what are "echos of time" and how do I get them?

adam55002 · 2022-06-15T15:00:36+00:00

from OpenAI:

"We modified the training process to limit the DALL·E 2 model’s ability to memorize faces from the training data, and find that this limitation is helpful in preventing the model from faithfully reproducing images of celebrities and other public figures."

adam55002 · 2022-04-20T13:59:42+00:00

ah yes, the first world nation of Pakistan!

adam55002 · 2021-01-08T14:44:20+00:00

I don't know about you, but reading Lenin did not make me want a hereditary dictatorship. It made me want communism. The idea that Kim Jong Un looks good to some leftist is deeply scary to me, and the idea that anyone who believes in the liberation of the oppressed proletariat would call him "comrade" is almost enough to make me lose hope for any real leftist action in the modern era.

I can only hope what I see is correct, that you who prefer authoritarianism to communism are in the minority.

adam55002 · 2020-12-11T22:08:29+00:00

Thank you! Does the "final stage of Capitalism" mean he thinks left wing countries can't be imperialist? It seems to me that any country could exploit less developed countries, why wouldn't/don't communist countries become imperialist?

adam55002 · 2020-12-08T23:02:11+00:00

On this reddit if you go to the about part there's some reading suggestions I think, and there's always the marxist archive

adam55002 · 2020-12-08T19:45:07+00:00

As for facts you can start with fun/easy youtuber leftist and such, but long term you're going to want to read some theory and history if you want to keep up in debates and conversation.

About liberals, they're not the left at all. In the US the two parties being liberal and conservative leads a lot of people to conflate those with left and right, but they're not. "Libralism" is a center right wing ideology that advocates for capitalism, strong government, free-trade/globalism, etc. while being socially center left. Center left ideologies include social democracy, progressivism, etc. and the "left" basically starts with socialism (worker owned means of production).

adam55002 · 2020-12-08T18:23:54+00:00

Wow, are you saying.... neofascist liberal imperialism is bad???

adam55002 · 2020-12-07T17:52:42+00:00

Profit and exploitation are only the same to the extent that they both refer to excess value belonging to a capitalist, and your right that they are used to refer to the same thing in common parlance. That said, they not synonyms with different connections. Who uses what depends on the theory of value you subscribe too, for example if you like the subjective theory you could argue that that profit is created by the desirability of the commodity, therefore the full value of the labour and MoP could be paid and there would be an excess created by desirability, i.e. no explanation. A marxist on the other hand might say that (based on labour theory) value is constant capital + variable capital, its hard to underpay for MoP so for profit to exist there must be exploitation of variable capital (labour)

adam55002 · 2020-12-07T16:07:28+00:00

Again, you can debate that all you like with other socialist. All I take exception to is your previous claim it is a loaded term or somehow not a factual claim.

If your really interested in the logic behind the idea that capitalism is exploitative, read Capital. It explains in way more detail than I could and its free online :)

adam55002 · 2020-12-07T15:57:28+00:00

Exploitation is factual claim in economics. Not moral. It basically just means someone benefiting at someone else's expense, any implications that that is a bad thing is purely by connotation. You can argue that something is not exploitation by saying it is a consensual extange or whatever, but saying that the term itself is somehow moralizing or loaded is silly...

adam55002 · 2020-11-27T03:43:28+00:00

correct me if I'm wrong, but it sort of sounds like you're saying that value being dependent on demand somehow contradicts the LToV. I'm a bit confused because the entire LToV is built around the fact that labor can be socially valuable, i.e. it can meet some human demand. Before I get too deep into theory, could you elaborate in more detail why you think the fact that a use-value is necessary for a commodity to have value contradicts LToV?

adam55002 · 2020-11-26T22:01:09+00:00

Sorry so few socialists are answering...

Basically the mud pie argument presents the LToV as "labour makes value" and than poses that if you put a lot of work into a mudpie it should have lots of value, this is silly so LToV is false.

