If i can risk sounding uniformed…race to what?

For fusion technology there is a race to a goal, a sustainable reaction that outputs more energy than put in.

For the space race it’s had a definite goal of the moon (although that didn’t mean anything scientifically)

For atomic elements, if you had enough evidence to say you had it then you had it.

Ai? What’s the finish line?

Both of those are mostly watched by younger viewers to my knowledge, oversimplified especially. I would say they “pad the gaps” per se. History education is notoriously shit in the USA, so these type of channels are less Robert Conquest and more trivia night, if that makes sense. Oversimplified, Mr.Beat, extra history, etc. Mostly serve to be broud strokes about lessee known history, foreign history, or just general overviews for those that aren’t super well informed.

As for me, I did watch these channels when I was younger and definitely wasn’t as critical of them as I should have been, but I did grow out of it. Extra history and Mr.Beat are still decent if you’re curious about something that isn’t important. I think my biggest gripe is when they’re the most popular or even only source for something online. For example, the French revolution has some documentaries and some others, but by far the most popular English source on yt is oversimplified. Given my username, you can assume my feelings on him. Conversely there is extra history’s sun Yat-Sen series which is…decent, from what I can tell.

I will say, despite the numerous flaws, some information is still better than no information. I’ll let Samuel Clemens take it away,

"When I finished Carlyle’s French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment (and Taine and St. Simon): and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte–And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. Carlyle teaches no such gospel so the change is in me–in my vision of the evidences.

People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say that of Dickens’s or Scott’s books. Nothing remains the same. When a man goes back to look at the house of his childhood, it has always shrunk: there is no instance of such a house being as big as the picture in memory and imagination call for. Shrunk how? Why, to its correct dimensions: the house hasn’t altered; this is the first time it has been in focus."

-Twain In a letter to William Dean Howells [although to compare these channels to any of these great authors is not a one to one comparison]

Ah…I thought that was an exaggeration/joke in the post. Yeah that guy is horrible, I didn’t mean to make fun of the situation

Mmm, I’m not well versed enough on Christian theology or the social influence of Christianity as opposed to other world religions.

However I would say that if we are supposing Christian teachings are at play here, it would more likely be the Christian “reward for adversity and prayer” doctrine [I’m not sure what the proper name for this is].

I’m stealing this from a liberal show [the west wing] but I think it encapsulates the point we’ll enough. “A man lives in an area plagued by storm. The man prays every day for safety. First, he hears on the radio that there is a storm coming and that he needs to evacuate, but he stays put and prays for God to protect him. Then, a fireman comes and tells him he needs to evacuate, but the man doesn’t and says God will protect him. Then, as the storm approaches, a helicopter arrives and the man is once again implored to evacuate, and once again he says no because God will protect him. The storm comes and the man drowns. When he arrives in heaven he asks God ‘Why didn’t you save me?’ And god replies ‘I tried, I sent a radio broadcast, a fireman, and a helicopter.’”

I think it’s more that kind of thinking that you’re looking for rather than martyrdom

Maoist sex cultism? What’s that? Asking for a friend

You’re putting bicycle wheels on a truck, if that metaphor makes sense.

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” is not the same as “might makes right” although they can be seen as similar.

Might makes right is the justification of victory, of opposition or the lack there of. It’s the language of colonizers, that if someone was a victim, they should have just been strong enough to resist. That, by virtue of victory, the victor is correct. It’s a cyclical argument, the law of the jungle.

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” is less about what makes something right or wrong, and more simply about the facts. Communists aren’t right because they defeat capitalism through revolutionary violence, but revolutionary violence is still necessary.

…because we’re materialists who rely on evidence to make decisions? I don’t even like BE but I more take issue with the foolish logic. Imagine if we said this about other things. “We already hate the cia, why do you need evidence of MK ultra?” Etc. Etc.

Obviously Vance would become president, but you know that already.

I would think something would change though. Take a look at Marco Rubio and cuba currently. Trump said there are negotiations, when there in fact aren’t any.

I think Trump as a personality engages with the world more as a business. He goes up to a country and says “we will invade and destroy you and blah blah blah” and basically goes super high on his demands. Then he negotiates “down” when in reality he’s basically getting his original deal because his original demanda were so outlandish.

But Rubio currently is basically trying to annihilate cuba. Him and his cohort don’t want a deal with Cuba, rather he wants Cuba’s government overthrown.

Trump’s strategy plays much better to his personal ego, but I think Vance would possibly be closer to the classic “neo-con” strategies.

Theres also the possibility he’s just very incompetent or impotent, being essentially in a PR position as VP and if, Trump dies before Vance’s next birthday, he’d be the youngest president in history, beating out T Roosevelt by one year.

