THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
It’s not like it’s gonna take that long. And if not climate change, the AI they don’t fully understand but are trying to monetize. And if not AI, CRISPR derived vectors they don’t fully understand but are trying to monetize, etc.
Lets just stay the course. It will all work out in the end, at least for the planet, and that’s ultimately what matters.
The severe, civilization scale consequences of the damage we have done, are presently doing, and will continue to do for private profit to our only habitat we all depemd on for survival from one moment to the next also doesn’t care about statecraft or political science attempts to minimize/ignore/discredit it through self-serving rhetoric of those in political power attempting to maintain that power.
Sorry. No bullshitting our way out of this one like it’s just another human on human genocide we can rebrand and massage the messaging of. The physics are determinate, and no amount our patented human extracted snake oil will change that.
Try to spin the greed vice, failing, and personality deficit as a positive like “rational self-interest” all day. Humanity sanctioning and even encouraging that darkest of impulses did this.
I believe humanity has passed the point where we can. We lack the will. We’re monkeys just barely smart enough with concerted effort to create technologies we lack the impulse control to wield responsibly. We figured out gun powder, and proceeded to use it to commit genocides, for example.
This wasn’t a problem for the planet, only one another, until industrialization. Now we’re addicted to technologies that make wealthy people wealthier while poisoning our only shared habitat. Now we’re monkeys with multiple, competing self-destructive but potentially profitable technologies all vying to blow up in our face in the quest to enrich those that hold their patents, and they answer to no one. World governments instead seem to answer to them.
So yeah, I don’t see a non-violent solution where you put a big red nuclear button in an orangutan sanctuary that looks like their food dispenser button, and taking thr big red nuclear button away from them, even by force, is off the table.
I can only control myself, I can’t force my fellow peasants to stop digging their own graves to further enrich a few thousand sociopath families who’ve convinced them this is the only way. There’s peace in acceptance I suppose.
Okay sure, so what examples do you have of a successful modern revolution?
Bonus points if you can name one where the winners didn’t just immediately change the rules and continue fucking over the little guy.
Another bonus point if you can name an example where a revolution didn’t result in disproportionate civilian deaths relative to the ‘bad guys’.
Then again, maybe you’re one of those ‘the end justifies the means’ kind of guys, who fantasizes about saving the rest of us by way of firing squad. If that’s the case, I’ll expect you to be on the front line to fight the government funded military force that shows up.
Or maybe, just maybe you’re another lame ass tankie who talks a big game, but would piss their pants if someone so much as gave you a dirty look IRL.
Soviet revolution in Russia, Revolution in China, in Cuba, in Vietnam, in Laos, in Nicaragua, just to name a few.
Bonus points if you can name one where the winners didn’t just immediately change the rules and continue fucking over the little guy.
None of the above examples did anything of the sort as anybody with even a modicum of historical literacy knows.
Another bonus point if you can name an example where a revolution didn’t result in disproportionate civilian deaths relative to the ‘bad guys’.
Define what’s disproportionate and how you decide on what’s proportionate.
Then again, maybe you’re one of those ‘the end justifies the means’ kind of guys, who fantasizes about saving the rest of us by way of firing squad. If that’s the case, I’ll expect you to be on the front line to fight the government funded military force that shows up.
Then again, maybe you’re one of those people who are benefiting from capitalism and don’t care about the suffering of other people as long as you got yours.
Or maybe, just maybe you’re another lame ass tankie who talks a big game, but would piss their pants if someone so much as gave you a dirty look IRL.
Or maybe, just maybe you’re an ignorant dronie who is as illiterate as you’re ignorant.
And they will continue to become stuck in the dictatorship phase until you acknowledge that you cannot create political agency via mass murder of innocents.
Western society is built on genocide and slavery. Latest example of that is the war on terror where US regime massacred over 6 million innocent people to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East.
Honestly the whole “eat the rich” thing is pretty offensive if you know your Chinese history, considering ritualistic torture cannibalism actually happened during the cultural revolution and is pretty well documented from actual CCP sources. In this case “the rich” were actually teachers and scientists.
i’d do some intellectual property reform.
some banking reform - more local / peer group/long term lending requirements, less fickle international finance. (and less fucking mortgage bubbles!)
some small business support / starter initiatives - link that in with how banks work.
i’d consider lobbying for some government sposored work to generate open source plans and enable production processes for useful tools - Okay that isn’t going to happen , , ,
but it’s not all or nothing, but you can do things to help some more workers control and access more of their tooling even if its not outright ownership of the end to end production process.
(By the way i’m basically arguing for a more “free” market in the ecnomic sense (easy access for a large number of small scale producers). . . which is exactly not what large-scale capitalists want.
They want a market “free” from any thing that might regulate their attempts to secure economic power and their abiity to use it to generate supernormal prices/profits.)
