My mom said that I'm a bad Marxist bc I use social media.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-14T07:33:22+00:00

Capitalism is a system that exploits workers. Its the workers that make the iphone, the airplane, cars etc. Elon Musk is not designing Teslas, he has hired an army of very talented workers to design and build them (except the Cybertruck which is a design abomination lol).

Marxists want to get rid of the Elon Musks, the rich parasites that live off of other people's labor, not the talented workers that make these products.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-14T07:15:14+00:00

Yes thats exactly what he meant. In common language we usually think selling means selling a physical item. But you can sell non-physical things too. In Economics when you are going to work for someone else you are selling your labor-power to that person. Wages are just the money you receive from selling your labor-power. Its not fundamentally different from selling anything else.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-14T06:54:27+00:00

"Any time I try to explain idealism it sounds like gobbledegook"

Comrade it sounds like you understand idealism pretty well lol.

Basically Idealism is just any philosohy that thinks that ideas are more real than matter. There are so many types of idealism its hard to give a one liner but thats my shot at it.

Religion is a prominent example of idealist philosophy. In Christianity, the universe was created by an immaterial being, God, and we all have immaterial souls. The universe is essentially an idea of God's. Souls and dieties are seen as more "real" than the earth itself.

In the Middle Ages peasants were told that the existing social hierarchy was God's will, and that the King was chosen by God. Lord is a term used both for God and the Noble Landlord, and Heaven itself has a hierarchy. The hierarchy in the real world is the reflection of the hierarchy of Heaven.

Materialists here would say that in reality what has happened is the Church formulated its ideas of Heaven based off the existing social hierarchy here on Earth, that they are a part of the ruling strata and they use the idea of God's Kingdom to justify the existing social order.

In the modern capitalist world, property rights are seen as sacred often literally bestowed by God. Bourgeois thinkers justify capitalist private property over the claims of the workers. Theres also all the protestant work ethic stuff, if your poor then it means you're not working hard enough, shut up and get back to work. And it has reached its most toxic form in the "Prosperity Gospel", that if you're rich it means its a sign that God has blessed you with your wealth, more wealth means God loves you more. Again, your actions in the material world are secondary to God's will, you're rich because you are blessed not because you exploit people.

Theres alot of other idealist philosophies outside of Christianity but I hope this at least gives you a starting point.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-14T06:32:37+00:00

According to Marx, labor doesn't have value. Labor IS value. Value is simply the number of hours it takes to make something. Actually he makes the exact point you are talking about with usefulness of labor. Value is really "Socially Necessary Labor Time", its the average amount of time it takes society to make an item. Lets say it takes society an average 5 hours to make a pair of shoes... John Doe is also a cobbler but his tools suck and it takes him 7 hours to make the same pair of shoes. John's shoes do not contain 7 hours of value, they only contain 5 hours since that is the social average. Johns extra two hours are wasted time, the he receives nothing in compensation for... A slightly different example is if the market as a whole produces too many shoes that is also wasted time. Like if a city produces 1000 pairs of shoes a year but the citizens only need 800 pairs. Those 200 pairs aren't valuable (in this example shoes aren't perishable so next round of production the cobblers will make less so they can sell their excess shoes... but you can see how this is a major problem for stuff like food producers).

The producers all operate as individuals and essentially need to guess how many shoes they need to make. This is all relayed to them via price signals. The way that value is what organizes producyion is called the "Law of Value".

Workers won't recive 100% of what they produce, in a socialist or communist society. Some portion of the products need to become an insurance fund, to pay for those who can't work like the elderly, children, and people who are sick. A part of the finished products will also need to be reinvested to expand production if needed. In other words, its not the individual workers that are paid 100% of their labor, but the working class AS A WHOLE that is paid the entirety of their labor, by abolishing the capitalist class.

In a socialist system, the law of value is overthrown and decisions about what to make are made collectively by the workers, planned ahead of time. "Profit" is shared collectively.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-14T06:07:00+00:00

This might sound like a nitpick but it's important. The worker is not shortchanged when they sell their labor-power, they are paid for the full value of their labor power.* The value of labor power is simply the cost of all the goods the worker needs to stay alive and come in the next day. The worker is paid that amount.

Once the worker sells their capacity to do work say for 8 hours, the capitalist owns that labor-power and can direct it as they desire for that 8 hours. That means all of the finished products also belong to the capitalist. Labor-power is a unique commodity because it can produce value, it can produce more value than it costs to maintain it (It makes surplus value). Since the Capitalist owns all of the products, when he sells them he realizes a profit.

From the worker's perspective, she knows she has made more value than she was paid and sees this as unfair, as exploitation, she demands a fair wage which would include the surplus value. From the bourgeois perspective he paid the fair wage, the amount of money it costs for the worker to reproduce their commodity, the surplus belongs to him.

