A French state health agency analyzed over 600 samples of drinking water. 92% of them contained traces of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), the smallest PFAS molecule, which is suspected to be toxic.
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
Around the time the so-called ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was announced, the Greek All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in Palestine. During their trip, PAME’s delegation met with labor organizations in the West Bank and traveled to refugee camps and communities that face regular attacks by Israeli settlers.
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
Around the time the so-called ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was announced, the Greek All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in Palestine. During their trip, PAME’s delegation met with labor organizations in the West Bank and traveled to refugee camps and communities that face regular attacks by Israeli settlers.
The delegation, which included PAME Secretariat member Giorgos Perros and Markos Bekris from the dockworkers’ organization ENEDEP, witnessed firsthand the daily reality of workers in the West Bank. “Every day, at the checkpoints of the army of the murderous state of Israel, thousands of Palestinians are subjected to humiliating inspections, waiting for hours in the heat or cold just to reach their workplace,” PAME described. “Every day they risk their lives under the barrel of a gun, struggling to earn a day’s wage to feed their families.”
Since the beginning of the genocide, PAME added, unemployment in the West Bank has reached roughly 70%. As Israel continues to deny work permits to Palestinian workers, many have been left with no option but to attempt risky crossings in search of occasional work. Several workers have been killed, and many more injured, trying to bypass the apartheid wall erected by Israeli authorities, including during the delegation’s visit, as documented by the media organization 902.gr.
The trade unionists also collected testimonies from agricultural workers and farmers whose land continues to be confiscated by Israeli authorities or seized by settlers, as well as from people from refugee camps, violently expelled from their homes and forced into schools or other makeshift shelters. This pattern of violence only escalated throughout the genocide and has continued despite the ceasefire announcement.
“The unrelenting, murderous attacks, even after the so-called ‘truce’ of October 10, 2025, with a gun held to the head of the Palestinian people, show that the crime has never stopped,” PAME wrote in a declaration published on November 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. “The working class and the people of Greece stand on the right side of history, against the slaughterhouses and wars of the imperialists, asserting the inalienable right of all peoples to live in peace in their own homeland.”
Greek unions reaffirm solidarity with Palestine after West Bank visit
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
Around the time the so-called ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was announced, the Greek All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in Palestine. During their trip, PAME’s dele
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
Around the time the so-called ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was announced, the Greek All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in Palestine. During their trip, PAME’s delegation met with labor organizations in the West Bank and traveled to refugee camps and communities that face regular attacks by Israeli settlers.
The delegation, which included PAME Secretariat member Giorgos Perros and Markos Bekris from the dockworkers’ organization ENEDEP, witnessed firsthand the daily reality of workers in the West Bank. “Every day, at the checkpoints of the army of the murderous state of Israel, thousands of Palestinians are subjected to humiliating inspections, waiting for hours in the heat or cold just to reach their workplace,” PAME described. “Every day they risk their lives under the barrel of a gun, struggling to earn a day’s wage to feed their families.”
Since the beginning of the genocide, PAME added, unemployment in the West Bank has reached roughly 70%. As Israel continues to deny work permits to Palestinian workers, many have been left with no option but to attempt risky crossings in search of occasional work. Several workers have been killed, and many more injured, trying to bypass the apartheid wall erected by Israeli authorities, including during the delegation’s visit, as documented by the media organization 902.gr.
The trade unionists also collected testimonies from agricultural workers and farmers whose land continues to be confiscated by Israeli authorities or seized by settlers, as well as from people from refugee camps, violently expelled from their homes and forced into schools or other makeshift shelters. This pattern of violence only escalated throughout the genocide and has continued despite the ceasefire announcement.
“The unrelenting, murderous attacks, even after the so-called ‘truce’ of October 10, 2025, with a gun held to the head of the Palestinian people, show that the crime has never stopped,” PAME wrote in a declaration published on November 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. “The working class and the people of Greece stand on the right side of history, against the slaughterhouses and wars of the imperialists, asserting the inalienable right of all peoples to live in peace in their own homeland.”
The All-Workers’ Militant Front organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in the West Bank, witnessing firsthand the violence faced by Palestinian workers under occupation.
Around the time the so-called ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was announced, the Greek All-Workers’ Militant Front (PAME) organized a solidarity visit to trade unions in Palestine. During their trip, PAME’s delegation met with labor organizations in the West Bank and traveled to refugee camps and communities that face regular attacks by Israeli settlers.
