ジン

Z.ai has been a much better exp for me than other LLMs. I know I should stick to local LLms but I’m lazy and old now

Defend him against the many that disagree or otherwise anti-support his comments in this article. Apologies if you were just being rhetorical

I’m not trying to defend him, but it seems like he was moreso saying linux will never be a reactionary tool of principle. It seems more like an admittance that the AI is here to stay and theres little point in trying to pivot everything to reverse an unstoppable trend?

I’m so gonna try vivaldi when I finally have some issue with librewolf or if

I disagree on the naming of ‘compiler-tricks’. Some of us are complete idiots and prefer the compiler trick US

​⁽​^N​^o​^t​^t​^h​^e​^o​^t​^h​^e​​^r​^w​^a​^y​^a​^r​^o​^u​ⁿ​^d​^.​⁾

My thoughts almost exactly.

Anxiety is a controlling mechanism in some sense, isn’t it? It is possible to somewhat enjoy some emotions, but not anxiety. You just want to get out of it.

Same, but I’m still encountering this same issue here. Does any instance not allow redactions/deletions? I know many are obsessed with perfect flawless curated feeds, but I kinda miss old internet days where redactions were nonexistent essentially

I would receive such a description with nothing but respect and appreciation!

I really don’t mean to insist on splitting hairs or further complicate matters. Others are getting involved and I seem to have perturbed more than a few with what I’ve already said. I admit, I am absolutely an insensitive brute that really must learn to do better, tho I hope I’m still allowed to ask for help and clarity. Any feedback that isn’t too degrading is most welcome.

I’m obviously not great at expressing things, so I did wish to try an answer to your question(sry for delays; am hardstuck at long workdays) for my own development on top of what I hope is an obvious respect for you and your contributions/work.

The main missing point for me was why/how specifically does the removal of the ‘profit drive’ alone stop the ‘need drive’ from expanding in its place? If a socialist state is trying to meet the advancing needs of its substantial population, the material requirement constantly grows. What is the specific mechanism that forces a socialist planner to say, “No, we cannot provide this new advancement to everyone because the mining required would cross our ecological limits”? It seems like whatever forces the planner to restrict consumption to stay within physical boundaries is, by definition, an act of degrowth, no?

When the state decides that green infrastructure is a pressing need, what forces the planner to say “No, we must limit this specific project because the physical cost to the local watershed is too high”? Without that limiting principle, it seems like the planner just approves the massive extraction anyway, just with better intentions than a capitalist. I don’t mean to make this only about scaling back green infra tho. Just providing a baseline standard for many largely populated regions/areas would already exceed the carrying capacity.

Again, I feel I am merely questioning your optimism further, but the answers I don’t have might be the only reason I stick to my moderately conservative preference. I do strongly hope my pessimism is most wrong. I guess you could say I do ultimately wish to be converted. Politics is more religious than religion itself some times lol

PS: Apologies for my previous comment which seems to be removed. I don’t remember what I said, but I am sorry for any grievances caused—Please advise if there is anything I can do to reconcile/be forgiven

I have zero arguments worth reposting sorry. It just took a long time to clarify my ‘moderately conservative communist’ label. Despite the downvote tally, I have zero beef with him or any other comrade. It was a comment of humor that has been greatly misinterpreted i think

You are absolutely right that the terms clash and it makes for a confusing label to those on both sides i think. I do prefer to keep using it though because I think that naturally pre-occuring confusion points to something important about the situation. I realize now my earlier framing of communist means and conservative ends was backwards i guess. Since global capital is the true radical force destroying our social fabric, merely conserving the present is not enough. We actually need the conservative discipline of a strong state to impose order and push us forward into a truly emancipatory communist future. I am still unsure if this is the best way to articulate it, but does it make more sense? I feel like I just sound like cowbee now, but I also never felt I disagreed with him in much of anything substantial to begin with

Your mistake is treating capitalism as a static “status quo.” It isn’t. Capitalism is a dynamic process of constant, disruptive revolution. It actively destroys the ecological status quo every single day. So if “conservative” means upholding the prevailing state of things, then defending the physical world against capitalist expansion is conservative. You have to radically change the economy just to conserve the environment.

The train analogy only proves my point. If a train is accelerating toward a cliff, letting it run preserves the engine’s current operation, but it radically destroys the train. Hitting the brakes disrupts the engine’s operation in order to conserve the train. I want to disrupt the capitalist engine to conserve the physical world. Communist means, conservative ends.

The thread already highlights this, but the target of the change dictates the label.

You are assuming capitalism is the steady baseline and communism is the disruption. But in reality, global capital is the true revolutionary force. It constantly tears apart the planet, destroying ecosystems just to keep expanding. It is insanely radical.

So if capital is the radical disruption, then what does it mean to be a conservative? ‘oppose change’ certainly doesn’t cover it or much of anything at all. It means you want to conserve the basic conditions of life against this chaos. I am a communist because it takes a radical break to stop capital, but I am a conservative because the whole point is to defend the physical world from its destructive progress. Communist means, conservative ends.

I feel like your true definition of ‘change’ means ‘movement toward liberation’ if you could only be more specific. If a train is heading towards a cliff, hitting the brakes is conservative in the literal sense, but it is also the only sane and radical thing to do. You need a revolutionary tool (communism) to apply the brakes, but the goal is ultimately conservative (keeping the train from crashing).

