Ask Lemmy

What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost.

It feels that way, because it kind of is winning a bunch of battles. Whether it's "winning the war" is much more up for interpretation - the past was seriously shit going just a few generations back, and it will take a lot of backwards progress until we get anywhere comparable.

Okay, so why is it happening? When it comes to democratic backsliding specifically, the first reflex everyone had was to blame social media bubbles for causing runaway political polarisation, but it turns out breaking those bubbles actually increases radicalisation, so that's not it. Another theory I've heard is that in a democracy, the weakening of a political party inevitably creates space for extremists to take control. There definitely was some building dissatisfaction with the status-quo right before the trouble began, I could feel it, and in the case of the US specifically winning a party is nearly as good as winning the country.

It's also worth considering this has happened before. Since the French revolution itself the path to liberalism has been two steps forward, one step back. I don't know what causes it exactly, but the dip we're in is big - comparable to the one before WWII.

Even evil people are winning. Why?

That's yet another separate question, which I struggle with too. One notable bad person isn't even smart-evil.

It's been shown in studies that narcissists achieve more conventional success and social status, despite the fact they pretty much ruin everything and everyone they touch. It's a real thing. Bad actors are given far more leeway than would be game-theoretically rational for us to give.

Because it is.

This is a people/societal issue. People's lack of willingness in investing in other people doing well.

A ruling class of ultra wealthy lording over the vast majority of people being left with crumbs is a common sign that an empire is in decline. With the US having more global influence than any previous empire the whole world will be feeling the effects in one way or another.

In some ways, evil is getting the upper hand at the moment, mostly brought on by moderates failing to address basic and fundamental problems forming in society due to being corporate captured.

However, we have a few options at our disposal to fight back:

1. Joining and organizing within your local community to create connections with others is incredibly powerful, will make the coming months much more bearable, and lay the ground work for effective resistance.
2. We can still effect things drastically with a general strike. This massively impacts their income streams, and can bring the country to its knees if done on a large enough scale.
3. Join the IWW and attempt to unionize your workplace, so that the general strike is even more effective.

If we put in the work, we can resist this and we can win. Don't become paralyzed with doubt and fear, march on and push as much you can. Together we're strong, separated we are weak. So join up with allies while we still can easily!

The information age of the internet grew too fast before humans could get an actual sense of the repercussions, and it was just a matter of time for the greedy people in power all over the world to use it to their advantage.

Scary book written in 1970 has proved to be incredibly prescient.

"Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler predicted that as the Digital Age moved forward, a lot of people would begin to lose their minds because they couldn't/wouldn't keep up with all the changes.

It's easy for bad people to offer an easy solution to people who have no idea how to handle it.

"Evil" had always been winning. It just seems worse now because it's finally effecting us.

Evil is not held back by scruples or moral boundaries. Evil people will do whatever they need to to succeed. That includes manipulating people, something which today's technology facilitates. Add to that the fact that for many people in developed countries, life is slowly getting worse instead of improving over the last few years. The frustration over that can easily be turned into hate against minorities, foreigners etc.

• The rich take a larger and larger slice of the wealth pie
• Use the money to propagandize to the now more precarious and vulnerable public to bolster their position
• Rinse and repeat

Simple material effect.

People are shaped by the interrest of the social and material class they are part of. And the evil people are always the one in power and have the money, so they act in the interest of their class and do things that help themselves.

Fucking Marx wrote about this quite a while ago, now his predictions just manifest more visibly, but the cultural and material forces have always been at play. Now we just reached a breaking point as a planet and population, so the underlying systems start to break too and the people on top do everything to stay in power, including ditching reality altogether.

first i would say it "feels" that way because you're consuming all the media that's telling you that. everyone should moderate the media they consume to help their mental health while at the same time keeping informed.

the big structural issue is that countries are having trouble cooperating internationally to manage corporations and now individuals. the main mechanism for this is (again) media - both old and new social media.

we need democratically elected politicians to create rules for media to correct lies and protect democracy. also democracy itself needs further protection by controlling funding to political parties and during elections. all this will take time but is happening as we speak.

the future looks bright