Journal of Other Forum Analysis
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-demo-releasing-march-29th-2024-progress-carries-over-to-main-game.830646/page-4?post=120919713#post-120919713

Loud Wrong wrote:Not going to try to answer for anyone other than for myself. I played the demo a few weeks ago because I wanted to. Simple as that.

Literal Hitler enters the conversation.
Shows you how little the staff care about the community that members are hurting from the constant harm being done to them and yet the staff do nothing. A token ban of a troll here and there. But a real push for serious material change in the world through a ban on violence against the community through Stellar Blade hype? Nothing. Cis don't care.
Mik317 wrote:
Lord Fanny wrote:Asking someone why they think the way they do isn't forcing them to agree with you or care about what they do. But if a simple question like that either sends you into the shadows or do the dance of avoidance, maybe worth reflecting on to some degree
at some point what do you really want tho? If someone answers that question wrong...they are getting sent to the dead zone lol. I don't think there is any good answer to why are you excited for this game that won't end poorly for them ha. Thats a one way street to either boys club behavior or dismissing concerns.

Thats why some just choose to avoid it altogether more than likely.

You can't just give away the secret like that!  maf
And don't give me that bullshit about how there's diverse staff members or whatever far-right gaslighting you're going to come up with. Look at the hierarchy of ResetERA.com and it's all white cishet males:
1. Carl XVI Gustaf
2. MOBA
3. B-Dubs
4. Hecht

Now you see exactly why the staff never do anything in to reign in all the far-right violence that occurs constantly in every thread and nearly every post on the forum.
all B-dubs needs to do is come out as trans and he'd be untouchable. 

Think of all that raw absolute power.  Existential
(03-26-2024, 04:47 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote: Do you think an answer of "I just like playing video games" would get a ban?  Thinking
Oh? Like the best selling game of 2023?

ERAsure of the marginalized!
(03-26-2024, 05:01 AM)benji wrote:
(03-26-2024, 04:47 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote: Do you think an answer of "I just like playing video games" would get a ban?  Thinking
Oh? Like the best selling game of 2023?

ERAsure of the marginalized!

How can I play a game that doesn't exist? I've seen the charts posted on Ree. There's a blank spot for the number 1 area.  Rolleyes
IrishNinja wrote:sure, but asking folks why they'd support such a studio, on one of the few gaming forums that ostensibly cares about feminism & misogyny, seems a pretty natural question, no?

like all the "i don't care, it's just video games" crowd would find themselves absolutely catered to and surrounded by like-minded folks on something like 90% of social media, forums/discords, yt comments etc. in that sense, i find people off put & uttering "why can't we talk about (x) without (problematic ass developer y)" to be the odd folks here, when literally almost every other corner you can find is infested with apathy at best, and more commonly outright lacking standards on heinous reactionary/bigoted commentary

Anyone from Resetera. If you're reading this. All you need to do is post with a link to the WWE containment thread.

Quote:In this thread, fans can not be accused of condoning these atrocities nor will fans be able to snipe at other wrestling promotions. Other wrestling promotion fans can not snipe at people who participate in this thread either.

Why is it okay to enjoy the WWE product on one of the few gaming forums that ostensibly cares about feminism & misogyny without having to answer why constantly?
(03-26-2024, 03:30 AM)benji wrote:
(03-26-2024, 02:38 AM)Boredfrom wrote:
IrishNinja wrote:as an abolitionist, i don't like cheering on anyone else joining the hell that is our prison system

...it'd be something if he came across any of the folks whose lives he ruined in there though
https://www.resetera.com/threads/sean-p-diddy-combs-homes-in-los-angeles-and-miami-raided-by-homeland-security-breaking.830796/page-5?post=120917325#post-120917325
So like Nepenthe this guy is an "abolitionist" because he prefers systems of violent mob justice without any procedural rights or due process.
I actually meant to do this the other day with Nepenthe's rantings but I totally got distracted by something like otter videos on YouTube or other extreme radicalization pipelines and forgot. But something just reminded me and this is close enough to use as a jumping off point.

Basically, it's that the idiots over there like Nepenthe are Leninists even though they don't realize it:
Vladimir Lenin, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm wrote:Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. This, in turn, results in the fact that, at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism--the proletariat, and enables it to crush, smash to atoms, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine, the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy and to substitute for them a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of armed workers who proceed to form a militia involving the entire population.

