Deme

The US military budget is inflated as hell, but lasers are neat for this kind of stuff precisely because shooting something down costs only the electricity needed to power the laser, instead of a missile or some fancy airburst shells.

So that’s what the huge budgets and the surveillance is for…

Not yet

Oh definitely. I just don’t like it when conclusions are drawn that as such, all germans are nazi sympathisers due to their blood (something intrinsic that can’t be changed), rather than just most of them and due to the societal circumstances that actually caused the widespread fervor. The former stance reeks of essentialism.

Are you joking now? Because you seem to be contradicting yourself. You say that you feel for the germans who stood up, but then you say that you have a hard time having that sympathy for germans (including the ones in the previous sentence?).

The reason I took issue with this is that I’m scared. Fascism is capitalism in decay. A systemic symptom of a flawed and unsustainable system eating itself. That leaves only people and their capacity for good to have hope in. That hope is in short supply. Things will continue to get a lot worse before they get better again.

As bampop said in a different branch of this convo, a country is more than its government. To declare an entire country nazis discounts the existence and in some cases the life’s work of a lot of good people. I can appreciate a joke, but right now I really want to focus on the fact that anti-fascism is also everywhere, and that as history repeats itself, the good parts can also be repeated. If not, then all is lost.

My flatmate is german. He’s a marxist academic writing a thesis comparing the far right parties of Spain, Germany and Finland. The AfD is getting more and more votes, but the vast majority hate their guts.

Sure, but to say thay Italy [as a whole] has always been like that discounts the efforts of a lot people, including former governments.

Sorry if I’m nitpicking. I just want to stay conscious of the fact that the forces opposing fascism never went away, and that as history repeats itself, the good parts can also be repeated.

Would you make the same joke about all germans always, based on their history and the recent resurgence of the far-right?

I’ll remind you that it was italian partisans who killed Mussolini and italians were the ones to beat the body up and hung it up on that square.

That seems like quite a generalization to make. Care to elaborate?

Obligatory note: Anarchy ≠ Anarchism

And plenty of neonazis are doing the same now. They correctly identify some problems caused by late stage capitalism to rile up people who are suffering because of those, but then the blame is directed at easier targets. It’s much easier to point at some ethnic or religious minority, than it is to tackle systemic issues with how society is organized.

That’s a very narrow definition of capitalism. If free markets hinder the main function of the capitalist system (accumulating capital at the top), it will be eroded and abolished. Monopolies for example are much more profitable than competetive situations. Getting rid of or circumventing open market competition is always good business.

Pull some out of your mouth and glue them to your forehead.

Gotta work on improving yourself! Even if it doesn’t work, you’ll still feel better in the end.

Living at an orbital Amazon fulfillment centre breathing Amazon air and drinking Amazon water and eating Amazon protein paste sure sounds like a nice carrot. A corporate space station is a corporate town where you pay for the air.

“neo-monarchist” “hardcore libertarian” I love it when people have coherent views which aren’t self-contradictory.

… becoming even more detached from reality? There really is no good solution, is there? Well, apart from the one.

And that fresh new video generator by Google is scary good

So was the video linked at the end. I knew I would regret clicking the link and I still did it. Morbid curiosity is a bitch.

Capitalism has a tendency to eat everything it can. This includes the political system. The US is just ahead of the curve in this.

The Trump regieme officially endorses Palestinian transwomen, as long as they have abundant facial hair.