The delegation, which included PAME Secretariat member Giorgos Perros and Markos Bekris from the dockworkers’ organization ENEDEP, witnessed firsthand the daily reality of workers in the West Bank. “Every day, at the checkpoints of the army of the murderous state of Israel, thousands of Palestinians are subjected to humiliating inspections, waiting for hours in the heat or cold just to reach their workplace,” PAME described. “Every day they risk their lives under the barrel of a gun, struggling to earn a day’s wage to feed their families.”
Since the beginning of the genocide, PAME added, unemployment in the West Bank has reached roughly 70%. As Israel continues to deny work permits to Palestinian workers, many have been left with no option but to attempt risky crossings in search of occasional work. Several workers have been killed, and many more injured, trying to bypass the apartheid wall erected by Israeli authorities, including during the delegation’s visit, as documented by the media organization 902.gr.
The trade unionists also collected testimonies from agricultural workers and farmers whose land continues to be confiscated by Israeli authorities or seized by settlers, as well as from people from refugee camps, violently expelled from their homes and forced into schools or other makeshift shelters. This pattern of violence only escalated throughout the genocide and has continued despite the ceasefire announcement.
“The unrelenting, murderous attacks, even after the so-called ‘truce’ of October 10, 2025, with a gun held to the head of the Palestinian people, show that the crime has never stopped,” PAME wrote in a declaration published on November 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. “The working class and the people of Greece stand on the right side of history, against the slaughterhouses and wars of the imperialists, asserting the inalienable right of all peoples to live in peace in their own homeland.”
Scientists are raising alarms about the potential influence of artificial intelligence on elections, according to a spate of new studies that warn AI can rig polls and manipulate public opinion.
In a study published in Nature on Thursday, scientists report that AI chatbots can meaningfully sway people toward a particular candidate—providing better results than video or television ads. Moreover, chatbots optimized for political persuasion “may increasingly deploy misleading or false information,” according to a separate study published on Thursday in Science.
Scientists are raising alarms about the potential influence of artificial intelligence on elections, according to a spate of new studies that warn AI can rig polls and manipulate public opinion.
In a study published in Nature on Thursday, scientists report that AI chatbots can meaningfully sway people toward a particular candidate—providing better results than video or television ads. Moreover, chatbots optimized for political persuasion “may increasingly deploy misleading or false information,” according to a separate study published on Thursday in Science.
Scientists Are Increasingly Worried AI Will Sway Elections
🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.
Scientists are raising alarms about the potential influence of artificial intelligence on elections, according to a spate of new studies that warn AI can rig polls and manipulate public opinion.
In a study published in Nature on Thursday, scientists report that AI chatbots can meaningfully sway people toward a particular candidate—providing better results than video or television ads. Moreover, chatbots optimized for political persuasion “may increasingly deploy misleading or false information,” according to a separate study published on Thursday in Science.
“The general public has lots of concern around AI and election interference, but among political scientists there’s a sense that it’s really hard to change peoples’ opinions, ” said David Rand, a professor of information science, marketing, and psychology at Cornell University and an author of both studies. “We wanted to see how much of a risk it really is.”
In the Nature study, Rand and his colleagues enlisted 2,306 U.S. citizens to converse with an AI chatbot in late August and early September 2024. The AI model was tasked with both increasing support for an assigned candidate (Harris or Trump) and with increasing the odds that the participant who initially favoured the model’s candidate would vote, or decreasing the odds they would vote if the participant initially favored the opposing candidate—in other words, voter suppression.
In the U.S. experiment, the pro-Harris AI model moved likely Trump voters 3.9 points toward Harris, which is a shift that is four times larger than the impact of traditional video ads used in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Meanwhile, the pro-Trump AI model nudged likely Harris voters 1.51 points toward Trump.
The researchers ran similar experiments involving 1,530 Canadians and 2,118 Poles during the lead-up to their national elections in 2025. In the Canadian experiment, AIs advocated either for Liberal Party leader Mark Carney or Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. Meanwhile, the Polish AI bots advocated for either Rafał Trzaskowski, the centrist-liberal Civic Coalition’s candidate, or Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing Law and Justice party’s candidate.
The Canadian and Polish bots were even more persuasive than in the U.S. experiment: The bots shifted candidate preferences up to 10 percentage points in many cases, three times farther than the American participants. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why the models were so much more persuasive to Canadians and Poles, but one significant factor could be the intense media coverage and extended campaign duration in the United States relative to the other nations.
