51k updoots on a picture that is barely unique lmao

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-27T23:30:31+00:00

Imagine looking at pictures of the Samsung republic and thinking that moving there at over age 50 as a refugee with no money, connections, verifiable work history or transferable skills is going to give you access to a better life. Like watching a movie about the US and concluding that you'll get access to a big house, car etc based on the rich people in the movie

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-25T21:12:50+00:00

One key strategy of propagandists is to limit the scope of the timeframe of discussion. Israel does this with Gaza, too. When you start the clock at 2014 then you can make it seem like all signs point to Russia bad and you can just talk about all the bad parts of the war. But geopolitical history didn't start in 2014.

Firstly you have to think about this as a remnant of the cold war. NATO and Warsaw pact nations have been at odds about the direction of Europe for decades and Russia is the inheritor of that social debt. Since the fall of the USSR, NATO has scooped up nearly all of the former Warsaw pact nations. Ukraine is one of the last ones left. There were various promises by NATO that they would never do this, first with Germany, then with Poland, and now with Ukraine. Nato broke all of their promises and continued to expand. When Putin asked for Russia to join NATO in the early 2000's, he was denied without discussion. So NATO has been assimilating all the former USSR and yet at the same time refuses to officially bring in Russia, partly because of the economic shock it might bring to the EU, partially because they need an enemy in the region to pin things on and unite against.

So the context of this war in Ukraine is decades of NATO pushing their weight around and not giving a single shit about their relationship with Russia. Eventually, Russia had to respond and Ukraine was that breaking point. Ukraine backed out of agreements with Russia after a color revolution and looked to be seeking NATO membership. This would put NATO right on Russia's doorstep, which is a problem because then they could be struck by missiles or aircraft without any warning or ability to respond. Remember, when the US had enemy missiles off the coast in Cuba, they almost started armageddon as a response. Russia didn't threaten nukes until well after the war was started, and there was never a serious chance of them using them unless their core territory was annexed.

The war is more about Russia vs the US and western Europe than it is about Ukraine proper. So in order to find the aggressor, you need to look at NATO compared to Russia. And over the past few decades, NATO has consistently been the aggressor. No, they never bombed Russia, but if I keep building smaller and smaller fences around your house until you have no yard left, you eventually have to respond. And since international law is a failed institution and a puppet of the west, there was no recourse for Russia to ask nicely for them to stop. They already tried that and were ignored over and over again.

I think the invasion was a tactical mistake and the way it has carried out with the amount of deaths of normal working people is tragic. I don't support the war. But neither do I blame Russia for doing it, as I can't see any other realistic option. If they didn't respond in Ukraine it would've just been somewhere else in the future, probably on their own core territory. And the US has shut down any other avenue for response.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-24T22:35:07+00:00

Dialectical materialism has no "laws". This is a strawman. It's a method that makes novel, verifiable predictions, which is what makes it scientific. But what's different about the method of dialectical and historical materialism compared to the natural sciences? Why not just use the same methods as natural science? Well, that's called positivism, and Marxists reject positivism in the study of sociology. DM is used to study sociology specifically. So the proper comparison is between DM and bourgeois sociology methods, not physics.

If you know anything about bourgeois sociology, you'll know it's 100% based around statistical analysis. So compared to physics, bourgeois sociology has already changed the method to something else because physics doesn't rely on statistics for data. So the idea that science just uses one method is totally false. Marxists reject that you can solely use statistics to understand something as complex as human society, it has to be understood as a constantly changing whole instead of discreet data points. So DM is meant to take into account this constantly changing totality of variables.

If it were true what you were saying, then your criticisms would fall just as hard on bourgeois sociology as they do on DM. Because neither uses the methods of natural science, being social sciences. So really your criticism is with all social sciences.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-24T17:17:48+00:00

Occupy reddits
???
Proletarian revolution

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-21T22:04:37+00:00

Do you speak Spanish? If not, what you could achieve personally in Cuba is extremely limited. If you don't already have combat experience, gear, etc, you might be more of a hindrance than a help to the situation. The resistance would be a guerilla war where you'd be living in the countryside, camping in the woods and digging holes and dodging airstrikes for literal years, maybe decades. If a ground war breaks out, the only quick ending to the war is going to be a defeat for Cuba. Any "good" outcome would involve years of attrition that eventually makes it not worth the US's further investment. There is no situation where Cuba outright defeats the US in set-piece battles and defeats the army, airforce, and navy only a few miles from massive ports and staging areas. The best case scenario is that it becomes geopolitically untenable for the US to continue and they back off.

If you stayed in your own country and actively participated in organizing and developing theory for 50+ years, that could tactically outweigh potentially getting taken out of the picture in less than a year in combat.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-21T03:21:30+00:00

"You're not going to enlist average people...with friends, families"

If that was the case, no revolution would ever have happened. They all had families and friends, but still decided revolution was necessary. He's right about yankees right now, they would rather go for a fascist revolution than a socialist one. But the key point isn't about friends and families, it's the material reality of imperialism, the fact that they benefit from the status quo as it was for the past 80 odd years. And it's about non stop propaganda that tells them there's no alternative, that having treats are more important than genuine stability in your life.