Here "quantity turns into quality": such a degree of democracy implies overstepping the boundaries of bourgeois society and beginning its socialist reorganization. If really all take part in the administration of the state, capitalism cannot retain its hold. The development of capitalism, in turn, creates the preconditions that enable really “all” to take part in the administration of the state. Some of these preconditions are: universal literacy, which has already been achieved in a number of the most advanced capitalist countries, then the "training and disciplining" of millions of workers by the huge, complex, socialized apparatus of the postal service, railways, big factories, large-scale commerce, banking, etc., etc.

Given these economic preconditions, it is quite possible, after the overthrow of the capitalists and the bureaucrats, to proceed immediately, overnight, to replace them in the control over production and distribution, in the work of keeping account of labor and products, by the armed workers, by the whole of the armed population. (The question of control and accounting should not be confused with the question of the scientifically trained staff of engineers, agronomists, and so on. These gentlemen are working today in obedience to the wishes of the capitalists and will work even better tomorrow in obedience to the wishes of the armed workers.)

Accounting and control--that is mainly what is needed for the "smooth working", for the proper functioning, of the first phase of communist society. All citizens are transformed into hired employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers. All citizens becomes employees and workers of a single countrywide state “syndicate”. All that is required is that they should work equally, do their proper share of work, and get equal pay; the accounting and control necessary for this have been simplified by capitalism to the utmost and reduced to the extraordinarily simple operations--which any literate person can perform--of supervising and recording, knowledge of the four rules of arithmetic, and issuing appropriate receipts.

When the majority of the people begin independently and everywhere to keep such accounts and exercise such control over the capitalists (now converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general, and popular; and there will be no getting away from it, there will be "nowhere to go".

The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory, with equality of labor and pay.

But this “factory” discipline, which the proletariat, after defeating the capitalists, after overthrowing the exploiters, will extend to the whole of society, is by no means our ideal, or our ultimate goal. It is only a necessary step for thoroughly cleansing society of all the infamies and abominations of capitalist exploitation, and for further progress.

From the moment all members of society, or at least the vast majority, have learned to administer the state themselves, have taken this work into their own hands, have organized control over the insignificant capitalist minority, over the gentry who wish to preserve their capitalist habits and over the workers who have been thoroughly corrupted by capitalism--from this moment the need for government of any kind begins to disappear altogether. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment when it becomes unnecessary. The more democratic the “state” which consists of the armed workers, and which is "no longer a state in the proper sense of the word", the more rapidly every form of state begins to wither away.

For when all have learned to administer and actually to independently administer social production, independently keep accounts and exercise control over the parasites, the sons of the wealthy, the swindlers and other "guardians of capitalist traditions", the escape from this popular accounting and control will inevitably become so incredibly difficult, such a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by such swift and severe punishment (for the armed workers are practical men and not sentimental intellectuals, and they scarcely allow anyone to trifle with them), that the necessity of observing the simple, fundamental rules of the community will very soon become a habit.
But that's none of my business...
(03-26-2024, 05:12 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote:
IrishNinja wrote:sure, but asking folks why they'd support such a studio, on one of the few gaming forums that ostensibly cares about feminism & misogyny, seems a pretty natural question, no?

like all the "i don't care, it's just video games" crowd would find themselves absolutely catered to and surrounded by like-minded folks on something like 90% of social media, forums/discords, yt comments etc. in that sense, i find people off put & uttering "why can't we talk about (x) without (problematic ass developer y)" to be the odd folks here, when literally almost every other corner you can find is infested with apathy at best, and more commonly outright lacking standards on heinous reactionary/bigoted commentary

Anyone from Resetera. If you're reading this. All you need to do is post with a link to the WWE containment thread.

Quote:In this thread, fans can not be accused of condoning these atrocities nor will fans be able to snipe at other wrestling promotions. Other wrestling promotion fans can not snipe at people who participate in this thread either.

Why is it okay to enjoy the WWE product on one of the few gaming forums that ostensibly cares about feminism & misogyny without having to answer why constantly?
What's the misogyny of Stellar Blade? Depiction of fictional women in certain ways is inherently misogynistic? Do the forum lesbians know about this? How is sex work and porn not inherently misogynistic if Stellar Blade is?

