You can’t remove the context this statement was made in though, which was about the appointment. And let’s be real here: he is not wrong about corporate capture of the Democrats at all. Yes, saying the Republicans are any better is ridiculous, but this strikes me far more like stroking the ego of a guy that likes having his ego stroked and made a rare decent pick for anti trust. This is no different than what Mamdani did visiting the White House… do we cancel him too for appeasing fascists? Or can we acknowledge choosing to try and engage with and manipulate a guy that’s shown to be easily manipulated is probably a strategic choice more than ideological?

And the thing he’s praising here is anti trust. Sure, I think it’s wrong to say Republicans are better on this issue, but literally the thing he’s praising is very much antithetical to fascism. How can we really say he’s supporting fascism then? Where are his posts supporting his ICE policies? Where are the comments supporting overturning a democratic election? He makes one comment supporting anti trust efforts and suddenly he must be a crypto fascist because it came from Trump? Not buying it, man.

I really think trying to portray Yang as something like the My Pillow Guy, which is the level of discourse a lot of this has had around it, is really, really disingenuous and I think only serves to make people take these accusations less seriously even when they’re levelled against people who truly are fascist sympathizers at the very least.

The big difference, of course, being that you’re paying a not insignificant amount of money explicitly for privacy, not a “free” service like Google. While Enshittification can happen everywhere, they’ve got a pretty direct incentive not to just start selling data and that sort of thing compared to the incentive Google had. The bigger concern is the security risk of all your eggs in one basket, but that’s a convenience vs security tradeoff we make all the time. Each user needs to assess for themselves that tradeoff. But just the encryption at rest alone along with seemingly not reading your emails already puts an average Proton use way ahead of an average Google one, and moving them to a complete suite is a lot more likely than to 6 different services. That’s a hard sell for an average user.

Also, I think the framing of open support of fascists is frankly ridiculous, personally. The way people were talking about it I was afraid we were talking full maga here, but the guy literally just praised a single appointment in anti trust… and she did have some actual bona fides that made her surprisingly (for this administration) qualified for that job, she has actually worked blocking mergers. This wasn’t a Robert Kennedy appointment, this appointment could have been under any admin in the last few decades and nobody would blink, if anything might also have been praised for the pick. Broken clocks, guys, broken clocks, they’re right sometimes.

Everyone can make their own choice here, but praising a rare decent pick from a shitty politician doesn’t nearly reach a divestment bar for me and I think probably all except the most militant.

Once a society reaches a certain level of prosperity and people have some disposable income, it’s better to have a system that allows people to choose to do what they want with that income. Socialism fails at that point.

Just to be clear capitalism and markets aren’t equivocal. Market socialism is a thing.

Socialism is a really big umbrella term… similar to “democracy” there are a bunch of different ways to actually apply it. State socialism is only one scheme for it.

You were upset because you felt I was trying to position myself as wisened in order to be condescending. I’m pointing out that this wasn’t my intention, I was doing so to explain why I don’t do public debates regarding Marxism anymore, which you were arguing that I should probably be doing. You could not have understood that before I explained it, because you have no clue what my intentions are without me telling you, man… I’d suggest the inability to admit you didn’t know something as impossible to know as my personal reasons for not doing something is indicative of the bad faith this conversation has developed into, even if it didn’t start that way, so I think this is the end, bud.

I’d further suggest you really consider your own obstinate behavior in arguing for hours with someone about why they won’t argue with you before casting that particular stone.

Have a good one, but we just aren’t looking for the same kind of conversations, man. I’m not interested in the debate that you are.

Surely you can also see that, by positioning yourself as old and experienced, ie wiser, you are speaking condescendingly towards those you disagree with?

Do you not think you’re being a bit condescending yourself in suggesting people go read a guide written by you in order to have a discussion with you? I think you’re holding yourself and people who agree with you to a very different standard than those who disagree with you.

Regardless, my intent isn’t to really be condescending, but you’ve been pretty tenacious in asking why I won’t debate you… what else am I to do but explain why I’ve reached the position I have when you keep pressing and say that I should do a thing I’ve decided against doing as a rule?

You’ve already shown yourself to be fairly obstinate

Physician, heal thyself. You’ve pressed me for… what, half a dozen comments now? On literally nothing but saying I should debate you or others when I don’t care to and explained why. I think you’re quick to see qualities in others that you aren’t realizing you have yourself.

