My understanding is that this is just a sort of open forum/presentation on this as an idea. That being said, it's a stupid-ass idea.
I don't want my computer to "love me back" it's a fucking machine that I built to do my work on and play my games on. I am the only form of agency I want having access to it.
If I ever want an AI agent running all the time in the background doing shit for me, I'll fucking install and configure one myself! I want my OS to be an OS, not some "smart", interactive fake person that will hallucinate random Bash commands, fuck my partitions up randomly, and bork my system.
I alone am the only thing that I want destroying my system, if that's going to happen, it will happen by my own hands, my own shitty commands, my own piss-poor scripts.
This AI delusion and hype cycle is more infuriating than the NFT craze, and that's really saying something.
Man, I really hate this economy. This AI bubble cannot pop fast enough, but I fear we have at least till the end of this year, possible Q2 of next year to see it happen. Even then, it's not like it will be instant, and capacity won't just instantly switch over to normal consumer components. Assuming even more tech idiocy doesn't happen, we're still years away from a ramp up to "normal" capacity.
I'm even more scared that the era of personal computing is in it's last days. The combination of drastic cost increases, and the dominance of corpo-tech working 24/7 to destroy ownership completely, might be too much to overcome.
We'll see a return to the era of computing similar to the 80's and early 90's. Building your own PC will require lots of money and technical skills. Pre-builts will be a distant memory. PC builders will be spoken of in similar terms as HAM radio people are now, hermitic nerds who are hardcore into their ancient, dark, tech wizardry.
I'm curious, are you this stupid professionally, or is it just a hobby?
No it doesn't require a login to view, I literally just clicked and watched it.
I never said or implied that anybody "owes" me a content warning. It was merely a suggestion out of care & concern for other people who might be sensitive to this sort of content.
You’re confusing the distinction between socialism and communism, and it’s because you view the world through an individualist frame, not a socialist one. You see socialism only through the eyes of an individual worker and an individual capitalist, you do not see classes. As such, you believe the distinction between socialism and communism as the difference between, essentially, elements of communism and the whole society being communistic. This is wrong.
I don't subscribe to an Individualist worldview, so no.
Communism is the point by which all class distinctions have been eradicated and property collectivized, which discounts anarchism which seeks many cooperative-style cells, which leads to class distinctions between cells.
That's only true of some kinds of Anarchist thought. Anarchism is a broad category of viewpoints, so you just painting it with a broad brush comes off as ignorance to Anarchist theory. Second, even if you were right and Anarchism universally advocated for a network of "cooperative-style cells" as you put it, you offered nothing to prove that it would lead to class distinctions in cells, you just asserted that blindly.
Restricting the ability of class traitors to go against the working class is not a bad thing. Independent unions that seek greater autonomy for a small subset of a class in a way that goes against the rest of the class is the problem with individualist framing. China has the largest federation of unions on the planet, they do a fantastic job of protecting worker rights. The reason independent unions are not allowed is because these cracks in the system become highly exploitable by a capitalist class that very much would love to overthrow the working classes as the ruling class.
You pack this section with a ton of loaded assumptions, it's sloppy reasoning. Assuming that any desire to deviate from the State-approved union structure in any way represents class betrayal is ridiculous. It falls into the identical category as religious fundamentalists who assume that even the slightest disagreement or challenge to the existing structure represents an existential threat to the whole, and must be crushed.
You double-down on this dishonest framing that workers and capitalists are the same when you talk about authoritarianism. The state is not outside of class struggle, it is within it, and thus can only be the representative of the ruling class. I support the working classes having state authority to protect against capitalists, and this is not at all the same as supporting capitalists having state authority against workers. This is the same problem you keep bumping into, treating tools as abstractions without looking at what class is wielding the tools. You erase class struggle from society.
As a Statist, of course you wouldn't view absolute State power as structurally problematic. The same way a religious fundamentalist doesn't have a problem with the church having absolute power, as long as it is their religious sect that controls it. I disagree, because I am interested in structural critiques of power. I seek to increase the power of workers vs Capitalists, and also to reduce the power and influence of the State. These are not mutually exclusive goals, although they are complex and interconnected.
Your next paragraph just has you add “Capitalist” to the beginning of words, without justifying what makes any of it capitalist. GDP is not capitalist, it’s just a metric used for measuring production. The reason why China is successful is because it’s a socialist country, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and the CPC is a proletarian party, which controls the state. It isn’t “capitalism and authoritarianism,” it’s a socialist market economy run democratically.
