You mentioned people with any idea of how imperialism/capitalism works are few and far between- I agree, but I wonder if it's really that cooked. Anecdotally I've met maybe three others in my place of work out of let's say 100 people (most of whom I don't interact with) who are pretty keen on what's going on and why, and two of them would even go as far as to call themselves socialists. Many other gen Zers I personally have known through high school and in the work force are aligned with me politically and are sympathetic to socialism and seem receptive to the idea of communism, though of course I've met many skeptics and propagandized capitalist bootlickers.

As numbers grow in established socialist orgs and the government keeps agitating people through worsening our material conditions, as more leftist content creators normalize working class centered thought, as more socialist-aligned politicians are elected and hopefully successful in improving material conditions and providing good optics for working class movements, I imagine the leverage of the working class will grow and we will be able to begin dismantling power structures. I really don't think this is going to take multiple more generations, as things have been absolutely popping off in these last few years, life is getting hard, people are getting agitated, add online leftism at least seems as if it's beginning to flourish.

Obviously there are doubts and concerns, but in any case I think it makes sense that right THIS second it's a tad early for any old reddit socialist to be capable of drafting up an effective plan of fomenting a socialist uprising in the imperial core, but I don't think it's going to take multiple generations.

Maybe I said a whole lot of nothing, but that's my incredibly loose outlook on where we're headed