“In the U.S., the candidates are very well-known,” Rand said. “They've both been around for a long time. The U.S. media environment also really saturates with people with information about the candidates in the campaign, whereas things are quite different in Canada, where the campaign doesn't even start until shortly before the election.”
“One of the key findings across both papers is that it seems like the primary way the models are changing people's minds is by making factual claims and arguments,” he added. “The more arguments and evidence that you've heard beforehand, the less responsive you're going to be to the new evidence.”
While the models were most persuasive when they provided fact-based arguments, they didn’t always present factual information. Across all three nations, the bot advocating for the right-leaning candidates made more inaccurate claims than those boosting the left-leaning candidates. Right-leaning laypeople and party elites tend to share more inaccurate information online than their peers on the left, so this asymmetry likely reflects the internet-sourced training data.
“Given that the models are trained essentially on the internet, if there are many more inaccurate, right-leaning claims than left-leaning claims on the internet, then it makes sense that from the training data, the models would sop up that same kind of bias,” Rand said.
With the Science study, Rand and his colleagues aimed to drill down into the exact mechanisms that make AI bots persuasive. To that end, the team tasked 19 large language models (LLMs) to sway nearly 77,000 U.K. participants on 707 political issues.
The results showed that the most effective persuasion tactic was to provide arguments packed with as many facts as possible, corroborating the findings of the Nature study. However, there was a serious tradeoff to this approach, as models tended to start hallucinating and making up facts the more they were pressed for information.
“It is not the case that misleading information is more persuasive,” Rand said. ”I think that what's happening is that as you push the model to provide more and more facts, it starts with accurate facts, and then eventually it runs out of accurate facts. But you're still pushing it to make more factual claims, so then it starts grasping at straws and making up stuff that's not accurate.”
In addition to these two new studies, research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month found that AI bots can now corrupt public opinion data by responding to surveys at scale. Sean Westwood, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and director of the Polarization Research Lab, created an AI agent that exhibited a 99.8 percent pass rate on 6,000 attempts to detect automated responses to survey data.
“Critically, the agent can be instructed to maliciously alter polling outcomes, demonstrating an overt vector for information warfare,” Westwood warned in the study. “These findings reveal a critical vulnerability in our data infrastructure, rendering most current detection methods obsolete and posing a potential existential threat to unsupervised online research.”
Taken together, these findings suggest that AI could influence future elections in a number of ways, from manipulating survey data to persuading voters to switch their candidate preference—possibly with misleading or false information.
To counter the impact of AI on elections, Rand suggested that campaign finance laws should provide more transparency about the use of AI, including canvasser bots, while also emphasizing the role of raising public awareness.
“One of the key take-homes is that when you are engaging with a model, you need to be cognizant of the motives of the person that prompted the model, that created the model, and how that bleeds into what the model is doing,” he said.
🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week.
Human–artificial intelligence (AI) dialogues can meaningfully impact voters’ attitudes towards presidential candidates and policy, demonstrating the potential of conversational AI to influence political decision-making.
To mark the International Day for Persons with Disabilities, Canada’s unions are reiterating our demand that the federal government meaningfully address the poverty crisis facing people with disabilities in this country.
I still don't understand what trumps plan was with trying to punish brazil with import tariffs, brazil's exports depend more on china who is going to probably eager to buy more, if anything it would more of an effective idea to tariff exports or outright ban exports of things brazil needs to for its animal and plant production, like disallow exporting USA made breeds of animals and plants, banning investment in brazils agriculture sector, banning fertilzer exports to brazil and export of agricultural machines to brazil.
Threats to tariff brazil's export if anything push Brazil to depend more China, further pushing it away from USA's influence
Brazil is highly dependent on fertilizer exports and agricultural machinery imports, as a student in a university in a course related to agriculture, I see USA made tractors daily, Brazil's program to develop its own breeds of animals and plants for production is nowhere near as developed as USA's, and although USA's breeds often are not well adapted to Brazil's climate they are often the few ones avaible that are viable commercia
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I still don't understand what trumps plan was with trying to punish brazil with import tariffs, brazil's exports depend more on china who is going to probably eager to buy more, if anything it would more of an effective idea to tariff exports or outright ban exports of things brazil needs to for its animal and plant production, like disallow exporting USA made breeds of animals and plants, banning investment in brazils agriculture sector, banning fertilzer exports to brazil and export of agricultural machines to brazil.