Also, why is feminism outright banned on other topics if it upsets certain cliques on the forum?
(03-26-2024, 05:17 AM)benji wrote:
(03-26-2024, 05:12 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote:
IrishNinja wrote:sure, but asking folks why they'd support such a studio, on one of the few gaming forums that ostensibly cares about feminism & misogyny, seems a pretty natural question, no?

like all the "i don't care, it's just video games" crowd would find themselves absolutely catered to and surrounded by like-minded folks on something like 90% of social media, forums/discords, yt comments etc. in that sense, i find people off put & uttering "why can't we talk about (x) without (problematic ass developer y)" to be the odd folks here, when literally almost every other corner you can find is infested with apathy at best, and more commonly outright lacking standards on heinous reactionary/bigoted commentary

Anyone from Resetera. If you're reading this. All you need to do is post with a link to the WWE containment thread.

Quote:In this thread, fans can not be accused of condoning these atrocities nor will fans be able to snipe at other wrestling promotions. Other wrestling promotion fans can not snipe at people who participate in this thread either.

Why is it okay to enjoy the WWE product on one of the few gaming forums that ostensibly cares about feminism & misogyny without having to answer why constantly?
What's the misogyny of Stellar Blade? Depiction of fictional women in certain ways is inherently misogynistic? Do the forum lesbians know about this? How is sex work and porn not inherently misogynistic if Stellar Blade is?

Also, why is feminism outright banned on other topics if it upsets certain cliques on the forum?

https://www.resetera.com/threads/wwe-containment-thread-ot.815256/page-36?post=120849708#post-120849708
Gaiaknight wrote:Inb4 the It should have been me gifs
[tweet]https://twitter.com/fightful/status/1771756673771720705?t=vl6hC6UIMJhq2Q2FoqcmEQ[/tweet]

Thinking Boys club.. but okay?
The sexualization is the real reason they hate it but as with everything they use another thing to attempt to prop it further....just like Cyberpunk.  The other "issue" is that they fired two feminists who where "raising concerns"...this has been turned into them being rapists or something....when in reality some typical Era types got hired, made a stink and got let go because they were contractors.  It doesn't help that South Korean Incels are actually about that life too so thats a whole nother can of worms.

but lets be real and bit cruel it is simply another game that flaunts a female design that they can't ever hope to match and therefore its bad. Thats all most of their issues are at the end of the day. The game will get banned....and probably over succeed due to that getting traction and they will be shocked ....again.
(03-26-2024, 03:30 AM)benji wrote:
(03-26-2024, 02:32 AM)Nintex wrote: Obama did pretty much open the door for all that nonsense, while downplaying the real threats of Facebook, Russia and ISIS
Wut 

(03-26-2024, 02:38 AM)Boredfrom wrote:
IrishNinja wrote:as an abolitionist, i don't like cheering on anyone else joining the hell that is our prison system

...it'd be something if he came across any of the folks whose lives he ruined in there though
https://www.resetera.com/threads/sean-p-diddy-combs-homes-in-los-angeles-and-miami-raided-by-homeland-security-breaking.830796/page-5?post=120917325#post-120917325
So like Nepenthe this guy is an "abolitionist" because he prefers systems of violent mob justice without any procedural rights or due process.

Can't you just let black people police their own Nazi?

Gang violence worked a treat in the 70s and 80s. Let's bring it back.
Quote:While the Like a Dragon series has been increasingly popular on the West over the years (particularly since the largely successful Steam release of Yakuza 0), it seems the Japanese market has once again become a significant driving force of sales. Yokoyama has previously commented that in terms of game content, he does not intend to make concessions in order to be more global-friendly, "(…) this is not to say that I am in any way conscious of the overseas market. The staff over at the Sega overseas offices always tell me 'Don't change anything.' (…) A lot of people are warning me not to be influenced in weird ways, and I place a high importance on that too." This attitude may ironically be what has contributed to the series' worldwide growth, as fans of Japanese video games tend to seek out the same qualities Japanese players do.

Although Yokoyama jokingly comments, "Compared to our other recent releases, Infinite Wealth is on a whole different level. I wonder what it does so well?" in his statement to 4gamer, the developers seem to know what they're doing.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/like-a-dragon-infinite-wealth-producer-says-sales-are-“incredibly-strong-in-japan-and-asia”.830877/

Weren’t RE claiming the contrary? lol
(03-26-2024, 03:46 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote: Why is Resetera a gaming forum again? May as well just ban all games at this point.

