WhyEssEff

Release order on first experience is the only way guaranteed to not create unnecessary confusion. Works in a continuity that are released after each other tend rely upon prior knowledge of the work to accentuate the experience. Inventing a new angle to experience them through may be valuable as an artistic exercise, but it is very clearly a bad idea to recommend that angle to newcomers. Release order is specifically reliable because it tracks either the creative process/development of ideas in cases of straightforward serialization, or in case of intentionality in release order follows author intent.

The only time a bespoke work order is even debatable is in cases of an adaptation of a work that is not adapted in release order of the original work. Even then, that adaptation may work around that in a way where it makes it, too, confusing to experience outside of its own release order.

we could have had jury trials but you were so WOKE that I'm now AGAINST them. It's YOUR FAULT THAT I'M LIKE THIS! YOU DID THIS TO ME! WITNESS ME!

I'm going to keep agitating this at the general cohort of Unalloyed Posters, especially now. There is no excuse at this point. You will not imagine socialism into reality. You will not imagine us out of capitalism. You need to do what you can as soon as you can and the time is and always has been Now to start locking in.

Go outside and organize. By organize, I specifically mean join a local chapter of an existing socialist organization that exists and is real and is comprised of socialists and go to their meetings and events and demonstrations as much as life allows you to.

(EDIT: And if there are no local chapters--even if there ARE local chapters--get to know your neighbors and get to know your coworkers. An antisocial socialist is a contradiction upon themself. Talk to the people around you. Push yourself to put yourself out there. Combating alienation is praxis. The more communal a community is, the more will to resist it can summon. You hear it in Minneapolis right now--the people on the ground right now are fighting for their neighbors! Take the community out of communism and you get sadomasochism.)^1

I genuinely don't care if there's no organization that is aligned 1:1 with your sensibilities/preferences. If you actually care, you need to do the work to move the one that is closest to your sensibilities in that direction. Stop whinging over which specific one you join for fear of missing out on the vanguard party or whatever. My local DSA and PSL chapters coordinate with each other when prudent. Stop treating this like it's team sports. It's an unserious approach. You are not locked in forever to a specific org when you join it. You can change orgs. Membership is not a blood pact. You need to join an org first to do that, though. You need to join an org and you need to be an active part of your org.

Otherwise, please spare the world from irresponsible, ungrounded 'critique.' Without grounding in reality, without real organization and the insight it provides, it is utter drivel. Stop pre-emptively guarding yourself against disappointment. It's cowardly and pathetic. It's even more embarrassing than terminal vote-brain. At least voters walk their talk (voting and doing nothing for the next four years).

A bunch of willpower better spent organizing (or even just joining up with an organization) is spent (by some, less so talking about the people actually in orgs) being hyper-vigilant about movement infiltration. It serves to funnel the conversation into infighting and discord. Paranoia neuters solidarity.

It's to the point where I think we (communists and fellow travelers) just have to operate our opsec (or expectations of opsec) as if we (communists in orgs) know there are going to be a high volume of saboteurs and hoping we can drown or bait them out naturally. As in, stop trying to dig them out and start putting out traps, if that makes sense.

I guess I mean to say an infiltrated movement that exists is infinitely better than a secure movement that won't happen. We can strive for the latter, but you have to assume there is spies, infiltrators, etc. This is a class war. Your enemies will attempt to undermine you. Learn to operate in that environment or else you will do nothing at all.

Like, yeah, they can 'get away with' ending soft power. They can 'get away with' extrajudicial killings. They're operating off of pure machismo right now. They're getting drunk on their vices. They're stripping masks where masks wouldn't be advised to be stripped. I feel like I understand now that Fascism is, in part, an expression of weakness. They wouldn't be doing this unless they were scared. It's too volatile. It feels both too late on a power-level and too early on a popular-level. Never mind the ticking time bomb that is AI data centers. It feels like, and I'm sure this is cope, there is a timer on their ability to run the circus much longer.

My first instinct here is to doubt myself, intellectual pessimism and all. In that vein, maybe this is just revolutionary optimism, but we're at the point where it feels like there is a palpable anger brewing in the basement. I don't know. Maybe Palantir works as an anti-communist panopticon and we just death spiral forever. I don't want to lose hope.

like are you telling me it's important to have the members of enforcement be well-read on the philosophy that is supposed to undergird The Founding Of The State. Are you telling me it is their job to Protect The Project. Are you telling me the only way to stop naked subversion of The Project by bad actors is by having A Force That Maintains The Project's Ideals. A Guard Of Sorts. Maybe One That Leads The Defense. A Leading Guard. A Guard At The Front. A Front Guard. I never considered that. Please, I'd love to talk with you about what else we could draw from this novel line of questioning you're putting down, I think we're onto something here.

i.e. "go organize" "do direct action"

like to me it very much betrays the fact that no one in the conversation has any idea What Is To Be Done at all. It feels like the Online Marxist version of "It's not my job to educate you." I genuinely think treating these words as shibboleths is extremely disorganizing if someone is signalling "I feel impotent here and I am horrified and want to help, how do I help in a way that matters."

imo abstraction in general is a spectre haunting the American Left (i.e. demonstrating for demonstrations sake being diffusive). that and defaulting to "go do Propaganda of the Deed." in my bones I feel that most of the time there is a specific action one can arrive at in which the premise is neither vibes nor killing someone that would materially address a specific issue.

~~tl;dr: NYC-DSA and NYC PSL should be actively considering the logistics of an attempt to dearrest Maduro~~

~~tl;dr 2: break into Weapons Factories and pour substances on the machines~~

like holy shit the bourgeoisie are trying to kill us all actively en masse within our lifetimes and all movement against it feels like it has died come the 20s. Every time it gets brought up it feels like people are either revelling in it, are denying it, are too tired to care, say “someone's going to fix it so there's no point in worrying," or get angry asking "well what do you want me to do about it I can't fix it" or something. It feels like we're in a moment where we have just abandoned science all together in the decaying west, so the plan is almost like to keep attacking the biosphere out of spite for everyone around us.

It feels Lovecraftian, I can't think about it because every time I do it paralyzes me in awe of the urgency and scope of what has to be done. Do I just stop thinking about it? I guess the answer is to keep organizing but I'm scared that we don't have enough time at this rate to address it before it gets catastrophic and has irreversible effects

It's not vice-signaling because that's only a tactic, same with ragebait. Nihilism is too broad and contradicts with the bible-thumpers that also engage in this. It's like what Sartre describes in the "anti-Semites" excerpt. I really think there is a coherent phenomenon that encapsulates this. I think the best way I can describe it personally is 'bloodsport politics' but words are kinda failing me here. ~~I might already know it even and could just be having a brain blip~~

unfortunately his current position is textbook Type 1 Liberalism

Big Boss when the photos of him and Jeffrey Epstein get leaked to the press and he has to hold a presser to clarify that he was actually just MSF's Mossad contact