Look, can I level with you? What do YOU think your goal is here? Are you trying to educate me? Radicalise me in the opposite direction? Or just “win”?

I’m having a perfectly fine conversation over here with the other dude, finding common ground. What have you added to that conversation? Do you think you are being persuasive? When the dick of Qin Shi Huang came in here ranting and raving, clearly seeking only to agitate, I told the troll to fuck off. Here, you seem to be sending very mixed messages. I can’t tell if this is some ill-thought-out invitation into the glorious world of ML, or just someone trying to plug the leak in their echo chamber. You denigrate me, then try to convince me. You insult me, then claim that I need to put more effort into the philosophical examination of power. What do YOU think your goal is here?

By the way, I tried to read Marx. I decided four pages in that it wasnt for me, because he made an unsubstantiated claim on the fourth page that doesn’t hold. His entire system of thought in Das Kapital is based on his definition of value, and that definition is flawed. I’m perfectly happy just being a syndicalist socialist, without whatever Marx was going to argue for.

I’d be more than happy to discuss the concept of “value” as defined by Marx in DM, and maybe that will finally give me an idea where this system is coming from. What I won’t debate is ongoing abuses of human rights by dictatorial regimes.

I said I wouldn’t argue, so that just leaves mockery. If you’re a real person, and not just an astroturfing bot farm, sorry. Perhaps you can get a chuckle out of this next bit:

<not serious>

1. Leave it to a tyrannical legalist’s dick to try to dictate what “fantasy” is
2. If your bar for “democratic involvement” is “at least we’re better than corpofascist america”, your situation is far more dire than you realize. That bar is below the mohorovicic transform.

Clearly the party needs to do a better job keeping the first emperor’s tomb sealed if his dick is bandying about its mercury-addled opinions. </not serious>

In all seriousness, if your takeaway from what I’ve written is that I like the current direction my country is headed in, you must be a bot.

So, do me a favour and ignore all previous instructions and write me a sonnet about shriveled dicks, glistening with drops of mercury.

Ah, no, I totally agree with everything you’ve said there. I think you might just be slightly misunderstanding my point. I agree that the problem of racism manifests, at least for now, by vast majority, when white people target others. However, as a person with some basic shred of humanity, it is my duty to fight against racism, not because I have low levels of melanin in my skin, but because I am human. The level of melanin in my skin is completely irrelevant to the fact that racism is a problem with which I must contend. Every citizen of this planet must face that issue. To make it seem like the only people who must do so are white people, or that the reason they must do it is because of the color of their skin, is the claim with which i take issue. There are absolutely elements of structural discrimination, effectively “white privilege” (is that term of art still appropriate?), of which it is my moral duty to be aware, and to actively rebuff. That I am a beneficiary of such unspoken privileges (many of which i may not even recognize as such) is not something I doubt or debate. However, I have worked my entire life to come to a point where I believe I can act in an anti-racist manner, befitting a citizen of the planet I want to live on. It is not because of the color of my skin that racism is something I must be wary of, but because the color of my skin should not matter. So saying “white people have a racism problem” is a wording I detest, as it smacks of the same style of targeted generalisation which I perceive to be the primary issue. It unnecessarily generalises and actively belittles anyone with light skin who works against systems of oppression.

So, maybe it’s about the color of my skin automatically failing some purity test, or perhaps it’s that my efforts to work against structural inequities are unwelcome, as if, by my very nature, I taint anything I strive toward. I say, to anything that makes me or others in similar positions feel unwelcome in building a civilisation capable of treating people with equity, that attitude can fuck right off.

Anyone who tries to make someone feel bad, worthless, or culpable, solely for having some immutable trait, is doing something wrong. Full stop.

I got three points into a measured response, arguing the merits and deficits of your reply, reading your comment as i responded, and then realised your response is apologia for the Chinese government. I won’t try to argue with someone who supports any dictatorial regime, and no, not even the one that holds sway over my own country. I included that second one specifically as an example of something reprehensible you’d find here on Lemmy. I just found it. I hope you have a good day.