Just easier to ban all games with female characters
Win
(03-26-2024, 05:27 AM)Potato wrote: Just easier to ban all games with female characters
Win
And right when Splatoon is finally depicting lesbian relationships. You're not slick.
Make all games have lesbian characters. No straights.
(03-26-2024, 04:07 AM)Averon wrote: MidwichNightmare's ban is even more bullshit given that plenty of other people in that thread essentially made the same type of post but aren't banned. The only reason MidwichNightmare got got was because of Kyuuji. Kyuuji got one of her pet mods to ban MidwichNightmare simply because he was the one she randomly picked to bitch about and be her scalp in that thread lol

Again, if you're still posting there, then I have no pity for you. You fucking deserve to get it.
(03-26-2024, 04:11 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote:
(03-26-2024, 04:07 AM)Averon wrote: MidwichNightmare's ban is even more bullshit given that plenty of other people in that thread essentially made the same type of post but aren't banned. The only reason MidwichNightmare got got was because of Kyuuji. Kyuuji got one of her pet mods to ban MidwichNightmare simply because he was the one she randomly picked to bitch about and be her scalp in that thread lol

yes and? Kyuuji needs their monthly source of blood or else they will transform back to cis man again.  ERAsure of the marginalized!

Sacrifices are needed.

OH!  I get no respect!
Nax wrote:
Baphomet wrote:Most people seem to assume too much about this place, Era is just another online community, nothing more.
Mods + community do a good job keeping trolls away. So it's better than most already.

Twohearts begs to differ.  Wink

[Image: gal-gadot-te-gui%C3%B1a.gif]
(03-26-2024, 05:58 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote:
Nax wrote:
Baphomet wrote:Most people seem to assume too much about this place, Era is just another online community, nothing more.
Mods + community do a good job keeping trolls away. So it's better than most already.

Twohearts begs to differ.  Wink

[Image: gal-gadot-te-gui%C3%B1a.gif]

[Image: avatar_1.png?dateline=1685417624]
(03-23-2024, 06:07 PM)Propagandhim wrote:
Nepenthe wrote:Capitalism absolutely is the core reason, yes.

For one, the idea that capitalism encapsulates some innate, universal human desire just doesn't have much actual physical evidence backing it up, as much as is true for any other economic system we've had before. Even feudalism wasn't practiced the same exact way in the same exact times across countries like Egypt, Japan, and England back when these systems were in place. Why? Because the physical environment of these countries was different, which in turn meant that the resulting conditions people had to deal with were different, which inevitably leads to different cultural evolutions. Human development is inevitable, but the outcome of the development is not; subsequently, the establishment of capitalism is loaded with such a shitload of chance that you get wildly different historical outcomes if certain events go a different way.

Seriously, tweak a few numbers and events here and there and you might get a timeline where Europeans aren't literally kidnapping so many Africans that the population didn't actually grow for centuries. However, we live in the timeline where Europe was able to establish significant military dominance, particularly at sea, in the run up to the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but what is important to note here is not only did capitalism lead directly to a slave trade on an unprecedented scale, but, like with feudalism, cultural conditions follow the economic conditions.

So it is with capitalism that you start seeing the establishment of not just white supremacy- all of the social, religious, and pseudo-scientific justifications for the economic reality of Africans being capital in and of themselves- but first the establishment of "whiteness" as a political class all on its own in the first place, mainly to help confused and sympathetic European indentured servants figure out which side they were supposed to be on. Literally, without capitalism, you don't even reach the concept of some unified "white people" in the first place.

Now, I don't think necessarily socialism would be immune from the racial ills we see today from a legacy of colonialism, because I don't think socialism on its own inherently fixes the fact that Africans are currently dealing with the outcome of a massive wealth, labor, and body transfer across centuries that amounts to trillions of dollars stolen, millions of lives and an immeasurable amount of culture lost forever, and the psychological trappings of the cultural conditioning that needed to be established for that to work for as long as it did. I feel for that to happen, you need actual violent revolution, and for Africans to take back what is rightfully theirs. You would also need conscious efforts at establishing African soft power and dismantling whatever white supremacist infrastructure existed in order to counteract centuries' old notions of our supposed inferiority.

