Still alive!

You’d be surprised at how close to true that is. I do use cash for just about everything possible, if by “fake identity” you mean not having a public facing social media account with my real name on it, then yeah I do that too, I don’t know what you mean by business memberships for discounts, so I probably don’t do that either (if this is referring to getting a membership at a grocery store or something, then I just use the local area code plus Jenny’s number- 867-5309), and my phone and computers are encrypted. That’s not a controversial or out there set of stipulations for somebody using a federated social media service.

So yeah, pretty much. Or at least whenever physically possible. If I’m not putting an effort into protecting myself, then what am I even doing?

I don’t care what you like, you’re a stranger on the internet. How casual you are about the trade offs you made genuinely horrifies me, and it’s just another piece of evidence to add to the pile for why our civilization is so fucked.

If you like paying to be a product, then that’s on you. What a good little consumer you are. I think it’s kind of weird how much you’re defending this

If you can afford a new car, then you can afford an old car. There are plenty of old cars out there with lots of bells and whistles. Some of them even PERFORM better than newer cars. You want that fancy infotainment system and remote start that new cars come standard with? That’ll only cost you about 200 bucks at Best buy.

If you are buying a new vehicle, knowing all of the issues inherent, then you are just trying to look good to your peers (ie keeping up with the Joneses). It’s just too bad the Joneses are uninformed.

Look, if you’re comfortable with paying thousands and thousands of dollars for the privilege of being spied in, then that’s on you.

Your snark is unnecessary. You CAN take measures to protect yourself and your loved ones from bad actors, and most of the solutions are free and open and dead simple.

As for not buying anything made after 2010? It’s actually really easy. All you have to do is be poor. I’ve never bought a new car and I don’t know anybody who has, and their lives are not any worse for it.

Maybe you have a “keeping up with the Jones” problem?

Which is an INSANE amount of data to collect from you for the thing that you supposedly own. You shouldn’t be so flippant about corporations using and selling your data and treating you like a commodity.

But those Hondas are still probably 4g capable, right? Because, at that point, it doesn’t matter if you turn the annoying stuff “off”. Honda is still spying on you, tracking you, and compiling a mountain of data based on your driving habits.

I can’t imagine owning a car newer than like 2012. It must be a nightmare

The mnemonics, you say?

Don’t forget Charon!

The Black Panther Party were cool, but the PSL is a bad example, imo. They’ve had… issues. Really icky issues that kind of mar the whole organization. I did meet some cool former PSLers back in my DSA-LSC days, though.

I think it’s personally a stretch to call Xin Jinping a Marxist, even if that’s how he identifies. It kind of seems like China’s just doing a capitalism, but with more steps. I don’t know enough about Vietnam and Cuba, but it’s my understanding that Vietnam has been slowly moving in the same state capitalist direction that China did

All of the examples I listed should meet your definition of success, right?

You said:

The nature of society has not fundamentally changed in a century, so there’s no reason to think that methods of organization need to drastically change as well.

I said:

You don’t actually believe that basically nothing has changed since before the industrial revolution, do you? That seems intentionally obtuse.

How is that a straw man? It’s literally what you said.

I mean, it’s both. Hungary was the upper cut and Czech was the right hook. But regardless, if you don’t have a blind allegiance to just any state calling itself socialist, then you probably aren’t a Tankie, right?

To date, nobody has shown a more effective approach to organizing that I’m aware of.

Makhnovshchina, CNT, Rojava, Zapatistas…

Is your definition of success the establishment of a socialist state? Because anarchists are never going to do that.

The nature of society has not fundamentally changed in a century

You don’t actually believe that basically nothing has changed since before the industrial revolution, do you? That seems intentionally obtuse.

You’re not an anti-anarchist, and I’m not an anti-Marxist. Isn’t that just enough? Spending all of your time planning for what the potential future socioeconomic system might look like isn’t something that really scratches any itch that I have anymore. I’m far more concerned with what can be done right now.

The VAST majority of anarchists are, in fact, cribbing from Marxism. Anarchists don’t generally reject Marxian economic analysis.

I guess if I can point to anything in this dynamic it’s that there isn’t really a huge difference in how effective the different groups are at accomplishing their short term goals, so IMO it would just make more sense to figure out which ideological line is most attractive to the people it’s supposed to serve in a given area and stick to that.

I 100% agree

And that was a useful framework in the early 20th century (I’ve at least read the April Theses), but can we not continue to adapt our revolutionary strategy to better combat the forces who opposed us today rather than in 1917?

You’ve done nothing but act in good faith so far, and of course I will extend you the benefit of the doubt. Asking questions is how we learn, right?

Honestly, I think the reason why a lot of anarchists tend to view Marxists as overly theoretical is because there a few of them participating in the everyday struggles. I can personally say (and this is purely anecdotal) that in actions I’ve taken part in, the committed Marxists that are there are some of the most loyal and trustworthy people I’ve ever been beaten up by cops with, but they are almost always the minority. It’s usually a mix of various leftist tendencies, mostly anarchist, that are all there to achieve a common goal. Very liberal protests, for what it’s worth, seem to have a tendency to attract large groups of Trotskyists.

And then in big tent orgs I’ve been in, then MLs especially, are usually the ones pushing for electoralism and reform.

Anarchism is a LARGE umbrella, kind of like Marxism. But anarchists that I know in real life are generally willing to put aside differences in petty ideology in order to accomplish a goal for the greater good.

I run into people online ALL the time who blindly support the DPRK, the PRC and modern Russia out of some kind of, I don’t know, ritual practice? ANYBODY political online (including both of us) should be treated with heaping mounds of scepticism.

But to more directly answer your question: Anarchism has a history with nihilism. And it has a history with statist projects. And the two things are not mutually exclusive. You will be called “Tankie” the same as I will be called “Liberal”, because nobody that’s making those accusations really know what they’re saying anyway.

Personally, Tankie is a term reserved for very specifically people who defend the Soviet Union in the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia . Nothing more or nothing less.

Now, if you’re talking about if you can count on anarchist comrades to take arms and fight against their oppressors, the answer is a definitive “yes”. But if you’re asking them to follow a vanguard that promises it has their best interests at heart, then that is a resounding, “no”. Because hierarchy itself is challenged, there will be no capitulations on personal autonomy that doesn’t originate specifically from the proletariat.