama. Snowden denounced the National Security Agency, including actions directed directly by the presidency, there is no way to compare.

[-] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago

He could have return to the US.

And be executed for treason?

[-] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Seriously speaking, YES.

“The modern revisionists and reactionaries call us Tankies, thinking that they insult us and, in fact, that is their aim. On the contrary, however, they glorify us with this epithet: it is an honour for us to be Tankies, because, since we were Tankies, the enemy could not conquer us, and never will conquer us as long as we remain Tankies.”

--Enver Hoxha, paraphrased.

(As far as Hungary is concerned, I don't advocate for anything that Khrushchev did)

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whodoctor11

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