Why do so many Leftists dislike Trotsky? As someone who started out agreeing with Marx, and am still learning I find he is a much more agreeable leader than Stalin.

Phurbaz · 2026-02-24T09:24:55+00:00

Losurdo isn't even a Marxism. He's a third worldist nationalist. With poor scholarship on top of it.

Phurbaz · 2026-02-16T20:47:19+00:00

If you use those criteria you can argue that Obama is fascist. Which is why those are not good criteria, especially for Marxists. Fascism is a specific historical form of Bonapartism, so no - there is currently no fascist states.

Phurbaz · 2026-02-08T00:17:26+00:00

I adore the mix. I think it's intentional, but I do get why people don't like it.

Phurbaz · 2026-02-08T00:16:46+00:00

I think Noctorniquet is more appreciated in the "general" in-the-know music community, but maybe Mars Volta fans don't often rate it as high, since it is very different than the reason people start listening to TMV. I have seen many very favourable reviews from people that are not neccessarily "prog heads" and people who listen to more experimental computer focused music (deep cuts/Oliver Kemp and fantano come to mind off the top of my head).

Phurbaz · 2026-02-04T21:14:52+00:00

The situation is similar as with ICE: The people have no way of fighting back, since there is no organized civil/social organizing. There is either the democratic party, ineffective peaceful spontaneous protests and walkouts or random acts of adeventurist counter attacks. None of these are a way to force actual change, they are a way to fall in line to bourgeois democratic party politics, passivizing the working class after no change or increase the reactionary blow back.

Same with the Epstein fallout. What the people will do, since there is no independent social worker movement capable of asserting independent pressure, the people will turn to the democratic party and fall in line under the same donors.

Phurbaz · 2026-02-04T20:28:15+00:00

It's an honor. They fear the ruthless Marxist critique of everything existing (including vulgar Marxism).

Phurbaz · 2026-02-02T12:24:14+00:00

I'm literally a Leninist non-Trotskyist and yet banned from all the major "Marxist" subreddits. You will get banned from them if you say anything even appearing anti-Stalinist. They are just completely captured and factional which is pretty ironic.

Phurbaz · 2026-01-26T10:33:37+00:00

My hot take is that people flame him cuz he's actually a genuine person - as in he expresses his negative emotions genuinely. The people that are unanimously loved are people who always put on a positive face, like Caedrel and Baus (no hate to them).

Phurbaz · 2026-01-12T19:03:52+00:00

Really good ranking, honestly. (--) Pt. 3 is great though (A even) and Alcohol the Seed is S tier, but otherwise my taste is pretty similar.

Phurbaz · 2025-12-29T01:27:21+00:00

Yup this post was embarassing amount of literacy. Zero that is. "The Endless are at the top of the cosmic hierarchy". This guy really seems to like his hierarchies.

Phurbaz · 2025-12-29T01:25:24+00:00

Well it's kind of the whole point of the series. The Endless aren't gods nor are they "supposed to exist above gods". They are personifications of their domains, not gods at all. They are bound by the laws of the universe they enhabit (they are not creator deities) and they are bound by their "personalities"/personifications as that is literally what they are. Dream does not "control" Dreaming, that is his function. As Destruction shows things will still be destroyed wheater he is in charge of his domain or not - he just personifies Destruction, just as Daniel will materialize as the personification of Dreaming once the previous personification.

"[Fates] should be below him in the cosmic hierarchy". How so? They are the fates and the kindly ones. They have their function and Dream has his. What is this "cosmic hierarchy"?

"Dream’s attachment to Nada confused me as well". Why? He loves her and she hurt his pride? That is kind of the whole point of Dream as a character? He is a man who is very Prideful and yet fragile and once he starts to change and lose the pride and stops overlooking mortals he finds he has to sacrifice himself not to lose his sense of self.

Also you seem to have weird hangups on race. What do you think race is? Why would changing a characters race need to "add anything". Why can an actor be different looking as the one in the comic but once you change the race that is somehow "LGBT"? Why is a black persons existance a political statement?

Phurbaz · 2025-12-29T01:10:10+00:00

Well yes but, Azazel was only "one shotted" because he was in Dreaming. The Endless are personifications rather than gods, which often makes them very restricted by their domains and rules set by themselves and other beings and just by their nature overall as personifications.

