I had someone very seriously accuse me of brainwashing once because she started agreeing with all the commie stuff I say. She said she had to start doing stuff like mental exercises and listening to religious sermons to remind herself to stay a conservative.
Apart from teaching people to read, the second most dangerous propaganda tactic of the communist is making sense
hope you broke their brain and pointed out that brainwashing is a term the guvmint made up to smokescreen away korean war POWs talking about the bioweapons they dropped on korea
I mean yeah I tried connecting socialism to Christianity a few times except the sermons she was listening to were literally Joel Osteen.
no one else is even trying to make humans an interplanetary species.
Because its dumb as fuck settler colonial mentality :shrug-outta-hecks:
like if there was a place to actually live and sit on without doing some insane engineering feats, by all means, colonize it
but bro you are legit consigning your life to living in a bunker on mars when you can walk around and shit in forests HERE. its hardly ethical to have kids on an alien planet in that situation too.
i mean sure, but the soviets and now the chinese wont go colonizing mars and having kids unless they could insure a decent quality of life, not living underground terrified in a bunker working in some sort of international-waters science sweatshop, especially not with kids
Even if there was a place, do we really need to fuck that place up too?
fr figure out our shit first then we can go look at the cool new place
I take the view that you don't convert someone in one conversation it's a process of a little bit at a time
also do not label what you're saying or tell them to read theory until you have already got them where you want them
It's piece by piece but I've found most people need at least one very clear moment where the capitalist ideology ceases to correlate with their own personal reality. Usually something like sudden poverty, facing discrimination, maybe a loss of faith in one of their heroes. Sometimes something completely random. If they're already primed to make the jump to a leftist framework, it really helps.
The problem is there are a whole lot of distractions that remove that primer. Most people are just trying to survive and there's not a lot of encouragement to see issues as structural.
It's part of the reason college students seem overrepresented in leftist movements, because they're constantly reigniting their primers through what they're studying and the people they're around. Also why leftist movements often have a lot of women and queer people.
“I just wish that (reasonable left idea but not called left)” works amazingly
This is why I go to great pains to never, ever, say words like "bourgeoisie" or "proletariat". That instantly drops you into the 'Commie = Enemy = Wrong' bucket, and they get a free pass to ignore what you're saying. The bourgeoisie are the rich. The proletariat are workers. Jacking yourself off with Latin loan words just makes you feel like you have a big brain, and doesn't do your argument any favours.
True, we have to be speaking the same language as the people we want to uplift, wether figuratively or literally.
I think we the left need to seriously learn about psychology, in particular on how deprogramming of cult members work as this "brainworm" problem is a legitimate problem that really is the same thing as cult indoctrination.
How do we define the brain worm? We know it when we see it, but how do we explain it?
It's basically the same thing as what fancypants professors call a cognitive bias, isn't it? Brainworms are thought terminating cliches to present a simplified, distorted view of reality. And that's easier to do than more deeply considering a situation, because the brainworm has been learned and programmed since birth. Something like that?
I think it really is just a funny way to say "indoctrination". But maybe in the context of leftist discussion, indoctrination with a side of capitalist realism?
Like the difference nationalism and, uh, breathing air? Nationalism is largely a result of indoctrination; a teenage soldier can sprout nationalist soundbites but likely lacks any deep understanding of why they are even saying such things, meanwhile with breathing air even when its importance is not taught people still believes in it because of its objective material existence in the real world.
Yeah, I think it's capitalist realism in action at an individual level. An indoctrination that is not the result of explicit attempt to instill such value, but rather through a constant exposure of it in an environment where it is ever present to the point that one came to think those values as objective material reality when it is not. I think a good example is how people in general have come to accept capitalist wage system as a universal and integral part of humanity.
From my own observation people seems to view "societal collapse" as merely another form of economic depression instead of a total rearrangement of human society, a gigadepression basically.* Everyone lose all their jobs and all companies shut down at once with the following state of lawlessness is the result of everyone being unemployed and poor, until the situation calms down and new job creators: warlords, bandit kings, traders, etc; appear to give everyone society at a reduced form. In the old world you work in an office for a ten thousands of fiat money and go home to an apartment, in the new world you work as a scavenger for 10 pogs and 3 non-foil pokemon cards and go home to an overturned truck. People who does not return to this new pseudocapitalism are imagined as either psychopathic maniacs or savages who thinks that cartoon characters are gods.
