I find irony that they disregard expert opinions on the things they are experts for (climate scientists for example) but will accept an entire worldview of opinions based on someone being “smart” like the opinion of a software engineer has on philosophy or politics.

Reject the expert on the subject they’re an expert on because that makes them “elite” and they were trained to think that was bad, but accept an unfounded opinion of someone who may be smart in an unrelated field because the opinion is “different” so it must be “smart”

I think this is the trap all self assigned internet intellectuals fall into. They parrot opinions and vibes from echo chambers that discredit real science or real reporting and call it enlightenment. This in itself is stupid, but then even more stupid people are drawn in and suddenly we have a big club of geniuses

Small business people are every bit as insufferable as big business people

Self fulfilling prophecy. It’s a doomsday cult and they’re trying to bring the end times instead of waiting

When they said we’re living in the end times it wasn’t a prediction it was a threat

I also think while yelling racial slurs should not be illegal, organizing and mobilizing under a racist ideology that promises to eliminate free speech should be criminalized. The tricky part is doing it in a way that won’t be abused ie calling things that aren’t racist and supremacist ideology those things to criminalize them.

If only there was an art vs porn emergency button encoded into the law. You just know it when you see it and can call things what they are

Genuinely curious, why are there rich people in China? Or why are the rich allowed to exist?

I think this is the critique I share. A lot of leftists who seem to be from outside the US are putting on their theory and history caps and pointing out how bad the US is as an imperial power, ignoring that right now Americans who see what is happening would do anything to revert things to the way they were even if that was the neo liberal status quo. Sure could have used this analysis in more peaceful times when the Jakarta method wasn’t a real possibility facing socialist discourse. When facing fascism at home the last thing you care about is exactly the precise and correct way history should play out. In this sense I feel like the left absolutely fails constantly, for all the talk of international solidarity there sure is a lack of organizing. Can’t organize with anyone who isn’t a Marxist, I guess?

I also feel like saying the US was always fascist is skewing the definition of fascism and defanging it. “America was always fascist” makes it seem like the real fascism we are facing should be business as usual. Fascism is a distinct and brutal form of capitalism. Marxists have known about this, and I feel conflating with neo liberalism is revisionist.

The analysis is correct, in that America was always a force of oppression across the globe, but that doesn’t change the fact the local population enjoyed some sort of stability and predictability. Economically suppressed with a corporate two party system? Of course. Arbitrary overt censorship and rounding up of civilians? Not necessarily, and that is where we are going. Is it hypocritical to turn a blind eye to the suffering of people around the world? Sure, but most people are not aware of this, and doesn’t change the sheer terror you begin to feel when the oppression comes home.

They want a crash to set up an economic reset to coincide with their government reset / dissolution. Do they want to set up corpo towns? Lower the value of everything and buy it up? Replace currency with crypto?

Could be all of the above, and I think they think they’re real clever about it but kinda just winging it and seeing where it takes them and doing it in the dumbest ways possible.