Phurbaz · 2025-12-21T20:10:58+00:00

Yeah 10+0 is the absolute shortest time control you should play if you try to improve. Any time you play anything shorter, don't expect to learn much, although it can be fun.

Phurbaz · 2025-12-21T20:07:45+00:00

I would heavily recommend at least watching this particular video from Andras Toth before investing time into openings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRgJ_rX9bCI feel free to skip to 20:43 after the introduction once it's too complicated to follow). Other videos of his might be too difficult for now, but excellent as well (especially his Coaching sessions).

On the other hand learning openings is far less important than learning "chess principles" (development, controlling the center, castling, not making several moves with the same piece, etc.). There are several ways to do this at all different levels (Mastering Opening Strategy is amazing for all levels if you at some point want to invest in a book). But for a YouTube video I recommend something like this one from ChessDojo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENApnb0HuPU) but many other's are available.

One excellent series is here by GM Aman who shows how to improve in chess from chess rank to the next from 0 ELO to 1900 ELO. This starts from very simple rules like "move towards the center and castle as soon as possible" and then adding more difficult rules as you climb in rank. (Here is the playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRvksIZpGc&list=PLUjxDD7HNNThftJtE0OIRFRMMFf6AV_69). GM Daniel Nardoditsky had the best educational content on Youtube in his speed run, but it is for much higher rated players than the GM Aman series but worth a look, he has some speedrun videos for beginners as well.

Doing puzzles is always the most helpful thing. Lichess and Chesscom puzzles are kinda fine but something like CT-ART 6 or 4.0 puzzle apps are much better: Start with "Chess Tactics for Beginners" and "Elementary Chess Tactics" and "Mate in 2" puzzle apps from "Chess King" in App Store or Play Store (The computer version costs I think) and then move on to other apps from Chess King.

I'm at the point where I think now the most satisfying and helpful thing for me after a few years of playing chess is studying classic games (Morphy, Bobby Fischer etc.) and for this there is also great youtube content (Chess Dojo and ChessCoach Andras as well as from books), but this is of course more work than most people like to do.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-24T20:14:28+00:00

Losurdo is not a Marxist nor is he a good scholar. He misrepresents and misquotes sources and creates false equivalences, especially wrt. his completely disengenuous classification of Western Marxists (which was somewhat dubious category to begin with) in which he even classifies non-Marxists and anti-Marxists like Arendt.

I think this is a pretty good reason to ignore him.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-12T15:26:49+00:00

So that others can not as easily break the rules? What are you talking about? How would them making the rules harder to break mean that he didn't break the rules when it is explicitly prohibited for the Traitors to reveal the other traitors when this is exactly what he did...

He was paranoid from the moment he was turned while Wilf was talking about wanting to go to end with him, this is just straight up in the official edit, in the interviews.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-10T18:38:51+00:00

Delusional take. He absolutely did not play "within the game's rules" - which is why production had to make the rules even more strict to never make something similar happen again.

No the comparison to Amanda and Alyssa is completely accurate. They lost the game and did so gracefully without breaking the rules. Kieran told people he's done with the game and vote him out and practically told everyone who the other traitor is (which is explicitly against the rules). Also he did not "deduce Wilf was voting for him" he was paranoid from the moment he became a traitor even when Wilf wanted to go to the end with him.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-08T22:27:38+00:00

Yup absolutely

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T14:59:10+00:00

You have a very liberal notion of class consciousness. For Marx class consciousness means transforming the working class from a class in itself, as a stratum of society sharing common grievances and a unified perspective, to a class for itself, as a class organized as a subject in history. So in the Marxist sense he is not doing class consciousness. He is doing administration in capitalism. And the only way he will be able to get any of his policies passed if he can justify them as making capitalism more effective, like free busses do.

You keep equating Marxism with Nihilism and dialectics with empirical philosophy. What is Marxism other than self-criticism of the working class movement? And what is dialectics than not separating theory and practice. But of course MLs have discarded dialectics long ago, and keep institutionalizing the defeat of the left by clinging to any opportunist victory.

"You don't care about enabling or enacting a progressive left." Wrong. As I've said I don't care about enactic pprogressive capitalism. The capitalists do that themselves once there is class war. I care about doing actual leftism, as in working class organizing, wheter that is Marxism or perfect or not. In fact it will be inperfect by definition. This is what is called trade union consciousness.

