Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat.

banger quote. So he’s calling out the people who say they are against the war, but take no action that would impede the government from waging the war.

The war cannot but evoke among the masses the most turbulent sentiments, which upset the usual sluggish state of mass mentality. Revolutionary tactics are impossible if they are not adjusted to these new turbulent sentiments.

I think this is important when analyzing our own modern day situations, and not just taking what Lenin lists out here and applying it willy-nilly. It is my belief that we do not need to gain the support of the masses before performing an action because if we can understand the “turbulent sentiments” correctly, then we can come to a conclusion of what the correct action is. By performing the correct action we gain support of the masses. I think of it kinda like the whole UnitedHealthcare CEO situation, but the killer was not organized and only arrived at a correct action by chance.

Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments,

This is a nice way of framing it. In the end our goal is the revolution and everything we do is to achieve that end.

edit: I dunno how you are going about selecting texts, but could I submit a vote for Theses on the National and Colonial Questions

Forming a study group seems like a no brainer now that I realized Lenin, Mao and even Marx had their starts in study groups

Unfortunately I think I alot of people would be turned off by it being marxist, even if they dont have a real conception of what marxism is. I’m kinda wondering if its worth going straight to marxist texts, or maybe start with something more borderline to attract liberals that can potentially be converted.

This is actually the first time I’ve seen the original

Yea the vision is very unclear to me, at least what they’ve announced publicly. I’ve seen people say the goal is achieving AGI but I’m not sure what that even means.

From internal docs leak it seems that the company is totally capitalist brained and it doesn’t have a clear definition of AGI either.

According to leaked documents obtained by The Information, the two companies came to agree in 2023 that AGI will be achieved once OpenAI has developed an AI system that can generate at least $100 billion in profits.

https://gizmodo.com/leaked-documents-show-openai-has-a-very-clear-definition-of-agi-2000543339

Again this is also unclear. How is it going to generate profits?

If it’s supposed to replace Google search, one avenue I can see is trying to incorporate ads into the LLM answers, which just degrades their product, but I suppose if they hit a mass market then they can create a sort of walled Garden that keeps people on it.

Another way is that it will totally replace workers. I don’t think this is possible and is AI idealism.

The other way is you make this a product that increases productivity. In that case you can replace workers because it makes the average worker more productive and then a company can do more with less.

But I’m just speculating, I think any of these can be totally wrong.

I wish that OpenAI and their ilk would die already so I could begin to make sense of the world

Ignoring the incoming climate catastrophe, I think the only way for AI to die is for something else new and shiny to come in that VC’s then stop throwing their money into AI buzzword bullshit startup and into that new industry. I think all these VC’s think the same way and want the next “internet”. It’s also why I think so much money was thrown into crypto as even though it was bs, it had a next big thing kinda vibe.

I’m hoping it doesn’t even get to that point and we can have some kinda revolution in the west because, fuck, we’re all dying so that these assholes can maintain their profits.

NYPD budget is higher than North Korea’s military budget. These people are hallucinating

Mass immigration didn’t exist before 2001

Right Wingers: left wingers just thrive on fear mongering. Also we should be scared about the flood of immigrants coming into the country and the government trying to kill us with vaccines

Is that because they associate Assad with Putin?

I’m also wondering what evidence there is for this rebellion force being “pro-Assad” besides being against the current government.

Ironically that last comment is just describing the normal behavior of people under capitalism

How do y’all talk to libs about how the media is portraying Trump as subservient to Putin? For example refusing aid to Ukraine and easing sanctions on Russia. I don’t really have a good answer other than the long history after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that the US and Russia would probably never be allies.

I can understand why he’d be hard on Ukraine, but even I have trouble understanding why Trump seems so friendly with Russia

Unironically, there are so many parallels with Harry potter and the way modern liberals act

Joe Rogan is the ultimate example of social being determining your conscious. As he got richer and more popular he became more right wing.

I also agree and don’t think it was a deliberate long con by any of them (well maybe Tim Pool?). They are all just products of their environments. The right also understands how important it is to control the cultural hegemony. Theyre not just talking to people about politics, but all sorts of different niches.

American online right wing propaganda is way too strong, to a point where its just a self-sustaining plague on the internet. The way it turns apolitical people into right wing nut jobs is quite scary. I would bet most people in China are apolitical and that would be ripe picking for the propaganda.

I agree with you, but I also believe people can change. A change in conscious towards unionizing won’t happen overnight. It happens as the workplace and job market conditions change, and that is what we are seeing right now in Silicon Valley. Tech workers have been used to rising salaries and benefits for so long, and we know that can’t last forever. I think now we are going to see the decline. As the article mentions, AI is the hope for the owner class to de-skill tech workers and thus make them a more exploitable worker that won’t be given a salary that is enough to live a materially comfortable life.

Perhaps one unionization can inspire another?

I mean the US rarely uses its own soldiers for expanding its imperialism doesnt it? Its about recruiting the locals from its colonies and using them to overthrow or suppress any movement of self-emancipation. Helps that they keep these colonies poor so that there are plenty of desperate people to recruit from.

They failed to do this in China though which is a problem for them

Definitely something missing imo. The right has the monopoly on violence, and even though I’d say the left can ultimately appeal to more people and have strength in numbers, a willingness to use violence can overcome that. I think it is as you said: it sounds very LARP-y until it isn’t. This is probably by design though, as any leftist group that does pick up arms or does combat training will be a target for repression.

I was in a similar position. Best advice I can give is to try to find a local Marxist org if you can. Luckily there was one for me, but I know not everyone has one. I think isolating ourselves is probably the worst thing we can do right now, even though the capitalist system makes it easy to do so.

I used to think that I could convince my more lib/conservative minded friends since I read so much, but it’s not that easy even if you have all the knowledge needed for making a point. I have never successfully converted someone, but I think I at least made them think a little bit more critically and even have them agree with me on some things.

Even in the context of Trump being in charge of the US right now, I still feel somewhat alone when talking to liberal-resistance-minded people about it because it’s like they’re approaching it from another universe of belief about how things work.

Yea I feel this too, and imo it’s because they are not against the system but the individuals running the system.

I been getting clips of her too. I could only watch for a couple seconds before I had to stop because I couldn’t stand her smugness

I feel like there’s no theory behind what kind of revolution can take place in the global north, at least none that I’m aware of. We’re still going off of past revolutions which happened in times where the societies were much different and the technological level was alot lower. Curious what others think could be a possible avenue for revolution.

My thoughts are that the consciousness of people are not at the level where a true proletarian revolution can take place (at least in my country in the global north). This is mainly due to neoliberal brainwashing and the fact that people don’t view China as socialist. Im seeing more pull towards neoliberalism as the material conditions degrade, partly because people don’t realize there is any other option. They all think it’s a tradeoff between having a good economy and letting everyone have their basic needs met.

So much can change between now and 2050, I would not rely on that (plus we’ll all be old or dead by then)