Maybe stop ignoring entire fields of research that, to this date, are still figuring out what biological brains are doing and how they are doing them instead of just nodding along to what you already want to believe from people that have blinders for anything outside of their field (computers, in this case).

Well first, brains aren’t the only kind of intelligent biological system but they aren’t actually trying to 1 for 1 recreate the human brain, or any other brain for that matter, that’s just marketing. The generative side of LLM’s is what gets the focus in the media but it’s really not the most scientifically interesting or what will actually change that much all things considered.

These systems are absolutely fantastic at finding real patterns in chaotic systems. That’s where the potential lies.

It’s like if people were trying to develop rocketry to achieve space travel, but you and yours were smugly stating that this particularly sharp knife will cut the heavens open, just you wait.

More like trying to go to the moon with a Civil War era rocket, it is early days yet. But progress is insanely quick.

I do think people here have a tendency to just hate all of it out of hand, which I get to some extent.

Yeah the hype cycle is certainly annoying. As is the accompanying fire/re-hire at lower pay cycle that follows any automation.

ignoring the fact that it can render pretty amazing looking videos in such a short time span.

I actually think the generative aspect of neural networks is the least interesting/useful/innovative/etc. Though it will admittedly be more interesting when an LLM can say, use blender to make a video rather than just wholesale generating it. Or at least generate the files/3d models necessary to have it be edited by a person just like they would anything else. I suspect there will have to be a pretty significant architecture change for them to be able to make convincing/coherent movie-length videos.

Chaotic system control, like they’re doing with nuclear fusion plasma is the most interesting, to me anyway.

To expand on that for people who think it’s all just smoke and mirrors. I think, just like the assembly line, work places will be reorganized to facilitate the usefulness/capabilities of LLM’s and, perhaps more importantly, designed to obviate their weaknesses.

It’s just that people are still figuring out what that new organization will look like. There hasn’t been a Henry Ford type for LLM’s yet (and hopefully won’t be a Nazi this time). Obviously there’s no guarantee there will be such a person/organization but I don’t think it super unlikely either.

You sure Freud isn’t haunting you?

The dynamics of capital. It’s a given, which is why I caveated it with ‘if they continue capital accumulation’.

Could they be nicer about? Perhaps, but that would be due to technological development allowing them to carry out their exploitation with less direct violence, not because they are somehow morally superior for having been colonized. Just as the American Empire is/was less brutal than the British.

China did not industrialize on the basis of a colonial empire

It didn’t industrialize directly from a colonial empire, yes. However the capital that flowed into it certainly was, if China had not opened itself up to foreign capital it would not have industrialized anywhere near as fast as it did.

since the south will eventually get richer despite colonialism

Until they saturate their markets and start to look outside their borders for new markets.

while the north will struggle because it doesn’t know how to develop without colonialism

Colonialism is a product of capitalism, if you got rid of the entire global north but let the global south continue capital accumulation they would recreate colonialism, by necessity. No one knows how to develop without colonialism because no one knows how to develop without capitalism.

World systems theorists being methodologically nationalist, quelle surprise.

To be clear I’m sure their findings are close to the truth anyway but it just shows the limitations of the data/approach, like in what world is Singapore in the ‘global south’. But that’s on the data collectors.

But even disregarding that, including China in the ‘global south’ post 2008 is patently ridiculous. I really want to see what these percentages would say if China was included in the ‘global north’.

Okay fair I missed that part. Still doesn’t change the physics though.

Are you an anarchist?

You actually made me laugh, thanks. This isn’t productive anymore though.

wen ur a srs anti-imperialist

Oh please. A school board member has absolutely no bearing on foreign policy, sacrificing your political capital on performative displays of anti-imperialism will only alienate the people you are trying to get to join and make other potentially sympathetic board members not want to be associated with you or your policies (even if you’re just voting in the negative). The people you are trying to reach do not engage with party literature, they hear about PSL from twitter or some local news article which regurgitates whatever the party’s take is in the least flattering way possible. Playing into that by using the platform a (very) minor presidential bid gives you is just … naive at best.

Maybe take one second to actually read about the rationale and tactics of the campaign.

I did. I just disagree.

One example. We raise a platform position - nationalize the 100 largest corporations, for example - and libs say “that will never happen even if you win, which you won’t because the system is stacked against you”. We say, “correct - we need a socialist revolution and the only historically proven way to do it is a Marxist-Leninist party”.

Why would anyone believe that? Genuinely. Not to mention nationalization isn’t even a uniquely socialist policy. The only even nominally socialist state of any significance is China and, at the very least, their economy is as capitalist as apple pie. Promises are cheap. Change people’s material conditions for the better and then they will believe you, not before. I understand its hard work and doesn’t have the glamour of a protest or a presidential bid, but if we actually want things to change for the better then it must be done.

No I consider it a vanity ticket because they have no intention of really winning. You can’t use the same strategy as every other 3rd party and expect people to not just assume that your party is exactly the same as every other grifter.

Pivoting to actually trying to win state ballots is a step backwards

Then you gotta do institution building which, as far as I’m aware, PSL does not do.

The goal of participating in bourgeois elections is to draw attention, nothing more.

