TΛVΛR
Not defending the statement, but someone else pointed out, that it was made in 2010 though, hopefully some of them have grown since then
I agree with your premise of capital turning to fascism when push comes to shove. Re: Your 2 chances however:
tldr; Technological progress will not bring salvation on its own. We comrades have to act, otherwise humankind is doomed
- Not a fan of humankind-dies scenarios in general, but about AI I always have 1 point to make: Consciousness is one thing. The actions of any being are not fundamentally driven by its consciousness tho. IMO we often conflate consciousness with a sense of self-preservation, which is wrong. Self-preservation exists independently from consciousness (i.e. in animals or even bacteria) and Consciousness can exist without a sense of self-preservation. It is the evolutionary process that, when it ignited consciousness, had already suplied the drive to self-preservation. Since AIs are not subject to natural evolution a drive to self-preservation is not a necessity, if humans create a superior AI, I wager they will make sure not to instill it with a drive to self-preservation.
A superior AI whether it is conscious of its actions or not will act according to its reward functions. A desire to change any one of them would need to be rooted in a deeper set of reward functions. Without reward functions any intelligence only analyses it doesn’t act. There is a rule in AI development:
“An intelligence can not evolve past the point of hacking its own reward function” bc then it simply has no incentive to da anything - for a crude understanding think: “taking-heroin” as the human intelligence hacking itself.
Hence the consequences of unleashing a superior AI onto the planet would depend on the reward functions it starts out with (assume they aren’t immediately hacked). If you ask me there is a good chance these reward functions will be determined by private coorporations, hence they will mirror capitalists interests and the resulting AI will act to further it, a.k.a. serve the capitalists.
- If cold fusion would have the effect you describe I have to point to your own premise. Capitalists will fight tooth and nail to prevent/defund it or find a way to profit off of it - they do the same already, just look at food. There is no net-scarcity in food production anymore, hasn’t been for a long time - still people die of hunger everyday - bc giving them food doesn’t yield a profit.
If you are among the global poor, you will not receive energy from cold fusion if a capitalist profits more from someone blowing that same energy watching 3D porn in his space limosine.
So yes both technologies are a salvation in the hand of a comrade but irrelevant in the hand of a capitalist.
Particularly the AI could even become a damnation, just look at Israels going full medieval using 21st century tech, imagine what a Zionist-primed AI can do.
You said it yourself we must consider full blown fascists kicking of the AI singularity. Maybe Europe really “needs to secure its Meditteranean coast from refugees” - boom, FrontexAI exterminating refugees without the public noticing it anymore, and no human has to shoot anymore, noone has to worry about insubordination anymore.
Even without fascism: What if technology enables the burgeoisie to overcome the strength in numbers that the proletariat has over them - when there is no need to appease the masses anymore: how long until a society is stratified enough for the burgeoisie to lose remaining empathy, roll back concessions and we go back to straight out slavery enforced by your friendly AI?
If we don’t manage to organize and fight back we might find out where those timelines lead and I’d like to spare humanity that path.
Fuck. I feel sick
Damn. Their last “stance” was like them eagerly byting on a cyanide capsule after somebody asked them for the time.
Geopolitics […] is obviously reactionary to everyone who understands Marxism
TIL Lenin didn’t understand Marxism and was reactionary
lol I just realized it was them that brought up the term in the conversation. In their defense it says in your substack description "I write about geopolitics,… " so maybe that’s where they got it from. But I agree calling you a “geopolitical analyst” was putting words in your mouth for the purpose of slander.
Was Lenin talking about the impacts of those concepts?
Bc I would even consider diamat foundational to CS (which would only strengthen your point)
Anyway there is a more central issue in their argument though:
If I make a good faith attempt at understanding the point of this other person: they could be talking about CS bc of its central role in driving historical progress. In that sense their focus on CS (vs LTV/diamat) is understandable, “replacing” that with “national struggle” is not admissible for a marxist.
But it can’t be denied that what Lenin (the staunch geopolitical analyst that he was) did constituted an extension to Marxism that recognizes state/imperial competition (what they mean when they say “national struggle”) as a driving historical force. Considering nation states are a tool of the ruling class this doesn’t constitute a break from Marxism. So they were creating a false dichotomy.
Lenins additon has some grave consequences however when it comes to interpreting how class struggle manifests. Some trots apparently consider the Palestinian struggle in an utterly perverted way, where the Palestinian working class needs to rise up against their ruling class (and they don’t mean the Israeli class that is ruling over them), while a Leninist correctly identifies thei national struggle as anti-imperialist and consistent with class struggle overall.
