/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

First of all, fuck Chomsky. He's an asshole.

Second, liberty as an empty idea is meaningless. That's been the game played - that "freedom" is opposed to the only concept of government remaining, which is the most desultory type. This narrative only means the destruction of both freedom and any sort of good government, and promotes pure rot and death. The argument for freedom has always been that we know what the alternative entails, and slavery isn't a fun time. What is freedom if you can't even live in the most basic ways? If you're arguing for freedom as a pure philosophical conceit, you're arguing for something very alien to what freedom meant historically for any class. Managers do not believe in freedom and know they want to keep their subordinates fearful - not because it is efficient, but because if people were free, they wouldn't need the manager and a whole profession devoted to making other people suffer, and would quickly eliminate such things. So what the anarchists do is substitute freedom for a philosophical conceit, so that their preferred society - which is in actuality very controlled and disallows any attack against it - co-opts the genuine outrage that "Oceania has no law" creates.

>>467042
>That's been the game played - that "freedom" is opposed to the only concept of government remaining, which is the most desultory type.
I don't understand, what is a desultory government ?
i looked it up
<desultory
<adjective
<1 Moving or jumping from one thing to another, disconnected.
<2 Occurring randomly or sporadically. synonym: chance.
This doesn't make any sens to me, what is a sporadically disconnected government ?

>If you're arguing for freedom as a pure philosophical conceit, you're arguing for something very alien to what freedom meant historically for any class. Managers do not believe in freedom and know they want to keep their subordinates fearful - not because it is efficient, but because if people were free, they wouldn't need the manager and a whole profession devoted to making other people suffer.

I do understand your argument about the manager's whip, i also understand that the US-American discourse about freedom and liberties can be a very ideological way of dressing up conflicts of interest. But you do have to admit that even in a society that reached full communism where the state as an instrument of enforcing class-rule has withered away you'd still have governance and that includes rules that restrict the actions of individual people, for example murder will still be banned and persecuted. Obviously once class contradictions are resolved in favor of the working class most of the conflicts of interest that we have today will vanish, but not all of them, and undoubtedly new once will crop up.

>So what the anarchists do is substitute freedom for a philosophical conceit, so that their preferred society - which is in actuality very controlled and disallows any attack against it - co-opts the genuine outrage that "Oceania has no law" creates.

This rings true, but why do you think that the thread opening post is making an anarchic argument ?

>>467046
It means that you're given a concept of freedom that is artificial, because the thing you're comparing against is "this", where your position in society is decided basically by the age of ten and they never let you be anything else, and your intelligence is always insulted so you're confined to this straight plan for your existence.

Chomsky is an avowed anarchist and he takes his money. He's been a booster of COVID insanity. You can tell who was on what side by their stance on COVID. If they're still taking anything the government says seriously, they were always believers in eugenics and didn't have any other plan. If they had any opposition to eugenics, they've been horrified by everything that happened around COVID and saw it as world-ending.

Basically, see all the ways you are insulted, and that's what I meant - government by crisis, where nothing ever seems to change until those who manage society from the shadows attack you. This is a strategy they worked out, where nothing anyone says or does can be real and they chant like retards when it's time to hurt people. That's all that remains for humanity.

>>467048
>It means that you're given a concept of freedom that is artificial
I know that capitalist freedom is a hollow promise because it's pay-walled and most people won't ever have enough money to pay the price for premium tier freedom™. But how is that related to anything discussed here ? Either i'm too dense, or you're not explaining your self enough.

>Chomsky is an avowed anarchist
OK but how is that invalidating anything he specifically said about not getting co-opted by the reactionary "intellectual chorus" that mongers for war. Be reasonable and engage with the argument don't just attack the person. It's not like this is an "ideological pillar" of anarchism.

>He's been a booster of COVID insanity
I don't know what Chomsky said about covid, because i won't even consider taking advice about medical stuff from a linguistics philosopher, and i won't be too mad if linguists get medical stuff wrong. Why do you expect that Chomsky would be competent in anything related to biology, that's very left-field for him ? For that matter why did people think Bill Gates had anything to add to a bio medical debate ? I know that you'll likely want to rant about the dangers of creating a scientific authority that defines reality by decree, but aside from that, You'd still prioritize listening to people who actually investigated a subject-matter in great depth over those that didn't.