I didn't say GDP was Capitalist, I said "Capitalist GDP growth", or in other words, pursuing rapid and consistent GDP growth at the expense of other factors in an economy. You then just go on to assert the same Statist assumptions as before.
If China was capitalist, it would fall into the same trappings as other capitalist economies, and would be well on its way down. Instead, it is increasing socialization of the economy:
This one I found quite ironic, because first off, I literally listed multiple Capitalist trappings right above your response, which you just before, "...you add “Capitalist” to the beginning of words, without justifying what makes any of it capitalist."
You then post a chart, I don't know what it is from, but it assumes a statist framing, so my previous anti-statist critiques apply to that as well.
As for China being neocolonial, I look at Africa to know that they aren’t. China forgives debt, develops infrastructure, and facilitates south-south trade. It isn’t neocolonial because it has no reason to be, it isn’t dominated by private finance capital, and as a result Africa is rapidly developing, rather than remaining entrapped like it has been by the west.
The USA forgives debt, the EU forgives debt, the damn IMF forgives debt...so what, they're not evil and corrupt institutions now? The US Army Corps of Engineers builds infrastructure, does that mean the US military isn't an evil, Neo-colonial institution? You also said, "It [China] isn’t neocolonial because it has no reason to be, it isn’t dominated by private finance capital..." As if private finance capital is the only reason anybody would be interested in Colonizing anything.
All of the benefits you claim come from China's involvement in Africa can also be, and have been, claimed by Western Imperialist entities about their colonization projects. That's why it's Neo-Colonialism, I already said it is miles better than anything the West did, obviously. But better doesn't make it good, if I bake a cake with 1 cup of feces mixed in the batter, reducing it to 1/4 cup of feces is better, but it's still a shit cake.
As for the PRC vs. the USSR, both are socialist, the USSR just took a more direct confrontational approach. It does not make the PRC capitalist.
No, the USSR actually was a legit State Socialist project. They actually largely eliminated private property, largely eliminated markets in favor of a centrally planned economy, and largely did not fall into Capitalist trappings like consumerism, vapid entertainment culture, or ultra-luxury goods. It was a disaster in many ways, horribly corrupt and terribly managed, and a lot of innocent people died needlessly. However they still managed to raise living standards for the vast majority of their population, develop interesting and impressive technologies; like a ternary logic-based computer, the first artificial satellite, the second most powerful military in the world for a while, and a rough but functional space program that saw several other "firsts." Some Soviet technology is still used by modern cosmonauts, like their electro-mechanical orbital computers, which are considered very impressive by modern engineers, Westoids included.
This will be my last response in this thread because I think you and I have hit ideological bedrock. I've made all the primary points I wanted to make, and I think I have responded adequately to your statements. I oppose your worldview very strongly, but I do appreciate your civility in this exchange. In a weird way, I am rooting for China, everything they succeed at makes the US look even worse, and hopefully will help inspire a labor resurgence in the USA in the coming years. Right now we need all the help we can get.
Your example of socialism is a common misunderstanding, one that sees petite bourgeois worker ownership as socialist. The problem is that you abstract an element from the whole. Those that do not work at said cooperative do not share in its ownership, and this creates the rise of class distinctions.
A society where all members collectively share in all ownership isn't a Socialist society, it's a Communist society, which is what we should be trying to move towards. Going from individualist, Capitalist ownership to a worker-owned model with direct worker democracy is Socialist. Of course ideally all workers everywhere would share equally in the fruits of the labor of the entire society, but again, that's Communism, not Socialism.
Thus, organizing in a way that undermines the socialist state undermines socialism. You try to justify it by saying independent organization is “healthy,” but you do not materially justify this. This becomes a moralistic argument, not a materialist one, and thus falls into idealism.
No it undermines State Socialism and specifically, that particular State's Socialist framework, not Socialism as a whole. The whole point of Socialism is to embody worker's rights to both the fruits of their labor, and the governance of their labor. Restricting that is antithetical to Socialist progress.
You try to justify it by saying independent organization is “healthy,” but you do not materially justify this. This becomes a moralistic argument, not a materialist one, and thus falls into idealism.