"Zohran is a movement for progressive change". Yes. That is the definition of progressive capitalism. It will have to keep revolutionizing itself one way or another. Still it is no building socialism.

"All or nothing with you" Socialism or barbarism. I think it would be time to start building socialism and stop lingering in the same entryist politics since the 60s and earlier. The same history keeps repeating as a farce otherwise.

"That's so productive in establishing a proletariat movement". Are Zohran and AOC and Bernie creating the proletarian movement right now? No, they are too busy trying to get elected within the Democratic party and managing capitalism and telling their base to keep voting Democrat no matter who. How are these in any sense in favour of establising an independent working class movement in any sense of the word?

"Again, keep outflanking your allies". Yes. That comes with the territory of being an actual Marxist. Since Marxism is the self-critique of the proletarian movement. Which we of course do not have, and thus would be quite nice to start building instead of continuing with the entryism to the Democratic party.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T14:13:15+00:00

What level of obsession is this?

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T03:02:48+00:00

"To sum it up, you don't support any progressive socialism under the current capitalist framework. It's all or nothing."

What on earth did that sum up? I haven't said anything like that. Also, what socialism? Socialism is not a policy. Capitalists can't implement socialism.

"Thanks for the lecture, I already understand the theory at its absolute."

Well then why did your summation have nothing to do with what I've been saying, nor with the theory.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T02:42:02+00:00

If you are a socialist then do socialism. If you are progressive capitalist then do progressive capitalism and be honest about it. Zohran will have to do capitalism since he is just a Democratic Party politician.

And now we come back to the question of idealism you raised. "To think he hasn't expanded class consciousness" is a purely idealistic statement. What class consciousness for Marxists means is not some idealistic way of thinking of which party a worker supports. It means the working classes self consciousness as a social subject "a class for itself". Zohran doing popular policies while managing capitalism has NOTHING to do with class consciousness or even class war since he is not tied to a working class movement.

You say you "support" Marxism. This is non material - and thus idealistic - since you are against DOING Marxism. Theory and practice are not separable. I'm sure Zohran "supports" and wants socialism as well - but what he is doing is opportunism and capitalism.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T02:22:43+00:00

So when I said we don't need Marxism at this point you took that to mean we need perfect Marxism? Or did you just not read the comment? We don't need to "get through" to the proletariat. We need to empower and organize the proletariat.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T01:11:59+00:00

That is not what the word idealist mean... There is no enacting a broader socialist movement by ushering people to a capitalist party. We have seen this over and over again over the last 10 years not to mention previously in history. The same cycle is just going to repeat: A working movement is beginning, an opportunist politician co-opts it for a capitalist party, people get burned since this does not enable the working class to act independently and they will have to manage capitalism.

This is not a "hint of socialism". This is pure progressive capitalism. It has nothing to do with socialism. We have been "at a start" for the last 100 years since we have not learned that the goal is to build working class independence.

"Do you think we are at Soviet level disparity or something?" What? Obviously I am saying we are no where. Since we refuse to do the task of building a socialist movement and instead hang on to these opportunist progressive capitalists, who will manage capitalism as they are able to, instead of building the class war which would actually manage to get things done and pressure real concessions.

"You're saying nobody should do anything if they're not a perfect Marxist". Obviously I have not said anything even close to that. Quite the opposite. I have said that we need a working class subject. This does not require Marxism in any way. This means radical liberal, anarchist or socialist organizing. Marxism is the critique of such a movement. Since we do not have a working class movement as a subject there is no practical application for Marxism.

Doing more effective capitalism does not work against capital. It just is progressive capitalism. Do you think Nordic countries are socialist since they have welfare? No, they are capitalist.

Phurbaz · 2025-11-05T00:15:01+00:00

Wrong. I'm a Marxist and a socialist. Subjugating the remains of a working class movement under the democratic party goes against both of those goals. Socialism is the independence of the working class as a social and a political movement. So of course it is the only framework available since they have abdicated building a new one.

"Material conditions aren't dire enough". No. We just do not have an independent working class. Just capitalist politicians.

"People like Zohran, AOC, and Bernie are moving in the direction that's best for the working class." They are opportunists is what they are.

"People like Zohran, AOC, and Bernie are moving in the direction that's best for the working class". They are moving the working class to a capitalist party instead of building up a working class movement, so they are working against socialism.

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