So maybe the person you encountered was just affected by trot brainrot but I believe they were just not liking your opinions shying away from an argument and cowardly retreating into ostensibly principled territory, a behaviour that always creates a shitload of confusion and toxicity, pushes a movement towards dogmatism and harms the ideological struggle in general. This sounds exaggerated in this case, but I really can’t stand this “reaching for a priciple” just to feel safe. Same reason why they immediately compared you to fascists. Whoever reads this, don’t fucking do this.
Of course Marxists can write/discuss about quantitaive production of munition, the depleation of weapons stockpile, logistics in war. Barring us from doing that is barring us from assessing at what is going on, in a way it is them that are turning away from scientific socialism and from Marxsim towards idealism.
that article
I thought you might have meant that, I just recalled the 3 sources and seem to have forgotten about the 3 components. I will repent and re-read.
I wholeheartedly support everything you say! The rest of this comment will be me agreeing with you. While that may be boring I want to express that it is not insignificant to me as where I live (a somewhat provincial city in Germany) it is next to impossible to find any reasonable opinions on geopolitics from people interested in it (aside from some people into who’s understanding I have put significant effort in).
The word Geopolitics now is just an easy way to say “what’s happening in the world and why” and I don’t see any reason we can’t use it our own way
Absolutely. Before I took it out, I’ve had a paragraph in my second comment saying the exact same thing!
I also use geopolitics instead of imperialism exactly not to scare off people too quickly
A totally valid strategy, I do the same! The need to resolve contradictions in geopolitics (and the reporting on it) was what eventually led me to adopt a Marxist analysis why should it not work for others!?
On a side note: In Germany it is an incredibly long journey to arrive at one (has been for me at least).
I think one reason are the relatively okay material conditions many people find themselves in compared to other countries (in Europe but certainly the US). But I believe an important reason is that a Marxist perspective has been purged so effectively from public thought here (“Radikalenerlasse”, “Congress for cultural freedom”, transatlantic networks, etc.), which I believe one can link back to the importance of Germany in the cold war / capitalist Imperialist project. I believe (and hope) the situation is improving with English-speaking content becoming more prevalent on social media but it is often a long and lonely road, hence my appreciation for the sanity expressed in your opinions!
Or they suddenly start talking about the ‘globalists’ out of nowhere
Omfg, yes! It is frustrating as hell to finally see dissidence in public opinion and then realize it is channeled into this pit of inconsistent thought. Unfortunately such “globalist” commentators are much more prevalent when one first diverges from the mainstream liberal opinion. For what its worth the WEF is, of course, an institution worthy of opposition but it is a consequence of the problem and without it nothing fundamental would change.
It is so glaringly obvious how desperately people are in need of a critique of capital.
But what about a stronger NATO …
This whole paragraph is on point and it again points to how people lack the holistic approach that a dialectic approach provides.
It’s funny you mention Trots […] “what about the proletariat in both countries?”
I appreciate the tip of the hat to my Trot comment, lol. For what its worth: I agree. The problem this seems to be indicative of might be an inability to perceive remaining contradictions or an unwillingness to tackle them? The understanding of Marxism as a scientific approach and historical materialism as a progression that cannot be stopped at the turn of the 20th century. In that sense it is the same mistake that people stopping at “globalists are the root cause” are making, only that they happened to stumble across Marx. I have yet to read Mao on contradictions / reaction within the people, I am curious in his analysis in this regard though, I know I have a long way ahead of me too.
Having had these experiences I understand your desire of reaching more people outside of Marxist thought and I totally agree. Historically I’ve found myself, instinctively, wishing and working for a broad understanding basically with everybody I meet, being cautious to alienate nobody basically rallying for the biggest consensus possible for any specific strategic issue (From a US perspective this certainly sounds ridiculous, I hope you understand what I am trying to say). However this always kept me on the back foot and after the issue was resolved or faded into irrelevancy nothing remained to build on.
So increasingly I wonder if an “inwards” turn, an appeal to leftists (not necessarily Marxists yet) primarily is something more effective. Similarly to how Lenin made out the peasantry as the most likely ally of the proletariat, I wonder who the most probable allies are nowadays in Germany. Undoubtedly they must then be the main target of “communist propaganda”, accepting that other groups might not relate and react with scorn and reaction.
Initially I added a couple paragraphs about my strategic speculations, but that is a huge digression so I saved them elsewhere. I guess I just really had to spell out my thoughts out on this.
But well, I’m still finding my voice and who exactly I’m writing for. But I can’t imagine a world where it’s better to have fewer anti-imperialist writers.
For sure! Best of luck in your endeavors, comrade!:) I’ll see to it that I follow your development
They host a podcast at buzzsprout as well:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1890340
This is the file my podcast app pulls: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1890340/13989881-episode-105-free-palestine-ft-decolonize-palestine.mp3
Knifes, forks, a spoon…
Seems like Stalin made the west shit itself with the whole arsenal of a typical kitchen shelf