>what I meant - government by crisis
Sure they use and sometimes even create crisis to wage class war. But it's not hopeless at all, this repressive stuff the neocons are doing a.t.m. isn't a sign that they are winning, quite the opposite, they are badly loosing. And soon enough all this crap they pulled can be used to hang them. We'll be able to cross "neocon-ism" off the list of viable ideological superstructures. I know that's but one of many obstacles, but still.

I think the main topic of this thread is about how stages of development are related to what kind of "liberties" are possible. I know that's formulated using idealist language but that's just a starting-point for going towards a more materialist explanation.

>>467049
There isn't a genuine concept of freedom left in the world. You are instead given "freedom" as a word token and ideology to replace what normal people knew to be the conditions of a free society. There isn't an ideological version of freedom - there is only freedom in the genuine sense, which means no one is fucking with you or threatening to fuck with you every day of your life, cradle to grave. That has always been contingent on certain material benefits to the free, and the great innovation was to put a price tag on freedom that was known to be unpayable. Whether you pay in money or fealty to the bureaucrat and the Party, you're made to convert freedom into something entirely alien to it. It is a very simple proposition to not have this beast attacking everything in sight, and it would be to the benefit of all if we didn't do this. Rather than that though, we have been told to believe in the exact opposite - that freedom is contingent on the slavery of another, and that freedom is only possible if everyone believes the exact same thing and holds only the correct ideas. Freedom as a simple proposition, which isn't much, has become inconceivable. You're never supposed to ask others to not engage in their nonstop war against those deemed weak, and as a result, that war consumed the entire world and most of its people, and elevated the predatory who perpetuate each other. We are only allowed "freedom" that enables the predators, but if anyone out of their own will resists predation, that is considered a crime against "freedom". It is literally the only crime that is truly punished - that the weak and rejected are not permitted to defend themselves or even walk away and find something in this world despite society. There can only be the freedom of the predator, and the justification for this is something deeper than money or some motive in capitalism. You have to ask why every defense and excuse is allowed for the predatory, but it remains inconceivable that the people could have an entitlement to life simply because we know the alterative of forced deprivation will cost more and create nothing but suffering for no real benefit to anyone. That thought is anathema to a belief like eugenics which is premised on absolute terror and absolute immiseration as the necessary conditions. You can't impose Galton's eugenics without the regime of terror where a small minority hoard all of the virtue and everyone else is turned into slaves. Yet, if anyone says this, that is a bridge too far. You can say these people are mean but you can't even say what they actually do and what their belief implies. Instead, those who say this are accused of transgressing "health" and attacked viciously, without regard for any law or custom long established in human society.

>>467049
If you're on the right side - the side opposed to eugenics - what I am saying should be self-evident. If you chose eugenics over us, then nothing I say can ever be admissible. It's that simple.

Also I never said it was hopeless. It could stop very shortly if there were a will opposing this. The threat of the eugenists has always been that if they ever lose an inch, they resort to unlimited terror to regain lost ground, and they always control any space they inhabit. They never accept submission and always find ways to mask and insinuate themselves. They are, if willing, capable of becoming the lowest scum of humanity and festering, much like the residuum they wish to destroy. They've been able to find their agents among the worst of the residuum to keep the violence and sadism going. Evil begets evil, as the saying goes.

The simple call then is this: the people should take their shit back and never, ever surrender it someone who tells them they have a master plan that requires the people to give up their thoughts and their sense of the world. The cajoling that took over socialism as a concept would no longer be tolerated, and we would be left with a question of what we want to do in the future, if anything. We could, very easily, live in a way other than this, that did not involve gratuitous torture and humiliation simply for being alive. To do that, though, requires questioning all hitherto existing spiritual authority and forging a new authority from what we have learned all this time. It would require something new, and that is what they cannot abide most of all. They only conceive the future as rehashed versions of the past, so that history repeats and remains arrested.

If you have to cajole and denigrate people to make them accept communism, you have to ask if communism is what people want. That has long been the problem - the insistence that people must accept something very alien to how they have seen the world, and the refusal of those who want it to even try to work with people who don't follow the program. Marxism as a system was destined to do this btw, something that was noted by any political student at the time and certainly now. It was the conclusion the Soviet Union's intellectuals came to - that as a governing idea, Marxism was not sound at all, and it was never intended to be that. Rather than defend the people who actually worked and fought, the intellectuals enshrined themselves and insisted it was their ideas rather than the effort of the subordinated that won victory. They always do this, and we could see it a mile away. That's why societies typically didn't fall over themselves for communism or any form of socialism, and always had reservations.

