Ask Lemmygrad

Can any Chilean or Iberoamerican explain what tf is happening?

The west media likes to use CCP instead of CPC?

“This person does not grasp class struggle; he has never referred to this key link. Still his theme of ‘white cat, black cat,’ making no distinction between imperialism and Marxism.”

This supposed quote by Mao comes from the top of this work here. Does anyone know its origins?

Hello Lemmygrad. I'm trying to understand the labour theory of value, and one thing I'm wondering about is the value of 'status symbols'. For commodities like this, it seems the price is always higher than the same commodity that's not a status symbol (like fancy cars or whatever). Those commodities seem to have disproportionately more value than the extra labour needed for the non status symbol version. How does LTV explain that?

My thinking is that LTV assumes that people will choose the cheaper between two equivalent commodities, but the opposite is actually true for status symbols (like, between 2 necklaces that are exactly the same, demand for the more expensive one will actually be higher). Does that sound about right? Or am I missing something deeper?

I should really get around to reading Capital...

I have often heard ultra-lefts describe Marxists who oppose settler-colonialism and uphold AES as being "Third Worldists".

Looking at what people like Jason Unruhe have to say about the topic, Third Worldism does not seem entirely baseless (e.g. the proletariat in the imperial core more often being labor aristocrats).

So, what are our thoughts on Third Worldism?

SETI - Search for Extra Terrestial Intelligence.

The most I could find was the Far Neighbor Project and some SETI at FAST from 2019 n such https://astrobiology.com/2023/12/seti-at-fast-in-china.html and some astronomical projects from 2013 with the DPRK and OAD.

Am wondering if anyone has any more information or even books/documentaries to share on the topic? I also can understand if those respective nations wouldn't have the will and/or desire to allocate resources to these kind of programs too.

I'm running around in leftist circles a lot since beginning of last year. I first got introduced to socialism through anarchism [stereotype alert] started to read and went pretty straight to communist and then ML pretty recently. The shoe is still new but it fits very well so far.

Whenever I bring up socialism and communism (let alone ML), I get a lot of flak from other leftists and especially from anarchists. Yet, I feel like a couple anarchist agitators sound like MLs just cosplaying. It would make sense as anarc kids are totally open for socialist ideas if one lets out the "science" part which irritates me a lot.

Does anyone have similar experience or is able to explain?

Btw pls let me know if this is inappropriate to ask. I dont mean to offend anyone.

Or rather, what's the Marxist stance on office jobs? Truth be told, I'm writing this while a bit inebriated on my day off lol. But I was still wondering about that question.

Obviously I realize that there are extreme levels to this, like working for the armed forces or a bank, which are clearly indefensible. But what about an office job for a market chain, for example? Or for a multinational seller of cheap goods? Is providing work for such companies considered unethical? Where does one look to find criticisms of one's workplace? And how does one juggle the need for money for survival while only having "soft" skills?

I am open to constructive criticisms and I am genuinely asking. After all, I have started only recently learning Marxist theory and deprogramming myself while reflecting more deeply about society and myself.

Ironically (or shamefully), I just noticed that while I was busy reading basic texts about theory, I forgot to incorporate any sort of deeper analysis of the practical side of it all.

No need to expose yourselves, but what are some of the jobs that principled Marxists are drawn to? Where do you draw the line when looking for a new job?

(I would also be very thankful for any suggestions about books or articles as well! I am quite curious about finding the correct personal balance between need for work and ethical concerns)

I see them being called traitors that supported Iraq and being funded by USA I even seen some people on the Iranian Opposition hate them. (This is a meme on how much people hate them.)

Was he a hero of Pan-Africanism?

So, I was arguing with some people of the chicken and egg problem and it came down to this

Would the current events affect the price of worldwide gasoline enough to make stockpiling gas right now worthwhile, cost wise? Which places would be affected the most?

If Trump's tariffs hadn't happened, would China have found other ways to implement the ban?

Related, what if we protected the privacy of everyone by default (which is an absolute joke in bourgeois society at the moment), but reserved technological surveillance as a measure applied to violent offenders? I think it would enable us to be less punitive, rather than being moreso - offenders could be released sooner and with more confidence of collective wellbeing, if they could be "sentenced" to constant surveillance with your Militia or whatever ready to intervene in moments possibly before they even offend (eg., when a situation starts becoming very heated)

Dystopian maybe, but less so than caging and psychologically torturing a human, just less familiar...

I would like to learn in detail about how the People's Republic effectively countered the Western attempt to create an East Turkestan state and successfully re-educated the terroristic elements into productive members of their society. What English-language books, articles, and other sources can fill me in on how exactly they did this?

Idk this guy but Yugopnik tweeted a post about him?

I thought the whole idea is that the state is also "owned" by those working in it, just as everything else. Isn't waiting for the perfect Utopia to sprout out of thin air and instead focusing on infighting kinda useless and beside the point? I'm confused whether it's me who doesn't understand or "them". So I wan't to ask a guestion here as I did there: how is any of this supposed to work if no state (no ruling authority) can exist? Say maintaining infrastructure in areas where no natural resources, industry for refining or skilled labor for extracting, refining and maintaining naturally exist? I don't believe that any human society can function without some level of authority (thinking legality in disputes and such) and in order to provide everything needed for infrastructure maintenance some authority must tell others where to go with everything.

Because there’s this guy called Bonnie Prince Bob who called himself a socialist and openly and publicly advocates its use… despite the fact that “psychedelics” are drugs. Like cocaine is a drug.

I must disclose that this is not a common opinion. If I had a nickel for every time someone called Parenti a genocide denier I’d have two nickels, once on twitter and once on tumblr, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.

I have a feeling this has something to do with his book To Kill a Nation but I have yet to read it so I have no idea.

Hey fam,

I've been having more and more discussions with comrades across different organizations, and I keep hitting this wall when it comes to AI and robotics.

Simply put, most people just don't understand the capitalist/imperial consequences let alone the communist opportunities that these innovations entail

Keeping in line with a Lenin-esque analysis of understanding the various material inputs (energy, agriculture, steel, etc), I'm hoping to begin brainstorming collective solutions that we can begin to circulate in our respective fields and orgs

Starting with some founding principles

1. Avoiding dependence on any foundational model given the ability to surveil users (but keeping their usage as an option because all current llms are known to have publicly available jailbreaking methods)
2. Targeting and elevating use cases which can be implemented with open source, local, and offline models to avoid surveillance, enhance portability, and also reduce the climate impacts of this tech
3. Using this tech to enhance sociality between people and the planet. None of the use cases should be to replace people/workers or reduce the reliance on our communities

I don't have much at this moment, but so far

• Real time, multilingual translation, we are increasingly organizing across different communities, and we don't always have translators available. Everyone should be included at the table, and this is one step to lowering that barrier of entry
• Using AI to vet protest plans, especially if you have access to your local police, national guard, etc. training and operating manuals. Obviously needs to be done offline, but a second pair of eyes goes a long way
• Contingency planning, especially in understanding how the police will react and mobilize force
• Learning how to make wireless jammers and tuning them to the spectrum used by police and military drones
• Coming back to the jailbreaking vulnerabilities of all current llms, you can use them for more "illegal" endeavors to pretty accurate ends. Not advocating for such, but it's an option
• Liberation companions, as we move more into agentic ai, finding ways to embody the knowledge of our liberatory elders to educate and reflect on current methodologies. Everything from a study companion/group to an llm tuned towards modernizing their perspectives to our modern context

None of this is meant to be prescriptive, but rather the beginning of an ongoing discussion

Also drop links to other discussions if this has already been addressed elsewhere

Do they really want to learn from China?