That's a wild tangent, but my point is that "brainworm" are indoctrinated thought that have become so ingrained that they consider it to be a truth as inherent as "if you don't breath air you die". People views capitalist wage system as something inherent to humanity that it will return by itself even after it is destroyed. The person OP was talking to believes that Elon Musk and Space-X is the only path forward for the future of humanity, and that said future of humanity is absolutely interlinked with space without any other alternative.
*edit: One a side note I think this is one of the reason why most people doesn't have any sense of urgency about the climate collapse. I think I should expand on tangent somewhere else.
You're right about most people feeling like there's some vague general tug to always make society capitalist in some way. Most people see little difference between capitalism and feudalism. It's just like us except the rich person has a silly hat, right?
Yeah apocalypse itself isn't even as powerful as some innate drive to keep the same structures intact.
soviets were going to do reusable with energia 2/uragan. literally on wikipedia.
the US only developed closed cycle engines after the collapse of the USSR spurred tech transfers from the soviet public sector. if it weren't for years and years of soviet investment, elon, maybe even nasa, would still be fucking around with open cycle engines like little babies
I didn't know anything about closed cycle engines so I read this article, and it seems that the Space Shuttle had fuel-rich closed cycle engines with dual preburners/pumps. This required special pressurized seals for the oxygen pump to keep it from exploding.
This was a really interesting read and you seem pretty well informed on the subject, do you have any recommendations for reading on the Soviet space program?
The space shuttle was an awful program. You had to send so much dead weight into space.
The 1962 Sea Dragon concept was intended to be reusable, but it was never built
we would probably have reusable rockets already if the project undertaken by McDonnell Douglas hadn't been cancelled due to politicking by Lockheed (iirc). Seems like a point against capitalism, not for it.
I've talked about this here before and I should make a video on it. Talking people out of their brainworms requires a lot of work. Both from you, and them.
Think of it like learning a new exercise. At first, its going to be hard. The muscles are weak, and any kind of work is going to make them tired. But eventually, they grow stronger and the exercise becomes easier. Our brains are similar.
Thinking in new ways requires work. Like walking up a flight of stairs. You've already gone up these stairs hundreds of times. You muscles are honed for this exercise, and you welcome the challenge. But they've never climbed these steps.
So, it's important to allow them to take brakes. Instead of trying to drag them all the way to the roof, stop at the first floor. You can work up from there. Create a small "landing" for them to arrive at every now and again. Otherwise they'll walk all the way back to the bottom, and you'll have a hard time getting them to try again.
Talking people out of their brainworms requires a lot of work. Both from you, and them.
Think of it like learning a new exercise. At first, its going to be hard. The muscles are weak, and any kind of work is going to make them tired
It's more effective to just make brash, in-your-face youtube vids that unapologetically use offensive titles, followed by an in depth explanation in the video.
The problem of course is that youtube censors or at least deprioritizes such vids
Regarding the “interplanetary species” thing, if you talk about it again and the matter comes up, try pointing out that 1: why is being interplanetary a good thing
2: is it musk trying to make humanity interplanetary or is it the people working under him.
Maybe ask him if he entrusts that to the same guy who he just agreed is kind of a pos? Or to consider how much money Elon is able to spend on PR to get people to believe what he just said?
A lot of people think being a dick makes you smarter so there's probably some of that at play here
I hope underground Martians are real and have big ass guns.
Get them to play Half-earth. It's kinda simplistic but I think it's really good at conveying that feeling of revolutionary optimism without capitalist brainworms.
lmao no it's not. It's set up to fail you if you don't do exactly what the authors think is right. I was doing just fine then the "Earth Liberation Front" showed up and started doing a shit ton of terrorist attacks and I don't even know why.
It's extremely dismissive of nuclear, going as far as including multiple proposed technologies to research but having the research hard-coded to fail every time. And existing nuclear technology is treated as way worse for the ecosystem than it actually is.
