Random Thread

[KathTheDragon]

ZBB discord server when.

Please present a 3,000 word essay justifying this request to my desk in two weeks.

[foxcatdog]

CBB has one.
According to them it is good for more ephemeral posts.
You can see my desktop background as an avatar.
The coloured banners they have are nice.

[KathTheDragon]

• So what?
• Is the Ephemera board not good enough for you? Personally, I much prefer the slower pace of conversation since it means I don't get to obsess over a conversation.
• You can set your desktop background as your profile picture here, what do you mean?
• If you don't like the way the board looked, politely suggest to Zompist how it could be improved

2971 words short, bonus points for being so prompt. E-

[bradrn]

• Is the Ephemera board not good enough for you? Personally, I much prefer the slower pace of conversation since it means I don't get to obsess over a conversation.

I agree. In the past year or two I’ve started participating more extensively on Discord: it does seem noticeably harder to have a nuanced conversation there, and it’s a lot easier to get obsessed like you say.

[Travis B.]

I personally prefer it the way it is.

[Travis B.]

In other words, do not want.

[Zju]

Wasn't there a phenomenon of activity moving mostly to Discord after a server is created for certain forums and boards? And it's still chit-chat, at that.

2971 words short

ouch

[Travis B.]

Wasn't there a phenomenon of activity moving mostly to Discord after a server is created for certain forums and boards? And it's still chit-chat, at that.

And this definitely falls in the do not want category.

[foxcatdog]

Well there goes that idea.

[Man in Space]

Forget your saving-JFK AUs, show me Kim Il-Sung in King Arthur’s Court where he duels him for the right to rule Camelot and blows Arthur away with a 1911 that happened to be on him when he was displaced, installing Juche as the ideology of England

[keenir]

Wasn't there a phenomenon of activity moving mostly to Discord after a server is created for certain forums and boards?

I'm on a couple of forums (fora?) where there was a call for a discord for the forum, and one was created, and less than a month later, all those we-now-have-a-discord forums, have members complaining that the forums are too silent now, because everyone is chatting in the discords

(not sure if the main theme/subject of those forums is being done in their discords now, if its fallen away, or its just one of the seasonal hiatuses that happen there from time to time)

[rotting bones]

Trying hard not to be snarky, but are you absolutely sure all this can't be done without also killing at least 20 million people, invading its neighbors, destroying the environment, being unable to feed the country, and fostering wars and dictatorships across the planet? Is Finland a cesspool of horror compared to the paradise of Stalinism? For that matter, isn't this pretty close to the fash praising the order and prosperity of 1930s Germany?

To be fair, the Non-Communists are doing a genocide right now, just like they have done for the duration of their existence.

Honestly, I'm starting to think, "Who killed more people?" is a bad metric. If the world is a deterministic murder machine, a better question might be, "How many non-regressives were killed per capita?" A chilling fact about the Soviet Union is that it killed loads of sincere progressives (e.g. anarchists), Marxists, Communists and even Bolsheviks. A totalitarian state cannot accommodate non-sheeple.

[Travis B.]

A chilling fact about the Soviet Union is that it killed loads of sincere progressives (e.g. anarchists), Marxists, Communists and even Bolsheviks. A totalitarian state cannot accommodate non-sheeple.

This is why anarchists have not forgotten about the crimes of not just the Stalinists but also the Bolsheviks. They remember what the Bolsheviks did during the Russian Civil War, and what the Stalinists did not just during the Purges but also during the Spanish Civil War. To them, the next time we have a social revolution, whenever and wherever that is, the Communists, even though they may be erstwhile allies in progressive activism today, they may very well be their mortal enemies then.

[Ares Land]

Trying hard not to be snarky, but are you absolutely sure all this can't be done without also killing at least 20 million people, invading its neighbors, destroying the environment, being unable to feed the country, and fostering wars and dictatorships across the planet? Is Finland a cesspool of horror compared to the paradise of Stalinism? For that matter, isn't this pretty close to the fash praising the order and prosperity of 1930s Germany?

To be fair, the Non-Communists are doing a genocide right now, just like they have done for the duration of their existence.

That makes no sense. Who are the 'Non-Communists'? Are Sweden, Switzerland, or the Netherlands (all three non-Communist last I checked) committing genocide right now?

Honestly, I'm starting to think, "Who killed more people?" is a bad metric. If the world is a deterministic murder machine, a better question might be, "How many non-regressives were killed per capita?" A chilling fact about the Soviet Union is that it killed loads of sincere progressives (e.g. anarchists), Marxists, Communists and even Bolsheviks. A totalitarian state cannot accommodate non-sheeple.

I know you're just being cynical, and don't mean to imply that killing 'regressives' is somewhat OK.

But the Bolsheviks reasoned that way right from the beginning and that sort of thinking explains the totalitarism -- once you start accepting that killing people is okay if they're 'regressive' or otherwise 'reactionary', it's awfully easy to extend the reasoning to kulaks, anarchists, Ukrainians and more generally all people who annoy you -- you just have to review the definition of 'regressive' as needed.