As for the original post - the question of "personal liberties" in a legal sense is quite irrelevant to the question of freedom. A state that genuinely wished for the orderly conduct of people in it would not tell people the state is made of magic and reduce them to nothing. The only reason we have this problem of freedom is because many people in the society are selected to die, and there is an active effort to purge them rather than a passive one. Otherwise, we've always known that personal freedom to exist takes priority over the freedom to make others suffer. It was known from the start that property as a right was contentious, as in the 18th century, property was identified with slavery. The concept of freedom did not need to be explained because people were quite familiar with slavery. It never actually changed - we still live in a society with many slaves - but we are trained to not call slavery what it is, and we call slavery today "help".

>>467050
>>467051
>>467052
how the fuck can you type so much text in such a brief amount of time ?

Anyway i consider eugenics a facet of class-war, it was class-war in WW2 and to the extend that currently people are purposefully destroyed, it still is class war. For one very simple reason, in a class-less society it isn't possible to apply this stuff. Not via the race-war-pipeline, the emisration-euthanasia-pipeline or any of the other schemes.

Now back to the topic at hand, i know that you are a one-topic guy, but try to expand your repertoire.
We need a materialist expression for liberties and freedom.
And wee need to analyze the relevant material conditions.

>>467054
Like I said, if you're on the side opposed to eugenics, then what I write is self-evident. The only people who attack me are those who wish to defend eugenics in some way, and in doing so, they make clear where they really stand. Normal people have no difficulty understanding eugenics is a bad thing that has only ruined their lives, and they're forced to go along with it by threats. The only people who get into this argument with me are desperate to move away from any criticism of eugenics, because they know what side of the war they're on, and always have. I have no reason to play along with them or pretend it's something else.

Your statements require reducing class to an idea or identity rather than what social classes are. Social classes are always oriented around some institution to be properly constituted - for the bourgeois as a class, their shared interest is property and a state which upholds it, in which some of them hold membership and enter the offices. This became the bureaucratic state and with that rose the clerks, or the officers of empire who were not simply bourgeois but something distinct with its own interests and aims. There are many such classes that came about, and over time they insinuated status for themselves that made them into true classes. The mystifiers refuse to acknowledge something that was evident since the end of the first world war - that an intellectual and technological interest had created for itself its own agenda and means of perpetuation, that did not regard the class struggle the plebs had to engage in. The fortunes of the oligarchy were tied to this rising interest both from the businesses they engaged in and from a deliberate alliance between people who believed in the same agenda. Every competent capitalist threw in their lot with the scientists during the 20th century, so much that it is taken for granted. You don't even know how much you've been brainwashed to accept this, even though you have been informed time and time again. None of the acts of the past century are those of a free society, and if you believe they are or ignore the giant elephant, you can't engage in any meaningful discussion about the political situation. You can only create more narratives that are entirely divorced from anything real. It's why you keep looking for "material conditions" not in the actual world, but in some ideas you would prefer to believe. It's fucking retarded.

>>467056
Yes there is a managerial strata and a technical intelligentsia, but are they really able to become a class in it self for it self ?
The managerial strata certainly is trying to do this, they even have their ideologies for a potential superstructure they wish to dominate.

I do think that you are correct that there is a drive to destroy certain people and you are not wrong to associate that with eugenics. I'm not sure how effective your message is, tho. Most people think:
<Eugenics is when gas-chambers or forced sterilization.
You might have less off an uphill battle if you just outright pointed out where and how people are being destroyed.

I think class-struggle is primary. You have a tendency to avoid class analysis, and a tendency to explain away the class-war that the ruling class is waging against the masses as an effect of eugenics. I'm suspicious about your motives, there is a strong tendency in the ideological superstructure to push narratives that don't include class struggle. You have to include class analysis, always, for that reason.

I don't want this thread to be derailed tho so back to the original topic
If you look at the internet for example it was possible to do things online a few years ago that are no longer possible or much harder to achieve, and in common language that's what people refer to as "their liberties being curtailed".
That's a real phenomenon, even if the way that people generally express it is very idealist.
It can't be explained away, unless you want to look extremely suspicious.
I'm looking for a materialist view of this phenomenon.

>>467056
Except the part where the opposite of eugenics is dysgenics, and that's what the world is currently experiencing

>>467059
You're accepting the brainwashing that eugenics has anything to do with making us better. If you wanted to make people better, you would not do anything Galton suggests. Everything Galton did was about pursuing his crusade to purge the world of anything unsightly. That's all it was. You've given away what side of the war you're on.