Progress doesnt happen in 4-5 year political cycles thats a hard one to improve without an electorate capable (any maybe secure enough) to thing about the longer term. Odd that it was extreme econmic and political uncertainty that brought out the likes of FDR and other post-war that people were most willing to think long term when it came to their governemnts - I guess it brought out all sorts of “crazies”.
The big one in terms of bloodshed is land reform - and it has been done in a few places - sort of post-colonial type situations - but granted it does ususally have blooodshed. It’s a personal judgment what degree is “excessive bloodshed”.
What does bank reform mean? Banks already give loans to small bussinesses.
You can start a company that does what you want them to do. You can create all the innovative processes you want and open source them in the existing system.
Take the route California is taking and educate the kids about worker’s rights. Teach them it’s not okay to be exploited at the work place and encourage them to tell their parents about it. Civics classes should also be taught to learn how the government works and what people’s rights are under the Constitution. Encourage people to unionize now that they know how the system works.
Once the basics have been taught, elect people who care about government reform for social policies by paying for them with higher corporate and personal wealth taxes. Reform the tax system the wealthy have been using to hide their money. All their money is tied up in stocks and they’re living off of multimillion dollar loans? Fuck them, tax a big percentage of the loan. All these things can be done to indirectly seize the fruits of their production at least.
The women of Iceland went on strike in 1975, they stopped doing literally everything, walked out of the home, left the kids, to demonstrate how much the system would crumble without them, how important they are to everything being able to function, and ask for equal pay. They flipped everything overnight.
The current system is all the workers do all the work, and the profits from that work go almost entirely to some douvhe who won birth lotto. The system is already rigged. Unrigging the system would look like walking off the job, but globally. It’s going to happen. Society is squeezed too tightly, there’s going to be havoc.
How exactly? Other than excessive bloodshed, which - other than edgelord tankies - most people would neither want, nor have the stomach to pursue.
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
Agreed, lets just keep doing whatever the capitalists demand until their insatiable greed destroys them and us.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxdxa/1500-scientists-warn-society-could-collapse-this-century-in-dire-climate-report
It’s not like it’s gonna take that long. And if not climate change, the AI they don’t fully understand but are trying to monetize. And if not AI, CRISPR derived vectors they don’t fully understand but are trying to monetize, etc.
Lets just stay the course. It will all work out in the end, at least for the planet, and that’s ultimately what matters.
I understand the bitterness, but whoever said the commenter wanted to do what capitalists demand? They just wanted to avoid bloodshed.
There are always options like general strikes, massive voting movements, etc. It’s just a matter of figuring out what will work and how to do it.
If you’re arguing that capitalists will respond with violence, that’s fair, but then the blame is on them, not the workers
These people don’t actually care about statecraft or political science. It’s all about fan service for them.
The severe, civilization scale consequences of the damage we have done, are presently doing, and will continue to do for private profit to our only habitat we all depemd on for survival from one moment to the next also doesn’t care about
statecraft or political scienceattempts to minimize/ignore/discredit it through self-serving rhetoric of those in political power attempting to maintain that power.Sorry. No bullshitting our way out of this one like it’s just another human on human genocide we can rebrand and massage the messaging of. The physics are determinate, and no amount our patented human extracted snake oil will change that.
Try to spin the greed vice, failing, and personality deficit as a positive like “rational self-interest” all day. Humanity sanctioning and even encouraging that darkest of impulses did this.
That isn’t what I said and I think you know it. Next time just say you don’t know the answer either and save yourself the effort.
I know what humans are going to do by our track record. Kick the can until there is a physical obstruction preventing it.
We will talk the biggest of games claiming otherwise the whole time, though. Surely rhetoric will save the day this time!
You seem to know a lot for a guy who hasn’t been able to suggest any kind of realistic solution.
I believe humanity has passed the point where we can. We lack the will. We’re monkeys just barely smart enough with concerted effort to create technologies we lack the impulse control to wield responsibly. We figured out gun powder, and proceeded to use it to commit genocides, for example.
This wasn’t a problem for the planet, only one another, until industrialization. Now we’re addicted to technologies that make wealthy people wealthier while poisoning our only shared habitat. Now we’re monkeys with multiple, competing self-destructive but potentially profitable technologies all vying to blow up in our face in the quest to enrich those that hold their patents, and they answer to no one. World governments instead seem to answer to them.
So yeah, I don’t see a non-violent solution where you put a big red nuclear button in an orangutan sanctuary that looks like their food dispenser button, and taking thr big red nuclear button away from them, even by force, is off the table.
I can only control myself, I can’t force my fellow peasants to stop digging their own graves to further enrich a few thousand sociopath families who’ve convinced them this is the only way. There’s peace in acceptance I suppose.
Revolutions have happened and will continue to happen regardless of how much smug liberals will bloviate about edgelord tankies.
Okay sure, so what examples do you have of a successful modern revolution?