Threats to tariff brazil's export if anything push Brazil to depend more China, further pushing it away from USA's influence
Brazil is highly dependent on fertilizer exports and agricultural machinery imports, as a student in a university in a course related to agriculture, I see USA made tractors daily, Brazil's program to develop its own breeds of animals and plants for production is nowhere near as developed as USA's, and although USA's breeds often are not well adapted to Brazil's climate they are often the few ones avaible that are viable commercially in a few key sectors
in the far future; after the us empire has declined from a world power and into a regional power; its region is going to be latin america with less than handful of countries w any true independence based on military power and economic distance that already exists.
Although, the US will be in a much weaker relative position with Latin America at that point because it will not have the resources of the whole world available to it anymore.
as will latin america due to each economy being forcibly linked to the us economy; at first by us military power while it's still strong enough to do so and then later by each country's oligarchy that refuses to let go of their control.
i'm convinced that this tide change will take centuries like the roman empire did and our version of constantinople renaming to instanbul will take the form of a us demographics change so thorough that it will become indiscernible from any other latin american country; canada will build a wall that would make trump envious because of it while insisting that it's construction has nothing to do w it.
At this point many Latin American countries are already doing more trade with BRICS than the US. Brazil is a good example. The US is being cut off economically precisely because countries are increasingly routing trade around the US. Trump's tariff war accelerated the whole process dramatically.
I'd also argue that you can't make a direct comparison with the Roman times here. One big difference is that rate of communication and the speed of transportation are orders of magnitude faster. Back in the days of the Roman empire a message would take months to go from one part of the empire to another. Shipping goods around was far less efficient as well. Hence the rate of change was inherently slower than it is today.
There's also an interesting phenomenon to be aware of here. Problems can build up under the surface for a long time as their effects get amortized by the inertia of the system. But eventually, you hit an inflection point where all that accumulated pressure triggers a rapid phase transition. The whole structure lurches into a new state almost overnight. That
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At this point many Latin American countries are already doing more trade with BRICS than the US. Brazil is a good example. The US is being cut off economically precisely because countries are increasingly routing trade around the US. Trump's tariff war accelerated the whole process dramatically.
I'd also argue that you can't make a direct comparison with the Roman times here. One big difference is that rate of communication and the speed of transportation are orders of magnitude faster. Back in the days of the Roman empire a message would take months to go from one part of the empire to another. Shipping goods around was far less efficient as well. Hence the rate of change was inherently slower than it is today.
There's also an interesting phenomenon to be aware of here. Problems can build up under the surface for a long time as their effects get amortized by the inertia of the system. But eventually, you hit an inflection point where all that accumulated pressure triggers a rapid phase transition. The whole structure lurches into a new state almost overnight. That’s what Lenin meant about there being decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.
i wish there was something that can be said when democrats are in control of the congress and the presidency (again) because of trump, but still aren't able to do anything because of a few holdouts (also again).
we've seen this story play out so many times in the last half century that you'd think people would learn from it; but we don't so the only conclusion you can draw is that not enough americans pay attention.
i pity future generations that will have to pay the price for this mass negligence and glad that i will be gone before the brunt of it hits.
The fascism was here all along, it just wasn't equally distrubuted. The camps were already full, the tent cities were already growing, the war machine was already churning, the secret police were already snatching people to blacksites, the fascists were already supported and the genocide already ongoing. Trump just doesn't bother with the mask, and liberals mistake that for a qualitative change. He says the quiet part so loud that willful ignorance becomes impossible, and you mistake that change in your awareness for a change in the real conditions. The building has been burning for a long time, he's just the noxious smoke that wakes you up from your sleep.
Literally, no. Trump is a substantial change. Yes, the usa historically has had a massive amount of problems. Trump is not same old but said allowed, he's a new level of psychotic and demented fascism. The previous stuff was what laid the foundation for a full on fascist to come to power.
the genocide already ongoing.
There was no genocide perpetrated by the states prior to trump in the last 20 years. Gaza, if that's what you mean, while supported far too much by the states is done by Israel.
Yes. But that's not perpetrated by the states, especially not with how many nations support Israel, so it is not correct to call it a genocide by the states
Israel is a US millitary base in country form, all of its genocide is committed with the express approval, support, and material assistance of the US Empire.