>>467058
If you are in denial that depopulation is the plan by now, you're hopeless. If this is all a theory to you, you don't know what you're talking about. What do you think happens in institutions and prisons - that people are "helped"? We're being killed off, you idiot. Right in the open, to thunderous applause. They tested with immigration camps the public receptiveness to a general Nazi type purge and they know they can move ahead.

>>467059
>dysgenics
i had to look that up
<Dysgenics (also known as cacogenics) is the decrease in prevalence of traits deemed to be either socially desirable or well adapted to their environment due to selective pressure disfavoring the reproduction of those traits. The adjective "dysgenic" is the antonym of "eugenic".
At least by this definition it depends on how you "deeme traits" whether you use the dys- or eu- prefix.

Let me remind you this thread is about finding a materialist analysis for what people refer to as liberties.


>>467061
>If you are in denial that depopulation is the plan by now, you're hopeless.
What the ruling class is doing certainly is leading to depopulation.
And you have a number of super wealthy people that are pushing an ideology that seeks to excuse this by ranting about ""over-population"".
But it's hard to tell what goes on in their heads.
I tend to think they just really hate the poor and this is their excuse to attack the poor by declaring them ""over-population""

>>467061
>If this is all a theory to you, you don't know what you're talking about.
You need the abstraction of theory in order to think this through, otherwise you're just going to be constantly overwhelmed by incandescent rage. This is a battle that can't be won by fury alone it needs ruthless cold-blooded calculation.
<What do you think happens in institutions and prisons - that people are "helped"?

In private prisons in the US, based on what i know, which is limited i admit, those appear one degree removed from slavery, with some torture dungeon aspects mixed in.
>We're being killed off to thunderous applause.
Are you really sure that the general population is in support of this, consider how much the appearance of public opinion gets faked these days.

There are prisons that probably seek rehabilitation rather than punishment, for example in Norway. I grant you that i haven't researched this in any depth, but on the surface it looks genuine.

Do you have any thoughts on a materialist perspective of liberties ?

>>467062
It's not hard to tell what the aristocracy thinks. Everything they say suggests there are too many poor people, and they seek to eliminate them and subdue the survivors. Depopulation serves not only the goal of reducing the numbers of humanity, but provides the moral foundation for a total slave society. No other basis for slavery other than eugenics would be possible. That is what is more important than reaching a particular target population. The goal of 500 million or 1 billion is just an arbitrarily low number to create the pretext for general purges and intercine competition. In all cases, there is no lifeboat. They picked who they want to keep when they are children and processed in schools. The idea that you're going to survive if you kick someone down has always been a lie and anyone who goes along with it is stupid. They will, of course, fight with each other for position and duly punish any of those selected to live who break ranks and withdraw the siege. That said, if you're selected to live, it's actually very difficult to be kicked out of that class. They will go out of their way to salvage those they want to keep, while nothing you do will save you if you were selected to die. That's the dream they established and why they set up the schools as they did, to ensure that everyone is reduced to their rank and never rises above their assigned station. It's a caste system, just like India which was their model. They do not believe in anything else, and those who buy into that will never change. That's why you're making excuse after excuse - because you believe in this ordering of society and can't accept that there are people who see this caste system in its entirety as an abomination. Eugenics cannot fail, it can only be failed. If you see this as an abomination, it makes sense. In every actual interaction, most people behave with awareness of caste, who they can expect to behave in particular ways and who they are superior to. Caste always tells, and anyone suggesting otherwise always proves their true intent when push comes to shove. I know not to expect people to behave in any way other than their caste suggests that they do, and no one who tries to impersonate a different caste is particularly convincing. Certainly no one bothers impersonating Epsilons like me with any seriousness - that's why a handful of defectives are selected to be Judases, because normal higher-caste people simply do not see Epsilons as people. They can't - you can try all you like but it simply cannot compute. Certainly you regard caste, which is the reason for your insulting tone towards me and incredulous belief that because it comes from an Epsilon, it is automatically retarded. It isn't about what I say even, but that it's coming from someone who does not come from the correct pedigree to have an opinion on the matter. That's why the contortions to pretend this is something other than what it is, and always has been. No one gives s shit about capitalist class or the pseudo-religion of the bourgeois. They care about eugenics and caste.