Yes and I suspect you too may be a sentient life-force. Stay safe

As stated earlier, my best points were essentially ignored. If that’s what ‘getting dunked on’ means, I’m beyond fine with it lol

I don’t know how this is mud throwing when he describes himself as an optimist and at the same time was the ‘clueless one’ on what a moderately conservative communist stands for.

I love your take though, especially the ‘parse your scattered ideology’ bit, that was hilarious. I believe Cowbee has been clued in on my perspective despite my own cluelessness haha

Thank you for linking the comment thread for me.

Removed by mod

I think on the whole, we actually agree on the mechanics of what needs to happen: slash the destructive waste and build the green infrastructure. Functionally, eliminating massive sectors is degrowth. You call it “advancement” because of the new tech. I call it “degrowth” because the total material footprint has to physically shrink to make room for it.

Going all the way back to your original confusion, I hope I’ve at least cleared up what I meant by “moderately conservative communist” -> essentially someone whose primary focus is conserving the physical commons against the destructive march of both capital and unchecked productivism. Given that we’ve mapped out where our versions of communism diverge, do you think lemmy.ml is still a good home base for a degrowth communist like me, or is there another instance where this flavor of socialism fits better?

It is not as simple as you make it sound, because you are treating advanced technology like it exists in a vacuum instead of recognizing the physical cost of building it.

You call degrowth a trap, but ignoring physical limits is the real trap. Degrowth doesn’t mean abandoning rail for inefficient small-scale production. It means intentionally shrinking the total material throughput of the economy. We can advance rail while drastically degrowing destructive sectors like aviation, the military, and industrial meat.

The problem is that building your advanced green infrastructure still requires massive mining for copper, concrete, and rare earth metals. Those mines destroy real ecosystems whether a socialist planner orders them or a capitalist does. Efficiency per person does not change the absolute physical footprint of extracting resources for 8 billion people. If your environmentalist socialism refuses to shrink our total material consumption, it will just plan its way into the same ecological collapse.

I think if it must be put simply, your communism is just vastly more optimistic than mine.

You say the need motive does not have an endless feedback loop, but I think you are really ignoring how need scales with technological advancement. When socialism develops new medical treatments and/or better housing those immediately become new basic rights. The standard of living constantly rises which requires constant material input. Advancing society expands the definition of what people need to live a dignified life.

Even if we accept that the need motive lacks the artificial acceleration of the profit motive, you still have to face the baseline. Providing a modern, dignified standard of living for 8 billion people with housing, healthcare, and green energy already requires an ecological footprint that exceeds the Earth’s capacity.

We do not need an endless feedback loop to hit ecological collapse. The starting line is already unsustainable. Stopping the profit loop just means we crash into the wall at a steady speed instead of accelerating. To actually live within planetary boundaries, we have to intentionally shrink the material baseline of our consumption. That is degrowth. You cannot simply assume that meeting human needs will automatically align with the Earth’s carrying capacity, because right now, they do not.

You argue that removing the profit motive removes overproduction, but you are treating “human needs” as a fixed, objective metric that planners can just calculate. Advancing industry inherently creates new needs. A hundred years ago, indoor plumbing was a luxury; now it is a basic need. As technology advances, the material baseline of what humans require to participate in society advances with it. A socialist state aiming to provide for an advancing society will have to extract the resources to meet those constantly expanding needs.

If your scientific planners realize that meeting those advancing needs will destroy the lithium salt flats or the deep sea, and they choose to restrict production to save the environment, they are intentionally limiting consumption. That is degrowth.

You say I am confusing capitalism with culture, but you are treating “scientific planning” like magic that can bypass thermodynamics. Planning how much to extract does not change the physical impact of the extraction itself. Whether a capitalist or a socialist planner orders the mining of cobalt, the local ecosystem is destroyed. Removing the profit motive changes who gets the wealth, but it does not change the physical reality that large scale industry consumes the natural world.

You are correct that the profit motive drives overproduction under capitalism. But once profit is gone, you still have a system that demands the continuous development of productive forces. Without a hard commitment to ecological limits, your planned economy will still consume the planet, just more equitably.

You say advancement doesn’t mean endless production, but you haven’t explained what physically stops it. You are treating advanced recycling and renewable technology like a magic wand that bypasses the laws of physics. Thermodynamics dictates that recycling is never one hundred percent efficient, and building the infrastructure for a global green energy grid requires a staggering amount of initial extraction. You cannot build solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries out of thin air.

You also keep using the word freeze, but I am not arguing for freezing society. Degrowth is not about returning to the Stone Age. It is about intentionally shrinking the parts of the economy that are actively destroying the planet, like fast fashion, planned obsolescence, and the military industrial complex.

You claim large industry does not mean overproduction, but what exactly limits it under socialism? If the state is trying to meet human needs, and industrial advancement constantly creates new needs as fast as it solves old ones, how do you prevent the system from just producing more? You assume removing the profit motive removes the drive for endless consumption, but the culture of advancement itself creates that desire. Without a hard commitment to physical limits, your planned large industry will still overconsume, just more efficiently.