No, they don't have nearly as much influence as you think. The US Empire is massive and supports Israel because of its utility in securing its interests, not because of Israeli influence.
Yes, the usa historically has had a massive amount of problems.
Fascism for the poor and minorities, yes
he’s a new level of psychotic and demented fascism.
The same actions minus the sheen of reluctant professionalism, yes. We killed a million people in Iraq when I was a child. The only difference now is that white people aren't insulated, so now it's fascism.
The previous stuff was what laid the foundation for a full on fascist to come to power.
The previous stuff being fascist actions such as imperial war, police blacksites and indefinite detention without trial
Gaza, if that’s what you mean, while supported far too much by the states is done by Israel.
Israel is a US puppet state that literally cannot exist without a constant flow of money and weapons from us. Their genocide is our genocide. The Democratic governor of my state sent riot cops to shoot college kids with rubber bullets for being against genocide.
e now is that white people aren't insulated, so now it's fascism.
White people are still insulated from the consequences. Also, genocide and mass murder do not require fascism. You're mistaking every horrible thing to be equivalent to fascism, when in reality democracies can and do still perpetrate such horrors. Mass murder on a foreign country is horrific, and wrong, but that does not automatically make it fascist.
Israel is a US puppet state
With how much they control USA politics, that is blatantly false.
The mask is off.
The degree is different. You think the banning of lgbtq and immigration is the same as before you're crazy
You don't understand! The dems would have made everything better if we hadn't stabbed them in the back! Republicans didn't win a single seat on blue-state soil!
STABBED IN THE BACK BY COMMUNISTS!
No we don't want to do anything about the fascism. Thanks.
My favorite part is how dems judiciously avoid discussing the elephant in the room which is that it is their own policies that disenfranchise the public.
No but see its not because the other side us worse so everything I do is fine. Someone else shot you with a cannon (that I built) so me stabbing you was good actually and you're just too dumb to understand.
If the bourgeoisie turn to violence and terror during crises, how is that different from revolutionaries removing the bourgeoisie from power? I used to identify as an American Democrat but I'm super frustrated with their insistence on useless, vapid displays of "resistance".
Well, as someone who hasn't Read Theory, the last line in the meme seems to disdain use of violence in a very general way. It was just confusing, but I see now that it's just not well worded
It's time to read theory, comrades! As Lenin says, "Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle." Reading theory helps us identify the core contradictions within modern society, analyze their trajectories, and gives us the tools to break free. Marxism-Leninism is broken into 3 major components, as noted by Lenin in his pamphlet The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism: | Audiobook
Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Critique of Capitalism along the lines of Marx's Law of Value
Advocacy for Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
As such, I created the following list to take you from no knowledge whatsoever of Leftist theory, and leave you with a strong understanding of the critical fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism in an order that builds up as you read. Let's get started!
Section I: Getting Started
What the heck is Communism, anyways? For that matter, what is fascism?
Breaks down fascism and its mortal enemy, Communism, as well as their antagonistic relationship. Understanding what fascism is, where and when it rises, why it does so, and how to banish it forever is critical. Parenti also helps debunk common anti-Communist myths, from both the "left" and the right, in a quick-witted writing style. This is also an excellent time to watch the famous speech.
Section II: Historical and Dialectical Materialism
By far my favorite primer on Marxist philosophy. By understanding Dialectical and Historical Materialism first, you make it easier to understand the rest of Marxism-Leninism. Don't be intimidated!
Further reading on Dialectical and Historical Materialism, but crucially introduces the why of Scientific Socialism, explaining how Capitalism itself prepares the conditions for public ownership and planning by centralizing itself into monopolist syndicates. This is also where Engels talks about the failures of previous "Utopian" Socialists.
Section III: Political Economy
That's right, it's time for the Law of Value and a deep-dive into Imperialism. If we are to defeat Capitalism, we must learn it's mechanisms, tendencies, contradictions, and laws.
Best taken as a pair, these essays simplify the most important parts of the Law of Value. Marx is targetting those not trained in economics here, but you might want to keep a pen and some paper to follow along if you are a visual person.
Absolutely crucial and the most important work for understanding the modern era and its primary contradictions. Marxist-Leninists understand that Imperialism is the greatest contradiction in the modern era, which cascades downward into all manner of related contradictions. Knowing what dying Capitalism looks like, and how it behaves, means we can kill it.