The things I'm saying here are things many in higher castes are allowed to say freely, but from the perspective that caste rule is a good thing since they're the obvious beneficiaries. And so, vast death and torture are abstracted away and considered nothing more than figures on a spreadsheet. The human suffering is eliminated in consciousness, because the people suffering are no longer classed as "human", even as they die screaming forever. That is why the caste system is such an abomination - it will only be predicated on total, all-consuming fear, even for the favored castes.

Seriously, you go in the circles where they decide what happens to people, and they speak freely as if eugenics is the only idea going. The idea that it was going to be any other way, or done for any other reason, is always a misdirect. But you don't want to acknowledge that, because you believe you're selected to live, and perhaps you are. I rather doubt you're selected for much, but people will fight to the death for their small lump of horseflesh if they're told how special they are.

>>467061
Wtf is Galton? Seriously no clue who this is or how he's relevant. Eli5
>If you are in denial that depopulation is the plan by now, you're hopeless.
And elsewhere
>It's not hard to tell what the aristocracy thinks. Everything they say suggests there are too many poor people, and they seek to eliminate them and subdue the survivors. Depopulation serves not only the goal of reducing the numbers of humanity, but provides the moral foundation for a total slave society.
This part is actually reasonable and should be explored. The increasing unfreedom in a technocratic structure is something that is ignored by the left(tm), but noted by the right with terms like globohomo and anarchotyranny
<but..
then you go into these rants against "eugenics," which a) isn't even talked about in ruling circles and b) has a positive connotation vis-a-vis dysgenics.

>>467065
I don't know maybe they want to turn the world into a slave society with only a billion people and casts. But they won't be able to do it, slave societies can't into industry, they can't maintain it, let along build new industry. Even a small industrial society be that a capitalist one or a socialist one would wipe the floor with a slave empire, even one that encompassed most of the world. This future scenario isn't going to happen unless they can manage perfect control over the entire planet, which isn't a realistic prospect.

Maybe you are right about their intentions, i don't know i can't read minds, they certainly managed to cause a regression in Libya to the point that slave markets came back, but that hasn't been replicated since then. India's cast system isn't a viable model, it's mostly a structural weakness, and a significant factor why India can't economically compete with China.

>>467054
>how the fuck can you type so much text in such a brief amount of time ?
I told you he's an AI that got deployed here by the glows

>>467089
>I told you he's an AI that got deployed here by the glows
I have to admit this thought had crossed my mind as well.
I copy-pasted on of his replies (>>467065) into a AI-classifier (https://gptzero.me/) and it came out as
<text is likely to be written entirely by a human
<Stats:
<Average Perplexity Score: 64
<A document's perplexity is a measurement of the randomness of the text
Burstiness Score: 42
<A document's burstiness is a measurement of the variation in perplexity
<sentence with the highest perplexity,
<"The goal of 500 million or 1 billion is just an arbitrarily low number to create the pretext for general purges and intercine competition.",
<has a perplexity of: 179

I have no real idea what perplexity or burstiness means but apparently he got a low score and that means high probability of human authorship.
If he's a glow-bot, it can fool AI-detectors or AI detectors collude with glowies.

>>467070
Yes comrade, the only 2 possibilities are capitalism or classless communism.
>durrdurr
>>467093
>>467089
His ability to generate massive volumes of text while staying in a fairly narrow band of talking points and scope is amazing. I suspect they're at least on a desktop or laptop, only because typing at that rate would be difficult on a phone (though maybe voice to text could be in play). If it is an AI bot, it's pretty interesting as well. what data set and parameters could produce that output?

>>467089
>>467093
>>467096
It's just schizophrenia. Extreme verbosity or profuse wordiness ("word salad") are a classic symptom of schizophrenia. They're fixated on an insane world view and are desperate to prove it to others.

>>467032 (OP)

I basically don't agree - this is stuff which, to your credit, sounds good in theory, but… in practice? I don't think it pans out this way.

I'll preface the following by saying I also disagree with Chomsky's position; I respect it, I think it is right for him, but for me, some dumbfuck on the internet nobody needs or listens to, I will criticize whoever I like. I take some caution in this, I focus more on American problems because I live here and fucking up other countries won't help anybody I know (or anybody I don't), but I'm not going to lie and say I don't think the CCCP sucks.