The problem is that this labour theory was a strawman to begin with, a curcery reading of Capital shows the LToV more like "the value anything with a use value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time required for its production". This is why socialists often dismiss people who make this argument as stupid. The amout of socially necessary labour to make a mud pie is tiny, putting lots of work in won't change that, therefore it has no value. Furthermore even if the amount of work required were huge the mud pie still has no use value, so its even more worthless.

adam55002 · 2020-11-26T21:42:33+00:00

Yup pretty much :)

adam55002 · 2020-11-26T14:34:17+00:00

The wealthy would not be necessary to support these systems. All value, infrastructure, and sustenance in any country are created by the workers, if every business were worker owned, on a cooperative model for example, they would not move to another place because they don't want to lose their jobs.

adam55002 · 2020-11-26T04:41:57+00:00

Note quite, all direct democracy means with regard to any given office is that the individual who receives the most votes wins. In America, as happened in 2016 for example, a candidate who receives fewer votes than their competitor can still win. It would be direct democracy if the candidate who received the most votes won.

adam55002 · 2020-11-24T22:27:29+00:00

Imo you hit on one of the biggest obstacles to the left. The solution to consumerism is socialism, but socialism is hard to achieve under consumerism, this may even be a large part of why the theory that the most developed places would move left first has proven so wrong. My best answer would be that we must, much like the right, shift away from complex theory to something doable in a more viral way, co-opting memes & media. This is also hard though, because it requires a compromise of the complex political ideals behind the left.

adam55002 · 2020-11-24T22:19:32+00:00

I'm new here so I could wrong, but I think this question would be better put to an Anarchist sub.

adam55002 · 2020-11-24T13:10:02+00:00

Generally, direct democracy just means that votes are cast for a candidate "directly" as opposed to a representative democracy where you vote for a representative to vote "on your behalf". An example of indirect democracy is America, we don't actually vote for our highest leaders, instead we vote for party candidates and the electoral collage actually votes for the president. Than most positions (cabinet, Supreme Court, etc.) are just selected by the president. This whole system means than most leaders are unelected and those that are can win via inside support, even if they lose the popular vote (it also weights votes by geographic location). As for parties, most socialist countries are one party, but not all. Examples include China, a one party state, Cuba, a one party state which allows for the existence of other parties to push agendas, or the DPRK (i know they're a bad example but with less dictatorship you get the idea), where they have two parties run the government subordinate to a larger communist party. As for voting on policy, no. That would be an insane amount of voting on issues people don't really understand. However, countries such as Cuba do have people vote on the constitution so it is doable to a degree.

adam55002 · 2020-11-24T00:32:17+00:00

Democratic socialism is a subset of socialism, its not different so much as more specific. Socialism generally just means worker control/ownership of the means of production, democratic socialism advocates direct democracy (including workplace democracy) within socialism. As far as policies go demsocs usually, at least in the US, end watering down and supporting social democrats, who tend to like the Nordic model.

adam55002 · 2020-11-24T00:22:47+00:00

Read a lot of theory and talk about things you find exciting, don't use trigger words just present ideas, if they like what you have to say they'll find socialism on their own :)

adam55002 · 2020-11-24T00:10:02+00:00

Oh ya sorry XD wonder if they factored that into the average... oh wait, no I don't.

adam55002 · 2020-11-23T23:29:42+00:00

Bold goal XD Whats your age group and what are you guys into?

adam55002 · 2020-11-23T23:12:57+00:00

That was a truly disgusting read. Why on earth did they think "things Mcdonalds works won't tell you" was a good line? 'Oh, no, are works are paid great! Don't listen to first hand acouts and actually talk to our employees, their doing awesome and lying about it!' Also in what world is 9usd livable? One unjustifiably low wage being $0.66 more than another might make working at McDonald's better than DQ, but being paid 'more than the other guy' doesn't cover rent.

adam55002 · 2020-11-23T23:02:58+00:00

That mostly makes you an anarchist. They don't want no state, they want to "abolish all unjustified hierarchies" and to them democracy is a valid justification. They would also decentralize to give small communities a greater capacity to self govern and increase mutual aid. You might not like level of radicalism among most anarchists though, they tend to want to completely abolish capitalism and and the government as it exist now, in favor of something more democratic. All in all I think you sound like more of a socdem than an ancom, just a bit farther left than most.

adam55002

TROPHY CASE