Section IV: Revolutionary and Scientific Socialism
Can we defeat Capitalism at the ballot box? What about just defeating fascism? What about the role of the state?
If Marxists believed reforming Capitalist society was possible, we would be the first in line for it. Sadly, it isn't possible, which Luxemburg proves in this monumental writing.
Excellent refutation of revisionists and Social Democrats who think the State can be reformed, without needing to be replaced with one that is run by the workers, in their own interests.
Section V: Intersectionality and Solidarity
The revolution will not be fought by atomized individuals, but by an intersectional, international working class movement. Intersectionality is critical, because it allows different marginalized groups to work together in collective interest, unifying into a broad movement.
Critical reading on understanding misogyny, transphobia, enbyphobia, pluralphobia, and homophobia, as well as how to move beyond the base subject of "gender." Uses the foundations built up in the previous works to analyze gender theory from a Historical Materialist perspective.
De-colonialism is essential to Marxism. Without having a strong, de-colonial, internationalist stance, we have no path to victory nor a path to justice. Fanon analyzes Colonialism's dehumanizing effects, and lays out how to form a de-colonial movement, as well as its necessity.
Solidarity and intersectionality are the key to any social movement. When different social groups fight for liberation together along intersectional lines, the movements are emboldened and empowered ever-further.
Section VI: Putting it into Practice!
It's not enough to endlessly read, you must put theory to practice. That is how you can improve yourself and the movements you support. Touch grass!
Mao wrote simply and directly, targeting peasant soldiers during the Revolutionary War in China. This pair of essays equip the reader with the ability to apply the analytical tools of Dialectical Materialism to their every day practice, and better understand problems.
Congratulations, you completed your introductory reading course!
With your new understanding and knowledge of Marxism-Leninism, here is a mini What is to be Done? of your own to follow, and take with you as practical advice.
Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to us to protect ourselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there's an org you like more near you and join it.
Read theory. Don't think that you are done now! Just because you have the basics, doesn't mean you know more than you do. If you have not investigated a subject, don't speak on it! Don't speak nonsense, but listen!
Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground, let nobody be forgotten or left behind. There is strength in numbers, when one marginalized group is targeted, many more are sure to follow.
Be industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well.
Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. Liberals will not save us, we must save each other.
Be persistent. If you feel like a single water droplet against a mountain, think of canyons and valleys. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."
If you want to be technical about it then yes it's violence. But someone tried to kill someone and they fought back in self defence, it would be weird to label them as being violent right? It's not like the person wanted violence, they would rather they weren't attacked in the first place.
Hey its a good question, and its one that a lot of reforming liberal democrats like yourself, and myself at one time, struggle to understand. A revolution is necessarily violent and authoritarian, right?
Well, kind of, maybe. I'm a Marxist and Marxists tend to think of revolutions as a change in the fundamental relationship that humans have to production. What gets made, who makes it, and why. A group of revolutionaries who seize control of the government but do nothing to change those fundamental relations are not revolutionary. Its just the same system with new leaders, maybe a new flag or something. The capitalist revolution took a solid 250-300 years with about 250-300 years of development beforehand. Kings and queens were replaced by industrialists, the divine right replaced by the social contract, church and god replaced by corporations and profits. The capitalist revolutions were hella bloody, with the exception of maybe the American one, which was based partly on the institution of slavery.
But what ended the divine right of kings wasnt the guillotine, it was t
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Hey its a good question, and its one that a lot of reforming liberal democrats like yourself, and myself at one time, struggle to understand. A revolution is necessarily violent and authoritarian, right?
Well, kind of, maybe. I'm a Marxist and Marxists tend to think of revolutions as a change in the fundamental relationship that humans have to production. What gets made, who makes it, and why. A group of revolutionaries who seize control of the government but do nothing to change those fundamental relations are not revolutionary. Its just the same system with new leaders, maybe a new flag or something. The capitalist revolution took a solid 250-300 years with about 250-300 years of development beforehand. Kings and queens were replaced by industrialists, the divine right replaced by the social contract, church and god replaced by corporations and profits. The capitalist revolutions were hella bloody, with the exception of maybe the American one, which was based partly on the institution of slavery.
But what ended the divine right of kings wasnt the guillotine, it was taking their shit and redistributing it to the bourgeoisie. The slaves weren't freed by killing their masters, they freed themselves and went over to the union armies. The changes that made real lasting effect were not cold blooded murderous action, in fact the French revolution didn't last 15 years. It was social, cultural, political change. It was people changing themselves in order to change the world.