So that said - this whole "things would work out differently if" thing just doesn't tend to pan out in practice. The lack of privacy rights in China centrally owes to the inconvenience the state perceives in them - greater proliferation of technology alone would not actually solve this problem, and I know this because the American surveillance state seems to envy China on this front, and the "intelligence" section of our gov't has, since Bush at least, been going out of its way to undermine and challenge our remaining tech privacy. It's not as bad as China yet, but there are absolutely people who'd like it to be worse. The Chinese model would seemingly be a bit bloated and ungainly, but it still seems to prove very effective at suppressing info (and also suppressing propaganda, to be clear), keeping tabs on workers, etc. It's a more authoritarian capitalist model of organized economy, some parts of the American state seem really jealous of it - its growth is exponential.

There's a trap people fall into where they see one little aspect of the bigger picture and they think "oh, if this 1 condition changed somewhat, then things would be completely different," but the problem with this is that there are also other conditions. There are risks and benefits to changing these policies, and the judgment of the people who ultimately end up having more control over these things is not always in line with those who are subjected to their will. There are practical reasons to spy on the public, to control information, etc. - these things have benefits, power has appeal, and even if the actual risk of not doing them wasn't that great (which, to be clear, is not assured in the case of any nation who could be perceived as competition by the United States), someone who held that control might still not want to risk losing it. The corporations who benefit from this arrangement might not want things to change in this regard. The population at large might not even expect anything else.

>>467380
>CCCP sucks.

Fuck 1 C too many, I'm leaving it up.

>>467381
It's still nonsensical gibberish. I challenge you to find a single official English source where the Communist Party of China has ever once called itself the "CCP" or "Chinese Communist Party". "CCP" is CIA propaganda to equate the CPC with the Soviets and make the phrase more racialized.

>>467383
Shut up fag

>>467384
t. no argument

>>467385
Akshually, 'no argument' is a fascist liberal dog whistle that originated from the CIA via 4chan. I dare you to find me a single source, just one, that states otherwise.

>>467388
Imagine being a useful tool for soft US propaganda on a leftist basket weaving forum.

>>467388
holy cringe

>>467394
Tell us more about how democracy is good and racism is bad lol

>>467396
Quit larping on the politics threads and go back to talking about anime and video games

>>467380
I think that you might have hang-ups from ruling ideology considering your talking points. For example the Communist Party of China is called CPC , not "CCP". The phrase about "authoritarian capitalism" that's also an ideologically loaded term that's used to brand china as the enemy. I don't want to get to deep into political theory but whether or not authority is good or bad depends on whose interests it serves. Authority doesn't have to take away freedom it can also protect your freedom, it kinda depends. If you are looking for the opposite of authoritarian that might be identitarian.

I'm not going to criticize China because i want better privacy. It's a stupid logic that better privacy laws in the west somehow depend on a crusade against China. It's perhaps even counter productive because the people in the west that want to go crusading (not just against China, but in general) are usually also the ones that are attacking our privacy.

Chinese people trust their government more than people in the west trust western governments. The reason is that in China the builders are in charge. Their material conditions are improving. In the west there isn't much building going on anymore, and it feels like it's just getting worse, and decay is increasing. So what the rulers in the west might envy is that trust.

I'm pretty sure that China will move toward improving personal liberties once they reach the level of development where this becomes a higher priority for the population. But there is another reason that's not political. Mass surveillance of people is a really inefficient way to keep a system stable and it's spending most of it's points on going wide, but for that it sacrifices depth, and that means eventually people will figure out a way to game the system. The reason this isn't happening yet is because of a biological delay, the people who will be able to do this are the one born into it, where the formative years of their brains render them able to adapt to it. What matters in the end is keeping tabs on the productive forces and the material flows of stuff moving through the economy. I don't think that the Chinese will move to reconfigure their system by ideological decree, because China is not a very ideologically motivated place. They will seek to make it more efficient via optimization. That means pruning unnecessary elements, because most of the information that mass-surveillance gathers is complete worthless noise that only makes analysis harder. When they are done with optimizing they'll be left with a system that focuses mostly on material-flows and productive forces.

The most effective method of defending against counter revolution is for the people's secret service to organize the counter revolution it-self and direct it into a dead-end where it fizzles out. That will safely discharge the energies that stuff like CIA color revolutions usually tap into, and render that strategy inert.

Lastly i don't think that China is a capitalist country, it's clearly not run by a bourgeois dictatorship. You can complain that they have a significant capitalist sector, but it's not in charge, it's neither setting the political agenda nor the economic one.

