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davel

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davel , (edited )
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Less Wrong is brainworms, as are the effective altruism and longtermism movements. US tech industry oligarchs like Musk, Thiel, and SBF (as you mentioned) are closely associated with these movements. Look into Less Wrong’s Eliezer Yudkowsky. Podcasts Tech Won’t Save Us, This Machine Kills, and Team Human have covered these movements, their movers, and their associated tech billionaires extensively. Some are grifters like SBF, and some are outright fascists like Thiel.

davel ,
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The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It

davel ,
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Seeing how there aren’t any, that seems to be a non sequitur.

davel ,
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That’s true. Ten points for Ravenclaw.

davel , (edited )
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It’s infuriating considering that it’s in the first goddamn sentence: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

If those libs could read they’d be very upset.

davel ,
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There’s a spectre haunting Sailing7 specter

davel ,
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The history of socialist movements shows that it is. Rosa Luxemburg was right over a hundred years ago.

davel ,
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Average imperial core Cold Warrior understander.

davel , (edited )
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By millions murdered, you don’t mean people who died in the last famine in China after centuries of famines, and you don’t mean the last famine in the region that became the USSR after centuries of famines, right? Famines that happened during or soon after the bloody revolutions overthrowing the tsars and emperors, under which the previous famines occurred?

davel ,
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This is just as indecipherable as your previous comment.

davel ,
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this u?

And [China] has worked tirelessly to create [disunity in Europe], yes. Europeans have looked at the chaos in the US with a sense that it represents some kind of moral failing specific to Americans, but the reality is they themselves have been part of the same decades long social engineering campaign by Russia and China.

The only difference is the goals have been slightly different for each target and the type of trolling and propaganda exploits slightly different social and cultural weaknesses. But ultimately the goal has always been to drive a wedge between the US and Europe, and weaken both.

Because that is some weapons-grade BlueAnon conspiracy theorizing.

davel ,
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Tell us more about this fascist regime.

BTW, what’s the US up to at the moment? Oh right, genocide.

And what’s Canada been up to lately? en.wikipedia.org/…/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc…

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/ab5c4e61-4de8-474f-8142-69c75646bc2e.jpeg https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/ca19f670-d088-403c-91f7-7d72efbe8be5.jpeg

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Case in point 😂 Every goddamn time 😭

The Cold War had only a brief pause before the pivot to Asia. The US tried to foment unrest in China by funding and organizing terrorist cells in Xinjiang, and when those efforts failed it concocted and promoted a genocide narrative. Antony Blinken is still pushing this slop, just last week.

We see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.

Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.

The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.

Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).

Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.

davel ,
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Let me guess, Tiananmen square was a totally justified response to CIA instigated unrest too?

Presumably your understanding of the Tiananmen riots is about as garbage as almost every other Westerner’s.

.

How about you link to a single source from any reputable news agency anywhere around the world instead of random shady sites that totally aren’t propaganda?

Sorry, I don’t have any MBFC-approved sources for you on hand. I think you’d just ignore them or move the goalposts if I posted them anyway. I doubt you have an understanding of how our own propaganda works.

davel , (edited )
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And note that I said anywhere in the world

Yes, I heard you the first time.

they’re all cia psyops

Obviously not everything is. This isn’t a a very good straw man.

America is authoritarian doesn’t mean you should trust what their opponents say about their own bad behavior

Obviously not, and yet again you’re putting words in my mouth to construct a ridiculous straw man.

Have fun licking that boot

Have fun licking imperial core boot, I guess? I don’t know how or why you’ve twisted this into boot-lickery.

davel , (edited )
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

China:

US:

davel ,
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Ignorant? Do you imagine that we haven’t been exposed to exactly the same imperal core propaganda our entire lives as everyone else here? Generally speaking, we know everything that you know. The only difference is that we took the time & effort—and had the intellectual honesty—to learn more.

davel ,
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Someone reported this as NSFW, but I don’t see it. This is just Grandpa Simpson gumming a cucumber with his dentures out.

davel ,
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I usually rely on TinEye to for that: tineye.com/…/3ae58e30783903f716bfe5708e6c0ff6442b…

davel ,
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You’re on .ml, clown.

davel ,
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Lol

Imagine defending a state online by posting a CIApedia link

The Cold War had only a brief pause before the pivot to Asia. The US tried to foment unrest in China by funding and organizing terrorist cells in Xinjiang, and when those efforts failed it concocted and promoted a genocide narrative. Antony Blinken is still pushing this slop, just last week.

