Well said. I remember getting caught up some in the ACAB type stuff myself in my initial transition to lefty politics. And although I'd probably still agree with it in the context of the US and the way its system operates / has operated, it's not universally applicable and a system that was going to try to replace the US in the region would need something like cops still (but actually serving the workers, like you say).

There definitely appears to be a kind of tunnel-visioning that can go into it. Like there are valid criticisms of the way the west approaches AI and how that approach embodies, or even accelerates, capitalist tendencies. But ecological destruction didn't start with AI, that has been going on for decades at least. Replacing workers via automation didn't start with AI, that has been going on for... what, centuries?

If AI can be a wakeup call for some people, that helps them reach class consciousness, then great. But if they stop at "AI bad, boycott it, shame, shame, shame" and don't go beyond that, it's not really helping the working class.

In the storied history of the exploiting classes and their abuses and barbarism, AI's abuses are tame, honestly. If people had the same energy for anti-imperialism as they do for anti-AI, maybe liberation would be moving faster in the imperial core. But AI comes more directly for them in a way that imperialism doesn't. For the people living under the shadow of empire, I don't see the same kind of kneejerk response. Like Explosive Media that I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the Iranian group doing those anti-imperialist AI Lego videos. They are in an existential war for survival and they are taking advantage of the tools available to them. They know there's no self-actualization for them within the imperial framework, no chance of "getting theirs" and living a quiet, safe white picket fence life. AI coming for jobs is nothing next to the terror of imperial bombs and the prospect of one's homeland being turned into a graveyard just cause the empire is mad that a people won't kneel.

Thanks. I'm sure I'm taking some inspiration there from Gabriel Rockhill, Jones Manoel, and others.

Yeah, most people there are alright and genuinely nice, but there is a really toxic lib minority there that's overly represented unfortunately. Grad being a Marxist space really helps filter that sort of thing out.

That of itself says a lot about moderation on there. It's also amusing how they couldn't find a reason in the thread to ban me, so put it down as me having multiple accounts. Never mind the fact that my accounts predate federation and hexbear. It's like yeah, I made two identical accounts seven years ago just for this moment. 🤣

you can really tell Americans are well represented on that instance 🤣

haha I never even noticed, I guess markdown parser thinks it's an email

Yeah that kind of stuff is pretty cringe.