Michael

Thanks for your response and engagement. I appreciated hearing your perspective as a German/European in contrast to my perspective as an American.

I think we both feel that it’s desirable for everybody to generally contribute to society to make the world a better place.

I think it would incredibly more desirable for society to have a firm social safety net (housing, food, healthcare). We have the technology and means to do so without breaking a sweat.

If we try it and society stagnates, we can always tweak it to incentivize certain types of work. Myself, I believe society would see vast improvements when people aren’t surviving and living in shambles. I believe many of our current issues would be quickly solved once we are broadly able to slow down and think for a moment.

Deserving or not deserving doesn’t really factor into the equation. We need to create and build a world worth living in. I want to live in a world where people are more free, healthy, and safe - where work is directly benefiting our communities instead of people being forced to slave in hostile work environments to barely make it.

You’re totally fine! Don’t be embarrassed or sorry. Thanks for the discourse nonetheless. Hope to see you around!

I’m not the other person (merc@sh.itjust.works), you have me confused. I’m just a third party who was watching the debate unfold. I had not previously interacted with you here on the fediverse or responded in the chain.

I fully agree with you respecting yourself and setting a boundary. I’ve found myself doing the same with certain commenters. I just was speaking to my curiosity and desire to see more because I felt like I was seeing some points unfold from both of you that I resonated with, even if I gravitate towards seeing your side more than merc’s.

It’s a shame you feel this way because I feel like further debate between you two would’ve been very productive for discourse.

I don’t really 100% agree with either of you, but you both made valid points from my perspective and you both clearly give a shit about the world.

I’ll respect how you feel though, I just wanted to express my disappointment.

I respect that strategy. Just want to clarify that I was speaking generally, not directed to anyone in particular.

Here’s how we win: we identify and address the problems, focus on the potential solutions, and work towards those solutions in a cohesive way.

Blame simply doesn’t fit into that equation in any helpful way, even if it personally makes us feel better in the moment.

Put another way, are you going to be part of the solution or part of the problem? Which is more constructive?

I agree, there’s a number of problems with conflating IQ as measuring “intelligence”. Whether you are looking at the testing or the scores, it’s all human construct influenced by cultural, environmental, and educational factors and it’s not just the testing that is flawed or incomplete.

It really doesn’t take much to admit that we barely understand many of the fields which people assume authority over and hype up. Humanity is in its infancy societally, and IQ takes way too much focus in an educational context and likely results in a huge amount of discrimination and loss of potential of children who test low from a young age (for whatever reason).

The person you are responding is trying to suggest that there meaningful brain differences worthy of study (underdeveloped prefrontal lobe/amygdala differences) in conservatives/MAGA (which is definitely not determined in any meaningful way by existing research), is defining “smart” and “stupid” as what people do (which is just stereotyping behavior from an outside perspective), in a recent exchange with me claims to have a psychology degree and said here that they believe that “people can […] be bullied into doing the right thing by calling them stupid” (which is definitely not something encouraged in the field and is dehumanizing/reinforces a negative self-image), and so forth.

Suggesting brain differences in the context of people’s political leanings (in my mind) is very discriminatory behavior and I don’t think many picked up on the gravity of how dangerous and harmful such a suggestion is. What benefit is there to that study? The only reason I can imagine is to support casual claims that promote the idea that if somebody disagrees with you, is less informed, etc. has an “underdeveloped brain” and “amygdala differences”. I’ve really scratched my head here and I can’t think of anything desirable resulting from that study or those implications being drawn about MAGA/conservatives. And what comes next? Looking at leftists and finding fault with their brains?

Thanks for engaging, I largely agree with you and really appreciate your responses. I’m glad we finally had the opportunity to talk.

Critical thinking is necessary, but that’s not really something we socialists have any power over in the broad populace.

I believe that we all have the power to educate others to think for themselves and to think critically. It may not be as substantive and impactful as we’d like from a single interaction, but it’s nothing to write off. I feel that there is a lot of untapped potential for all of us to realize, especially with the use of modern technology.

The internet is an truly an amazing thing for humanity. I just have to point out the work r/LateStageCapitalism has done to educate and inform others over the years. Many people have likely been radicalized due to their work (i.e. encouraged to think for themselves and see beyond mainstream narratives) and I’m pretty sure it’s a ML space, as well.

It’s easy to see that traditional institutions are losing trust broadly and that mainstream media is falling off. The narrative seems very difficult for those currently in power to both spread and control the perception of.

I try to do my best to explain that I want a better world, but that also requires being honest and forthright with me being a communist, and explaining exactly what that means and why.

I value your example and honesty. I have witnessed many interactions between you and other people on the fediverse and I applaud your efforts and diplomacy.

As for Marxism-Leninism, I’d argue its controversy mostly stems from it being the branch with the most actual existence in the real world.

Most people here on the fediverse loosely agree on what needs to change, but most of the disagreement I feel comes from the methodology of bringing about that change. I’d say there is a time and place to discuss methodology or introduce people into specific ideology, but getting people to realize a better world is possible is something we can all work broadly work towards and I feel there is a lot of value in that sort of action.

I argue that the first steps to creating broad coherence with others involves encouraging independent thought/critical thinking, emphasizing our shared humanity and desire for a better world for everyone, and subtly working to reduce polarization (such as conditioned fear/hate/dehumanization of others) in any way possible.

I understand this is a ML space and I respect your ideology, but I have to point out that it isn’t the only socialist ideology - and it’s a fairly polarizing one at that. What could be done to help bridge the gap among socialists, even just here on the fediverse?

For most people, the best case scenario is vacuuming their floors with offline options.

These propagandized individuals are emotionally manipulated to hate communists and see them as dangerous by capitalist institutions, but they are in no way, shape, or form exposed to the ideas that communists express in an impartial manner.

I’d argue that it is rare that understanding is properly conveyed through labels. People attach their own understanding to labels - and these propagandized individuals are conditioned to believe they understand communists, but in reality they are just trained to dehumanize and hate communists. They don’t understand.

So, how does this dynamic shift?

Thanks for also clearing that up. I truly appreciate it.

Anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron.

As Wikipedia succinctly (and loosely) put it, anarchy is society without rulers - a society without authority or hierarchy. Authority and hierarchy would definitely be present in anarcho-capitalism. Wealth, power, and influence would likely still concentrate into the hands of the few (i.e. rulers).

It’s essentially just capitalism without an official state and practices like regulation or reigning in corporate power. Corporations would function effectively as states in such a scenario.

I mean Hillary’s lawyers also used BleachBit, right? It’s just suspicious, but I don’t want to discount from what you are saying. Thanks again for informing me.

The reason why people reacted so strongly to Hillary I feel is due to the Obama-era persecution of whistleblowers/etc.

Thanks!

If there are laws we shouldn’t enforce, we should just get those laws off the books.

I believe it’s a fairly sane and desirable that we hold people accountable for arguably mishandling classified information (regardless of intention to mishandle) and sidestepping established procedures to communicate in an official capacity. It’s very reckless behavior and many people were involved in enabling this behavior.

I couldn’t find a source on George W. Bush violating the same law and invite clarification, but I’d just like to say that I imagine that we can manage equitable and reasonable enforcement of the law as a society. Not all laws are made equally, but some are pretty sensible.

I mostly agree with you here.

Mike Johnson isn’t a “bad” person, but we can form a pattern from his actions and words. He’s likely a person who is using religion for his personal gain, just like many religious leaders likely are.

I’d say that a Christian is a person who follows Christ. It’s not complicated. Religion has been used by those who hold power to oppress and control the masses for centuries - this is nothing new.