I originally wanted to do what you’ve done, but eventually fell on the idea that the country is essentially beyond saving. Should this hold true, the best option then is to join a grassroots movement and begin building an alternative economy from the ground up as a ready replacement for the collapse of the current system. Join a socialist organization, work for a land trust, start building cooperatives and alternative food systems, etc.

There’s also a stoned ape theory about the cognitive evolution of human consciousness through consumption of psilocybin mushrooms.

https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/stoned-ape-return/

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You hiring by chance?

I don’t love how it played out either but it was the delegates we voted for that elected kamala as our nominee. It was our representative democracy at play in a less than ideal situation when biden dropped out at an awkward time. And kind of the point of a vice president.

Its this or the guy that said he’d be dictator on day one and that no one would ever have to vote again if he is elected. You decide what you want to vote for.

I mean its the goal… to avoid violent revolution. If it does need to turn to that though, then what will be there to replace capitalism?

Its literally an alternative where workers own the means of production. How is that not outside the system? They already exist in pockets around the world.

Right I see. Co-ops are a threat to a capitalist that wants to exploit their workers, and if co-ops got big enough to strain the system I imagine there would be some push back from someone with money.

But co-ops can exist outside the system so it shouldn’t matter, and theyd have the power in numbers. Cooperation among cooperatives is one of the defining principles of a cooperative. So if a housing co-op gets their food from a food co-op who gets their food from a farmers co-op and they all get there energy from an energy co-op, what is a capitalist to do? Its like a free market and if the capitalist fails, that’s just competition.

All that would need to be done is for there to be more co-ops and more people that understand and want them to exist.

I mean if we want to overthrow the system violently, or reject it with violence, we can but I see an alternative here if somehow people can unite on an idea. I don’t know how to do that though.

Love a good ferromagnetic metal but how about that electric conductivity of copper

I had an ex help organize an event to great success, ultimately accomplishing more than they were asking for from the powers at be. Organizers in the area tried to shut it down, or take over, however because it wasn’t how protests are typically done.

I don’t know enough about Lenin, but do we need violent revolution to advocate for cooperatives and elect officials that will help support them? With the right state sponsored incentives, cooperatives can be a great stepping stone for a peaceful transition of power giving workers ownership to the means of production. I struggle to understand how someone can argue against this idea. Maybe I need to learn more history, or maybe we need to be collectively more optimistic and united. I don’t know how to accomplish this aside from trying to feebly spread the idea here and in my own life. I’m involved and trying to be more involved in the small cooperative movement.

Just what ive decided might be the best, or quickest, path to achievement. Wishful thinking, idealist, idea worth spreading. I see cooperatives as a form of peaceful revolution, but how best to achieve a cooperative economy when so few are aware of what it means? One way, I suppose, is for elected officials to advocate for it. Its hard but not impossible to imagine. I suppose there are multiple steps in between that would make that more tangible, and one of those is awareness. There’s already a lot of us in support of socialist ideas where one of the biggest criticisms is for a planned economy, so why not advocate for a stateless form of socialism that expands, rather than possibly, or arguably, restricts, individual and collective freedoms?

Was Lenin aware of cooperatives when he wrote the state and revolution? Its not a theoretical idea. Its already a proven and successful form of enterprise. Why do some of our representatives advocate for workers unions when their existence goes against capitalist exploitation of workers? Seems totally possible to advocate for worker cooperatives in a similar vein.

I’d like to point out the viability of cooperatives to accomplish this. A co-op is defined by the seven Rochdale Principles. Among those is open and voluntary membership, democratic member control, cooperation among cooperatives, and concern for community.

Its a stateless form of socialism that gives workers ownership to the means of production and doesnt have to necessarily negate private ownership. They can simply be incentivized by the state similar to how tax breaks and subsidies currently work or by providing workers the framework for which to purchase a company in the case of failure (like after the 2008 financial crash - when competition, greed, and capitalism failed).

https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

Thought this looked cool. Haven’t had the need to use it much since discovering this. Offers a lot of googles functionality that I used to use like collaborative documents, spreadsheets, calendars, and more.

One of the ideals of being a cooperative is “cooperation among cooperatives” as dictated by the Rochdale Principles. So by definition worker co-ops shouldn’t be competing with each other. Instead consolidation of corporations to force a sort of cooperation to increase profit we’ll ideally have worker cooperatives working with producer co-ops for example.

Not entirely sure the implications of supply and demand market forces but I imagine its a step up from our current system. We’ll have democratically controlled work places where workers dictact the direction of supply and not necessarily for the sole purpose of increasing profits. In any case what I think we need is a new systematic way of measuring the growth of an economy in conjunction with worker co-ops.

Ah right. I see. This is why I think we need to couple this with something like the economy for the common good as an alternative to measuring growth of an economy by GDP.

Cooperatives have different structures to help mitigate class conflicts, but either way the model essentially, or practically, has a baked in, or something akin to a, union by giving members voting rights while not outright excluding the presence of a union.

I don’t disagree with having a goal of full socialism. I just see cooperatives as a practical stepping stone in that direction.

A big part of communism is about who owns the means of production. One way to alter this aspect of society is through cooperative economics. A state-less form of socialism (edit: democratically controlled) that’s already proven effective in small pockets of our own country (assuming US here) and around the world. One common example is Mondragon in Spain, a cooperative business and the seventh largest company in the country, that has proven its even possible for the cooperative model to reach levels of scale capable of competing in a private capitalist world.

My thought was mostly that this kind of invasive third party and closed source kernel module security wouldn’t have been necessary. But I’m pretty sure rollbacks can include kernel changes in a previous image.

Hey man, let us have this one. Any immutable/atomic distribution could have either prevented this or easily rolled back the update. Not to mention a Linux offering by something like Red Hat, for example, wouldnt recommend installing closed source third party kernel modules for exactly this reason. Not sure about the feasibility of these endpoints, but the way things are generally done on, and the philosophy of, Linux could very well have avoided this catastrophe.

I’m registered independent. If we had options, I would have changed that to vote in the democratic primaries, and I considered changing it to vote uncommitted.

Although I align more closely with progressive democrats, serious question, where do I fit if what I believe in most strongly is a Cooperative Economy and an alternative measure of GDP?

For good measure for those interested:

a sort of mathematical proof cooperation works better for, not only everyone but, the individual than competition and acting in one’s own self interest (aka capitalism).

Economy for the Common Good (one alternative measure of GDP) explained. Starts around 7:00 minutes in.