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.

I really wonder if there is any place outside of a concert venue that these folks find music on speakers acceptable? I kind of get it if they’re solo, just use headphones, but… hanging out in a group and listening to music together at the beach is about the most normal use of a beach trip I can think of.

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.

No worries, dude, I’m with ya… I completely understand the disillusionment, but people touting the death of electoralism that think they’re really being revolutionary, IMO are being useful idiots for the elite. And its definitely rampant here… I’m back and forth on whether to stick around, honestly.

My friend, you are very much barking up the wrong tree here. And I don’t blame you one bit, there is a ton of what you’re describing here and it is very frustrating, but you’ve misunderstood me to be saying something I’m not. I think it’s helpful to know historical context to know that even more leftism is not only possible, but has happened… but I think Mamdani is still a huge win in this current political climate and I think attempts to tear him down are almost laughably self-defeating from anyone considering themselves on the left.

Fully agree with you man, we should take the W here as a much needed shift left of the Overton window…

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. That comment, by the way, was a similar offhand opinion about why they think I’m wrong with nothing supporting it but their opinion. I don’t think countering it withe same minimal effort is out of place or on me. You’re free to disagree. The topic I was discussing is whether the tyranny of the majority can exist or not. That, I could understand wanting to prove, but I did indeed open with what I feel are solid examples thereof. I can think of non American examples though too if that’s the issue.

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.

Yeah, but Windows is no easier to install… most people just don’t experience it because it is the usual pre installed OS. I don’t think it’s really fair to count that against Linux… in terms of the installation process, I found them to be similar, which is to say a pain in the butt. I wouldn’t recommend a non tech person try to install WIndows either.

Aside from that, no, it did not need any further set up aside from installing Steam via the repository. Arguably easier than in WIndows, certainly not harder. I did also install VLC but probably wasn’t necessary, there was a pre installed media player I don’t remember the name of…

It’s funny you mention drivers as that’s what made me switch it over. A Windows update inexplicably borked some video card drivers. I didn’t need to install any drivers manually for the Linux setup, it all worked out of the box without any issues so far. Driver pains used to be a big issue years ago, but I think for 90% of PCs it’s a non issue today.

No, it was a very vanilla Windows setup. At least I can’t think of anything… what kind of workarounds did you have in mind?

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.

“Historically” being the key word here… the political landscape of America, and frankly the western world, changed after the 80’s shift to neoliberalism via Reagan and Thatcher.

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 have not said Israel shouldn’t exist. I’ve said it shouldn’t be an ethnostate. That’s all. While you’re trying to tar anyone against the idea of an ethnostate as an antisemite, I might point out that the most vociferous advocates for ethnostates in America are white nationalists such as the KKK. So maybe we should keep this converation between you and I rather than slandering each other based on who is standing on our side, because you’ll find you have your own pretty unsavory types standing with you. Including, ironically, ardent antisemites.

You can call yourself pragmatic, but supporting the genocide or apartheid of a people because the people doing the genociding were themselves once genocided seems pretty ideological rather than pragmatic. I don’t think this puts you in a very good position to finger wag others for their views on racism, cowboy.

I think the lesson of the 20th century is very, very clearly that ethnostates only lead to genocide and war. They almost have to by definition… the story of the Balkans and central Africa for the past century has been one of attempting to establish borders based on race and then humanitarian disasters followed as people who didn’t fit into those borders were either forcibly expelled or killed. This can’t really be denied, can it? And aren’t we seeing this exact thing play out in Israel?

Can you explain to me how it is possible to have an ethnostate without engaging in either genocide or apartheid? Because I can’t see how that’s possible.

I think we also need to acknowledge there’s a pretty big difference in a people currently or within a few generations culturally connected to a land, and people who have been displaced for literal centuries. Do we give Britain back to the Gaelic peoples that were displaced by Saxons? They can both claim a cultural connection and have been present the entire time, as with Jews in the area around Israel. How far back do we go?

In any case, no, even in the case of indigenous peoples, I absolutely do not support ethnostates because of the above… they invariably and always lead to genocide and apartheid, which I feel should be avoided at all costs. Do you not?

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.

Nearly nobody actually does it, because nearly nobody cares.

“Y’all” lol.

Because nobody is.

If we’re talking about actions that fucked up the world, pretty much all of western Europe should still be bearing that cross. On the other hand, we could just acknowledge it’s probably pretty low IQ and bigoted to take out your impotent rage at a state on regular people who have very little if anything to do with it.

That said, it doesn’t really matter that much, because as the other guy said, outside of the Internet most real people don’t actually care that much. Probably because they managed to realize the above.

Hungary. We order our groceries online and the app lets you tip right as you order. For prepared hot food, we often don’t order through one of the major services… we in fact try to order direct from the restaurant whenever we can so they don’t lose on a commission to a service we really don’t need, and in this case we always tip the delivery person. In restaurants, at a minimum you’re pretty much expected to at least round the bill up the nearest 1k forint for a nice sit-down meal, more is common. Some places have mandatory service charge similar to what some places in the US do. Again, we aren’t talking the expected 15-20% of the US, but tipping is certainly expected for some services here. Cabs, barbers, lots of services.

The bigger point to me is that Europeans, rightly, get upset when American tourists refuse to comply with cultural norms they don’t agree with… it’s just as pig headed when European tourists to the US refuse to do the same in my opinion. It’s being a bad guest.

We all pay for it anyway via the negative impacts. It should be the consumers buying the thing that pay for it. Why should society at large be paying for the negative impacts of a product not everyone is buying? Makes no sense. If your product is causing a big environmental impact, that needs to be paid for by the company making the product and the consumers buying it.