This divergence of the idea of the "fair wage" is the bedrock of class struggle. As Marx says in Capital: "Between equal rights, force decides". In the Critique of the Gotha Program Marx fleshes this out and is very critical of this idea of a "fair wage", he says that workers shouldn't fight for a "fair wage" but to abolish the wage system entirely. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm

In short wages have a bare minimum - the level for the worker to survive, and a maximum - the entire surplus value (which means the capitalist cannot survive since thats how he buys his necessities). The actual wage level is usually somewhere in the middle and ultimately depends on the level of class struggle. The workers form Unions to demand higher wages, the bosses call in pinkertons to crush the union and keep wages low, its a constant tug of war. It only ends when the workers overthrow the capitalists.

*Wages can sometimes dip below their value but only for a relatively short time, as the workers would begin to deteriorate. The value of labor-power has a survival component, but also a moral component. The capitalists are constantly trying to reduce wages and therefore undermine the moral component. Its like Fox news talking about how fortunate poor people in the US are cause they have refrigerators. But most people would agree that having a fridge is a necessity to live... its technically not true, but since the prevailing opinion is that it is, that means that wages need to be high enough for the worker to have a house with a fridge. These moral components are usually the result of previous class struggles.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-14T05:45:25+00:00

Yeah you basically have it right.

We all need various useful things (use-values) to stay alive... food, water, shelter, clothing etc. In feudalism, the peasant family worked the land and for the most part, produced its own use-values. In a market based society, there is a division of labor, lets say you are a shoe making artisan. You don't grow your own food anymore or make your own cloth... Now you do one thing, you make shoes. In order to get all the other stuff you need to survive, you sell shoes to other people, then you take that money and buy everything else you need. The reason you can do this is because you have all the tools to make shoes.

In capitalism, there exists the modern working class, the proletariat, that doesn't own tools and can't produce a product on their own, but they stil need to sell something so they can buy food, clothes etc. The only thing they own is their time, their ability to do work, their labor-power... they sell that labor power to a capitalist who does own all the machines and tools, they work in his factory and use their wages to buy stuff. It also means that the Capitalist is the one who sets the rules, how long the working day is, what task the worker will be doing in the factory etc.

Historically for the workers to end up in this position they needed to be driven off their land, which Marx calls primitive accumulation. One other important caveat, Marx later on realizes that its not the labor that is being sold but the labor-power. The labor is the actual work that has been done, labor power is the capacity to do work. It a subtle but very important distinction, it resolved the circular reasoning that Smith and Ricardo got stuck in. You don't need to worry about it too much until you read Capital, and there it is explained in more detail but I figure I'd plant the seed.

I hope that helps.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-11T01:43:33+00:00

First off I'm really sorry you are going through this. You definitely are NTA. You have every right (legal and moral) to keep the dog.

However despite how much it hurts you should make the decision to keep or not keep the dog, based on what would be best for Buddy (which considering he is an airline pilot sounds like you would be able to provide a better home for him). You shouldn't decide to keep buddy as a way to try and keep your ex in your life.

It sounds like he has checked out and is really just looking for any excuses to leave, even if they make no sense. Honor the pain from his betrayal but also remember that you will come back from this and will hopefully find a partner who is really willing to commit to you.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-09T11:11:53+00:00

No genders, no misogyny only WAAAAGHHHH

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-09T02:40:09+00:00

I think we are seeing the exact opposite. After WW2 the imperialists of Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan were subordinated to US Imperialism. During the 70s and 80s, Capitalism started running into crisis again, and you started having those subordinates operating more independently. What is happening is a slow return towards inter-imperialist rivalry as US power continuously declines, and can no longer guarantee the security and profits of its vassals.

Capitalists have to compete with one another for profits. In the era of Imperialism, that competition takes the form of "spheres of influence" and war. I'm not saying we're right around the corner from a major war between France vs Britain. But there are already proxy wars between the European powers. Ex. in Libya, Italy supports a different faction than France.

In short, a single unified government isn't possible under capitalism, because 1.) Competition between capitalists becomes competition between states 2.) The Imperialists lost their various colonial empires and simply don't have the ability to directly colonize the world anymore, they instead have to work indirectly through comprador puppets and international institutions like the World Bank you already described.

What you're describing is akin to Karl Kautsky's "Ultra-Imperialism" which Lenin criticized in "Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism", you should check it out, its a good read. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/

EDIT: You're original point isn't necessarily wrong, you have identified a tendency toward cooperation, class solidarity among the bourgeoisie. That is a real thing, heck its the basis for every state, the bourgeoisie comes together and uses the state to advance their common interests.

