This is probably unpopular, but Taiwan is imo not a good example of imperialism. Taiwan is where the old government has fled to and where the government there officially still claims to be the rightful goverment of China. Their official name is republic of China, which obviously leads to tensions with the “people’s republic of China”.

Imperialism is when a nation excercises significant influence and control over other independent nations. Taiwan is not an independent nation, they are a rival/competitor with similar regional claims.

A better example of Chinese imperialism could be their economic initiatives in Africa.

They say Arthemis landed on EARTH, but it actually landed on WATER (no earth far and wide). If they lie about something so obvious, what else are they lying about??

Sadly, it went to shit before his time even, which is why many were so desparate to fall for a ridiculous conman like him. He was just the final nail in the coffin.

You are mixing social democrats with democratic socialists.

The origin and core of social democracy is clearly socialist and, in many cases, Marxist. Of course this was more and more deluted over time until today, were many social democratic parties have indeed completely abandoned their socialist roots even in theory.

However, historically, social democracy overall can (and imo should) still be seen as reformist socialism, at least partially. The way I see it, it’s that the parties have abandoned social democracy by embracing neo-liberalism. have abandened those goals completely (e.g. modern German SPD, British Labour)

One could also argue that social democratic parties pretty much always had a leftist wing and a liberal wing, this is true today as well for the most part.

Its niceties are financed by imperial rent.

Isn’t everything/anything existing under capitalism financed by imperial rent?

How is it different to China, for example, who also participates in the global capitalist economy and benefits from it?

When that flow contracts, the mask comes off.

When has this happened? Do you have a specific example of a social democratic party turning fascist (actually curious)? Turning neo-liberal, sure, but to me at least, equating neo-liberalism with fascism is an oversimplification. Or is the argument that socdem turns into neo-liberalism, neo-liberalism turns into fascism, ergo socdem=fascism?

>I explicitly said “helped,” not “solely responsible.” Multiple factors converged in 1933.

Fair enough.

they preserved the bourgeois state apparatus after 1918.

they kept the reactionary judiciary, the imperial officer corps, and the bureaucratic machinery intact. They unleashed the Freikorps on the KPD.

Whether or not you believe me, it does pain me to defend the SPD, but I guess I will still do it.

They didn’t just preserve it, they were essential in building it. And that shouldn’t be surprising since in their view, socialism has to be build through a liberal democratic system instead of going straight from imperialist/monarchist to socialist.

And yes, they did a lot of “ultra-pragmatic” and desperate moves to protect the liberal republic and what was in their view the way towards socialism in the future and avoid a civil war/reversal of their gains. This does include them using Freikorps, which is imo indefensible, but it is at least somewhat explainable given the uncertainity of the situation.

And it’s easy to judge in hindsight, but the German situation was quite different from Russia. There were uprisings all over the place, socialist republics were declared, but it was much more chaotic and the working class was much more divided. Chances of right wing and monarchists forces reversing power or even taking back more power seemed plausable.

>They refused every proposal for a united working class front against the Nazis.

This is very critical and one of the biggest issues. But again, this was a mutual thing. The KPD also refused to form any kind of front against the nazis until it was too late. Both factions failed to see nazism/fascism severely underestimated the threat of the fascists.

>Stalin characterized this relationship precisely when he stated that “Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism” and that these organizations “are not antipodes, they are twins.”

And this characterization is in part what made it virtually impossible to form any kind of pragmatic alliance/front against the fascists and I honestly don’t understand what the purpose of this characterization is… Why would they work with the SPD against the fascists when the SPD was, in practice, fascist itself?

social democracy functions as the left wing of counterrevolution.

Social democracy is against revolution and pro reform. If that makes it fascist, literally everything and everyone except for revolutionary socialists are/were fascists. This worldview, imo, is shooting yourself in the foot. And I don’t understand why this view still seems to be held. Many have no issue with critial support of regimes/groups/factions for specific and pragmatic goals. And then we don’t live in Weihmar Germany anymore, there is virtually 0 revolutionary potential in the west, so what good does essentially turning virtually everyone into the enemy do?

socialdemocrats entire ideology is built upon “reforming” capitalism by implementing a welfare state to more evenly spread the profits of the super exploitation of the periphery.