In other words, I focus on swaying onlookers

I’m very aware of that, that’s exactly what I’m uninterested in. I’ve moved past “debate” in the sense of a public disagreement and an attempt to sway people to my side… used to do that a lot, but I’m just over it at this point. I’m interested in real conversations and attempts to understand another person and another point of view, I explicitly do not like the kind of conversation that happens when people are trying to convince a third party. I think it lends itself to toxicity, condescension, basically the worst qualities that people associate with redditors, for good reason.

I also disagree

Okay. I disagree with your disagreement :). I think not offering any substantive rebuttal and simply saying “you don’t know theory, go read this” is definitely a cudgel to dismiss opinions a person doesn’t agree with without putting in any effort, and it’s obviously a performative thing for onlookers. If you disagree, I’m comfortable with that.

With respect, I’m just not interested in reading guides as again, whether people choose to believe so or not, I actually have studied this in an academic setting and am satisfied with that. I understand your passion, but Marxism, socialism, and leftism absolutely inform my politics, but they aren’t my entire life and I think too many people use them as a source of identity that ends up trying to conform to a label rather than incorporating ideas into well thought out positions. I say this as someone who probably strayed too close to that in my youth as a firebrand and just don’t see the point in my old age. It just leads to ulcers and infighting, IMO. I did extend the offer for private discussion if is really that important, but I really do find the tone that is struck very different when people are talking one on one versus, even subconsciously, trying to make points that win upvotes a la reddit. Take that initial reply I took issue with… would anyone really bother privately messaging this? “Hey, I’m not really going to elaborate, but I really disagree with you, go read this other thing”? I’ve never encountered such a thing and I think we can agree that would come across a bit… unhinged. But it’s par for the course with these kind of discussions in public forums and is uniquely bad in Marxist circles IMO.

Note that I’m not saying any of this is you, but I do think this might be true of the person who leveled it at me in the first place (which might be unfair, but I think is no more unfair of an assumption than those made about me).

Feelings noted, but I think that point can simply be taken back one more step: one shouldn’t make snappy, bad faith assumptions with no actual support aside from the weaponizing of a guide someone on the Internet has written as a cudgel to dismiss people they disagree with. I feel you’re being unfair in your application of who should and shouldn’t make an assertion based on who you happen to agree with. So we just don’t agree with each other’s position here, and that’s fine.

You don’t have to defend this assertion

But this is a counter to their assertion, which they would have to prove first, even in a formal setting. Which again, this is not. Are you bugging them to prove their assertion? Why or why not?

Block if you want to, but this seems like you want to have your cake and eat it too, raise your opinion on a subject and shield yourself from talking about it on a social media platform focusing on discussion.

I literally did not raise this topic, I responded to someone else who moved the topic to this and why I don’t agree with them. The topic I was discussing is whether the tyranny of the majority can exist or not.

Communists aren’t a hive mind, expats from socialist countries, even if they believe themselves to be communists, may have faulty lines or flawed understanding. You don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, but surely you can understand how an expat teaching in a western country has certain understandings that likely go against proletarian Marxism-Leninism.

I think you’re leaving such a narrow window for who is allowed valid thoughts on socialism as to be essentially exclusive to people you think are right, which doesn’t seem super useful or insightful to me.

Again, you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to, but I would argue that you’re inviting more dogpiling by not expounding on what you mean.

The block feature is easy enough to use, and I’m happy with it. It isn’t really your business, honestly.

Conversation can only really happen when both parties participate, when someone lays out an assertion without backing it, it can only be attacked directly, not as a point but as the assertion it is, which lends itself more to dogpiling.

I didn’t really lay out an assertion though, the other person did. I just said I don’t buy their premise that my comment was an example of why study of Marxism-Lenninism is strictly necessary and why. The onus isn’t really on me to do anything, even in formal debate, which this is not.

I was interested in the initial conversation, just not the more general topic on theory that it was moving to. I think it usually ends up in navel-gazing at best and toxicity at worst, and I gave it up years ago. In person or private when there’s less want for performative argument and point scoring, it can be more interesting. The tone is just very different when people talk directly to you vs when they publicly debate you. Just my personal take, I just don’t do it anymore as I’ve gotten older.

Unlikely, considering the professor was a communist who lived in China and did his PhD on the history of female silk workers in China.