You’re assuming things about op that can’t be gotten from the post. How do you know their lineage? They could be descended from any number of people who didnt enjoy those spoils either. The only thing is that they’re “wealthy” enough to go to college and emmigrate.

Also, exodus of skilled workers has been a weapon employed by the imperialist nations for decades now. From east Berlin to former yugoslavia brain drains have been an active threat. Why can’t progressive people act in the same way?

And it’s a wierd catch 22, you’re not allowed to leave and live in a self sufficient country that doesn’t rely on mass imperialism, but also if they live in the imperial core they’re morally responsible for the system they were born into.

Thank you for providing an actual answer. I hate the people both here and on reddit who look at this question and just get incensed by the audacity for some reason.

Hyper moralism is certainly the indication of a good ideological understanding.

Snideness aside…what? What type of fucking logic is this? Don’t try to…improve your life? What? If the chinese people allow immigration, then what goddamn moral grandstanding is it to be like “no they shouldn’t let you in because you’re profiting off their hard work.” Thats not marxist logic, that’s not even any logic. It’s pure foolishness. People are up voting this complete garbage? Did people here get concussed between yesterday and now?

Edit: This is also coming from the same people who are like “oh America will never have a revolution ever” or just “nuke america.” People wondered why i had that outburst a couple months ago and this is why.

I had a theory a little bit ago that this most recent sleeper cell offensive was resource intense, and if it doesn’t actually result in some form of victory [whether nuclear, economic or oppurtunistic in nature] this deployment might be a last ditch effort to get something out of it, or if all else fails they would rather try to cripple the country than let it continue

Tbf on authority worked for me*

(*wasn’t an anarchist, but had a lot of “lib-soc” leanings when I first became an ml)

Reminds me how Pax Romana, Pax Britanica, and now of course Pax Americana are all peace in terms of outright state on state conflict, but all were/are engaging in massive amounts of social murder and class war under that “peace”

[Note: twchnically was a social democrat, but i dont really care seperating soc-dems from dem-socs] I was really, really bad for a while. Like “no country should be trading with China or Russia” bad. Like “supports israel” bad.

For me it was A. The disparity between the socialist response to covid to the rest of the capitalist world and B.Radicalization from learning about the Iraq War.

I lost a family member to covid, and when that million death toll rolled around, i was incensed. I was even more incensed because I warned everyone in my life and online about the disease, and i got the ever so often “don’t worry about it, it’s just the cold.” I essentially watched in reverance as China managed to do a full response while being a much more densely populated country and being where the outbreak originated from.

The Iraq War was another one. For me, Vietnam was bad, but that was just “bad strategy.” I still saw it as legitimate (obviously I don’t believe that now). Iraq was always “the war.” It wasn’t taught in schools, I didn’t even know any vets from the war. I knew we invaded Iraq, but I didn’t get why it was so controversial. I was looking at it and wondering, since the intial engagement didn’t actually last that long [unlike Vietnam, kind of. Obviously there were the Iraqi insurgents]. One day i finally looked into it and it essentially shattered me. So much death and destruction for what is basically money for people who already had money. And no one got punished for it. At that moment I basically vowed that I wouldn’t believe anything the media or western stooges put in front of me. Of course this led to some embarrassment [a la, Sadam Huissein and Pol Pot support], but after some ideological ironing it helped smooth out those wrinkles.

Note: I had an inkling of a sense of political economy. At one point i even remember grumbling to myself like “why do the corporations get to have all this power and get rid of jobs and dwvelop/impoverish places based on tax policies, but the workers have to put up with it?” That was way before the events mentioned above, i just find it funny looking back on it

For the comparison to Fidel, this wasn’t very subtle. If you read about the attempts on Fidel, a lot of them [not all] are filled with the usual CIA wackiness. I.e, explode him with a cigar or poison icecream or whatever. Even Bay of Pigs had plausible deniability and Kennedy scaled back air support. Given soviet backing, the US had to rube-goldburg machine their way into killing Castro. Castro was a long con you hear about in books, which are convuluted and confusing and barely legal. Maduro was a mugger cutting your purse, basically.

Also this was basically entirely focussed on Maduro, based on current information. The forces used to defend against an general occupation seem to be up and running [for now] and did scratch the task force [according to trump].

Lastly, Maduro has been playing up a lot of “man of the people” stuff, and probably rejected hiding in some cave in the middle of nowhere, or might have assumed the US would invade first and then attempt to capture him, like Saddam (that’s just speculation on my part though).

Overall, we’ll see. It’s been barely half a day so whatever happens next will help us formulate a conclusion