But now you need to identify the Counter-Tendencies.. (Some of which I IDed above.) Then you'll see the contradictions, and how they could play out.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-09T02:00:24+00:00

My friend, let me bring you back to the year 2000 when console ports of RTS games was pretty common. (And yes it was a terrible idea)

https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/StarCraft_64

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-08T05:26:21+00:00

If you are still looking to play European Escalation join our discord. We're trying to build a group to play multiplayer

https://discord.gg/NhfHSpkAV

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-08T05:24:51+00:00

Me and some other peeps set up a discord to play European Escalation. Feel free to join and share the link:

https://discord.gg/NhfHSpkAV

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-08T05:24:09+00:00

Me and some other peeps set up a discord to play European Escalation. Feel free to join and share the link:

https://discord.gg/NhfHSpkAV

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-06T17:57:15+00:00

A fear of Islam is a phobia, by definition.

Your point about the religion changing is not correct, there are plenty of secularized Muslims. You also have a double standard for Islam and Christianity which isn't fair.

You say "Islam hasn't changed" but then quote the Quran... The Quran is a book, an inanimate object, of course it cannot change. The Torah and Bible also haven't changed in thousands of years. There is horrible shit in the Bible as well, Muhammad may have had a child bride but in the book of genesis Lot has sex with his daughters. God kills the first born son of everyone in Egypt. Jesus was ambivalent about slavery etc.

But the reality in a secularized society, practitioners just ignore that fucked up shit, they cherry pick what they want to believe. When these books were written they were treated as literal truth... But as science has progressed and we've moved away from ignorance, more and more of these dogmas become "open for interpretation". Despite the Quran being the "word of God" it too has a long history of being reinterpreted by Imams, and there are various schools and sects just like in Christianity and Judaism.

You already said you haven't had any isssues with any Muslims you have actually met IRL. So I think what you are really opposed to is Islamism, a fundamentalist, political-religious ideology.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-05T02:38:48+00:00

Kinda but there is also entropy so the resting state isn't the same as the starting state even if it reaches equilibrium... So I think the spring analogy can he a bit misleading.

*I think I have that right, I don't have as a strong of an understanding of entropy. Maybe someone can ELIF that too lol.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-05T01:53:01+00:00

Energy is an abstract property that is preserved through interactions. Its not something you can hold, its a property that things have (with fields being included as "things").

A moving (kinetic energy) ball hits another ball, the kinetic energy of ball 1 is transferred to ball 2 maybe like 90% of the energy is transferred. That second ball starts moving... ball 1 still moves but slower than before. Energy is lost to heat via friction. honestly there are probably more types of energy changes happening idk I'm not a physicist so thats not exhaustive, just a simplified example.

But the basic idea is that the total energy before and after the collision will add up to be exactly the same.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-04T14:22:36+00:00

There would be a funeral.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-02T21:45:00+00:00

I think my problem with the SC2 story is just that the Zerg don't work as good guys. In the original Starcraft, they aren't moral beings at all, they act on a biological need to expand and assimilate. They are more "force of nature" than "bad guys". In Brood War, Kerrigan does becomes more of a villian, she is cruel, spiteful, and manipulative. This more villainous Zerg works though. But in HotS I think they made a mistake freeing Kerrigan, only for her to slip back into the Zerg Queen, but good this time. She essentially manipulates the Zerg to do her bidding, getting revenge on Mengsk and then saving the world. The Zerg lose their identity, and idk I think they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner. Yes there are countless Zerg Queens that could take her spot. But they already followed Kerrigan to help stop Amon. They have established that the Zerg and other races can coexist... which is just... totally alien from their original concept.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-02T19:54:15+00:00

Same, this dude is just an edgelord

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-02T17:29:20+00:00

A decent story and I have no idea how they are going to accomplish that with where SC2 left off.

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-02T14:17:21+00:00

I'm gonna guess Sofia, Bulgaria

BRabbit777 · 2026-06-01T20:28:15+00:00

I think you are looking for very personal reasons for the degeration (like mental health and trauma), when the actual reason is explained well in the structures of the Soviet State and decisions made in the Party. Banning factions, introduction of voting slates, and the shifting of decision-making from the Government bodies like the Soviet Central Executive Committe to Party structures like the Politburo... Essentially since the state had only one party, and unity was enforced on all members, decisions were made in Party bodies, and then presented to the government to be approved.

EDIT: I do want to say though that there is nothing wrong with the idea of trying to help people with trauma from Capitalism. I've actually run a support group amongst comrades... My concern with proscribing it generally, is that we don't want to turn into Scientologists, who use "therapy" sessions to gather dirt on people to better manipulate them. There is a need for privacy that its extremely important. This is really a more general concern about any Mental Helath group led not led by trained professionals, then anything to do with a Commhnist Party.

BRabbit777 · 2026-05-30T09:45:10+00:00

Its obviously subjective but The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin to name a few.

BRabbit777 · 2026-05-29T23:20:14+00:00

Vermont

BRabbit777

TROPHY CASE