There is a lot of material evidence for this, I just don't feel like getting a ton a sources together and posting them in a comment section debate on Lemmy. That being said, it is easy to find studies on worker-owned cooperatives and how they outperform traditional firms on the whole. The entire open source software movement is a testament to the robustness of independent Socialist organization against Fascist and Capitalist interests.
You fall even further into confusion when you equate MAGA, a fascist movement within a capitalist society, with the CPC, a communist party within a socialist society. The problem is not political loyalty in general, but political loyalty to fascism or socialism! You equate fascism with communism as equal evils here based purely on the similarity in form being political loyalty to the system. Anyone can see that these are very different systems!
I don't understand what you're saying here at all. I never said MAGA and the CCP were the same. I argued that merely incorporating workers into a national union structure, especially under an Authoritarian State apparatus, doesn't make the society Socialist.
Next, “authoritarian rhetoric.” I support the authority of the working class. I do not support the authority of capitalists or fascists. The fact that I support worker states does not mean I support any and all states that support any and all classes. I support a particular form of state, that being a socialist state. Again, you confuse particular similarities in form abstracted from context for absolute similarities in total. This is a metaphysical error repeated.
Authority is not the same as Authoritarian. You didn't address my core point at all here, which was that the argument that the State must act in an Authoritarian manner in order to reduce the risk of itself being undermined by dissent, is the exact same rhetoric that the US and EU are using right now as they continue to roll out more frameworks for surveillance and control. Unless you are admitting that you have no problem with that, as long as the people you support are the ones who are doing it, which in that case, alright, fair enough. You're in the same rhetorical spot as MAGA supporters who cheer on ICE raids. They love seeing ICE roaming their streets because ICE is, (for now), acting in accordance with their worldview. Of course the actual critique ought to be structural, which if you analyze ICE through that lens, you quickly see that those same agents who are kicking in immigrant's doors and dragging them into vans, will eventually come for the MAGA supporters too.
I am against Authoritarianism because I understand the structural critique. I understand that when any entity, a State, a ruler, a group of workers, is granted a structural framework within their society to act with absolute power, it will always degrade and devolve into every form of abuse we see in the world today. I reject Hobbes's central thesis, humanity is on the whole, cooperative and constructive, not individualist and destructive.
Next, your confusion of marketization as capitalism. We already went over how cooperatives themselves are not socialism, because what matters is the context of the entire system. The capital that exists in China exists only in secondary industries, where marketization plays a progressive role. Critical and large industry is overwhelmingly state owned and planned. If China had a wealth cap, it would not fundamentally change that until production is socialized and collectivized afterwards, there will exist capitalists. However, as long as these capitalists exist within the birdcage set out by the socialist state, they cannot gain political power.
No, I understand that markets are not the same thing as Capitalism, obviously. China embraces Capitalist consumerism, Capitalist GDP growth, Capitalist sector dominance, Capitalist trade, Capitalist work ethic, Capitalist profit motives. They have managed it far better than the USA and most other western nations, but the same can be said for the Scandinavian countries, which are Capitalist. For this reason, I get frustrated watching China succeed so strongly, because it seems like a perfect counter-example to my worldview that Capitalism and Authoritarianism cannot produce long term societal happiness and prosperity. China seems to have figured out, (for now), how to make Authoritarian State Capitalism work. If that remains true in the years and decades to come, then it will be a massive blow against the viability of actual Socialism.
Further, you make completely unbacked and baseless claims of “neocolonialism.” You do not interrogate or substantiate this point. China’s position on the world stage undermines neoimperialism, which operates via IP monopoly, US cultural hegemony, the dollar as the world reserve currency, and US military dominance. Neoimperialism works through neocolonialism. China’s advance in IP destroys the IP monopoly of the west, undermines their military dominance, creates room for south-south trade, and undermines US supremacy, which is necessary for imperialism in the modern era. There is no neocolonialism from China.
China is Neocolonialist for sure, look at what they are doing in Africa. The difference is that China is smart, and understands how to exploit the poorest countries in the world without having to torture and massacre people, unlike most Western countries. I am happy that China is undermining IP monopoly, US and NATO military dominance, and so forth, I am against all those things as well. It remains to be seen if China will actually free people from the evils of IP law globally, I doubt it strongly, but I can dream, same with their military.
