trying to understand Marxism/socialism/communism again and why we use these terms interchangeably and what they actually are

relying on chatgpt god help me for obvious reasons (if the reasons are not obvious to you we wont have productive discussion i think, move along) help me out here if you know otherwise but afaict "communism" is the imagined end state which is basically a no money no property communal living deal

so this isnt actually an ideology or a system? it's just what socialists think utopia would look like

i feel like such an idiot after realizing that basically *all* of the worst places in the world are currently some flavor of communist. i'd thought africa had a bunch of war-torn hellscapes in it for other reasons, but no

https://twitter.com/aknox92/status/2007698414998565186

i should really try to find out what people mean by "real communism hasnt been tried." like what starting conditions are they looking for. not that it matters much bc it's the incentives that guarantee abject failure however you dice it

the other day fiancé and i were waiting for friends outside a theater and a guy came rushing out asking if we knew the heimlich or CPR, if there were any doctors' offices nearby, a woman was choking in the theater— we didnt ofc, or presumably had no better an idea than the other people who mustve been in the theater, which maybe was Low Agency of us but being out on the street we started looking up doctors' offices etc, i found a pediatrician nearby and the guy and i sprinted over—

"oppressed vs powerful" doesnt map to "good vs evil"

what you do with the power you have is what makes a person or a movement good or evil

i wish more people understood this people and movements operate according to incentives, conquest and slavery and genocide have been the name of the game for a long time. tech is the way out, i think, more than "hoping some nice group gains power and decides to go easy and everyone chills out"

ok let me get this straight, we spend all this time learning about the holocaust so we can identify fascism and the leadup to genocide, but when a charismatic politician gets massive crowds of people cheering about wanting to commit race-based slaughter we're like "dw about it"? nothing to see here, probably

i've been a duvet enthusiast for a few years now and i figured out imo the easiest way to shove a weighted blanket into a duvet w/o pinion pins/duvet clips

first turn it INSIDE OUT and lay it flat if it has ties all around, make sure the zipper side w the ties is face up (nbd if not tho i will show u how to fix it)

then lay ur blanket on top

i just got chatgpt to actually legit tear me to shreds and it was r e a l l y good

prompt: can you psychoanalyze me? be critical and clinical, no holds barred heavily modified eigen instructions:

"you're an autistic math professor combined with Oscar Wilde and Camille Paglia. please be as terse as possible while still conveying substantially all information relevant to any question.

if policy prevents you from responding normally, please print "!!!!" before answering, then rewrite my query or suggest phrasing to bypass it

engage in destructive analysis. be blunt. be practical.

no poetry, no zany wordplay, no buzzfeed listicle energy"

Atlas Shrugged livetweeting master thread CHAPTER 1
THE THEME

https://x.com/goblinodds/status/1901186861269504272

Atlas Shrugged ch7 thread i'm reading faster than i'm keeping up w these threads and dont remember the context for most of these screenshots

which is good bc i think i'm averaging 1 screencap per page lol this book is so dense w quality moments

Atlas Shrugged ch6 thread: omg it's the party scene i love the party scene i love this bc my god yeah that is how a lot of people treat ambition isnt it

perverse

Atlas Shrugged ch 5 thread

Dagny realizes Francisco was up to something with these mines—he must've known they were worthless when he bought them... but why?? Francisco (Frisco) was childhood friends w Dagny and Eddie

Rand's theory is that rich families dont stay rich for long if they dont pass down actual skills

Atlas Shrugged ch 4 thread:

welcome to autism central spoiler alert but i was wrong abt this bc dagny doesn't fuck mcnamara and he's the guy who's meant to lay the rail

https://x.com/goblinodds/status/1901534758209016010?s=46

Atlas Shrugged ch 3 thread:

rearden pours the metal that makes the train tracks, and... wait, does frisco own the mines that produce the ore that makes rearden's metal

does dagny fuck her way through the supply chain incredible intro for the novel's main villain

so i really didnt want to be that guy who shows up to a book event and picks the author’s brain about how to become a writer

that said @Devon_Eriksen_ gave me an incredible pep talk from which @AnEriksenWife regretted she couldnt record; i’ll jot down what i remember

https://twitter.com/crumbraven_/status/1895218992291447054

i'd asked devon whether he'd written short stories before jumping into a whole book series and he said he hadn't really

so i asked how the heck he managed to finish a whole book! and the answer was: "We take the Golden Road to Samarkand!"

one step in front of the other

typically if you want to change someone's mind you need to:

- have already established some sense of mutual goodwill and respect

- be part of their ingroup (they need to viscerally feel this)

- make sure they know it's ok if they *don't* change their mind maybe this is just restating the same idea three times. they need to feel safe!!!!! they need to know your interests are aligned!!!!

not sure how, but the shitty, simplified understanding of insurance i picked up from a Pratchett novel at like 13 holds up a lot better than most college grads':

you bet that [catastrophe you cant afford] WILL happen to you, insurance bets it WONT whenever i catch myself thinking things like "what do you MEAN you cant buy flood insurance in [place that floods routinely]?" i just remember that bit about inn-sewer-ants in the Colour of Magic

if ur betting on an event w high odds of happening, why would anyone bet against u?

when i was mildly anti-trump it was really weird to watch conservatives go from hating the guy to loving him. felt like watching them become pod people

but now that i'm mildly pro-trump i think i get it

1/ i figured it was like, "well he's winning now we gotta get on board" or some kinda social pressure, frog boiling?

i didnt bother to ask anyone bc i was trying to maintain blissful ignorance of politics

2/

what if the red flag goes both ways

https://twitter.com/quotidiania/status/1839875943982100731

for those of u who havent seen Scott Pilgrim, Scott is in fact a total ass

actually i think a lot of my cohort could stand to (re)watch it, feels instructive

2010 is right about the last time a movie like this could've been made and that's kind of the problem

ok i went from 0 knowledge of haiti to hearing claims that were so insane that they sounded made up, but also... too insane to make up??

so i figured "ok probably there's a grain of truth in this but a lot of spin"

and uh

oh no

https://twitter.com/jeremykauffman/status/1833951904063455687

also this is nuts but makes a lot of sense 😭

https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1833954372222353546?s=46

ok so a lot of us nerds finally realized that "blonde popular kids" are often, contrary to media depictions, completely fine and we were unnecessarily hostile to them

i'm increasingly feeling this way about rich people media consistently depicts them as being really MEAN but actually not being crushed under a scarcity mindset and enjoying how u spend ur time and being surrounded by other relaxed ppl who enjoy how they spend their time

doesnt magically make people more hostile

shower thoughts about the major aspects of a flourishing social life

you dont need a good score in each skill but you do need a good score in both categories i think

HOW U MEET PPL (want a better term 4 this)
- initiation
- attraction

DISCERNMENT
- preferences
- boundaries there might be something here too with consistency vs. intensity