Zompist Bboard Again

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 4:16 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2026 10:08 am humanity has managed to end [bad things in the past], and that makes me confident that we will overcome such things as AIs clogging web sites with their scrapers and flooding the media with slop

My main concern is the possibility that the people with the power to effect the decision may very well propose sunsetting the open Internet entirely in favour of a bunch of proprietary protocols

Is that even possible? The open Internet is open, meaning it’s not reliant on or beholden to any one institution.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 6:03 am

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 4:16 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2026 10:08 am humanity has managed to end [bad things in the past], and that makes me confident that we will overcome such things as AIs clogging web sites with their scrapers and flooding the media with slop

My main concern is the possibility that the people with the power to effect the decision may very well propose sunsetting the open Internet entirely in favour of a bunch of proprietary protocols

Is that even possible? The open Internet is open, meaning it’s not reliant on or beholden to any one institution.

Indeed, and that's why it is hard to censor, and some techbros and far-right politicos dream of replacing it by something like the online services of the early 90s, like AOL or CompuServe. It seems to me as if it was that what they mean when they talk about the "Metaverse" which they want to build. But they will only get their way if we let them!

They could try to buy out all the ISPs. The ISPs already pulled a big move when the business leaders weren't openly fascist yet. Remember the net neutrality debate? IIRC the ISPs already allocate more bandwidth to big websites like Facebook. They could say that anyone other than Facebook and friends is Chinese by definition, and therefore racially Communist.

I know this sounds ridiculous. Fascists deliberately say ridiculous things to stun the opposition into silence. They are projecting power by implementing patently ridiculous plans IRL. This is why there's no point debating fascists. You can only beat them into submission or wait passively for them to walk all over you.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 1:13 pmI know this sounds ridiculous. Fascists deliberately say ridiculous things to stun the opposition into silence. They are projecting power by implementing patently ridiculous plans IRL. This is why there's no point debating fascists. You can only beat them into submission or wait passively for them to walk all over you.

Quite, though people here will undoubtedly call that doomerism and paranoia unfortunately. People consistently underestimate the ruthlessness and daring of fascists and keep expecting them to limit themselves to rational policies open to sincere debate. Even now they are still surprised when the fascists attempt something utterly outrageous and catastrophic.

malloc wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 4:43 pm People consistently underestimate the ruthlessness and daring of fascists and keep expecting them to limit themselves to rational policies open to sincere debate. Even now they are still surprised when the fascists attempt something utterly outrageous and catastrophic.

Name five people who act this way. You're making these people up to make your own praise of the fascists sound reasonable.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 6:03 am

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 4:16 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Fri Jun 12, 2026 10:08 am humanity has managed to end [bad things in the past], and that makes me confident that we will overcome such things as AIs clogging web sites with their scrapers and flooding the media with slop

My main concern is the possibility that the people with the power to effect the decision may very well propose sunsetting the open Internet entirely in favour of a bunch of proprietary protocols

Is that even possible? The open Internet is open, meaning it’s not reliant on or beholden to any one institution.

this is in a way true. in another way, however, a pretty big chunk of internet traffic, and not an unimportant chunk either, structurally*, goes through social mdia, which is a lot more mmm... oligocratic.

* this is possibly confusing, i mean that the structural role of social media, and big tech more generally is crucial in the actual process most users use to arrive even at non-social media stuff.

zompist wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 5:29 pmName five people who act this way. You're making these people up to make your own praise of the fascists sound reasonable.

It's not praise to acknowledge their victories and strengths. We need an honest assessment of the enemy if we want any chance of defeating them and that includes recognizing their strengths, not just clowning on their mishaps. How would you suggest analyzing the Trump regime that doesn't sound like praise but doesn't sugarcoat things either?

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 9:00 am Unstable isn't quite the right word, it's not easy to undo social/socialist measures. (Do people here dream of privatizing healthcare or the pension systems? Yes. Will it happen? It's extremely unlikely.)

Every economically weak capitalist country has undergone austerity measures and neoliberal reforms. So have the US and the UK.

Edit: This is not a thing of the past: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianLeft/s/LeGRfoTaEi

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 9:00 am Also, I think it's the best approach so far, which doesn't mean ideal. It all depends on what you compare it with. What are the alternative approaches? Are there any attractive ones?

There needs to be a mass movement for public investment. This movement needs to be a leftist social institution replacing the fascist ones people are in now, like church and work.

