I somehow doubt the owners of Anthropic are revolutionary socialists or even just pro-union.

I’m not saying that imperialist aggression didn’t / doesn’t contribute to the collapse of socialist states - it most certainly does - I’m saying campists tend to get tunnel vision and think that it’s the only reason they fail. Cuba has actually been quite successful at enduring in spite of imperialist aggression, and I think there’s a lot of benefit in asking what it is they are doing better than past socialist states. In my opinion the answer lies in the fact that their governmental structure is far more horizontal in comparison to other attempts at socialism such as the USSR, and that has resulted in policy that is far more responsive to the specific material needs of local communities within Cuba. Contrast the USSR in which the pseudoscientific beliefs of a central authority figure turned what could have been a brief and localized food shortage into a full-blown famine spanning the entire union.

With regard to China being state capitalist, I skimmed the essay you linked well enough to see that it does not address the anarchist critique of state “socialism,” namely that state ownership does not truly constitute collective ownership because the state is a hierarchical institution that centralizes decision-making power in such a way that the will of the people affected is often ignored. Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge the undeniable successes and advantages of central planning when compared to the neoliberal method of not planning at all beyond the fiscal quarter, but those are not the only options. I believe that horizontal planning is superior to both, and is the only way for an economy to be truly socialist in character. Examples of this being done can even be found in the revolutions that created the USSR and the PRC before they seized state power. It’s also not a discrete binary; there is a spectrum between totalitarian dictatorship and full horizontalism, and the projects which are most successful tend to veer towards the latter rather than the former.

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How does this make sense in response to a meme showing that I support Palestine? I know y’all love to use rule 1 to censor people for “bigotry” but at least put some effort into making it plausible.

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I’m responding to the meme which presents learning and critique as separate and mutually exclusive. In order to learn from something you have to critique it, and if you believe that China is not perfect then you know this and should agree with me.

There’s also another thing you’re doing that I see MLs do all the time, which is posit that Chinese socialism is uniquely suited to China and that it must be implemented differently in other places. While I do agree that this is the case, I often see MLs use this argument to excuse flaws in the implementation of socialism in China as necessary alterations required due to the particular conditions and historical circumstances in which it was created.

IMO there were many wrong turns and mistakes that China made in its socialist transition that have had lasting negative consequences, and though they can often be explained by China’s particular conditions and historical circumstances, that doesn’t excuse them.

Learning and critique are the same thing. If you look at China and go “this is perfect in every way and we should copy it,” then you aren’t actually learning anything at all. In my experience MLs don’t get angry with anarchists and others critical of China because they don’t learn from Chinese socialism, but because they don’t like the conclusions they’ve made.

It’s what the kids these days are calling “friend-slop,” which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that most of the value comes from creating zany situations for your coop pals to get into and let hilarity ensue. It’s a bit like a lot of card games in that way, it’s simple because it mostly just has to get out of the players’ way and allow social interaction to happen.

They’re making an effort to make them illegal too.

Nice, more instructions to send to revolutionaries in Myanmar.

Not weird at all, they’re eating like many hunter-gatherer societies used to. It was very common to season meat with fruits and honey.

The US killed Iran’s leadership and strengthened their resolve. Now a bunch of younger, more creative, and more passionate people have taken leadership positions. Iranian propaganda has proven more effective and internet savvy, and their military decision-making has likely improved due to destagnation. Trump literally threatening to wipe the entire civilization off the face of the earth likely pushes Iranians who are against the regime to reconsider (even if only temporarily while they deal with the bigger threat), and I couldn’t say I wouldn’t make the same judgment if I were in their position. What a colossal failure, but hey, at least the defense contractors are making money, right? I can’t wait for the blowback from this to inspire the next round of interventions, if we’re even still around by then.

I used to think this way when I was miserable and disillusioned with society in general. When you approach life with the assumption that people are evil by default you tend to only notice things which affirm that belief. I’ve since made a lot of changes in my life and gained a new perspective, and I’ve found that I more frequently notice people doing small acts of kindness when they think no one’s looking. Most people want to do good, it’s just that they don’t often succeed.

Most people are good, it’s a wealthy few who exploit the planet and people for profit who are destroying the planet. The “humans are inherently selfish/evil” line only serves to protect those responsible from accountability by distributing the blame.

They’re not - or at least no one can reasonably claim ignorance now - and they have already voted for anti-genocide representatives in special elections and primaries thus far. It won’t be a wipeout across the board, but AIPAC will lose their stranglehold on US politics this primary season and they know it. They’ve been doing damage control rather than trying to get pro-Israel candidates elected recently.

Surely there’s an indie scene in Japan, no?

When most of the AIPAC candidates were elected the electorate was largely ignorant of Israel-Palestine.

I guess it depends on whether they’re referring to elected officials or the electorate, because support for the genocide is only mainstream among elected officials and not the electorate.

But they could also be referring to border policy, which is a little less straightforward, as a lot of the Democratic electorate still has some reactionary views on the border and immigration as a result of candidates and elected officials refusing to offer a counter-narrative to the “border crisis.”

Which views would those be?