The USSR was also good. I will push back on the idea of a “political upper class,” such a term is not founded in Marxist understandings of class but the simple substitution of class for any category. Class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production, administrators in the Soviet Union had equal ownership to any other worker and were paid wages equivalent to skilled laborers.
I don't have the energy or interest to debate the USSR being "good" whatever that might mean to you. You didn't address my main point here either, which was that the USSR was a much better example of fighting the US and NATO on their own (The USSR's) terms, instead of trying to just do Capitalism but better. The USSR's leadership suffered from horrific corruption, especially at the local level, which is what makes it all the more impressive that despite that, they were able to accomplish what they did...the last true adversary to the USA. China isn't so much beating the USA as they are just watching the USA rapidly decay after 50+ years of Neo-liberal, Capitalist cancer. Not to take too much credit away from China, they are absolutely doing things no other nation has ever done in recorded history, which is impressive from a Humanist POV.
Overall, I defend China from a Marxist position, you are attacking it from, at most, an anarchist position.
Bingo, Anarchist here. That explains a large portion of our disagreements.
Public ownership under capitalism is not socialism
Worker ownership is Socialism, that's literally the most basic definition of Socialism, when workers own the means of production. A business where 100% of the ownership is possessed by the workers, where workers have full democratic control on the deployment of capital, where class distinction is eliminated and role distinction is elevated but confers no special privileges, is a Socialist business.
What matters is what class controls the state
If the only way that workers are allowed to influence a state is from within the State-approved structure, then it's meaningless. Chinese workers aren't allowed to organize organically, they are required to organize only within the approved bounds of the CCP.
If tomorrow, Trump announced that the US government was automatically enrolling all workers into a national MAGA union, but the rules stated that all other unions would be dissolved and all membership transfered into the MAGA union, would that be Socialism?
Independent worker union rights within the context of socialism can be a barrier to socialism.
Independent worker unions are essential to a healthy Socialist movement.
Independence from this cohesive socialist system can be levereged into disunity and resistance towards socialism, which can be especially dangerous for a society that still retains some degree of private ownership. Any crack becomes a lever.
This is authoritarian rhetoric, the exact same as what is currently being used by the USA and the EU to justify more surveillance, more population control, and more repression of dissent to Capitalist, Neocolonial interests.
China has billionaires because it has capitalists. China has capitalists because marketization is enormously useful for turning backwards production into socialized production, at which point it can be more effectively publicly owned and planned. Public ownership of backwards production is enormously difficult, which is why marketization is employed.
I actually agree with most of this. But there is still no excuse to allow Billionaires to exist even in a Capitalist market, same with centi-millionaires and the ultra-wealthy in general. Where Capitalism flourishes, so do all these things, and they will shift the class interests at every level. Ironically, the CCP is far more friendly to Capitalism than to Socialism, and if that doesn't change, China will follow the same path as the EU and US. Capitalism is a cancer that spreads deep and fast through a society. China is kicking the EU and US' asses right now, that's indisputable, but they're beating them at their own game, Capitalist, Neo-Colonial dominance.
The USSR, despite its many massive flaws, was actually a much better example of fighting the US/NATO on its own terms. The fact that they led the space race for many years, were a comparable military power for decades, and managed to construct quite a few megaprojects while operating a highly inefficient planned economy and having a highly corrupt political upper class, is pretty shocking and impressive.
So if the US government purchased controlling shares in its largest defense contractors and tech companies, it would be a socialist country?
China's constitution does not grant independent worker unions rights, it does not grant independent worker-owned cooperatives or collectives rights.
China allows and has hundreds of billionaires, more than any other country except the USA, it also has thousands of centi-millionaires, ultra wealthy celebrities and one of the largest ultra-luxury goods industries in the world, selling to their own people, not just exports to other Capitalist countries.
Stop diminishing the actual Socialist/Communist project by crediting Capitalist countries with being Socialist/Communist.
Don't feed into the rhetoric, China is not any more Socialist or collectivist than countries like Sweden, Finland, France, etc. China is fundamentally a Capitalist country, at least in its current form.
Better than countries like the UK or USA? Sure, but that's a low bar.
I do have something to hide. I wear clothes, because I don't want everybody to see my naked body. I keep my debit card hidden in my wallet, my keys to my car and house hidden in my pockets, my passwords are hidden in my password manager, my phone's unlock code is a secret, my SSN is hidden on a card in a secure place in my house, which I also lock up securely. I close the stall door when I use the bathroom, I don't walk around with my medical records taped to my back, I don't tell people all the invasive dirty or violent thoughts that randomly pop into my head, and I don't keep my car's title in the front seat, nor my bank account and routing numbers written on my arm.