My proposal is to bake human rights and public investment to the constitution while turning the government into a direct democracy. We currently have politicians who are beholden to special interests. Even progressives like Mamdani must appeal to some flavor of Islam to survive.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 9:00 am I don't think so. I don't think we're in a place, right now, where we can make peace with current politics.

Thanks. The fact that the public is rebelling against the "reality" of the elites is my only hope at this point.

Torco wrote: ↑Mon Jun 08, 2026 12:36 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:57 am Fundamentally, what is needed is a way of baking socialism into the system without privileging a Party in power. One way of doing this is by bringing about direct worker ownership and self-management of capital while legally entrenching it (e.g. making it very illegal to attempt to dispossess workers of their capital, including by legislative action, at a constitutional level). Then rightists can be legally prosecuted for attempting to 'turn back the clock' without handing a Party absolute power.

wouldn't that be nice. i'm not convinced you can do it, but it'd absolutely be much better than single-party rule. I don't think it can work because, well... *points vaguely at world*

If you think the paths by which people are drawn to right-wing politics are multifarious and ever-changing, then you do need a tyrannical entity to shut down new paths as they arise. Personally, I don't think capitalists are particularly creative. Movies depict them as geniuses, but that's just 21st century psychosis, the chiller equivalent of Musk buying Twitter and using it as his personal loudspeaker. The reason people support capitalism are all like... jobs, salaries, etc. If you provide socialist alternatives to those, capitalists will have their hands tied. They can't even topple a rickety, poverty-stricken state like Iran which can barely control its own citizens.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 12:18 pm It is one thing to oppose the outward social structures that religions attempt to impose, which to me is completely valid and necessary, it is another thing to attempt to deny others the right to personally practice their religious beliefs, which to me is in itself seeking to impose a set of beliefs.

I already said I'm concerned about social structure, not individual values.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 12:18 pm Kind of like atheist Anglican priests.

Maybe if writing a text in Verdurian is like being an Anglican priest. He wasn't part of a social institution like the church. Nor was he secretive about his position:

rotting bones wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 12:46 am কবিতা আর দেবতা সুন্দরের প্রকাশ

kobit̪a

poem

ar

and

d̪ebot̪a

god

ʃund̪or-er

beauty.gen

prokaʃ

expression

Poems and god are expressions of beauty.

সুন্দরকে স্বীকার করতে হয়, যা সুন্দর তাই দিয়ে।

ʃund̪or-ke

beauty.obj

ʃikar

acknowledge

kort̪e

do.part

hɔj,

be,

dʒa

that

ʃund̪or

beauty

t̪ai

so

d̪ije

give.part

Beauty is acknowledged with what is beautiful.

সুন্দরের ধ্যান, তার স্তব গানই আমার ধর্ম।

ʃund̪or-er

beauty.gen

d̪ʱæn,

meditation

t̪ar

of.that

st̪ɔb

praise

gan-i

song-only

amar

1s.gen

d̪ʱɔrmo

religion

Meditating on beauty, singing its praises is my only religion.

তবু বলছি, আমি শুধু সুন্দরের হাতে বীণা পায়ে পদ্মফুলই দেখিনি,

t̪obu

still

boltʃʰi

say.1.prog,

ami

1s

ʃud̪ʱu

only

ʃund̪or-er

beauty.gen

hat̪-e

hannd.loc

bina

veena

paj-e

foot.loc

pɔd̪:o-pʰul-i

lotus-flower-only

d̪ekʰini

see.1.perf.neg

Still, I haven't seen beauty only with veena in hand and foot on the lotus.

তার চোখে চোখ ভরা জলও দেখেছি।

t̪ar

3s.gen

tʃokʰ-e

eye.loc

tʃokʰ

eye

bʱɔra

full

dʒɔl-o

water-also

d̪ekʰetʃʰi

see.1.perf

I have also seen their (singular) eyes brimming with tears.

Nazrul campaigned against superstition and inequality (including gender inequality), wrote blasphemous poems (edit: changed my mind about which post to link to) and was literally a founding member of a communist party. Religious people interpreted this as rejecting human superstition while maintaining some kind of transcendent faith. Look, if he had faith in a Spinozist god, he was still an atheist from the standpoint of traditional religion. Revealed gods can be disproved. Gods defined through a web of words are real as long as you accept the definitions.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 12:45 pm The thing one should remember is what makes cultural conservatism bad is what it attempts to impose on others, how it seeks to deny people freedom and equality, not personal religious beliefs that some may label as "cultural conservatism".

