Sorry if the title is a bit weird, I’m curious about what made you believe what you do. Mainstream leftism usually doesn’t go any further than trans rights or maybe UBI in some places, at least from what I know, so what made you go beyond that? You can answer generally or talk about a specific belief, just wanna see what caused the more radical opinions in you
I’m particularly curious about what changed your opinions about the USSR and China, most people think they’re awful, but in here they’re really liked and defended, I’ve even seen a lot of posts denying the Tiananmen massacre and the Holodomor and stuff like that, what made you go to such lengths?
honestly not versed enough in the history of the USSR to get into it, although the PRC uses a similar system and they haven’t collapsed like that. i’ve heard a big issue the USSR faced was failing to transition power to a younger generation, in part because the october revolutionaries were just that popular. socialism is under constant threat, and in a revolution or being encircled by capitalist imperialism there’s a lot of very important, high stakes decisions to make. someone has to make those calls. if we kick it down to direct referendums, someone’s got to write the options. can kind of just keep going down the line until we get to the point of everyone responds to the issue how they see fit, and yeah that’s a lot of choice but is the choice even meaningful at that point? it’s the accountability problem again. being bound by authority doesn’t always feel great but if it goes both ways that’s a type of power. that’s kind of the point of representatives to me, if there isn’t authority somewhere then that authority retreats into social dynamics, and if that authority isn’t being responsible you’ve got to navigate a much more opaque system without clear rules.
sorry for taking so long to respond! felt awful
I would say, It’s not that I mind being bound by authority, I’m more just concerned about how we can make sure we keep getting a “righteous authority”, that uses their power for good and pursues our interests, that does things to benefit us and not to benefit itself, and I’m not sure what kind of screening process could reliably and constantly keep generating that kind of authority without corruption, opportunism, hijacking etc etc happening for prolonged periods of time. If an “authority screening” system fails even just once, it can have disastrous consequences, and I think if it exists throughout the years it’s just innevitable it will fail at some point, we’re all humans after all. But I don’t see how the same problem could happen decentrally, as no position would have enough power to propagate the failure to the rest of the system - and furthermore, the rest of the system would have the authority to intervene and fix the failures, whereas in a centralized system it’s a lot harder for the bottom to stop a failure at the top