Technically, it’s built on the idea that a socialist society can be/should be reached gradually by participating in parliamentary liberal political system instead of overthrowing liberal society and implementing a “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

At least that was what the original debate was about (“reform vs revolution”) that split the left apart. Since then, most social democrats have completely moved away from the idea of reaching a socialist society anytime soon (for various reasons).

The meme is pointing out the unfortunate pattern of it almost always ending in a rightward shift

The meme is clearly pointing out that “social democracy enjoyers” turn into fascists/Nazis once the economy declines. Or, if we keep OP’s caption in mind, the idea that social democrats are actually fascists “wearing a mask”.

directly helped bring Hitler to power

What helped Hitler seize power was not just the actions/inactions of the socdems and the economic collapse, but the deep split of the left overall, the ineffective political system and the relentless infighting to the point were socdems and communists saw eachother as equivalent or even a bigger threat than the fascists.

Don’t try to tell me that it’s all so easy now, I literally just went through hours of research and experimenting and samba settings and changing my disk’s fstab file just to get a folder to show up on my home network.

For most people, it is (and has been) that easy. If it works as intended, you can simply open your desktop explorer thing, click on network and have it show up. I know that because that has been my experience a couple of years ago and I was surprised at it just working so flawlessly. To be clear, I’m not denying your issues, I’m just pointing out that your experience is not automatically the average experience.

Of course there can be bugs and other issues which require troubleshooting, but that’s not specifically a linux issue.

The difference is that for non-techies, it’s harder to troubleshoot because advice you find is mostly written for techies, there is less info and there are a lot of different linux based operating systems.

For techies, it’s generally easier to troubleshoot because you can get more info out of the system (if you know how) and you generally have more power over the system.

but pretending it’s all smooth sailing and so easy and polished is misleading.

I agree, you cannot generalize a personal experience and then universally apply it to every person as well as every linux based distribution, like “it’ll work flawlessly out of the box because that’s been my experience”. You also cannot generalize it over every linux based system. I have tried a lot of different distros with different hardware and my experience has varied a lot. I have had issues and bugs with ubuntu that just didn’t happen with arch based distros.

But again, it’s virtually never smooth sailing for everyone in every case. Windows users have to troubleshoot issues and bugs too.

however, they make quite a bit of profit

Pretty sure they didn’t for a while. It’s the same approach as always. Operate at a loss, gain (nonpaying) users, maybe sell or use their data and slowly turn up whatever you are doing to make money (ads, fee).

The headset itself is running linux and it is meant to be used with the steam machine, which also runs on linux.

Has it?

Yep.

You added a lot of weasel words

The point is that Trumps image can change, even for his core supporters… I obviously have no clue exactly how many of his supporters were dissilusioned, which is why I will use “weasel words” (aka estimates and guesses)…

I hear a lot of “this will surely be the end of him”

I doubt that there will ever be the “one thing” where everyone suddenly realises they have been duked… Obviously that’s not how it works…

if martyr figures were that powerful

Ever heard of George Floyd? Trayvon Martin? Eric Garner? Those people weren’t even influencial to the left wing as a movement when they were alive (unlike Kirk), yet they still fueled one of the biggest movements in recent years.

start martyring themselves?

Some people do that, but in order to be powerful, they have to have been killed by the enemy you want to mobilize people against… Which is why the right will do whatever they can to blame this on “the radical left”, no matter what.

I don’t think Martyrs tend to be all that useful.

I think you are incredibly wrong on this point.

one less active propagandist

Pretty insignificant considering the countless other right wing propagandists out there who do pretty much the same thing. Also, events like this have a tendency to inspire more propagandists and radicalize people.

power vacuum and loss of leadership within turning point

Possible, but again, tp is not THAT important. They have turned a significant part of the youth and have a likeminded regime in power that continues to concolidate power. And they can an will use this event to consolidate more.

chilling effect on this sort of rhetoric

That’s not gonna happen…

impulsive and poorly planned ‘retaliations’ causing further damage

Damage to whom? You don’t know because the potential results are unpredictable.

reminding those ‘in power’ of their mortality

Like Trump’s failed assassinations?

The “Epstein thing” is never going to have reprecussions

It’s hard to tell, but it has disillusioned at least some of his supporters, showing that it is possible, at least for some people, to snap out of the cult. Obviously some will always support him, no matter what.

it will take a lot of time and significant financial investment for someone else to fill that role.