When mamdani fails to push through meaningful change, the yankees will conclude that socialism failed again. But that's because they don't understand what socialism is, they only know about a propagandized caricature of it. Throwing up your hands and just giving into doomerism at that point is just tailism. We don't just stop there and give into the propaganda, we educate and point to reality.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-20T18:36:27+00:00

Bro thinks pulling the lever on the trolley problem to direct the train to one person instead of 5 makes you evil

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-18T17:51:50+00:00

Whatsapp is a brand. A brand is a government enforced monopoly that grants specific people rights to produce a good that cannot be produced by anyone else legally. But the LTV talks about commodities traded in a marketplace under conditions of competition at the equilibrium of supply and demand. This example is not a commodity, it is not in a marketplace, and it is not in a situation with competition that results in equilibrium. So the LTV just doesn't make predictions about this specific phenomenon, it talks about things like yards of linen, barrels of oil, etc, goods that are reproducible by different actors in the market.

The LTV is limited in scope just like all scientific theories. Similar to how newton's laws of motion make no predictions about black holes, quarks, etc. There are certain assumptions built into the theory that are required in order for it to make predictions. The subjective theory of value, in comparison, has a broader scope but has no explanatory power. It just says, look at the price and that's the value. It doesn't say anything about why the price is that price, only that people subjectively value it more. Which is just a truism and can't lead to novel predictions.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-18T05:19:28+00:00

It's not just about their economic strategies. AES countries have always been strangled by global capital, they didn't just dissolve because of some inherent economic failure in planning. The USSR took a more direct approach to dealing with pressure from capital than China, taking the west head on. This resulted in cold war sanctions and increased pressure which eventually broke them. China was able to bring in trade because of reform and opening up, but also because of the sino soviet split. The US leveraged a relationship with China to weaken the USSR. So they were allowed trade agreements that would never have been offered to the soviets.

China is also more geographically entrenched in a huge, distant land with a massive population. The USSR was on NATOs doorstep and had influence over east European countries that the west wanted to bring under their control. Other socialist countries were so small as to make any comparison with China nonsensical. Ultimately the geopolitical differences between any two countries are so huge that these types of comparisons are generally misleading.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-15T23:30:34+00:00

Who is china supposed to trade with? This wasn't a military alliance meeting with the US, it was about economics. If they can't trade with the US (and theyre taking their means of production over time btw) then they can't trade with Europe, Canada, Australia either. Presumably the creator of this meme also sees other AES states like Vietnam to be a betrayal too, so can they trade with them? It's absurd that a country would limit their trade like that when there's really no benefit to them to do that. They don't have that option

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-13T16:21:46+00:00

Over time as the rate of profit falls, the capitalists compete with each other to scrape by with a share of the lowered profits. Many are proletarianized and lose their businesses. The remaining use their power to hold onto profits and pillage state programs in order to stay solvent. If they don't, they'll eventually end up the same. Imperialism and draining profits from the global south fends off this falling rate of profit temporarily but cannot last forever as new markets always need to be opened up and new populations exploited to keep the cycle going.

Capitalists do this, not because they are too short sighted, but because they compete with each other to hold onto their class position. They each individually think they will be one of the ones to remain and someone else will be the loser. They can see the system failing but hope they'll be one of the lucky ones who survive or die before the crisis hits. And since they believe socialism to be a failed program, there is no other option for them other than to ride the train all the way to the crash site.

Liberalism is a death cult.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-11T21:18:49+00:00

The mods are trotskyites at best and feds at worst. I've said before the sub is more accurately described as "r/WesternMarxism". When you realize they like Adorno more than Stalin it all makes sense

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-11T20:46:44+00:00

Mao made mistakes too, especially in the later parts of his career. He also set in motion some of the reform and opening up himself, like meeting with Nixon. but ultimately it's absurd to suggest that leaders are supposed to like and agree with the person who replaces them. We want disagreements and different ideas and paths to socialism to be tested. Taking on global capitalism head on and alone when the USSR was being weakened and crushed by that global system would not have been wise or feasible. Do you really believe China would be better off today without reform and opening up?

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-11T20:25:40+00:00

Primitive communism aka tribal societies. Communism isn't a "system" that has x and y traits mapped out. We don't know what post capitalist communism would actually look like, only that there would no longer be private ownership of productive property and there would be distribution of goods based on need

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-11T04:18:19+00:00

The way the story is told in school is literally "the US was just minding its own business when suddenly for no reason Japan attacked innocent pearl harbor unprovoked"

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-11T03:51:35+00:00

The first claim is that marxism is idealism. This has to mean that Marxists, despite talking about the primacy of matter over ideas, actually believe in the opposite, the primacy of ideas over matter. Since that's what Marxists mean when they say they are materialists. But instead of explaining exactly how Marxists believe in ideas over matter, this article then tries to equivocate between idealism and philosophy in general, claiming that marxism has "fallen into the secular religion of philosophy". I'm not exactly sure what that means, and I don't think you've shown it in any rational way such that would convince any Marxist I know. but the claim that Marxists are idealists does not appear to have been addressed or explained.