Many highly influential new left figures are culturally conservative. What do you think of attempts to align progressive movements with opposition to deracination?

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:18 am If you think the paths by which people are drawn to right-wing politics are multifarious and ever-changing, then you do need a tyrannical entity to shut down new paths as they arise. Personally, I don't think capitalism is particularly creative.

No, it's not. The plutocrats' playbook has been the same for nearly 50 years: lower taxes so their share of the wealth constantly bloats; woo voters mainly with racism.

The irony is that by preferring the Repubs for all that time, they've created a monster they can't control and which has no particular loyalty to them. Trump is obviously aiming not for the rule of people like Musk, but of people like himself. The goal is crony capitalism, which is barely capitalism. Look at what happens to the oligarchs under Putin. The MAGAts aren't particularly enthused about capitalism; they think they're opposing "elites".

Stupid and evil people can unfortunately do a lot of harm before they collapse.

capitalists will have their hands tied. They can't even topple a rickety, poverty-stricken state like Iran which can barely control its own citizens.

The Iraq war has nothing to do with "capitalism". "Capitalists" didn't attack Iran, Donald J. Trump did. He's not a capitalist any more than failed artist Hitler or KGB chief Putin.

Ironically, if you want to know what "capitalists" would do, look at China. China wants to get rich and powerful growing its business sector. It has no interest in democracy, but also very little interest in disturbing a world order that's working out very well for it. Some idiot starting a war in Iran is of no benefit to them, except in that it makes them look relatively rational.

Also, the capitalists running China understand what the capitalists here did pre-Reagan: people will let you stay in power so long as their lives are getting better. US capitalists used to make the people's lives more prosperous; now they make them precarious.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:23 am One problem with that argument is that once you're really in a position where state power reliably always sides with you, it becomes a lot more difficult to maintain that you're really oppressed.

You are not properly visualizing the social dynamics. Society is stronger than the state. People oppressed by society are weaker than people oppressed by the state. In order for the most oppressed to be less oppressed, the least oppressed must be more oppressed if they are fighting the lowering of oppression.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:23 am And another one is that, no, no one should always be sided with, certainly not by the state. No, not even the oppressed. Everyone is sometimes wrong. Almost everyone is sometimes tempted to do bad and wrong or even cruel things. And no one should be sided with in those cases. Once you know that state power will always side with you, you've got a license to become a cruel, brutal, and unjust oppressor yourself.

How else would you ensure justice? See Rawls' max-min rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarian_rule Separate each moment in time, and you might get it: If society has been taken over by Nazis, you have to oppress the Nazis to wrench the control of society back from them.

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:23 am As for the whole "anti-capitalist mass murdering, mass enslaving, and mass raping dictatorships are actually good"-thing, let's just say that once you take the position that it's a good idea to let some small group have absolute power to do whatever they want to everyone, no matter how murderous or denigrating, without any option to get rid of them, it becomes a lot more difficult to explain why you're against capitalism in the first place. After all, what kinds of bad and wrong things does capitalism do which you're not cheering on yourself when people you see as anticapitalists do them?

Equality is the goal throughout. No one's human rights will be violated as they are being oppressed. As a straight man, I am volunteering to be oppressed until women are free.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:48 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:23 am And another one is that, no, no one should always be sided with, certainly not by the state. No, not even the oppressed. Everyone is sometimes wrong. Almost everyone is sometimes tempted to do bad and wrong or even cruel things. And no one should be sided with in those cases. Once you know that state power will always side with you, you've got a license to become a cruel, brutal, and unjust oppressor yourself.

How else would you ensure justice? See Rawls' max-min rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarian_rule Separate each moment in time, and you might get it: If society has been taken over by Nazis, you have to oppress the Nazis to wrench the control of society back from them.

You both have a point and both seem to resist understanding each other.

Raphael's position seems to preclude a revolution or a war, however justified. Either thing can and will involve "bad and wrong or even cruel things". The historical Nazis needed to be kicked out by war. It's nice to hope that no such thing is ever required, but it sometimes is.

On the other hand, you can all too easily break eggs without making omelets. Or to be blunt, become a "cruel, brutal, and unjust oppressor" for allegedly good reason, without actually ending any oppression, only indulging your own. If anyone can't acknowledge that this has been a historical problem and explain how they are going to avoid it, I'm not subscribing to their newsletter.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am No, it's not. The plutocrats' playbook has been the same for nearly 50 years: lower taxes so their share of the wealth constantly bloats; woo voters mainly with racism.