We see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.

Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.

The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.

Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).

Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.

davel ,
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Not tonight dear, I’m lacking political will.

davel ,
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Does this show a shift in posture? I know nothing of the evolution of how Japanese administrations have framed the bombings over the last ~80 years.

Anyway, amerikkka

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

“Totalitarian” is itself propaganda: The Origins of Totalitarianism

Hannah Arendt came from wealth and so unsurprisingly was anticommunist. Her work was financially supported and promoted by the CIA. This is a bourgeois liberal, anticommunist construct for the purposes of equivalating fascism and communism.

Monthly Review, The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited

U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.

If fact almost all of the “Western left” (that wasn’t repressed by the red scares) was captured by the imperial core’s propaganda machine: Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism

davel ,
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how about you give me a word that describes a country with a single party, ruling in perpetuity?

You’re still trying to construct the thing we’re saying is nonsense. Typically attributed to Julius Nyerere: The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.

The US has has been ruled by the bourgeoisie since the 1776 bourgeois revolution. The wealthy, white, male land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers intentionally constructed a bourgeois democracy, which was never meant to represent us, and never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (who aren’t disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy

In socialist states, the “one party” is the party of the working class. The two major parties today in the US are parties of the capitalist class, as were the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, and Whig parties before them.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

That is not why things are getting worse in the US. I could go on at great length on why things are getting worse, but I don’t think this is the time or place for that.

This post is actually a great example of how memes can be effective. The meme is the hook. The conversation that’s being had around the meme is the meat & potatoes (apologies for the mixed metaphor).

Going back to an earlier comment of yours:

Memes are short, contextless appeals to emotion and thus the perfect format for propaganda

By “context,” I think you mean something different from what I’m about to say, but memes are densely packed with context: our shared cultural context. They are effective at communicating so much out of seemingly so little by leveraging our shared context. The a-ha moment of perceiving the meme through recognition of the implicit context is the hook.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Our theories are materialist ones, not idealist ones. We believe that ideas fundamentally arise from material conditions. Those ideas do affect the material in turn, dialectically, but the material conditions are still the prime mover. Dialectical materialism (and historical materialism) are fundamental to all Marxist theory.

We reject the popular liberal theory that, if one presents one’s case well enough in the “marketplace of ideas”, that those ideas will win the day. That doesn’t mean ideas shouldn’t be presented—because that’s clearly what I’m doing here—only that it’s not sufficient. The capitalist class spends billions each year pushing their propaganda and suppressing any that oppose it. They know very well what works. Just having a good idea and presenting it cogently won’t cut it.

Memes aren’t even a new thing. 18th century memes don’t look alien to us. And we’re not spending all of our time in the meme mines.

I would say that political discourse has become shorter, more emotional, and less informed and complex

I’m not sure how I’d go about trying to prove or disprove this. Online social media ain’t everything. I think most people are abysmally uninformed/disinformed and disengaged, but I don’t know how I’d measure these or compare them to the past. In 1993 Noam Chomsky wrote, ”the general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.”

davel , (edited )
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We’re knee-deep in a thread about totalitarianism being nonsense, and now you trot out its synonym?

Authoritarianism is whatever the Council on Foreign Relations says it is this week.

davel , (edited )
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Capitalist states are also authoritarian. In fact all states are.

