To be fair, it does look like a p.o.s.

Not on me it doesn’t.

I agree with all of you that in the past, violence was necessary. But that was the distant past. A different generation is living now and we don’t need to kill anyone to have a revolution. And every time we do, except in VERY rare cases, it backfires.

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Yeah but they data mine you as they do it I think.

Me too. Thats why we can’t give up. We can’t stop pushing for what we want. We can actually change minds just by talking. For instance, my wife was talking to her mother today and her mom listens to nothing but Fox News and KFI. Brainwashed conservative. She said the ONLY two things she’s concerned about in the world are “AI and these Democratic Socialists who want to take over and get rid of the police and ruin the country”.

My wife let her have it. She brought receipts. They went through the DSA website together. They looked at what socialists actually believe. And you know what? Her mom was like… “Oh. Hmm. That all sounds a lot more reasonable than what I’ve been hearing.”

It’s a small thing, but taking the time to do it actually can have an impact.

Cool! Great idea.

So soon?

Yeah I suppose you’re right. Good call.

Yeah I’m at that point now too. Only issue is storage. I want to move my entire Gmail inbox but it’s too big for the free plan. Might have to cough up some dough if I can’t find a better alternative.

I fundamentally agree with you on principles. Where we disagree is on tactics.

if you had opened with, “We don’t need to worry about defending our communities because we can always just rely on the cops to protect us” then I would’ve just laughed in your face.

I would have too. That would be fucking absurd. Can you please top whacking at straw men and actually address my points?

You have to evaluate the material conditions to determine which tactics are more effective and make the determination based on those conditions.

Which I have done, and my determination is that rioting and larger-impact violence (like, say Weather Underground) tend to backfire and turn the public against the cause you’re fighting for. With very few exceptions (Luigi being one of them).

Abandoning any possibility of armed fighting

That’s a strawman. I’ve never once said that nor implied it. I made general statements about violence in general. I guess I should have been more specific. See above.

During the years of the Weimar Republic

Stop living in the past. Those people are dead, and so is their worldview and culture. We live in different times now with different standards of behavior.

one of the ways the Nazis secured power was through street-fighting, expanding their practical, physical control block-by-block

Yeah, that’s not happening now. Stop living in the past. The far-right in America is VASTLY outnumbered by those who oppose them. If it came down to it, and say, all the MAGAs in the South and in rural areas of blue states “rose again” and tried to take the streets by force, they would soon get a wake up call, because even the vast majority of police wouldn’t join their ranks (as crazy as that may sound to those of us on the left - there are “good” cops out there who believe in the myth that we were taught growing up about what cops should be - to serve and protect the public).

I’m not saying violence is NEVER the answer. I’m saying we don’t and shouldn’t treat violence as the only true answer.

Full article: https://archive.is/da0SB

That’s exactly what the full article is talking about. People need to read, man!

Another interesting tidbit: “Most banks have authorized or are moving in the direction of allowing read-only access, which should allow agents to see customer financial information without taking action.”

Imagine if AI forces more and more services to require in-person interaction to authorize transactions and things… AI brings back the bank teller! AI creates traditional jobs! That would be ironic.

You’re 100% right about everything you just said. None of that involves rioting or armed fighting of any kind. That’s the thing I’m getting at.

Read that one in college. Maybe it’s time for a re-read. Must have forgotten the section where violent revolutions led to world acceptance of socialism.

Which ones would you recommend?

No they’re not. They’re just doing the bare minimum to give the impression that they’re changing. The fundamental injustice of their existence in the first place is what needs to be fixed. And that won’t get fixed just by more Luigis.

I don’t think so. The issue may have been made mainstream by violence getting the news out, but the violence itself did not write any laws.