What is "socialist education"?

In a sense we got that in France. It's certainly state-sponsored, the teachers are very likely to be socialists and if you're taking economics, classes will be bases on Alternatives Economiques, definitely socialist.
All in all I'd say it has about the positive effect rotting bones predict. Besides I don't think it's coincidence that teachers are a favoured targets of islamists nuts these days. For that matter fascist are really into private education if not homeschooling, but that's the case in many other places.

Without socialist ideology, you're imparting nationalist education by default. At least one Jew has been stabbed in France. India has public education, capitalism is not seen as the best thing ever around there, and Modi is the most popular elected leader in the world.

Moving this over to the Random Thread too.

Education here in France isn't perfect and we do have antisemitism, racism and a far right that's way too healthy. It's unrealistic to expect to eliminate these entirely. I also think the school system does a pretty good job at alleviating these. Good points were that nationalism was avoided almost entirely; also good coverage of the 1930s and 1940s in history class.

Conservatism has generally been making inroads in the last 10 to 15 years or so; there's probably quite a bit more nationalism in history class these days.

[KathTheDragon]

Trying hard not to be snarky, but are you absolutely sure all this can't be done without also killing at least 20 million people, invading its neighbors, destroying the environment, being unable to feed the country, and fostering wars and dictatorships across the planet? Is Finland a cesspool of horror compared to the paradise of Stalinism? For that matter, isn't this pretty close to the fash praising the order and prosperity of 1930s Germany?

To be fair, the Non-Communists are doing a genocide right now, just like they have done for the duration of their existence.

That makes no sense. Who are the 'Non-Communists'? Are Sweden, Switzerland, or the Netherlands (all three non-Communist last I checked) committing genocide right now?

Pretty sure RB is talking about present-day Russia, who are doing a genocide against the Chechen.

[Travis B.]

To be fair, the Non-Communists are doing a genocide right now, just like they have done for the duration of their existence.

That makes no sense. Who are the 'Non-Communists'? Are Sweden, Switzerland, or the Netherlands (all three non-Communist last I checked) committing genocide right now?

Pretty sure RB is talking about present-day Russia, who are doing a genocide against the Chechen.

I was thinking of what Israel is doing in Gaza, where they appear to be rather indiscriminately bombing the hell out of Gaza City. (Yes, Hamas did kill and kidnap a pile of Israelis, but now Israel has killed more Gazans than Hamas has killed Israelis by a little less than an order of magnitude.)

[Travis B.]

Honestly, I'm starting to think, "Who killed more people?" is a bad metric. If the world is a deterministic murder machine, a better question might be, "How many non-regressives were killed per capita?" A chilling fact about the Soviet Union is that it killed loads of sincere progressives (e.g. anarchists), Marxists, Communists and even Bolsheviks. A totalitarian state cannot accommodate non-sheeple.

I know you're just being cynical, and don't mean to imply that killing 'regressives' is somewhat OK.

But the Bolsheviks reasoned that way right from the beginning and that sort of thinking explains the totalitarism -- once you start accepting that killing people is okay if they're 'regressive' or otherwise 'reactionary', it's awfully easy to extend the reasoning to kulaks, anarchists, Ukrainians and more generally all people who annoy you -- you just have to review the definition of 'regressive' as needed.

I agree completely here. Note that this should not be confused with being non-pacifist - e.g. when I was an anarchist (and as I still am) I firmly believed in a very broad interpretation of self-defense, i.e. that self-defense was fully justifiable at everything ranging from the personal level to workers as a class globally, and that it would necessarily come into play because even if we tried to bring about the most peaceful social revolution possible, the capitalists would attempt to crush it by force, hence justifying self-defense on our part.

[keenir]

To be fair, the Non-Communists are doing a genocide right now, just like they have done for the duration of their existence.

That makes no sense. Who are the 'Non-Communists'? Are Sweden, Switzerland, or the Netherlands (all three non-Communist last I checked) committing genocide right now?

Pretty sure RB is talking about present-day Russia, who are doing a genocide against the Chechen.

I thought it was a reference to China.

[Travis B.]

That makes no sense. Who are the 'Non-Communists'? Are Sweden, Switzerland, or the Netherlands (all three non-Communist last I checked) committing genocide right now?

Pretty sure RB is talking about present-day Russia, who are doing a genocide against the Chechen.

I thought it was a reference to China.

I wondered that too, but then I wasn't sure because the CCP nominally pretends to be "Communist", even though in fact they have more in common with fascism than big-C Communism.

[bradrn]

May I state at this point that I disagree pretty comprehensively with rotting bones’s assessment of the war in Gaza, but I won’t discuss it beyond this post because I’ve learnt that it’s not a topic I can discuss sensibly with him.