People think racism is a good idea because their employers and other trusted members of their community are telling them they are struggling because other races are taking their jobs. This is the strategy employers use to get workers to fight each other so they can't unite against them.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am The Iraq war has nothing to do with "capitalism". "Capitalists" didn't attack Iran, Donald J. Trump did. He's not a capitalist any more than failed artist Hitler or KGB chief Putin.

America enters non-stop wars because it brings profit to the military industrial complex.

Trump himself is more of a puppet than a person. His main motive is to stay out of prison. Someone advised him to attack Iran. The top strata of the conservative political hierarchy do nothing without consulting business leaders.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am Ironically, if you want to know what "capitalists" would do, look at China. China wants to get rich and powerful growing its business sector. It has no interest in democracy, but also very little interest in disturbing a world order that's working out very well for it. Some idiot starting a war in Iran is of no benefit to them, except in that it makes them look relatively rational.

Under this interpretation, it sounds as if violence and oppression are necessary to get capitalists to behave. The police state is how China stops their business leaders from stirring up shit. I think there are other ways to do it.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am Also, the capitalists running China understand what the capitalists here did pre-Reagan: people will let you stay in power so long as their lives are getting better. US capitalists used to make the people's lives more prosperous; now they make them precarious.

Note that this is not how China understands itself. Nor does it say it's leftist, which is why I'm weirded out by the Dengist movement among Marxists. China says it's a "civilizational state". China is an ancient civilization that entered an existential fight to retain its autonomy upon the arrival of modernity. China needs to violate individual rights like that of the Alibaba CEO in order to reach this goal. Other than this divergence of goals, Chinese party intellectuals are by and large pro-Western.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:05 am On the other hand, you can all too easily break eggs without making omelets. Or to be blunt, become a "cruel, brutal, and unjust oppressor" for allegedly good reason, without actually ending any oppression, only indulging your own. If anyone can't acknowledge that this has been a historical problem and explain how they are going to avoid it, I'm not subscribing to their newsletter.

My explanation for why this happened is the work of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15q63qf ... p=drivesdk My answer for why I think my proposal will not do it is that it studiously avoids creating the specific (and by now well-studied) perverse incentives of dictatorship that led to it.

The problem with my answer is that it's a scientific answer. It identifies the specific historical trends that led to the problem and avoids them. This is difficult to understand without thinking of society as a network of structural forces. Humans prefer an emotional answer like, "I'm a liberal, not a communist." Such answers do nothing to solve problems. In West Bengal (or perhaps I should start calling it Ex-Bengal), the "liberal" TMC was more authoritarian than the "communist" CPI(M).

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:25 am

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am The Iraq war has nothing to do with "capitalism". "Capitalists" didn't attack Iran, Donald J. Trump did. He's not a capitalist any more than failed artist Hitler or KGB chief Putin.

America enters non-stop wars because it brings profit to the military industrial complex.

Trump himself is more of a puppet than a person. His main motive is to stay out of prison. Someone advised him to attack Iran. The top strata of the conservative political hierarchy do nothing without consulting business leaders.

It's important to understand your enemies, and the different kinds of enemies, so you don't make facile analyses like this. What "business leaders" asked for nonstop instability, tariffs making new investment impossible, hostility toward hiring the foreign workers they need, and an idiotic war that disrupts the supply of essential imports? All they wanted was low taxes and the ability to keep making billions.

Once you have fascists in power, all this talk of "capitalists" ruling everything and getting their way on everything is out of date. Capitalists helped put Hitler in power... then got subjugated to the fascist state.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am Under this interpretation, it sounds as if violence and oppression are necessary to get capitalists to behave. The police state is how China stops their business leaders from stirring up shit. I think there are other ways to do it.

Of course there are. Paying them a fraction of what they get now is one way.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am Also, the capitalists running China understand what the capitalists here did pre-Reagan: people will let you stay in power so long as their lives are getting better. US capitalists used to make the people's lives more prosperous; now they make them precarious.

Note that this is not how China understands itself. Nor does it say it's leftist, which is why I'm weirded out by the Dengist movement among Marxists. China says it's a "civilizational state". China is an ancient civilization that entered an existential fight to retain its autonomy upon the arrival of modernity. China needs to violate individual rights like that of the Alibaba CEO in order to reach this goal. Other than this divergence of goals, Chinese party intellectuals are by and large pro-Western.