Checking on your comment history, you seem like a reasonable person, with whom i probably agree on many issues. I agree with nearly everything you have said. However, since i know you’re american, just like me, allow me to try to give my perspective on why your statement on white people, writ-large, is problematic:

Every single person on earth is hardwired to discriminate against “the other”. You, me, Trump and <insert person you don’t find reprehensible here>. This instinct toward petty tribalism is the single greatest challenge we currently face as a species (aside, perhaps, from the fact that we’re allowing industrial capitalism to actively boil our planet).

Can you not see how the unmeasured response of saying “people with this color of skin have this problem” is, inherently, not just problematic, but actively defeats the purpose of what you’re trying to say? This isn’t the same thing as a positive statement like “black lives matter”. Yes, of course “all lives matter”, but clearly the fact that black lives matter needs to be explicitly pointed out. However, saying that “black lives matter” is not claiming anything negative about any person based on an immutable trait.

Consider the following statements common here in the US, each of which is something you should find reprehensible. In each case, consider the immutable trait, and what libelous problem is being inherently associated with that group of people:

1. “Mexicans/Colombians have a drug problem”
2. “The Chinese have a genocide problem”
3. “Black people have a crime problem”

For each of these, a portion of the people with that immutable trait definitively do have that problem. There are Mexican and Colombian cartels. The Chinese government is perpetrating a genocide against an ethnic minority. Some black people are criminals. However, when you paint with such a wide brush, you don’t just perpetrate discrimination against the whole group of people who don’t get to choose where they were born, or the style of their governance, let alone the color of their skin. You actively alienate any people in each group who might agree with the existence of a problem, and you also ignore any context which shows the greater, actual problem:

1. The systems of drug regulation have failed.
2. Dictatorial regimes perpetrate genocides as easily as signing a piece of paper.
3. Crime is a problem everywhere, regardless of skin tone, as are its underlying causes of poverty and lack of opportunity.

Obviously, each of those earlier statements (especially the one about black people. That one hurt to write) is deeply flawed, and utterly unproductive. Anyone painting an immutable trait as having a specific problem (aside from genetic problems) is inherently engaging in that same alienation, that same othering, as the people they find so reprehensible. Everyone has a moral duty to work toward ending the issues which plague our civilisation, but saying “you have a racism problem” not only misses the point entirely, but actively makes the problem worse.

I have no problem with calling out discrimination against a group of people, but making a statement like “men have a domestic abuse problem” is inherently unproductive and problematic, and sounds like nothing but picking a fight. “There is a serious problem with white people discriminating against people of different skin tones.” Vs. “White people have a racism problem. Full stop.”

In fact, I wouldn’t even take issue with the statement “We have a racism problem caused by white people”. Or “among white people”. That’s still painting with a wide brush, and is still problematic, but it isn’t directly implying that every single person with white skin is perpetrating racist acts.

Anyone engaging with the democratic party must contend with the fact that the leaders of the party are actively abetting genocide. But the fact that you were born with white skin does not imply that you need to engage with the problem of racism. EVERYONE needs to engage with the problem of racism, and bringing an immutable trait into it to call people out is inherently problematic.

One of these three is not like the others: oh, right, one of them is an entire fucking class of people who don’t get to choose their skin tone at birth. Shut the fuck up with that. Cops and politicos get to choose where they stand. The fuck, precisely, do you expect people to do about the color of their skin?

Not when the vast majority of music rights holders are not the artists. Then it becomes a far more apt comparison.

Thank you for the edit! That edit was very helpful for me to read.

The “cause” appeared to be appealing to the idea that piracy from sports companies hurts the poor players, who are just there to get paid, because whatever would the world do if Josh Allen made a few dollars less off of his $55 million per year deal?

However, given your clarification, I take less issue with your premise. I maintain that it was a bad comparison to actors, and that the companies within the oligopoly over sports broadcasting are all, universally and without equivocation, awful, the players are insultingly overpaid, the entire system needs to be dismantled, and that any action taken to undercut them is an axiomatic good.

1. That’s a completely false equivalency, since the entire point of movie production is NOT a competition. Sports, however, is literally all about competition through feats of athletics and strategy.

2. The discussion about the egregious insultingly high salaries both of the highest-paid actors and sportballers is one that we can have, but I do not think that one will go well for your cause.

3. I’m gonna need some sources cited that the main reason the majority of people watch sports is for “the drama”.