I’m honestly not really interested in a wider conversation regarding the merits of Marxism and its variants at the moment. I might be willing to speak privately about my thoughts if you’re really interested in them, but I think in this forum it lends itself to dogpiling and I’ve already received comments I don’t consider very conducive to civil discussion, so I’m not going to engage here.

I didn’t say it’s a wild assumption, just pointing out this is why it’s probably a better idea to just… not make such an assumption in the first place. 4 million Americans live abroad, it isn’t exactly unheard of. But with this clarification, it is now clear the point is just to personally find justification to dismiss dissenting opinion. Which I’m not particularly interested in engaging with, so I’m going to just put an end to it here. Have a good one, though.

Then you should probably reconsider if maybe your assumptions about my background were probably a bit too hasty and reconsider how you approach people going forward? I never said I studied it in America, and I do not live in America.

I’m very well aware of it and have studied it in an academic setting. It isn’t all correct. It has insightful points that should be incorporated into a more well-rounded worldview rather than slavishly adhered to. But I came here to avoid reddit passive aggressive toxicity, so we’ll just leave this conversation at that.

Because nobody is.

I just think it pretty clearly isn’t the only way to fight established power when we saw a person that was hated by most establishment powers at the time of his first election and who spent half the money campaigning ended up beating them. Sure, he was obviously not interested in real change, but the fact is they didn’t want him in and he got in anyway. Americans are done with neoliberalism and are desperately looking for alternatives. Even worse ones…

I don’t entirely agree.

While I don’t agree with the way Congress is arranged with a clearly establishment-favoring Senate, we shouldn’t take this to mean there’s no such thing as a tyranny of majority as we’ve literally seen it play out historically many times. Look at Jim Crowe laws passed by majority white populations that harshly kept black Americans down for years up into living memory. Or anti-gay laws… tyrannies of majority 100% happen and it’s a big reason why we have specific Constitutional rights that try to prevent it. Groups using democracy as a cudgel to smack down other groups certainly happens though. I would agree that the Senate is more about preserving current power structures than actually trying to prevent that though.

I also just don’t agree at all that Biden wanted Trump to win… I think this is a hammer looking for a nail and seeing one, honestly. We just aren’t going to agree on that point and aren’t going to see each other’s point of view, and we’re not going to be able to prove hidden intentions, so I’m not sure this point is worth harping on. What I would say is that as Democrats and Republicans are both neolibs, Democrats would sooner see a Republican elected over someone they deem to be an actual threat from the left.

Then why aren’t you out there doing it?

Second part first, agree totally. I don’t mean to suggest Trump truly represents some sea change against neoloberalism… but his rhetoric was very much a rejection of a lot of it. He’s absolutely a liar in terms of actually representing change from the status quo… he’s a pure kleptocrat, plain and simple. But the point is that facade is what resonated with people because even those without the knowledge base or words to form why they’re over neoliberalism, are very much over neoliberalism. Regular people, not, not just political nerds.

First part, hard disagree because it informs strategy on how to move past it. If you believe both sides are colluding to keep the masses down and there’s no real electoral path to improvement… well, we’re at the stage of violent revolution and there’s no point faffing about further. Neither of us are out there with rifles yet, so I’d argue neither of us really, truly thinks that’s the case yet. Because that actually does happen in places like Gaza, and for good reason - they literally have no other recourse. We’ve got the table tilted against us, but ultimately we can and do upset the institutional power still. Trump, while he didn’t represent real change, was absolutely totally rejected by institutional power in his initial run and managed to win by establishing a faux-populist cult of personality… that literally could not have worked if electoralism was truly totally dead.

100% not a psy-op or collusion. They really just both bought deeply into the shift to neoliberalism in the 80’s, and it has so defined politics for the last 4 decades that few politicians have wrapped their heads around the fact that the continual rejection of both parties by the people is really a rejection of that neoloberalism that we’re clearly in the death throes of. Trump succeeded not because every person who voted for him was a racist (I mean, that’s definitely a big cadre among his supporters, but it isn’t what got him in), he succeeded because people are so desperate to end the neoliberal norm that’s crushing everyone that they’ll vote for a guy that literally soft-pedals fascism over another neoliberal.

But I really do think the majority of them are true believers. They’ve been born and raised in that politically environment. It’s all they know and they really can’t imagine anything else, even if it’s really only been a few generations ago that things looked very different.