I'm not sure what that means. They're pro-status-quo because the status quo is making them rich. But sure, from 30,000 feet we can say that after a very tumultous century, China has recovered the dominant position that it historically had. I disagree that it "needed" to clamp down on Jack Ma; Xi's dictatorial side isn't his good side. What leaders like to do is not what they need to do.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:35 am

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:05 am On the other hand, you can all too easily break eggs without making omelets. Or to be blunt, become a "cruel, brutal, and unjust oppressor" for allegedly good reason, without actually ending any oppression, only indulging your own. If anyone can't acknowledge that this has been a historical problem and explain how they are going to avoid it, I'm not subscribing to their newsletter.

My explanation for why this happened is the work of Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: https://drive.google.com/file/d/15q63qf ... p=drivesdk My answer for why I think my proposal will not do it is that it studiously avoids creating the specific (and by now well-studied) perverse incentives of dictatorship that led to it.

The problem with my answer is that it's a scientific answer. It identifies the specific historical trends that led to the problem and avoids them. This is difficult to understand without thinking of society as a network of structural forces. Humans prefer an emotional answer like, "I'm a liberal, not a communist." Such answers do nothing to solve problems. In West Bengal (or perhaps I should start calling it Ex-Bengal), the "liberal" TMC was more authoritarian than the "communist" CPI(M).

What you said, in response to Raphael's worry that you wanted to be cruel and brutal, as that you wanted to "oppress the Nazis". Raphael was not asking for an emotional answer, nor an adhesion to a US-political word that doesn't even mean the same thing in German. Was it so hard to actually say that you oppose authoritarian dictatorship?

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:50 am It's important to understand your enemies, and the different kinds of enemies, so you don't make facile analyses like this. What "business leaders" asked for nonstop instability, tariffs making new investment impossible, hostility toward hiring the foreign workers they need, and an idiotic war that disrupts the supply of essential imports? All they wanted was low taxes and the ability to keep making billions.

Once you have fascists in power, all this talk of "capitalists" ruling everything and getting their way on everything is out of date. Capitalists helped put Hitler in power... then got subjugated to the fascist state.

It's not true that business leaders do not side with Trumpism.

There are many kinds of business leaders. Some local business leaders think they can get ahead by disrupting the businesses of the big players. Sometimes, they are wrong about this assessment. However, they are sometimes right. Lockheed Martin makes money by selling weapons to the military: viewtopic.php?p=106684#p106684

It can be the case that you personally get ahead in your business by destroying the world. Here's an analogy: Think of a conworld ruled by a funeral home called Big Coffin. Even though everyone directly or indirectly works for Big Coffin, they still need their workers to die to turn a profit. Of course you prefer your workers to die in an orderly manner so that they can keep building their own coffins. On the other hand, if your political rival starts spouting crazy talk like humans dying natural deaths, you'd prefer to have a serial killer in charge just to remain competitive other types of industry.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am Of course there are. Paying them a fraction of what they get now is one way.

They are not satisfied with that. In every country across the world, business leaders push for economic libertarianism. When they don't get their way, they distract the masses by proposing social conservatism for people who aren't geniuses like they are. I don't want to live in a society where either of these genius ideas are prevalent.

I have never been alive at a time that was an exception to this. The sum total of my experience on earth leads me to conclude that this is what capitalist societies converge to over time.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:44 am I'm not sure what that means. They're pro-status-quo because the status quo is making them rich. But sure, from 30,000 feet we can say that after a very tumultous century, China has recovered the dominant position that it historically had. I disagree that it "needed" to clamp down on Jack Ma; Xi's dictatorial side isn't his good side. What leaders like to do is not what they need to do.

Business leaders in China, like the rest of the world, tend to push for libertarian economic policies. When India listened to business leaders, the economy suffered: https://youtu.be/lKBBFHsfAcY https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianLeft/s/LeGRfoTaEi ... And society regressed: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianSocialists/s/pgXcVz6w6r

China seeks to prevent people like Jack Ma from being able to put their own politicians in power, and thereby avoid India's fate.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:56 am Was it so hard to actually say that you oppose authoritarian dictatorship?

I've never not been saying it. Nothing changed when I sided with the far left around 2019.

Once you have fascists in power, all this talk of "capitalists" ruling everything and getting their way on everything is out of date.

Just to run this point into the ground a little, here are the previous jobs of Trump's cabinet-level officers, plus immigration czar Miller:

politician - 10
official - 6
conervative activist - 4
businessman - 3
TV host - 1

BTW, the combined revenue of the companies the three ex-CEOs ran is about $5 billion.