yeah, I mean I can’t say I consider an oil exec picking new places to exploit to be on the same level as the local car salesperson. Still, the question was ultimately about socialists’ positions on middle class insurance salesmen as a category.

at most, such things are an expression of frustration and desperation. there only resistance is organized resistance. also you have to build the alternative you want to see, otherwise it’s just destruction

we are all forced to do unethical jobs to survive because capitalism itself is unethical

romance requires being vulnerable. it’s painful, but it’s the only way to really connect. give yourself the time to find someone you like who also likes you.

preppy, Ivy League, business-casual style

these aesthetics come from early & mid 20th century style worn by wealthy “aristocratic” (not literally, they weren’t nobles) American families. they rode horses, played tennis, rugby, and polo, wore school uniforms, etc. and their clothing reflected that.

that style was pushed into the mass market by Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilifiger, and other brands. this meant everyone could afford those aesthetics. the old cars used to be much more expensive because they were imported and hand made, but modern production and shipping has changed that.

rich people now differentiate themselves in other ways.

because then they would be punished by the trump administration. he would have govt agencies cone up with reasons to investigate them, take away their tax breaks, etc.

the point of a company is to make money, that’s it.

it’s hard to keep your brand new society when the tanks show up immediately. this is not a weakness of anarchism or any political system.

you can look to rojava and the zapatistas for an example of defense that has worked for years despite long odds.

they did it for years in a significant territory. the state had no power there during that time. that was a success, even if it was rolled back by a nationalist military (supported by nazi Germany) and undermined by authoritarian communists. also, again, there’s rojava & zapatista Mexico currently, plus other historical examples.

why are you demanding an impossible standard of perfection before you are willing to fight for a better life for yourself and everyone else? that’s just doomerism and it serves the capitalists.

the point of anarchism is not to control the state, but rather to stop having one. for the territory that made up anarchist Spain, that was successfully achieved. it’s no weakness of anarchism itself to be defeated militarily; all kinds of societies have been defeated militarily.

anarchism rejects nations, so why should its success be judged based on national borders? a successful society is av successful society

not every direct democratic system is majority rule. there are lots of ways to make decisions! remember, we don’t need perfection, just something better than the tyranny of the minority we live under now. we can improve from there.

anyone seeking to sabotage decision making in bad faith can be handled however a given commune has decided to handle antisocial behavior (rehab, restorative justice, offering therapy, etc).

read some of the links OP helpfully posted to clear up the misconceptions about anarchism you display in your comment

ass bagels?

it simply describes their ideas, without criticism or even taking the time to explain “hey these are dark enlightenment thinkers whose ideas are driving the far right, so beware that esoteric fascism is what all this theory is leading to”.

for example, it simply names Julius Evola as an influence without noting that he was an esoteric fascist. only a few seconds of broader context is provided in the middle of the video. not only that, it takes dugin at his word about “rejecting” fascism.

i guess someone already pretty well versed in this stuff would be able to see what’s being described, but videos@lemmy.world is a place for general videos. Nearly no one in it will know a ton about the so-called ‘dark enlightenment’. it’s irresponsible to post this outside of a community that is already studying this stuff because it effectively platforms their ideas uncritically.

Dugin is a fascist whose ideas are given inflated importance by the right wing and the Russian regime. https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/just-call-it-fascism

grapheneos on a pixel

Google maps for navigation in unfamiliar places.

i really want to switch to OSM apps (and I have comaps) but (1) it’s not nearly as good at understanding addresses (e.g. “123 first avenue” when it has my gps coords instead of “cityname, First avenue 123 zipcode”) and (2) doesn’t have nearly as many businesses mapped (e.g. i want to type in “Joe’s Restaurant” instead of the address bc i haven’t memorized it)

if you haven’t heard people from other places complain about those places, you haven’t been listening much. everyone complains!

im not arguing sapience, im examining your definition of sentience, which was self-awareness. my question was how we distinguish between mimicry of a sentient being and actually being sentient, with an analogy that a recording of a sentient being is a perfect mimicry but isn’t the same as having sentience.

similarly, how do we know that an llm is self aware and not merely a machine that returns clever combinations of recorded sentient beings? what is the equivalent of a red dot mirror test for an llm?

“sufficiently adaptive” is doing a lot of work there. i can “mimic” a thought by copying and pasting text that someone else wrote. it wouldn’t mean that I understood it, could reason from it, connect with it on an emotional level, or incorporate it into a worldview

your music simile misses the point in a similar way. a record player can play music just as well as the artist who recorded the record, but we don’t say the record is the same as the musician.