In all fairness that was probably necessary to make it to the presidency with her head still firmly attached to her body.

Whose propaganda did you suck down blindly?

Chill out a bit, my comment could not have possibly given you the impression that I’m a supporter of capitalism if you had read it carefully. I began my comment by putting forward the capitalist argument for copyright - a steel-man argument - and ended it by debunking it.

Copyright is meant to foster and improve the commons and public domain

You said yourself that copyright establishes art as private property (or “intellectual property” if we’re being more precise). That does the opposite of fostering and improving the commons and public domain.

If copyright was not tradeable or transferable

Then it wouldn’t be copyright. Copyright is a capitalist construct, not a public good corrupted by capital.

At the root of this cognitive dissonance is who benefits and who doesn’t. Copyright law is selectively applied in a way that protects the powerful and exploits the powerless. In a capitalist economy copyright is meant to protect people’s livelihoods by ensuring they are compensated for their labor, but due to the power imbalance inherent to capitalism it is instead used only to protect the interests of capital. The fact that AI companies are granted full impunity to violate the copyright of millions is evidence that copyright law is ineffective at the task for which it was purportedly created.

It’s because this isn’t about privacy at all, it’s about a popular social media platform being outside the control of domestic intelligence agencies. The US is unable to control the narrative on TikTok the way they do on American social media, which allowed pro-palestinian sentiment to spread there unhindered. It had a huge effect on the politics of the younger generation (IMO a positive one) by showing them news and first hand accounts they wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Edit: And yes, China is able to control the narrative on TikTok and that is a potential problem, but so far they’ve had a fairly hands-off approach to US TikTok aside from basic language censorship. I figure the way China sees it is that an unmoderated free-for-all will do more to sow divisions in the US than a carefully controlled (and therefore obvious) pro-China narrative ever could.

Why are you so intent on keeping the conversation about the election? I’m trying to tell you your time and energy is better spent on other things. It’s unproductive to respond to people complaining about how all our candidates support genocide by basically telling them to shut up and choose.

Electoral politics are not the only way to change things. In fact, it’s a very poor way, as evidenced by the fact that genocide is now the only option. Every bit of progress that’s been made has been achieved through mass movements; protesting, coalition building, engaging in direct action or civil disobedience… until the politicians are forced to appease them in order to keep hold of their power. Would electoral politics have ended segregation, were it not for the civil rights movement? Would women have been granted the right to vote, were it not for the suffragette movement?

You would not recognize the reality we’d be living in today if everyone from back then thought like you that all they can do about injustice is vote for the “lesser evil.”

My take? Vote your conscience, or not at all if that’s where your conscience leads you. I can’t bring myself to fault anyone for refusing to vote for a “lesser evil”. At the end of the day, electoral politics just isn’t worth the amount of time and energy people give to it. That time and energy is better spent engaging in direct action, community building, and just general activism. I have long been disillusioned that electoral politics can bring about meaningful progress.

Would you prefer more or less genocide.

That this is the choice our “elected representatives” are asking us to make is sick beyond measure. I actually want to just thank you for cutting the bullshit and just asking the question directly so I can respond to it in the way any sane person should, by rejecting the premise that these are our only options. The answer is no, not more or less, none. I acknowledge that the third option of no genocide is not achievable through electoral means, which is why I support the protests, encampments, and uncommitted delegates.

This is a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow that Allende choosing reform over revolution is what resulted in the US interference. The US has been known to interfere in revolutionary movements as well.

Less left leaning than liberal? Are you suggesting the EFF is conservative?

I don’t think this comic explains it well. I don’t like the “it is a paradox but we just have to make an exception” approach. A better solution to the paradox of tolerance is to explain that it isn’t a paradox at all, that tolerance is a contract, not an absolute rule. A tolerant society agrees to tolerate you so long as you tolerate others, and if you violate the contract you lose its’ protection.

To be clear, the Bolsheviks were definitely Communists and Socialists, and implemented a more democratic and Worker-focused society than Tsarist Russia

I agree that the USSR was more democratic and worker-focused than Tsarist Russia, but saying they were definitely Communists and Socialists depends on your definition of those words. An originalist Marxist for example would vehemently disagree that they were communist because communism was envisioned as this pure ideal stateless society, the “end goal” to work towards. Statelessness is definitely no longer a requirement of communism for modern Marxists, but it used to be.

US and Western Powers deliberately attempted to shove a wedge in the Leftist movement by trying to paint the USSR as “not true Communism.”

While this is definitely the case, people at the time had legitimate critiques of the USSR that may have led them to see it as “not true Communism,” see above. Wedges are driven into splits that already exist.

Because everyone seems to have their own unique definition of what Communism/Socialism is, saying that something is/isn’t socialist/communist should be taken more as an expression of that person’s values than a semantic argument. If someone says they are socialist and [insert government here] is not, what they are really saying is that there are aspects of [insert government here] that they disagree with to the point that it’s a dealbreaker for them.

What do the words socialist and communist actually mean to you?

I think with the way you’re using the word socialist, what you actually mean is social democrat, which is a newer term people use to mean capitalism but with heavy regulation and strong welfare / social safety nets.

When you ask people who are actually anti-capitalists and consider themselves some flavor of socialist or communist to distinguish between the two you will get as many different answers as people you’ve asked. In Marxist theory socialism is generally understood as a transitional state towards communism. Historical events led to communism being used mostly to refer to the authoritarian ideology championed by the Bolsheviks, so people started using socialism to differentiate themselves from that definition.

The only thing you’ll get most leftists to agree on is that both socialist and communist mean anti-capitalist, and those who disagree are confused liberals.

This is an idea explored in The Egg by Andy Weir.

That’s what irks me the most, when people act like abstaining from an election is a grand act of protest that will change things for the better. I understand the reluctance to vote, but that should never be accompanied by a reluctance to act.

Imagine enforcing shitty copyright laws on yourself like some code of honor. We developed the technology to make infinite copies of any media and then spend endless resources fighting it because it undermines our parasitic economic model.

Imagine for a moment that society embraced the full potential of digital technology. We could have a library of all human art and knowledge ever produced available for free, instantly, everywhere. If book libraries didn’t already exist and were proposed today the excuses for rejecting it would be the same. The answer is also the same, change our economic model to support people’s basic needs unconditionally and directly subsidize the production we need/want (like art).

Craigslist was always on the fringes, before Facebook marketplace came in there were a bunch of separate and disconnected online marketplaces. Facebook marketplace had the advantage of already having a massive user base (larger than any of the existing online marketplaces), causing it to become the largest one right out the gate, which then of course makes it the most attractive option for sellers since they will reach more people.

What’s your opinion of the Bolsheviks?

I would be wondering what I did to make his job more difficult.

That also reminds me of this scene from Invincible where during the copying process their experiences are sort of “blended” making them see from both bodies at once, only here they both live and are separate afterwards.

Edit: is it obvious how much of a sci-fi geek I am lol