pkill

joined 2 years ago
[–] pkill@programming.dev 1 points 7 months ago

Also, synthetic cannabinoids. So glad that kids these days are not exposed to this shit, but I wouldn't say I'm happy either with all the fent out there.

And larping as pagan.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

Netbooks. Jfc that performance of a mid-tier smartphone whereby they'd become unusable in a few years for anything heavier than lxqt or some tiling wm, a simple music player like audacious, vim and static websites (accessed only using something lightweight like Netsurf, Badwolf or Palemoon as well). I don't remember what happened to mine but I'm pretty sure that even mpv with no scripts would drop frames like crazy on FHD x265 matroska videos. I'm so glad that ultrabooks started to become more affordable and nowadays I'd be able to buy an i7 t440s for the price of my acer aspire one back in 2011.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 12 points 7 months ago

I chucked though this would mean that the American solutions are...short-term? Headlines will fleet, the ruling class will become a little bit more vigilant. And then shit will return to business as usual. Unless this sparks a mass movement.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 29 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

btw, the NHS in the UK offers a cautionary tale. Once it was a beacon of universal care. But look at how the decades of privatization have chipped away at its promise. Even now, UK workers defend it against the creeping tide of market logic, which has not ceased under Starmer because warfare matters more than healthcare to them.

It's absolutely clear: systems run for the many must remain in the hands of the many. This fight really requires worker control—why should administrators and profiteers dictate care when the expertise and needs of frontline medical workers and patients could lead?

Even if a mass movement for universal healthcare is born and somehow the government with both parties being virtually on the insurance profiteers' payslip somehow concedes, it will be immediately subject to sabotage.

And then the billionaire media would point a finger at the alleged inefficiency of "public services", all while it is implemented in a way where it isn't at the expense of

  • the military-industrial complex
  • the wealth of the mega-rich and their corporations' profits

so if not that, then it'd be financed at the expense of the already ballooning public debt, which would then be paid in austerity.

If universal healthcare is to succeed in the U.S., it must be accompanied by bold economic realignments: ending absurd military expenditures, expropriating billionaires and putting critical industries under public and worker control. Otherwise, the promise of care for all will collapse under the weight of contradictions, and the media will be more than happy to point fingers at "socialist inefficiency" while the real culprits—corporate greed and the war machine—walk away unscathed.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

If an oak blocks the sunlight, you don't pick an acorn, but chop the whole tree down

[–] pkill@programming.dev 6 points 7 months ago

Yes that's why the rotten system of choosing a slave master every few years, of the duopoly of parties which are equally complicit in war crimes and are on the payslip of big business must be replaced with bottom-up system of lively democracy within worker, student and tenant councils

[–] pkill@programming.dev 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's where the permanent revolution would help. The workers must not allow splitting the revolution into stages of concessions and compromises but fight until total victory and the dissolution of the state.

Also this is the reason why communists are not pacifists — the working class has the right and a duty to defend itself and it's gains. That's what Marx meant when he wrote that under no pretense must workers be disarmed.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The political system we live under is rotting. It’s holding us back, suffocating real democracy, and clinging to relics of an era we should’ve buried centuries ago. Why are we still pretending centralized power structures, dominated by presidents and parliaments, are the best we can do? It’s time to turn the whole thing upside down. Imagine power flowing not from the top down but bubbling up from councils—real, grassroots bodies in towns, workplaces, and universities where people directly decide what matters to them. No presidents. No untouchable elites. Just democracy as it was meant to be: local, participatory, and alive.

Critics say that direct democracy would be too costly and cumbersome in large countries. But that’s a lie told to make us think power belongs anywhere but in our hands. The truth is, it doesn’t work their way—infrequent, clunky referenda that barely scratch the surface of what real participation looks like. But why not councils that meet regularly, that use technology we already have to count votes and hear every voice? Why not frequent, transparent, and accessible decision-making? We have the tools. What we lack is the will—and that’s on us.

And about the politicians. They’ve turned ruling into a career. They live above us, pocket bribes, rub shoulders with CEOs, and laugh at the idea of accountability. Enough. All representatives should be recallable at any time, earning no more than the median worker’s salary. Partial sortition (random official selection) could ensure even more fairness. It worked in ancient Greece which was (for the free male citizens ofc) closer to actual democracy than the unaccountable neo-aristocratic order we have today, so why not today when we have the formal equality before the law and equal rights, but we know the reality.

But if no one will be above anyone because everyone will get their chance to actually change something about the world and their life without running into the stone walls of the system, it will be a complete revolution in human relations that will uproot the poisonous root of disdain so many feel for their fellow humans for simply being worse off than them.

Imagine a system where politics isn’t about who has power but about how power flows and where the needs of the people are actually heard and resolved. Blockchain (and no, I'm abso-fucking-lutely not a cryptobro. PoW is still useful for things like captcha replacements but the whole thing is the biggest example of capitalism's way of turning useful and promising inventions into means of speculation and outright scams by and large) could be used to make the process more transparent than ever. It's not the technology that hold us back, but their fear of us using it to take what’s ours.

Term limits, too. No one should sit in power long enough to forget what life is like for the rest of us. Politics should be service, not a career. If we’re serious about democracy, every single one of us—no matter how "uneducated" we’re told we are—needs to learn how to govern. Because democracy isn’t just voting for the lesser evil every few years. It’s taking the reins of your life, your community, your future. It’s about ruling instead of being ruled.

Here’s the thing: the ruling class will not go quietly. When we start to take real power into our hands, they’ll fight back. They’ll use every dirty trick in the book to claw it back. That’s how this game works. But if we stand together, if we build a united force that can’t be undermined, if we refuse to let fear or complacency stop us—then they lose. And we win something they can never take away: the power to determine our destiny. That’s what’s at stake. Let’s stop settling for scraps. It’s time to demand the whole damn table.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

or maybe because they are working class instead of a sheltered Ivy League graduate elite

[–] pkill@programming.dev 37 points 7 months ago (11 children)

Class consciousness

[–] pkill@programming.dev 26 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Bourgeois parties support bourgeois fat cats? Nihil novi. A proletarian mass party must be built urgently. Revolutionary Communists of America do a lot of laudable effort in that direction.

[–] pkill@programming.dev 2 points 7 months ago

mps wouldn't have managed to do shit without the protesters

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