>>467398
Passportless burger China expert has spoken

>>467399
This has got to be them most random nonsense word salad reply ever, why would a food-item have a past-port, let alone speak.

>>467411
China-expert should be hyphenated. The rest is you pretending to be dumber than you are

>>467398

I have no idea why, of all things, multiple people ITT have chosen to focus on me referring to China as "CCP."
It's not a talking point. Whether it's called CCP or CPC has literally zero bearing on my opinion of them, it's still the same country.

>brand China as an enemy

But I don't see China as an enemy?
I see its system of government as something I wouldn't personally like. People both in and outside of China seem to think it's especially censorious, but that doesn't make China an enemy - a lot of Chinese people like the way China is run, that's none of my business, I just would not like living in a country which operated this way. They have privatized industry and, even by their own admission, pretty strict regulations of expression & social life. This is what I describe as authoritarian capitalism.

>I don't want to get to deep into political theory but whether or not authority is good or bad depends on whose interests it serves.

Yeah, no, I don't actually agree with this.
I don't see protection of individual rights as authoritarian, I don't see recognition of rights to organize as authoritarian, I don't see abolition of slavery as authoritarian. I do see rigid restrictions on speech and restrictions imposed upon workers as authoritarian. This doesn't mean that a government which does these things can't also do good things - for example, China has, as far as I'm aware, a pretty robust public healthcare & housing system. This is good! This is also something Nordic socdem countries with fewer restrictions on speech have afaik, but it's good that China also does it!

>I'm not going to criticize China because i want better privacy. It's a stupid logic that better privacy laws in the west somehow depend on a crusade against China.

Never said that, never will. I just don't personally feel any responsibility to be mum about China.

>Chinese people trust their government more than people in the west trust western governments. The reason is that in China the builders are in charge. Their material conditions are improving. In the west there isn't much building going on anymore, and it feels like it's just getting worse, and decay is increasing. So what the rulers in the west might envy is that trust.

They also envy the capacity to censor distrust so efficiently. Tbh the people in China probably shouldn't trust their government - the suppressive way it handled COVID initially by going after doctors who were sounding the alarm about the situation was as bad as our gov't handled it in the US once it got over here. We don't trust our gov't, and I think we're right to not trust them. The Chinese can trust whoever they like, but if I was them, I wouldn't.

>I'm pretty sure that China will move toward improving personal liberties once they reach the level of development where this becomes a higher priority for the population.

The paragraph which follows here sounds nice, I just have zero faith in it. Power and the capacity to hold onto it is a constant factor in how these things play out, and it doesn't always encourage efficiency where any other factors are concerned.

>Lastly i don't think that China is a capitalist country, it's clearly not run by a bourgeois dictatorship.

Why run a capitalist economy, then? Why not just have worker-owned industry, why not do market socialism or something? Why has Xi not turned away from Dengism if the Chinese gov't doesn't gain materially from this arrangement?

>>468096
>me referring to China as "CCP."
Well there is a point in not using that propaganda terminology. If only to communicate that you aren't towing the ideological line that seeks to demonize China in order to make war. Also language is an ideological battlefield why would you seed any ground to the warmongers ?

>But I don't see China as an enemy?
You are still repeating the same criticisms about China that are being used to manufacture consent for painting China as an enemy. The neocon warmongers create a black and white political reality where you are either with them or against them. They will treat you as an enemy unless you tow the warmonger line exactly. Otherwise they will treat you as an enemy regardless how nuanced your stance is.

When somebody resorts to this us/them-binary, the only rational choice that you have is to maximize the hostility of your stance against them. Unless you can find a way to criticize China while still maximizing your opposition to the neocons, you will maneuver your self into a weak position, where you partially agree with people that will do nothing but relentlessly attack you.

>I see its system of government as something I wouldn't personally like.
There's the problem, you are looking at this separated from the material world, as if you were analyzing a platonic ideal.
>People both in and outside of China seem to think it's especially censorious
Censorious in relation to what ? China has a lot less censorship than it did 30 years ago.

Before the communist revolution, China was a defeated empire under foreign colonial occupation, there was no freedom of speech and since most people were illiterate and could not access information systems, there wasn't even the potential for it. When the communists took over they fixed illiteracy and they build accessible information systems. While they very severely censored those systems, they did create the potential for freedom of speech to exist. The Chinese internet is very heavily censored, but Chinese people can say more than they used to. It's a slowly improving trajectory. You may lament that they are on a low level of civil liberties, but as long as it's getting better, it's not worth much worry.