Bonus points if you can name one where the winners didn’t just immediately change the rules and continue fucking over the little guy.
Another bonus point if you can name an example where a revolution didn’t result in disproportionate civilian deaths relative to the ‘bad guys’.
Then again, maybe you’re one of those ‘the end justifies the means’ kind of guys, who fantasizes about saving the rest of us by way of firing squad. If that’s the case, I’ll expect you to be on the front line to fight the government funded military force that shows up.
Or maybe, just maybe you’re another lame ass tankie who talks a big game, but would piss their pants if someone so much as gave you a dirty look IRL.
Soviet revolution in Russia, Revolution in China, in Cuba, in Vietnam, in Laos, in Nicaragua, just to name a few.
None of the above examples did anything of the sort as anybody with even a modicum of historical literacy knows.
Define what’s disproportionate and how you decide on what’s proportionate.
Then again, maybe you’re one of those people who are benefiting from capitalism and don’t care about the suffering of other people as long as you got yours.
Or maybe, just maybe you’re an ignorant dronie who is as illiterate as you’re ignorant.
And they will continue to become stuck in the dictatorship phase until you acknowledge that you cannot create political agency via mass murder of innocents.
Creating political agency via mass murder of innocents is the basis for the western system of government buddy.
This doesn’t make any sense
Western society is built on genocide and slavery. Latest example of that is the war on terror where US regime massacred over 6 million innocent people to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East.
Be me. Swedish. Wake up and go to genocide factory. Get home from genocide factory. Make chicken potstickers.
Read “riding the wave” fo learn about how Scandinavian countries are beneficiaries of the imperialist system
not far from the truth really https://www.corpwatch.org/article/swedish-paper-manufacturing-giant-blacklisted-child-labor-practices
General strike (like the writers guild, except everyone) until the distribution of (a part of the) dividends to the workers is enshrined into law.
Sounds pretty doable to me.
Honestly the whole “eat the rich” thing is pretty offensive if you know your Chinese history, considering ritualistic torture cannibalism actually happened during the cultural revolution and is pretty well documented from actual CCP sources. In this case “the rich” were actually teachers and scientists.
So they didn’t eat the rich.
i’d do some intellectual property reform.
some banking reform - more local / peer group/long term lending requirements, less fickle international finance. (and less fucking mortgage bubbles!)
some small business support / starter initiatives - link that in with how banks work.
i’d consider lobbying for some government sposored work to generate open source plans and enable production processes for useful tools - Okay that isn’t going to happen , , ,
but it’s not all or nothing, but you can do things to help some more workers control and access more of their tooling even if its not outright ownership of the end to end production process.
(By the way i’m basically arguing for a more “free” market in the ecnomic sense (easy access for a large number of small scale producers). . . which is exactly not what large-scale capitalists want.
They want a market “free” from any thing that might regulate their attempts to secure economic power and their abiity to use it to generate supernormal prices/profits.)
Progress doesnt happen in 4-5 year political cycles thats a hard one to improve without an electorate capable (any maybe secure enough) to thing about the longer term. Odd that it was extreme econmic and political uncertainty that brought out the likes of FDR and other post-war that people were most willing to think long term when it came to their governemnts - I guess it brought out all sorts of “crazies”.
The big one in terms of bloodshed is land reform - and it has been done in a few places - sort of post-colonial type situations - but granted it does ususally have blooodshed. It’s a personal judgment what degree is “excessive bloodshed”.
What does bank reform mean? Banks already give loans to small bussinesses.
You can start a company that does what you want them to do. You can create all the innovative processes you want and open source them in the existing system.
Start by taking about your wages. Most people won’t even do that, for fear of reprisals. Even though it’s protected federally.
Casually bringing up support for unions, and those on strike.
This is base level, and in many places, will take a long time to see movement.
Take the route California is taking and educate the kids about worker’s rights. Teach them it’s not okay to be exploited at the work place and encourage them to tell their parents about it. Civics classes should also be taught to learn how the government works and what people’s rights are under the Constitution. Encourage people to unionize now that they know how the system works.
Once the basics have been taught, elect people who care about government reform for social policies by paying for them with higher corporate and personal wealth taxes. Reform the tax system the wealthy have been using to hide their money. All their money is tied up in stocks and they’re living off of multimillion dollar loans? Fuck them, tax a big percentage of the loan. All these things can be done to indirectly seize the fruits of their production at least.
The women of Iceland went on strike in 1975, they stopped doing literally everything, walked out of the home, left the kids, to demonstrate how much the system would crumble without them, how important they are to everything being able to function, and ask for equal pay. They flipped everything overnight.
The current system is all the workers do all the work, and the profits from that work go almost entirely to some douvhe who won birth lotto. The system is already rigged. Unrigging the system would look like walking off the job, but globally. It’s going to happen. Society is squeezed too tightly, there’s going to be havoc.