However, ultimately the aim of socialism is inherently to disperse power over the material conditions of our economic systems- the ownership of land, factories, companies, etc.- across a generalized mass of workers. So, at the very least, it simply moves in the direction of fixing the condition of all Africans by stripping power away from the class of capitalists who ultimately owe all of their power specifically to African oppression. Socialism is more communal, cooperative, and less hierarchical in nature than capitalism is, meaning it is going to trend towards more egalitarian outcomes by default. That doesn't mean socialists can't be racist, of course, and it certainly doesn't mean capitalist racists wouldn't be able to try to infiltrate socialist movements specifically to sabotage them. They did it all throughout the civil rights movement of the 50s and they're still doing it today.

But ultimately if you're asking me whether or not I think capitalism or socialism would be better for Africans, it is socialism, no question. It's not just that capitalism inherently incentivizes greed, although it does do that. It's that the historical reality is that America and Western Europe are the wealthy power players they are specifically because they fucked over Africans and Indigenous groups for centuries. "Reforming" capitalism is not going to solve that problem, no more than an abusive partner is salvageable after the 30th time they've slammed your head into the wall.
(03-24-2024, 08:22 PM)Propagandhim wrote: https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-atlantic-too-much-purity-is-bad-for-the-left.829731/page-7?post=120865104#post-120865104

Nepenthe wrote:Democratic socialism is definitely not a centrist position in American politics, but it's still ultimately just capitalism. If you're talking to anti-capitalists, then countering with dismissals of your committal to leftism with the fact that you're a Dem Soc is not gonna convince that sector of leftists.

Nepenthe wrote:That is true under a leftist framework that poses that capitalism is the base problem with many a groups' oppression. Both parties are capitalist, therefore both are inevitably going to be responsible for the same oppression even if it's to different degrees.

Quote:Part of the fight is not just in understanding where you personally stand on a general praxis level, but in being open to really hammering down and critiquing your biases and blind spots. You might have liberal biases that you need to hammer out if you're interested in not being characterized as such. This shit is hard. And it only gets harder the more you learn.
What's great is you know she's never even read this shit. Probably hasn't even looked at the Wikipedia page about Lenin ever:
Vladimir Lenin, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/prrk/equality.htm wrote:If we argue in a Marxist way, we must say: the exploiters inevitably transform the state (and we are speaking of democracy, i.e., one of the forms of the state) into an instrument of the rule of their class, the exploiters, over the exploited. Hence, as long as there are exploiters who rule the majority, the exploited, the democratic state must inevitably be a democracy for the exploiters. A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, “and a means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from “democracy”.

...

As you see, the relation between the exploited and the exploiters has vanished in Kautsky’s argument. All that remains is majority in general, minority in general, democracy in general, the “pure democracy” with which we are already familiar.

And all this, mark you, is said apropos of the Paris Commune! To make things clearer I shall quote Marx and Engels to show what they said on the subject of dictatorship apropos of the Paris Commune:

Marx: “. . . When the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by their revolutionary dictatorship . . . to break down the resistance of the bourgeoisie . . . the workers invest the state with a revolutionary and transitional form . . .”[14]

Engels: “. . . And the victorious party” (in a revolution) “must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority? . . .”[15]

Engels: “As, therefore, the state is only a transitional institution which is used in the struggle, in the revolution, to hold down one’s adversaries by force, it is sheer nonsense to talk of a ‘free people’s state’; so long as the proletariat still needs the state, it does not need it in the interests of freedom but in order to hold down its adversaries, and as soon as it becomes possible to speak of freedom the state as such ceases to exist. . . .”[16]

Kautsky is as far removed from Marx and Engels as heaven is from earth, as a liberal from a proletarian revolutionary. The pure democracy and simple “democracy” that Kautsky talks about is merely a paraphrase of the “free people’s state”, i.e., sheer nonsense. Kautsky, with the learned air of a most learned armchair fool, or with the innocent air of a ten-year-old schoolgirl, asks: Why do we need a dictatorship when we have a majority? And Marx and Engels explain:

—to break down the resistance of the bourgeoisie;

—to inspire the reactionaries with fear;

—to maintain the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie;

—that the proletariat may forcibly hold down its adversaries.

Kautsky does not understand these explanations. Infatuated with the “purity” of democracy, blind to its bourgeois character, he “consistently” urges that the majority, since it is the majority, need not “break down the resistance” of the minority, nor “forcibly hold it down”—it is sufficient to suppress cases of infringement of democracy.