And I would wager most other people are the same. All of those are completely legitimate things people have to hide, good reasons to keep them secret and locked away. It has nothing to do with being a criminal, or a sick pervert, or a domestic terrorist, or any of the other bullshit fake "explanations" for why people would value their privacy.
And all that doesn't even touch issues like systemic corporate or state oppression, data exploitation, or labor repression. It doesn't touch things like fascist governments coming to power and deciding that certain opinions or expressions of speech are "subversive" and must be banned. How easily "nothing to hide" can become "domestic terrorism" when certain groups come into power.
I don't know the details, and honestly I don't really care for the drama, but if you're not happy with the current options for servers and governance, just host your own?
You seem to have a pretty clear idea of what you want to operate like, and you said in another response, that you have experience building servers.
It's not hard to get a server built that has enough compute and storage to support the kind of capacity you're talking about. Any used, corporate desktop from the last 7-10 years has more than enough compute to handle hundreds of active users. Storage is the main issue, but that's not unattainable either. As of a week ago, Server Monkey was selling certified refurbished Dell enterprise 6TB HDDs for $175 each. $700 gets you around 18TB with one disk for redundancy using ZFS. 18TB will hold quite a bit of dank memes, especially if you limit the max resolution to something reasonable.
1,500 new pictures per day, all 50 megapixel JPEGs is roughly 670GB per month, so even at that pretty crazy rate (by Lemmy standards) your 18TB server would last two years before getting totally full.
Backblaze archival storage is $1,500 per year for 18TB if you want long term secure cloud backups for your entire server, that's just $125 a month that you'd need to fund yourself or get donations for. Not nothing, but hardly unattainable for a small instance. I used to play on a tiny Minecraft server that had maybe 20 active players, and they made more than $125 per month on donations.
I mean, again, all of this code is FOSS. If you really feel that your approach would be significantly more successful, dive in and build out your own instance. Get some friends involved, split up the costs, market yourselves, get some nice branding, build alliances and partnerships with other instances, etc. There is literally nothing stopping you.
My understanding is that this is just a sort of open forum/presentation on this as an idea. That being said, it's a stupid-ass idea.
I don't want my computer to "love me back" it's a fucking machine that I built to do my work on and play my games on. I am the only form of agency I want having access to it.
If I ever want an AI agent running all the time in the background doing shit for me, I'll fucking install and configure one myself! I want my OS to be an OS, not some "smart", interactive fake person that will hallucinate random Bash commands, fuck my partitions up randomly, and bork my system.
I alone am the only thing that I want destroying my system, if that's going to happen, it will happen by my own hands, my own shitty commands, my own piss-poor scripts.
This AI delusion and hype cycle is more infuriating than the NFT craze, and that's really saying something.
Man, I really hate this economy. This AI bubble cannot pop fast enough, but I fear we have at least till the end of this year, possible Q2 of next year to see it happen. Even then, it's not like it will be instant, and capacity won't just instantly switch over to normal consumer components. Assuming even more tech idiocy doesn't happen, we're still years away from a ramp up to "normal" capacity.
I'm even more scared that the era of personal computing is in it's last days. The combination of drastic cost increases, and the dominance of corpo-tech working 24/7 to destroy ownership completely, might be too much to overcome.
We'll see a return to the era of computing similar to the 80's and early 90's. Building your own PC will require lots of money and technical skills. Pre-builts will be a distant memory. PC builders will be spoken of in similar terms as HAM radio people are now, hermitic nerds who are hardcore into their ancient, dark, tech wizardry.
I'm curious, are you this stupid professionally, or is it just a hobby?
Brutal video, probably should have a warning for graphic content on this post. The soldier in the turret got destroyed by that blast, terrible.
I wouldn't fight in any military anyways, but I especially could never be a tanker, I get claustrophobic pretty easily.
Thanks!
Yes...So what? How does that invalidate anything I said?
I don't subscribe to an Individualist worldview, so no.
