Everything you say could be true. Just like the Ukranian propaganda. More probably there are kernels of truth, blown up on both sides.

Just from my personal view, I feel a Russian army moving towards Europe gives me more angst than some very problematic Ukranian language laws. I remember the laws being in the news in Hungary waaaay back in the day, maybe even before Maidan, but I wasn’t really paying attention to happenings at the time.

Please don’t get me wrong, I do not know the political climate to such extent in those countries and I do believe fascist memorials should be placed in a dedicated statue park (if not pulled apart in the heat of an event).

Are you implying that Nazis are not “baddies”?

Main baddies. I feel it debases us as it does them, this 2 dimensional thinking. White power. Nazis evil. If that’s the deepest you wanna go, be my guest. Of course we have to stand up against them, I really hope no one is getting that from my writing that nazism OK.

If I can use a very clunky IT support metaphor, we definitely need incident management (firefighting) now, but we should always look at root cause analysis to avoid the problem in the future. This is not an unfamiliar problem we are facing (historically speaking).

Maybe the time for mutual understanding has passed.

If you feel nazis are your main baddie, it might be better to understand what makes them tick. If not for empathy, then for hitting where it hurts.

Why do you say I am denying the presence of nazis? They are usually a niche demographic, but present in any country. I am not saying let the bastards speak hate with impunity.

For sure, countries need to look inward and start digesting that many people ate the onion in the first half of the 40s. Not because we need justice for the deaths of local minorities commited by nationals, but because this type of behaviour causes great trauma not just for the victims, but the aggressors. They pass this trauma down and it remains alive in current generations. It usually doesn’t even manifest itself as outright racism, just lots of anger issues in general (I guess this part is anecdotal).

All that being said, fuck Russia for bringing this up now. They went in to Ukraine under the flag of denazification. But Latvia is in Nato, so I don’t really see this as a cassus beli, but more of sowing division in EU.

Send RFK… They kinda look alike.

Get back to r/teenagers, where you belong!

But seriously, thanks for the reminder.

Hey, don’t do that. I mean you can, sure, and it’ll be a cheaper solution (by just a fraction) to omit the windows license.

If you haven’t dipped your toes into Linux yet, but want to, do it on a machine where you aren’t too worried if you screw the OS up and have to build a new one, it is not an extraordinary pain (like you had you’re work there, only copies of your game saves, ecetera).

I’d screw around with the Chromebook, and when I’m good and ready, get a more powerful notebook.

I’m not sure about all flavors of Linux, but installing most is easier than windows. And if you luck out, you won’t have to bring up the console, the new distros are so friggin tight. But I guess that is where the heart of it all is. I am super happy with Endeavour OS, and I mostly just copy paste commands (that I’m understanding better and better, the more I use it).

I was debating using the word at all, I just wanted to point out how I interpreted the message. The only reason I dared use it, is that you picked up this thread in a gentler tone (which just confirmed that you are not pushing agenda).

As I mentioned to our colleague in this thread, I do want to dip my toes in the basics of dialectic materialism, so excuse me if all of this has been discussed to the bone. I understand how we are (also) products of our surrounding, and matter can shape mind. My main argument here is that we also shape matter. So the direction goes both ways. If I am not convinced of my truth, I shall be swayed, thus I have to make sure that when I speak, I speak the truth to the best of my knowledge. If I have hangups, I might push for something faulty. Something that based on my perspective should be a natural part of life, a given, but is actually just a neurosis. So you are definitely picking up the vibes that I see the solution at home.

Anyhow, thank you for getting back to me. I’d love to discuss the topic further, but maybe I’m not ready for a proper debate of (or devil’s advocating against) communism.

Hey, I’m kinda in the middle of trying to dismantle my illusions, so if you can point out inconsistencies, please do.

So the gun advice immediately sent me down this doomsday path in my mind, where it makes sense to hoard medication and vitamins. Also it has a feeling of call to a standing army. I might also be terminally pacifistic and feel that a few dogs and floodlights can take care of most defense in all but the most dire of situations. You are right in that I would rather see comrades armed than the current governmental security agents, but I don’t trust that much power to really anyone. The idea feels weird that they can end an argument very quickly if they wanted to. I don’t want to live in a world, where we need to keep and use weapons to feel safe.

Why do you say that power corrupting doesn’t exist? I guess I haven’t seen any papers on the matter, but it does seem to be ingrained into our common psyche. On the solarpunk subreddit we were talking about how the finite game will always win out on the infinite one. I know corruption isn’t insant and there is a combo where we can have a common win, but that seems heavily in the idealistic territories.

One of my main arguments is some pop-psych, which states it is easier to fight for your truth than to live it. It feels like a time to collectively get our shit together at home and bring that to the streets. I know communism is about equal rights as well, so someone who grew up in an abusive relationship will find that natural and search for that feeling. If things are not tip-top at home, we will have some elements in the collective that will bring destruction.

I know society is set up to hang societal problems on the individual, but if I’m looking at the big picture, I feel the total opposite of empowered. It seems the most power I have is over my own decisions, and the best I can do is reign in my emotions and concentrate of me not sabotaging myself. There is probably great literature out there that deals with my exact dilemma, but I have yet to read it.

And just as a side not, in our original discussion I kinda felt waved away and talked down to. I am definitely prone to victimization, but the triggers are coming from the world. You are right that more literature on the subject at hand would do me wonders, but being sympathetic (and not totally unknowledgable) to the cause, it made me wonder if I’m talking to a tankie.

The system definitely encourages and rewards explotation, but why do people do it at all? Will this behaviour stop if we penalize it? Or just gently teach the children after the bloody revolution?

How do we get past the notion of power corrupting people? All I’m arguing is that communism is not an outright solution for society.

I promise to read up on dialectic materialism, but the end of link you sent mentions getting a gun. That’s just bad advice.

The problem wasn’t with communism. It is a great ideal that we can keep in a back pocket comes time to build something new.

I still feel the crux of our problem is human behaviour. I know democracy isn’t really working out for us, but it seems to be the hardest system to hack. Of course it’s not impossible as seen in the US (and Hungary, for an interesting example), but it’s definitely harder to buy up and/or convince a majority.

We definitely have to find something better, but my main problem with (my imagined) communistic ideal is that almost every actor needs to be good faith in it, otherwise it dystopes.