...

The exploiter and the exploited cannot be equal.

This truth, however unpleasant it may be to Kautsky, nevertheless forms the essence of socialism.

Another truth: there can be no real, actual equality until all possibility of the exploitation of one class by another has been totally destroyed.

The exploiters can be defeated at one stroke in the event of a successful uprising at the centre, or of a revolt in the army. But except in very rare and special cases, the exploiters cannot be destroyed at one stroke. It is impossible to expropriate all the landowners and capitalists of any big country at one stroke. Furthermore, expropriation alone, as a legal or political act, does not settle the matter by a long chalk, because it is necessary to depose the landowners and capitalists in actual fact, to replace their management of the factories and estates by a different management, workers’ management, in actual fact. There can be no equality between the exploiters—who for many generations have been better off because of their education, conditions of wealthy life, and habits—and the exploited, the majority of whom even in the most advanced and most democratic bourgeois republics are downtrodden, backward, ignorant, intimidated and disunited. For a long time after the revolution the exploiters inevitably continue to retain a number of great practical advantages: they still have money (since it is impossible to abolish money all at once); some movable property—often fairly considerable; they still have various connections, habits of organisation and management; knowledge of all the “secrets” (customs, methods, means and possibilities) of management; superior education; close connections with the higher technical personnel (who live and think like the bourgeoisie); incomparably greater experience in the art of war (this is very important), and so on and so forth.

If the exploiters are defeated in one country only—and this, of course, is typical, since a simultaneous revolution in a number of countries is a rare exception—they still remain stronger than the exploited, for the international connections of the exploiters are enormous. That a section of the exploited from the least advanced middle-peasant, artisan and similar groups of the population may, and indeed does, follow the exploiters has been proved by all revolutions, including the Commune (for there were also proletarians among the Versailles troops, which the most learned Kautsky has “forgotten”).

In these circumstances, to assume that in a revolution which is at all profound and serious the issue is decided simply by the relation between the majority and the minority is the acme of stupidity, the silliest prejudice of a common liberal, an attempt to deceive the people by concealing from them a well-established historical truth. This historical truth is that in every profound revolution, the prolonged, stubborn and desperate resistance of the exploiters, who for a number of years retain important practical advantages over the exploited, is the rule. Never—except in the sentimental fantasies of the sentimental fool Kautsky—will the exploiters submit to the decision of the exploited majority without trying to make use of their advantages in a last desperate battle, or series of battles.

The transition from capitalism to communism takes an entire historical epoch. Until this epoch is over, the exploiters inevitably cherish the hope of restoration, and this hope turns into attempts at restoration. After their first serious defeat, the overthrown exploiters—who had not expected their overthrow, never believed it possible, never conceded the thought of it—throw themselves with energy grown tenfold, with furious passion and hatred grown a hundredfold, into the battle for the recovery of the “paradise”, of which they were deprived, on behalf of their families, who had been leading such a sweet and easy life and whom now the “common herd” is condemning to ruin and destitution (or to “common” labour . . .). In the train of the capitalist exploiters follow the wide sections of the petty bourgeoisie, with regard to whom decades of historical experience of all countries testify that they vacillate and hesitate, one day marching behind the proletariat and the next day taking fright at the difficulties of the revolution; that they become panic-stricken at the first defeat or semidefeat of the workers, grow nervous, run about aimlessly, snivel, and rush from one camp into the other—just like our Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

In these circumstances, in an epoch of desperately acute war, when history presents the question of whether age-old and thousand-year-old privileges are to be or not to be–at such a time to talk about majority and minority, about pure democracy, about dictatorship being unnecessary and about equality between the exploiter and the exploited! What infinite stupidity and abysmal philistinism are needed for this!

...

The indispensable characteristic, the necessary condition of dictatorship is the forcible suppression of the exploiters as a class, and, consequently, the infringement of “pure democracy”, i.e., of equality and freedom, in regard to that class.

This is the way, the only way, the question can be put theoretically. And by failing to put the question thus, Kautsky has shown that he opposes the Bolsheviks not as a theoretician, but as a sycophant of the opportunists and the bourgeoisie.