That's only true of some kinds of Anarchist thought. Anarchism is a broad category of viewpoints, so you just painting it with a broad brush comes off as ignorance to Anarchist theory. Second, even if you were right and Anarchism universally advocated for a network of "cooperative-style cells" as you put it, you offered nothing to prove that it would lead to class distinctions in cells, you just asserted that blindly.
You pack this section with a ton of loaded assumptions, it's sloppy reasoning. Assuming that any desire to deviate from the State-approved union structure in any way represents class betrayal is ridiculous. It falls into the identical category as religious fundamentalists who assume that even the slightest disagreement or challenge to the existing structure represents an existential threat to the whole, and must be crushed.
As a Statist, of course you wouldn't view absolute State power as structurally problematic. The same way a religious fundamentalist doesn't have a problem with the church having absolute power, as long as it is their religious sect that controls it. I disagree, because I am interested in structural critiques of power. I seek to increase the power of workers vs Capitalists, and also to reduce the power and influence of the State. These are not mutually exclusive goals, although they are complex and interconnected.
I didn't say GDP was Capitalist, I said "Capitalist GDP growth", or in other words, pursuing rapid and consistent GDP growth at the expense of other factors in an economy. You then just go on to assert the same Statist assumptions as before.
This one I found quite ironic, because first off, I literally listed multiple Capitalist trappings right above your response, which you just before, "...you add “Capitalist” to the beginning of words, without justifying what makes any of it capitalist."
You then post a chart, I don't know what it is from, but it assumes a statist framing, so my previous anti-statist critiques apply to that as well.
The USA forgives debt, the EU forgives debt, the damn IMF forgives debt...so what, they're not evil and corrupt institutions now? The US Army Corps of Engineers builds infrastructure, does that mean the US military isn't an evil, Neo-colonial institution? You also said, "It [China] isn’t neocolonial because it has no reason to be, it isn’t dominated by private finance capital..." As if private finance capital is the only reason anybody would be interested in Colonizing anything.
All of the benefits you claim come from China's involvement in Africa can also be, and have been, claimed by Western Imperialist entities about their colonization projects. That's why it's Neo-Colonialism, I already said it is miles better than anything the West did, obviously. But better doesn't make it good, if I bake a cake with 1 cup of feces mixed in the batter, reducing it to 1/4 cup of feces is better, but it's still a shit cake.
No, the USSR actually was a legit State Socialist project. They actually largely eliminated private property, largely eliminated markets in favor of a centrally planned economy, and largely did not fall into Capitalist trappings like consumerism, vapid entertainment culture, or ultra-luxury goods. It was a disaster in many ways, horribly corrupt and terribly managed, and a lot of innocent people died needlessly. However they still managed to raise living standards for the vast majority of their population, develop interesting and impressive technologies; like a ternary logic-based computer, the first artificial satellite, the second most powerful military in the world for a while, and a rough but functional space program that saw several other "firsts." Some Soviet technology is still used by modern cosmonauts, like their electro-mechanical orbital computers, which are considered very impressive by modern engineers, Westoids included.
This will be my last response in this thread because I think you and I have hit ideological bedrock. I've made all the primary points I wanted to make, and I think I have responded adequately to your statements. I oppose your worldview very strongly, but I do appreciate your civility in this exchange. In a weird way, I am rooting for China, everything they succeed at makes the US look even worse, and hopefully will help inspire a labor resurgence in the USA in the coming years. Right now we need all the help we can get.
A society where all members collectively share in all ownership isn't a Socialist society, it's a Communist society, which is what we should be trying to move towards. Going from individualist, Capitalist ownership to a worker-owned model with direct worker democracy is Socialist. Of course ideally all workers everywhere would share equally in the fruits of the labor of the entire society, but again, that's Communism, not Socialism.
No it undermines State Socialism and specifically, that particular State's Socialist framework, not Socialism as a whole. The whole point of Socialism is to embody worker's rights to both the fruits of their labor, and the governance of their labor. Restricting that is antithetical to Socialist progress.
There is a lot of material evidence for this, I just don't feel like getting a ton a sources together and posting them in a comment section debate on Lemmy. That being said, it is easy to find studies on worker-owned cooperatives and how they outperform traditional firms on the whole. The entire open source software movement is a testament to the robustness of independent Socialist organization against Fascist and Capitalist interests.
I don't understand what you're saying here at all. I never said MAGA and the CCP were the same. I argued that merely incorporating workers into a national union structure, especially under an Authoritarian State apparatus, doesn't make the society Socialist.
