Most of the hexbear people I run into here are not even communists and barely know the first thing about communism (there are a few exceptions).

Most are just wumaos (or 50 cent army) who dogmatically post the “CPC” party line, or whatever RT is posting, as well as posting right wingers and neoliberals like the Daily Caller or Jeffery Sachs because they agree with the propaganda they’re consuming/spreading. They have George Bush level logic: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” assuming that if the US is bad then, transitively, Russia and China are good. The idea that all three are terrible, in different ways, seems to be too much for them.

Imagine how sad Hexbear is going to be when they find out the Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore.

Cats are fucking weird man.

Very similar to the Lemmy tankies arguing that Russia was forced to attack Ukraine by the Ukranian crimes of protesting and voting.

On the one hand I can believe that people are getting more anxious because things are getting more bleak and it’s an op to get the whole thing blamed on social media.

On the other hand, it also feels like an op from social media companies to insist that their algorithms aren’t preying on people.

I read Chris Webber’s essay and I kinda agree. Bluesky is really just another twitter.

That being said I think we are entering into an era of diversification, not perhaps how we would like (through federation) but rather, through people understanding finally that the platform itself is making a choice in what kind of content it serves. We used to have this idea that the platform was just a “neutral third party” like a phone company. But in fact, it’s a publisher with its own editorial line. It pushes that line through algorithms and what voices it wants to amplify or suppress.

As people understand this more, they are going to be much more critical of not just “the media” but also “the platform” and why it chose to show that media to its audience.

SS United States was an ocean liner, not a cruise ship. It was built for getting people between US and Europe when that still mostly happened by ship, not to give people norovirus.

Not talking about the USSR there skipper.

You keep saying that people are called “tankie” for being “left of the DNC” but the only people I see being called “tankie” are folks who think a lot more people aught to be dying from polonium poisoning.

Somehow supporting colonial aggression by a totalitarian state is a left cause.

Probably because there are a lot of tankies here. 🙃

An important characteristic of a model is “stability.” Stability means that small changes in input produce small changes in output.

Stability is important for predictability. For instance, suppose you want to make a customer support portal. You add a bot hoping that it will guide the user to the desired workflow. You test the bot by asking it a bunch of variations of questions, probably with some RLHF. But then when it goes to production, people will start asking it variations of questions that you didn’t test (guaranteed). What you want ideally, is that it will map the variants to the best workflow that matches what the customer wants. Second best would be to say “I don’t know.” But what we have are bots who will just generate some crazy off-the-wall crap, and no way to prevent it.

Don’t forget futuristic space bartender.

Privatized public transit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva

core of US power projection and intelligence gathering

This is what Biden and probably other Washington ghouls think but if Israel is “projecting” American power then to what end? Meaning, what US interests are served? Cheaper oil? That’s our relationship with SA which is potentially hurt by Israel’s behavior (Israel, importantly, has no oil, we’d be better off normalizing with Iran). US bases? We don’t have any bases in Israel, that would be Turkey, Bahrain, etc. Do you think Israel ever considers US interests before acting? If they did historically they definitely do not under Netanyahu.

With regards to intelligence, I am sure that when intelligence is shared it’s done so to craft a narrative that Tel Aviv wants Washington to believe. Also mossad is the most pervasive, aggressive, and successful spy agency in Washington. The flow of information is heavily one-sided.

Several theories:

1. Epstein was mossad. There are a lot of tapes with a lot of people.

2. Lots of Zionist billionaires: America is a plutocracy that acts on their behalf

3. Some sort of “great game” calculus of keeping a client state for regional instability (Biden apparently believes this based on old speeches)

4. Biden in particular has a melted brain. Many people have pointed out that Reagan was tougher on Israel than Biden has been. Reagan would set red lines and then say “you will comply.”

History has misjudged Jeffery Sachs according to… Jeffery Sachs!

Let’s be real, he’s the main guy pushing the “NATO expansion” theory of Russian aggression everywhere, and it exists mainly to cover for his own crimes.

What’s more likely: that Russian revanchism came from anger over some arcane treaty negotiations, or that it came from the absolute collapse in material condition, civil society, population, daily lived experience and life expectancy that Russians experienced as Sachs and his evil clients dismantled the once-great civilization for their own enrichment? What do you think Marx’s assessment of those two theories would be?

Sachs is a bag man. He helped the oligarchs destroy Russia and then he made himself useful to the new ruler when they were gone. He also spends a lot of time in Beijing and has a lot of good things to say about Xi as well. The guy’s a serpent.

Jeffrey Sachs

Lol. Neoliberal wrecking crew turned autocrat’s errand boy.

Yeah the best way to discourage a revanchist is to give him what he wants. Succeeding in Ukraine will definitely convince Putin not to attack the baltics, poland, or finland.

There was a great book on Biden called “Yesterdays Man”. Biden’s political career began as a racist (anti-bussing) and tough on crime. Other than that he was a typical democrat for his era.