I don’t think it will hurt them in any significant way, maybe even the opposite. Kirk is still incredibly useful as a martyr figure and it’s not like he had much of an operational role. He was a propagandist and he will still be used to spread far right propaganda, even in his death.

I understand that he was incredibly influencial, but that’s mostly because he was a pioneer of the modern right who made the right wing cool to a younger audience, but his methods have since been adapted by many other right wing propagandists.

Or can you explain why you think his assasination will weaken or harm the right? Because I don’t see it.

If it wasn’t this it was going to be something else.

Trump isn’t invincible. Stuff like the Epstein thing actually seemed to hurt him. This is a very convenient distraction.

At least this definitely solved a problem permanently.

What problem is solved? Kirk was a very effective propagator, especially with younger people, but he’s not irreplaceable. And his death is already being used as very effective propaganda.

A repeat of something like the doge employee assult could fix some issues

Again, what issue is solved? I don’t understand what you think this achieves. The main effect stuff like this has is giving the right effective propaganda material and escalating violence. And the left is not in a position where escalating violence benefits the US, quite the opposite.

there was never going to be enough capitulation

I do not suggest capitulation or appeasement… But in order to resist effectively, you need stronger organization. This makes organizing way more difficult.

How? Why? This could have incredibly dangerous consequences. Didn’t Trump send the national guard after a dodge employee was beaten up? Only time how he will exploit this situation for further gaining power.

Seriously, I’m shocked how nonchalant people are reacting. Further escalation of political violence is extremely dangerous for the left at the moment and could be extremely lucrative for the Trump regime, which is constantly testing the water on how far they can go in terms of seizing power.

Don’t forget, it was also an assassination that was the trigger for the Kristallnacht. You hopefully are not quite at that stage, but it is events like this that moves you closer…

If you only drink sugary drinks, water doesn’t taste all that great in comparison.

The only teal obstacle is some anti cheat software, mostly kernel level anti cheat.

So if you want to play shooters like fortnite, pubg, valorant or rainbow six siege, you are out of luck.

Otherwise, you probably won’t have any issues.

defended his going to Epstein’s island.

Wait a second, are you just going to drop that without any further elaboration or source?

As far as I was aware, he knew him and he met with him a couple of times. His reaction to getting asked about it wasn’t that great, but him “going to Epstein island” is a bit on another level, no?

It’s not going to work

Of course it would, at least for some of them… You can’t seriously believe that people cannot change their minds, especially conservatives, who often only have their views because of living in a bubble.

whose purpose is to convert us from our “ways”

Let them try. Let them actually lay out and present their twisted worldview. And if you don’t want to see it or hear about it, fine, block their space. It’s much more likely that they will change than it is for a leftist to change because the vast majority of leftists are actually familiar with the right and their believes. The other way around is generally a different story…

I use and love debian a lot for servers because it is super stable and relatively lightweight, but I definitely would not recommend it for desktops/notebooks, especially not to people new to linux based systems.

It’s super purist about foss, which means you only get free and open source software (no steam, discord, etc) per default and it uses an older kernel (which makes it more stable, but less feature rich and less compatible with new hardware).

If you use something like fedora, linux mint (as far as I heard) or even ubuntu, your experience would probably be a lot better.

On my private PC, I’m using a GUI/Mouse anyway (browsing, gaming, etc). I have to do 2 clicks to update.

If I use terminal, I have to open terminal, then I have to either login as root or run update as sudo, which means I have to authenticate.

If I already have an open terminal, I might be faster. Otherwise, I’m about as fast as with GUI. In any way, there is no significant benefit to updating software via terminal vs GUI, especially if you are an enduser who does not have significant experience with shells…

For many tasks I agree that a shell is better and faster once you have basic knowledge for it, but it is a reality that many basic users are not used to using a shell or are even scared to use one… And at least since I’ve been use Fedora a couple of years ago, I think using a GUI for basic stuff is reasonably viable without having a significantly worse experience and not comparable with “not using all gears in a car”.

Ok so what exactly is the big advantage you get when installing updates from a terminal as opposed to installing it via GUI? If I read your analogy, one could think it is faster, but I don’t think it is.

Even if it is, for whatever reason, not part of the repository you have installed, you can still go on steam’s website and download the package from there… In other words, the worst case scenario is literally the same experience as you would have on windows…