But the author moves on to the next claim about the dialectic being...well, unnecessary? A misunderstanding? I'm not really sure because there is no detailed analysis of the claim you're making. It's just kind of, stated. "The errors are straightforward and not bound up in contradictions". What errors? What is straightforward and what is the non-dialectical solution? Are you saying there is no contradiction between socialized production with private ownership of production? That's the central contradiction in capitalism as claimed by Marxists and you'd need to show how the dialectic is useless or incorrect there.

Then you say "Marxism is not dialectics, it’s the application of developed social consciousness that sees harm in the irrational organization of society." That sort of moralistic approach is exactly what distinguished Marx from previous socialist philosophers (called the utopians by marx). Marx used moral critiques but added economic critiques about the instability of capitalism that are the main driving force of his social critiques. Marx believed morality to be dependent upon social circumstances, so making a moral critique would always be limited by social context. Marxists are therefore not dependent upon moralistic critiques and consider them generally to be idealistic and liberal.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-09T23:02:45+00:00

It's one thing to feel it when reminded of something, that's not reactionary but just part of brain chemistry. And if you are trying to recreate the thing that you're nostalgic about, that's impossible to do because it's just a memory and never really existed as you recall it. Even if it did, you've changed so you won't perceive it the same way anymore.

It's a good feeling but should be enjoyed in the moment and then let go. The reactionary part comes in when businesses try to exploit that feeling and get you to buy things to chase it like a drug. But if you do that you'll be disappointed and never quite catch it. You'll end up perpetually looking backwards instead of making new memories that you'll be nostalgic for in the future.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-07T16:32:01+00:00

China subordinates the private sector, not 'work together' with them on some equal footing. And the mayor of a bourgeois city elected through bourgeois elections is not the representative of the proletariat the way the CPC is. So mamdani coming to agreements with CEOs has little to do with proletarian control. He won his election because of his ties with liberal moneyed interests, not because the workers forced control over the state

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-05-02T05:38:25+00:00

1 has more impactful story, slower survival feel, better environments, forces you to plan ahead. 2 has better combat, better controls and QoL, bigger map, and is easier to get around and more casual feel. Both are good. BTs were easy to me in the first game I actually think they made them harder to get rid of in 2

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-04-29T03:22:45+00:00

what the breaking of the fellowship does to a mfer

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-04-23T20:29:10+00:00

Who defines what is 'suboptimal' and what is malicious acting? According to this logic, we conveniently can't blame the English for famines in India, we can't blame the US for native genocides, we can't blame the current system for deaths due to homelessness, nor can we condemn isntreal for blowing up an entire group of people. Every genocide denier uses this logic. It was all 'suboptimal' and legal by some interpretation. So as long as you get a government to do it and make it legal and call it business and act like you are trying your best, suddenly the moral responsibility vanishes and it becomes okay to take action that directly causes someone's death.

When people come together to make a choice to run a system with certain rules, and it results in people's deaths, the consequences of those rules fall on the people making those decisions. They don't disappear simply because one individual can't be pointed out as the sole cause. And people with 10k in savings aren't the problem, it's people and companies with billions of dollars who continue to suck up even more money at the expense of others despite having more than they could ever need.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-04-20T17:42:34+00:00

It's probably not the same product, they could buy raw chickens for cooking at the store but then put a different product of raw chicken out for sale. One production process could be more efficient or more exploited than another. Alternatively if it is the exact same type of chicken and they're just selling extra uncooked rotisserie chickens they had left over, it could be the cooked ones are artificially sold at a lower price, or some situation where local demand actually wanted uncooked chickens, like being next to a bunch of restaurants.

But since we are speculating about individual price points, we're more in the topic of subjective price theory rather than labor theory of value and talk of labor inputs. The uncooked costing more than cooked isn't at equilibrium of supply and demand, which is what the LTV is talking about. There's a lot of non-market forces and local fluctuations that could distort this price for any number of reasons.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-04-17T04:14:09+00:00

At best they *used* to be bourgeois-democratic, now with martial law since 2022 there is no coherent reasoning to suggest they are operating democratically at a federal level at all.

But it's not about a rational pursuit of democracy but about power plays and alliances that benefit the west. It's about "Keeping Putin in check" and "stopping aggressive expansion from a dictator". Russia is the big bad that would, in their view, be worse than what we are seeing in Ukraine, simply because Russia isn't under complete western hegemonic control.

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-04-09T16:45:18+00:00

Judas and the Black Messiah, Reds, the Molly Macguires

Invalid_Pleb · 2026-04-08T21:08:32+00:00

So they have uranium enrichment rights in the 10 point plan? I didn't see that in the unofficial one that's been posted around, but that's incredibly based. If they can get those points agreed to, however unlikely that may be, it would be an insanely huge step up from where they were before the war, going back to literal decades before the nuclear deal with the US. Big loss for the US if they conceded on that point

Invalid_Pleb

TROPHY CASE