brandon

@brandon@piefed.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Non-violent protests are 2x likely to succeed and no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of the country population has ever failed⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I heard a saying once (I cannot remember the provenance) that could be paraphrased like: "The liberal is someone who is for all movements except the current movement; against all wars except the current war."

  There are two important points:

  1. Every major movement in history has incorporated elements of violence;
  2. Which movements we retroactively consider as violent is determined by sociological consensus.

  For example, the American civil rights movement is today considered by people to have been largely non-violent. However at the time the movement's opponents definitely thought of, and portrayed it as a violent enterprise.

  Opponents of a movement will always portray that movement as violent. The status-quo consensus perspective on historical protests is written by the victors. Therefore, the hypothesis that "non-violent" protests are more likely to succeed than "violent" ones is self-fulfilling. When protest movements succeed we are less likely to consider them "violent".

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Duolingo CEO on going AI-first: ‘I did not expect the blowback’⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It's hardly surprising that these people are out of touch when they're constantly surrounded in a bubble of yes-men, cultish AI sycophants, VC investors and other "dark enlightenment" enthusiasts.

  It's a pathology, really. A kind of shared delusion in service of global capital.