Authority is not the same as Authoritarian. You didn't address my core point at all here, which was that the argument that the State must act in an Authoritarian manner in order to reduce the risk of itself being undermined by dissent, is the exact same rhetoric that the US and EU are using right now as they continue to roll out more frameworks for surveillance and control. Unless you are admitting that you have no problem with that, as long as the people you support are the ones who are doing it, which in that case, alright, fair enough. You're in the same rhetorical spot as MAGA supporters who cheer on ICE raids. They love seeing ICE roaming their streets because ICE is, (for now), acting in accordance with their worldview. Of course the actual critique ought to be structural, which if you analyze ICE through that lens, you quickly see that those same agents who are kicking in immigrant's doors and dragging them into vans, will eventually come for the MAGA supporters too.
I am against Authoritarianism because I understand the structural critique. I understand that when any entity, a State, a ruler, a group of workers, is granted a structural framework within their society to act with absolute power, it will always degrade and devolve into every form of abuse we see in the world today. I reject Hobbes's central thesis, humanity is on the whole, cooperative and constructive, not individualist and destructive.
No, I understand that markets are not the same thing as Capitalism, obviously. China embraces Capitalist consumerism, Capitalist GDP growth, Capitalist sector dominance, Capitalist trade, Capitalist work ethic, Capitalist profit motives. They have managed it far better than the USA and most other western nations, but the same can be said for the Scandinavian countries, which are Capitalist. For this reason, I get frustrated watching China succeed so strongly, because it seems like a perfect counter-example to my worldview that Capitalism and Authoritarianism cannot produce long term societal happiness and prosperity. China seems to have figured out, (for now), how to make Authoritarian State Capitalism work. If that remains true in the years and decades to come, then it will be a massive blow against the viability of actual Socialism.
China is Neocolonialist for sure, look at what they are doing in Africa. The difference is that China is smart, and understands how to exploit the poorest countries in the world without having to torture and massacre people, unlike most Western countries. I am happy that China is undermining IP monopoly, US and NATO military dominance, and so forth, I am against all those things as well. It remains to be seen if China will actually free people from the evils of IP law globally, I doubt it strongly, but I can dream, same with their military.
I don't have the energy or interest to debate the USSR being "good" whatever that might mean to you. You didn't address my main point here either, which was that the USSR was a much better example of fighting the US and NATO on their own (The USSR's) terms, instead of trying to just do Capitalism but better. The USSR's leadership suffered from horrific corruption, especially at the local level, which is what makes it all the more impressive that despite that, they were able to accomplish what they did...the last true adversary to the USA. China isn't so much beating the USA as they are just watching the USA rapidly decay after 50+ years of Neo-liberal, Capitalist cancer. Not to take too much credit away from China, they are absolutely doing things no other nation has ever done in recorded history, which is impressive from a Humanist POV.
Bingo, Anarchist here. That explains a large portion of our disagreements.
Worker ownership is Socialism, that's literally the most basic definition of Socialism, when workers own the means of production. A business where 100% of the ownership is possessed by the workers, where workers have full democratic control on the deployment of capital, where class distinction is eliminated and role distinction is elevated but confers no special privileges, is a Socialist business.
If the only way that workers are allowed to influence a state is from within the State-approved structure, then it's meaningless. Chinese workers aren't allowed to organize organically, they are required to organize only within the approved bounds of the CCP.
If tomorrow, Trump announced that the US government was automatically enrolling all workers into a national MAGA union, but the rules stated that all other unions would be dissolved and all membership transfered into the MAGA union, would that be Socialism?
Independent worker unions are essential to a healthy Socialist movement.
This is authoritarian rhetoric, the exact same as what is currently being used by the USA and the EU to justify more surveillance, more population control, and more repression of dissent to Capitalist, Neocolonial interests.
I actually agree with most of this. But there is still no excuse to allow Billionaires to exist even in a Capitalist market, same with centi-millionaires and the ultra-wealthy in general. Where Capitalism flourishes, so do all these things, and they will shift the class interests at every level. Ironically, the CCP is far more friendly to Capitalism than to Socialism, and if that doesn't change, China will follow the same path as the EU and US. Capitalism is a cancer that spreads deep and fast through a society. China is kicking the EU and US' asses right now, that's indisputable, but they're beating them at their own game, Capitalist, Neo-Colonial dominance.