And of course it pushes veganism as the only right answer. I don't think vegetarian was even an option either.
If anything, the game showed me that we'd still be doomed even after a global revolution because some idiots will sabotage everything if their pet issues are ignored or even just not given priority.
lmao no it’s not. It’s set up to fail you if you don’t do exactly what the authors think is right. I was doing just fine then the “Earth Liberation Front” showed up and started doing a shit ton of terrorist attacks and I don’t even know why.
it's cause you sided with the accelerationist while still having increasing emissions or temperature. The ELF guy tells you he doesn't like the accelerationist as an ally because he thinks the industry is polluting. Either end the accelerationist alliance or reduce emissions more and they will go away. They aren't really a big deal anyway, just force through your policy and don't worry about a few terrorist attacks. If you improve things they slow down and go away.
I also had nuclear make up about 30-40% of the electric grid in my victory playthrough and I only had one meltdown. Didn't seem that unfair to me. The techs like nuclear fusion have a 1% chance to succeed which I interpret as "hey it's a bad and insanely risky idea to bet on technology that doesn't exist yet to solve a problem happening RIGHT NOW".
Also you definitely can go vegetarian and not vegan that's how I won the game. I don't think I even got rid of factory farming lol, I just reduced the animal calorie demand a lot via the animal liberation policies. Animal agriculture is completely unsustainable irl anyway so people are going to have to accept that there will be much less meat in their diets in the future even if they adopt a special diet.
it’s cause you sided with the accelerationist while still having increasing emissions or temperature.
I don't even know what the accelerationist is supposed to be. Accelerationism makes no sense after a revolution. I sided with the authoritarians and did the most sensible things I could within the bounds of the shitty "political power" system. Emissions and temperature were both going down.
The ELF guy tells you he doesn’t like the accelerationist as an ally because he thinks the industry is polluting.
Which is incredibly dumb. Industry isn't inherently polluting, it's when that industry uses fossil fuels and generally operates with disregard for the environment and ecology in favor of profit.
just force through your policy and don’t worry about a few terrorist attacks
Ahh yes, very realistic. Who cares about people getting killed? Especially when siding with the authoritarians, I should at least have a way to crack down on them until they're defeated.
The techs like nuclear fusion have a 1% chance to succeed
No they don't. They say they do, but they're literally hard coded to never succeed.
it’s a bad and insanely risky idea to bet on technology that doesn’t exist yet to solve a problem happening RIGHT NOW
It's not like research into nuclear fusion takes away from anything else. We have perfectly functional fission technology that doesn't really need researchers working on it. And nuclear physicists can't exactly pick up and go work in another field. And I think some of the other non-nuclear stuff I saw doesn't exist yet either. But even if that's the case, just don't present that as an option.
Also you definitely can go vegetarian and not vegan that’s how I won the game. I don’t think I even got rid of factory farming lol, I just reduced the animal calorie demand a lot via the animal liberation policies.
That doesn't sound vegetarian, it sounds like you just reduced meat consumption.
Animal agriculture is completely unsustainable irl anyway
No, it's not. Capitalists' way of handling it is unsustainable, because capitalism is unsustainable. Like you said we will have to reduce consumption, but "unsustainable" would mean we have to cut out consumption entirely.
I've gone strong on nuclear every single game with little issue. The decision to dangle "free energy" techs before you and then deny them is, I think, a really powerful rhetorical device. The game is saying to not depend on silver bullet solutions that are perpetually 30 years in the future, and instead implement the best available means right now.
On the vegan thing, I've never not done it in my games because its such an obvious (to me) necessity. If we want to restore wild habbitatas and reverse extinction we simply cannot rely on animal calories to help feed ~10 billion people. And that's completely ignoring the moral dimension of the matter.
That said, if you start the lab meat in the first year, then speed it up by 2 in the second planning session, it will be available in the 3rd. This is one of those really easy gets which can allow you to go, like, 50-50 on lab + free range and get fairly strong eco gains. It's also perfectly feasible to go vegetarian mandate and leave it at that. But again, why?
Yeah it does. That’s why I talk business with liberals and politics with comrades.