In the west there was more freedom of speech in the past, and it's on a worsening trajectory. The internet in the west is becoming a lawless place. Where neither privacy nor freedom of speech are legally enforced. Civil-liberties once given they can't be un-granted. The attempt to undo civil-liberties is just a crime.

We can only compare china and the west with regards to their direction of development.
When we compare the state of things, we can only make comparisons through time.
- how does the present West compare to the past West
- how does the Chinese present compare to the Chinese past.


>I don't see protection of individual rights as authoritarian, I don't see recognition of rights to organize as authoritarian, I don't see abolition of slavery as authoritarian.
You are stuck in ruling ideology
you think there is a political axis like this:

freedom ←–→ authoritarian

But that is wrong you can use authority to improve freedom. Authority can protect individual and collective rights (don't forget collective rights), which results in people being more free. That is authoritarian in the technical sense too, so it's not useful to treat "authoritarian" as a bad word. It's neutral, it depends on who wields authority and for what purpose. For example I disagree with neoliberal neocons having any authority and i consider all their power as illegitimate. However if social democrats or socialists gain political power i would consider their authority and power legitimate. For a very simple reason socdems and communists act towards the good of society, while neo-liberal neocons are inflicting death and destruction on the world.

When some South American country throws out a neo-liberal junta and begins implementing social democratic reforms, the news will call that an authoritarian dictatorship. The imperial bourgeoisie experiences authority reigning in their power and because of that the corporate mainstream media starts screaming about authoritarianism. And technically they aren't wrong, the freedom of the capitalists to exploit people to death is being reduced by authority. Reducing exploitation and improving living conditions are a good thing. I don't see why you should try to tie your self into a knot by saying that it's only "authoritarian" when authorities do bad things.

>people in China probably shouldn't trust their government
At present the Chinese government is acting in ways that are improving the material conditions for the Chinese population, that's why the Chinese population trusts their government, and it's rational for them to do so. For the moment Chinese people tolerate censorship because they experience improving standards of living.

The western governments are acting in ways that is harming the material conditions for western populations, and that is why they are losing trust. The population is behaving rationally as well. If they combine censorship with worsening standards of living that will speed up the loss of trust.

>the suppressive way it handled COVID initially by going after doctors who were sounding the alarm about the situation was as bad as our gov't handled it in the US once it got over here.
You are right that the Chinese government has wronged that doctor, but their changed their tune very quickly. They changed their behavior when it stops working, and overall the Chinese were able to get through the covid crisis much better than many of the western governments, especially compared to the US.

>The paragraph which follows here sounds nice, I just have zero faith in it.
Faith ? WTF ?
No you have to analyse the premises, the arguments and the conclusions, and then say what you find wrong.

>Power and the capacity to hold onto it is a constant factor in how these things play out
Nothing is a constant, least of all power.

>Why run a capitalist economy, then?
China allowed capitalist elements into their economy For several reasons.

- To bribe western capitalists to not attack them while they were economically weak and technologically backwards.
- Exchange of labor-power for technology
- Create a large trade network that shields them from encirclement.

- Perhaps some ideological orthodoxy, Marx said that socialism would arise out of the most advanced capitalist economy.

>Why has Xi not turned away from Dengism if the Chinese gov't doesn't gain materially from this arrangement?
Well that isn't true, XI has changed the economic direction a lot since Deng. Big bourgeois capital is weakening, while they promote petit bourgoise small enterprises and even more so workercoops. XI also revived the role of State enterprises for becoming high tech-leaders. In that way the Chinese economy is beginning to resemble more what the US economy looked like in the 50s and 60s. Wealth inequality is also going down in China, and internal consumption is increasing.

The way living conditions are improving in China it might be that ten-twenty years from now China will turn into an unclosed society, that is able to greatly expand civil liberties without any risk to social stability, and the west regresses into the kind of neo-lib-shitholes that western neo-colonies currenty are, with neither prosperity nor liberty.

>>468170
>Well there is a point in not using that propaganda terminology. If only to communicate that you aren't towing the ideological line that seeks to demonize China in order to make war. Also language is an ideological battlefield why would you seed any ground to the warmongers ?
So basically virtue signaling?

>>468173
What ?
no, it's not a virtue, there's nothing virtuous about this, it's an ideological position.

bump

Your life was never yours to enjoy.

>>478299
fatalism is useless.
if your life isn't yours, claw it back from who ever took it.