The USSR, despite its many massive flaws, was actually a much better example of fighting the US/NATO on its own terms. The fact that they led the space race for many years, were a comparable military power for decades, and managed to construct quite a few megaprojects while operating a highly inefficient planned economy and having a highly corrupt political upper class, is pretty shocking and impressive.
So if the US government purchased controlling shares in its largest defense contractors and tech companies, it would be a socialist country?
China's constitution does not grant independent worker unions rights, it does not grant independent worker-owned cooperatives or collectives rights.
China allows and has hundreds of billionaires, more than any other country except the USA, it also has thousands of centi-millionaires, ultra wealthy celebrities and one of the largest ultra-luxury goods industries in the world, selling to their own people, not just exports to other Capitalist countries.
Stop diminishing the actual Socialist/Communist project by crediting Capitalist countries with being Socialist/Communist.
Don't feed into the rhetoric, China is not any more Socialist or collectivist than countries like Sweden, Finland, France, etc. China is fundamentally a Capitalist country, at least in its current form.
Better than countries like the UK or USA? Sure, but that's a low bar.
I do have something to hide. I wear clothes, because I don't want everybody to see my naked body. I keep my debit card hidden in my wallet, my keys to my car and house hidden in my pockets, my passwords are hidden in my password manager, my phone's unlock code is a secret, my SSN is hidden on a card in a secure place in my house, which I also lock up securely. I close the stall door when I use the bathroom, I don't walk around with my medical records taped to my back, I don't tell people all the invasive dirty or violent thoughts that randomly pop into my head, and I don't keep my car's title in the front seat, nor my bank account and routing numbers written on my arm.
And I would wager most other people are the same. All of those are completely legitimate things people have to hide, good reasons to keep them secret and locked away. It has nothing to do with being a criminal, or a sick pervert, or a domestic terrorist, or any of the other bullshit fake "explanations" for why people would value their privacy.
And all that doesn't even touch issues like systemic corporate or state oppression, data exploitation, or labor repression. It doesn't touch things like fascist governments coming to power and deciding that certain opinions or expressions of speech are "subversive" and must be banned. How easily "nothing to hide" can become "domestic terrorism" when certain groups come into power.
Whatever their rebrand is these days lol.
If that many evil people/corpos are involved, run as fast as you can the other direction.
Give me community-based distros like Debian, Arch, Mint, etc. I like my Linux democratic, anti-corpo, and inclusive.
Check out Linode, it's easy to use, reasonably priced, and as far as I know, hasn't done anything disgusting.
Only downside is that they were acquired a little while ago by a publicly traded company, so the likwlyhood of enshitification is higher.
Lol! Get mad, bro 🤣
Call the city line and report illegal parking. They will at least get a nice ticket, and if you're lucky, they'll get towed :)
I don't know the details, and honestly I don't really care for the drama, but if you're not happy with the current options for servers and governance, just host your own?
You seem to have a pretty clear idea of what you want to operate like, and you said in another response, that you have experience building servers.
It's not hard to get a server built that has enough compute and storage to support the kind of capacity you're talking about. Any used, corporate desktop from the last 7-10 years has more than enough compute to handle hundreds of active users. Storage is the main issue, but that's not unattainable either. As of a week ago, Server Monkey was selling certified refurbished Dell enterprise 6TB HDDs for $175 each. $700 gets you around 18TB with one disk for redundancy using ZFS. 18TB will hold quite a bit of dank memes, especially if you limit the max resolution to something reasonable.
1,500 new pictures per day, all 50 megapixel JPEGs is roughly 670GB per month, so even at that pretty crazy rate (by Lemmy standards) your 18TB server would last two years before getting totally full.
Backblaze archival storage is $1,500 per year for 18TB if you want long term secure cloud backups for your entire server, that's just $125 a month that you'd need to fund yourself or get donations for. Not nothing, but hardly unattainable for a small instance. I used to play on a tiny Minecraft server that had maybe 20 active players, and they made more than $125 per month on donations.
I mean, again, all of this code is FOSS. If you really feel that your approach would be significantly more successful, dive in and build out your own instance. Get some friends involved, split up the costs, market yourselves, get some nice branding, build alliances and partnerships with other instances, etc. There is literally nothing stopping you.
"Alternative" doesn't necessarily mean "competitor."