I fully agree. And the best way to do that is to win seats so you can throw a wrench (or three) into the system and block any policies that would harm the working class. Then propagandize on those tangible achievements so that you can demonstrate to people that you can actually offer them something beyond just having the ‘correct’ opinions. All the while trying to build parallel institutions which can eventually take over the functions of the state you are trying to dismantle so people aren’t afraid society will collapse if you take power, electorally or otherwise.

It’s fundamentally about utilizing the massive attention driven towards the presidential circus to promote a socialist platform

This “massive attention” is fleeting and far more likely to produce a negative impression than a positive one. I understand they think they’re being clever. I’m saying its dumb and is counterproductive and makes them look just like every other bourgeois 3rd party and does in no way

demonstrate the necessity of a Marxist-Leninist communist party

Getting even just one measly school board position to fuck with conservatives to demonstrate that they’re actually serious about defending the principles they espouse and not just shouting foreign policy positions people find cringe would generate far more public goodwill than a presidential bid that can’t get full 50 ballot access (and even where they do get it they can’t even get their party name on the ballot) ever could.

Except they haven’t actually demonstrated anything, there were a bunch of startups and others in the west who have done this same ‘demonstration’ before concluding (rightly) that it wasn’t worth pursuing. Socialism doesn’t change physics, it’s still a stupid idea. Just because some group in China is now on the grift doesn’t change that fact.

Really wish they would start smaller and try to become a real alternative in even one state, not do these pointless vanity presidential tickets. Hard to take them seriously when they waste so much money on these every 4 years.

I think the growth vs. degrowth framing is really poorly defined, there’s not a clear distinction between capitalist growth (basically GDP) and development of the productive forces and any discussion of the topic easily devolves into people talking past each other because they’re using different definitions for the same terms.

A lot of GDP growth today is in things that manipulate the market and can be gotten rid of entirely like advertising, which is nearly 20% of US GDP by itself. This makes it relatively easy to get rid of but is a double edged sword. This focus on financial growth over the ‘actual’ economy over the past ~50 years has left it neglected and so the (re)development of the productive forces of North America (not just the US since the economy is already quite integrated) will require massive investment and thus ‘growth’. It will obviously be a different sort of growth than has been done before (yes, even than the Soviets) so it is hard to say how exactly it will look but it won’t happen unless the economy is under the control of the mass of people who make it up.

Fossil fuel extraction will continue probably for a very long time (we use it for nearly everything) but at a greatly reduced scale as alternatives are developed. Modern agriculture is actually fairly space (and thus calorie per hectare) inefficient because it’s easier to automate and thus reduce labor costs. Likely there will be many more people who work in agriculture but still on the order of single digit percentages of the population (just more than the ~2% it is now). Enhanced weathering has the potential to be a sort of Hail Mary for CO2 sequestration, it can also be used on cropfields as fertilizer though it probably can’t replace all nitrogen fertilizer but I don’t know enough about it to really say either way. I think other forms of CO2 sequestration are mostly in the realm of fantasy so hopefully enhanced weathering doesn’t have too many detrimental side-effects.

As for resource extraction more generally, it will also have to continue for a long time in all likelihood. Perhaps deep sea mining of those naturally occurring polymetallic nodules will be less impactful than traditional mining, perhaps not. Asteroid mining could genuinely be revolutionary in this aspect but the investment involved to get it a necessary scale would probably take too long for it to be a viable short-term solution even if there was a revolution tomorrow. Things can be done to make traditional mining less impactful that aren’t currently because they aren’t profitable, but it will likely be the worst thing that continues in any transition. Rewilding other areas to compensate will ease the damage.

It will be a difficult transition. Go too slow and you risk the environment degrading to the point of the collapse of production entirely. Go too fast and you risk the same by not having the inputs necessary to sustain it. The market is too slow and passive to handle the situation and so it will only be overcome if the (real) economy can be steered by society as a whole.

5v5. All the most toxic games are 5v5, whether its CSGO or League etc. I can’t stand them. Though the real problem is automated matchmaking and lack of server browsers, most other pvp games have ways of mitigating the toxicity but 5v5’s really just encourage it full tilt.

I really wish larger team based esport games were the ones that took off, but alas.

Guild Wars 1 had a lot of unique and weird weapons but the Fiery Dragon Sword is one of those rule of cool weapons even though it makes no sense practically.

I’d recommend the book Engineers of Jihad. It’s precisely the people who wish to change the world and then are denied by external forces (largely the U.S. in this case) that are primed for radicalization.

Also iirc, Bashar al-Assad’s father was the one who actually developed the tactic/justification but I’m having trouble finding a source, it’s early.

I think hammering the point that AES were/are real places full of real people who did many good things but also made mistakes is important, because it’s true. The reflexive (i.e. uncritical) defending of AES states, in particular China, is understandable due to the uncritical attacking the MSM does constantly but it’s not helpful. You can’t win just by doing the same thing your enemy does but opposite/inverted.

This requires actually knowing what AES states did and are doing, which most here don’t. Not saying I do either but I know enough to know that most here know even less. But it goes back to the purpose of this ‘community’, should it be for teaching theory and preaching socialism or should it just be a place for terminally online leftists (in the broadest possible definition) to shoot the shit and commiserate over the world falling apart? Obviously due to the nature of the internet, the latter is the most likely/possible.