Frederick Engels, 1872, On Authority

Why do the anti-authoritarians not confine themselves to crying out against political authority, the state? All Socialists are agreed that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution, that is, that public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative functions of watching over the true interests of society. But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

The Vietnamese state itself will tell you that it has not yet reached its end-goal of communism: the absence of social classes and withering away of the state.

davel ,
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I don’t think anyone knows what your smug vageposting is supposed to mean but you.

davel ,
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More vagueposting. You assume a lot. Are you a mind reader? No, you’re a shit-talking dumbass on the internet.

davel ,
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Yes. I’m not sure how the meme was supposed to be interpreted originally, but without any context, I think it’s adorable.

davel ,
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They just wanna grill for god’s sake.

davel ,
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😂

I’m pretty sure they think their copypasta has magical censorship powers, which is the kind of thinking I usually only see in SovCits.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s not hard to find news sources that support yours: it’s been blasted in our faces all day every day our entire lives.

A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink.

“I have to admit, I’m always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up,” the CIA agent says.

“Thank you,” the KGB says. “We do our best but truly, it’s nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them.”

The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. “Thank you friend, but you must be confused… There’s no propaganda in America.”

.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Hong Kong protests

The UK’s 99 year imperialist lease was up, thus marking the end of the century of humiliation for the people of Hong Kong.

Organ harvest camp

Do you eat Kool-Aide right out of the packet, without even mixing it with water? Falun Gong is an NED/CIA funded far-right cult that makes shit up all the time.

what happened on June 1989

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

All of the above is in US college curricula and none of it is controversial. It’s in history, polysci, public relations, journalism, and marketing schools.

davel , (edited )
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

The number of downvotes on this meme is fascinating.

Perhaps this will also be popular: Reuters, 2018: China overtakes U.S. for healthy lifespan: WHO data

Edit to add: Do people think we just make this shit up?

United Nations, 2019: Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding

World Bank, 2022: Lifting 800 Million People Out of Poverty – New Report Looks at Lessons from China’s Experience

Tricontinental: Serve the People: The Eradication of Extreme Poverty in China

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

libs == liberals, and by liberalism we mean the hegemonic bourgeoisie ideology of capitalism.

davel ,
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The is just reheated BlueAnonsense from the many RussiaGate conspiracy theories.

Paris Marx: The TikTok ban is all about preserving US power

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

I thought blahaj was better than this.

The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing terrorist cells in Xinjiang, and when those efforts failed it concocted and promoted a genocide narrative. Antony Blinken is still pushing this slop, just two weeks ago.

We see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.

Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.

The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.

Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).

Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah, where do we get such nonsense?

United Nations, 2019: Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding

World Bank, 2022: Lifting 800 Million People Out of Poverty – New Report Looks at Lessons from China’s Experience

Tricontinental: Serve the People: The Eradication of Extreme Poverty in China

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

You know where the modlog is if you like dogshit takes from imperial core liberals.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m amused that you think saying you’re amused is going to matter to me somehow.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

😂

davel , (edited )
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Raising 800 million people out of poverty in the span of 70 years is not “cherry picking,” it’s the “greatest such achievement in history” by the UN’s own reckoning. How do you square the circle of China being an “oppressive regime” and raising 800 million people out of poverty? I’m sure you’ve been fed virtually the same fire hose of cold war propaganda your whole life as I have.

concerning behavior jagoff Thank you for your concern trolling.

Why does a state like California that has supermajorities in both houses of the legislature not have a livable wage, housing guarantees, universal healthcare, and other very progressive policies?

I keep being told it’s because of the Republicans that we can’t have nice things. So what gives in California? We should be overflowing with progressive policies.

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

I think @novibe is oversimplifying by quite a lot, but not completely off base.

The most condensed explanation I’ve found is by Second Thought: Why The Government Has Infinite Money.
The links in the description are great as well, addressing some common questions and counter-arguments.

New documentary film: Finding the Money (BitTorrent magnet link)
The film barely makes any class analysis, but is otherwise good.

If you want a Marxian economic perspective, I highly recommend Michael Hudson. He dispels a few misconceptions here: The Use and Abuse of MMT

davel ,
@davel@lemmy.ml avatar

Relatedly, on a national level, making our homes into investment vehicles was a huge mistake, and 1978 California Proposition 13 made it worse.

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