balsoft

If you have even a few hours of spare time, read the Communist Manifesto and Lenin's "What is to be done". The latter one is a bit harsh and not entirely agreeable, but proposes effective techniques of class warfare.

Almost half of young adults (historically, this is the demographic that will be effecting the revolution) in the US agree that socialism is good, it's just that almost nobody is willing to do anything to achieve it because they feel alone and disconnected. Build the connections, build the communities. Join the PSL or any other socialist/communist/anarchist org near you.

More practically, learn how to operate & purchase a weapon. It might be needed in the coming years, even if just for self-defense. If history is anything to go by, the fascists who gain power are not going to stop at the current level of violence.

The checks and balances are working mostly as intended. The purpose of the system is:

1. Protect the oligarchy from external threats, should any anti-oligarch politician slip by all the various election disenfranchisement techniques,
2. Moderate any conflicts between factions of the oligarchy to stabilize the dictatorship of the capital.

As far as I can tell,

1. Billionaires are making more billions every day while the rest struggle to get by,
2. Almost all dem politicians and their wealthy neoliberal donors are doing alright despite a literal fascist party being in power.

Besides, even when someone like Mamdani gets elected, they can't effect any meaningful change because they are "checked" by the pro-capitalist legislature and "balanced" by the corrupt judiciary.

It doesn't need a reboot, it needs a complete realignment of who's in charge.

Reminds me how a couple months ago SCOTUS decided that federal government paying states for SNAP was irreparable harm, and people dying from hunger wasn't. It shows the logic underlying both fascism and capitalism quite clearly.

The vote counter seems to be broken (it's different on different Lemmy instances), is this the same issue as Mastodon not federating likes properly?

Otherwise, nice! While I am sure Bluesky will enshittify in the long run, for now they seem vaguely better than other corporate social media. Federation can help us make more people aware of the AP Fediverse, or worst-case just have more users to share memes with

Cowbee is like the nicest user on here. Interesting that they smeared him specifically, I guess otherwise people might actually read his posts on their merits and think that socialism is good or something, can't have that.

I meant it more as a statement of fact, "most of the world is leaving the US behind". You are 100% correct on the "why".

How do they compare with China in terms of energy use per capita? China is the world's factory, this level of industrial output requires a lot of energy.

Ah yes, anarchism. Arguing for replacing a partially democratic theocracy with a batshit insane fascist monarchy, for the purpose of letting the US privatize the oil fields. This is some Dali levels of insanity (but with none of the talent)

Freedom in the future will require us to have the capacity to monitor our devices and set meaningful policy on them, to examine and terminate the processes that run on them, to maintain them as honest servants to our will, and not as traitors and spies working for criminals, thugs, and control freaks. And we haven't lost yet, but we have to win the copyright wars to keep the Internet and the PC free and open. Because these are the materiel in the wars that are to come, we won't be able to fight on without them. And I know this sounds like a counsel of despair, but as I said, these are early days. We have been fighting the mini-boss, and that means that great challenges are yet to come.

(emphasis mine)

I think Cory was pretty clear that it wasn't just about copyright and DRM, and the enemy will come up with new ways to achieve its goals. That article was about the first battles in the war, we're now entering the midgame.