In which countries, and given what national features of capitalism, democracy for the exploiters will be in one or another form restricted (wholly or in part), infringed upon, is a question of the specific national features of this or that capitalism, of this or that revolution. The theoretical question is different: Is the dictatorship of the proletariat possible without infringing democracy in relation to the exploiting class?

It is precisely this question, the only theoretically important and essential one, that Kautsky has evaded. He has quoted all sorts of passages from Marx and Engels, except those which bear on this question, and which I quoted above.

Kautsky talks about anything you like, about everything that is acceptable to liberals and bourgeois democrats and does not go beyond their circle of ideas, but he does not talk about the main thing, namely, the fact that the proletariat cannot achieve victory without breaking the resistance of the bourgeoisie, without forcibly suppressing its adversaries, and that, where there is “forcible suppression”, where there is no “freedom”, there is, of course, no democracy.
spineduke wrote:The Al-Shifa account of sexual rape from eyewitness Jamila Al-Hisi has been debunked and the stories have been retracted. Please don't continue to make claims on that basis. Its partly why we insist on having definitive sourcing when sharing stories, reputable news organizations will do the baseline to try and ensure that false allegations do not spread. It's very upsetting, because there are plenty of legitimate instances of sexual assault, and these kind of attempts to incite via false claims only harm the actual victims who already face an uphill battle in being believed.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/israel-begins-bombing-of-southern-gaza-following-collapse-of-ceasefire-see-staff-posts-for-posting-guidelines.772478/page-290?post=120921030#post-120921030

Oh no, Hamasbros.. What're we going to use now?
(03-26-2024, 06:08 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote:
spineduke wrote:Its partly why we insist on having definitive sourcing when sharing stories
https://www.resetera.com/threads/israel-begins-bombing-of-southern-gaza-following-collapse-of-ceasefire-see-staff-posts-for-posting-guidelines.772478/page-290?post=120921030#post-120921030
Like UN reports?
(03-26-2024, 06:11 AM)benji wrote:
(03-26-2024, 06:08 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote:
spineduke wrote:Its partly why we insist on having definitive sourcing when sharing stories
https://www.resetera.com/threads/israel-begins-bombing-of-southern-gaza-following-collapse-of-ceasefire-see-staff-posts-for-posting-guidelines.772478/page-290?post=120921030#post-120921030
Like UN reports?

Only if it's REALLY sex slavery.  wag
(03-26-2024, 04:47 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote: Do you think an answer of "I just like playing video games" would get a ban?  Thinking

[Image: 709.jpg]
My source is a rando from Twitter that wants to write an expose/memoir.
(03-26-2024, 06:44 AM)Taco Bell Tower wrote:
(03-26-2024, 04:47 AM)Gameboy Nostalgia wrote: Do you think an answer of "I just like playing video games" would get a ban?  Thinking

[Image: 709.jpg]

the perfect site banner
Whenever there’s fear AI images will thrust us into a post-post-truth world, it ignores the heaps of people already taking low effort anonymous tweets as fact. Maybe it’ll be a post-post-post-truth world.
Chumbawumbafan69 dateline='[url=tel:1711424258' wrote: 1711424258[/url]']
Averon dateline='[url=tel:1711415880' wrote: 1711415880[/url]']
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-demo-releasing-march-29th-2024-progress-carries-over-to-main-game.830646/page-3?post=120909444#post-120909444
MidwichNightmare wrote:Probably a day one purchase for me. The devs are doing exactly what they want to do, and it shows. Looks great.

Innocent comment about looking forward to play Stellar Blade in a SB demo thread. The Burka Brigade wasn't amused:

Kyuuji wrote:Probably the most obvious bait I've seen on gaming side for awhile.
Benzychenz wrote:So many of the drive by hype posts read like blatant trolling. This game and the community around it are just repulsive.


IrishNinja with the blatant ban baiting for good measure:

IrishNinja wrote:as opposed to what?

Quote:User banned (permanent): Troll account

I hope that piece of shit thinks twice before showing excitement for a non-banned game in its appropriate thread ever again.

Wow, absolutely unreal.

I’ve also noticed Queen cunt popping up in more and more threads recently, it’s almost as if she thought there was a pretender to the crown on the horizon and had to assert her authority on the place again.

The brigading of TransEra on that forum is so blatantly obvious.

It’s mental how you can’t say you enjoy a game on a “gaming” forum because the resident nut jobs don’t like the game and will report you for saying you like it.


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