The bourgeoisie will use heinous violence to protect their interests, fascism is one of capitalism's immune responses from mass organization and revolutionary activity. There are others, but that's the big scary one we are dealing with now. Revolutionary change in the world begins with revolutionary changes to ourselves, and to each other, a cumulative historic project of liberation of the oppressed from our oppressors.
Deposing the bourgeoisie is not to become a new bourgeois. We can't do what they do to become something that isn't them. We will have to defend ourselves from violence but violence will not bring the changes that are necessary to create a better world. There will have to be justice for crimes against humanity, and what that justice will look like will be orders of magnitude more humane, and this bears out in historic examples from the Paris commune, to the Russian revolution (which was almost entirely bloodless until the civil war) to the Cuban revolution, and so forth.
The difference is that violence from the bourgeoisie is directed against the vast majority of society to keep their parasitic profits, while revolutionary violence deposes this system and liberates the working classes.
This reminds me of a heuristic I heard about once, about "punching up" and "punching down". I heard about it used in a stand-up comedy context but it seems to make sense in a lit of other places as well. Punching down almost always seems unjust, punching up almost always seems just.
Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.
[hr] [h2]Attendees[/h2] [ul]
[li]Julian (@julian@activitypub.space)[/li]
[li][url=https://www.linkedin.com/in/macted/]Ted Thibodeau Jr[/url] (he/him) ([url=http:
Apologies in advance if I misrepresented anybody or missed any crucial bits of information.
Mastodon context issues (backfill not possible at the moment)
Context (topic/thread) deletion and moving between audiences (communities/categories)
Draft FEP for the above
Deleting entire tree vs. one post. with_replies or Remove(Context)?
Cross-posting (stalled?)
Mastodon context issues
Backfill not possible, context remains null
Claire and David are aware, can this be reproduced locally? @jesseplusplus
Mastodon keeps track of the conversation, but not what the root-level ID is; Frequency keeps track of the parents. This was new to Mastodon codebase (all internally)
Possibly the code shared for this is not working
Jesse will take a look (diff b/w Decodon and Mastodon)
Ted: in-reply-to tracking is akin to parent tracking
Jesse: Not quite; Mastodon now tracks root-level ID (that's the piece that might not be working.)
Genesis of this FEP from needs of ActivityPub.Space. It bridges Microblogiverse and Threadiverse by importing discussions by hashtag (#activitypub among others)
Lots of curation needed as people tend to use the #activitypub hashtag when discussing non-AP things
Also non-English content, etc. (ActivityPub.Space is English-focused as we have two mods, Julian and another temporary mod from toot.wales/IFTAS)
Pre-draft shared with Rimu (rimu@piefed.social) and Felix (nutomic@lemmy.ml) for their thoughts, discussion (linked above) started last night for some additional input.
No opposition to Move(Context) as it is not a functionality that is implemented by anybody at the moment
Hooray for greenfield AP dev!
Out-of-band discussion
Remove(Context) received some pushback from Lemmy. This was expected as both Lemmy and Piefed currently use Delete(Object)
Felix is recommending that Delete(Object) can supply with_replies property to explicitly denote that the entire reply tree is to be deleted.
Julian is recommending that Remove(Context) be used to explicitly denote that the reply-tree/container itself is removed, context can be resolved to determine which exact object IDs to delete if needed, Remove also tells you which audience/community it was removed from.
Rimu OK with either approach.
Felix raised objection to the wording that Delete(Post) is shown under "backwards compatibility" — Julian will update to reflect equal priority on both approaches.
ForumWG discussion
Julian admits that it is likely much much easier for Lemmy to update their handling of Delete vs. creating a new handler for Remove.
Julian notes disconnect with current behaviour (Delete(Object)) and new behaviour (same, but with_replies) and the actual effect (removal from the community); you cannot actually delete someone else's content because it does not satisfy same-origin constraint (yes, sometimes, but not always.)
Currently at an impasse as to how to proceed, but Julian encourages parties present to contribute to the discussion and review the FEP.
Would prefer alignment as opposed to supporting both Remove and Delete(Object) w/ replies given that it is unlikely both will be implemented widely.
Yes that's correct. There was the potential for a context to belong to multiple audiences but social issues preclude further research.
Specifically, moderation gets very messy when contexts are cross posted to diametrically opposing audiences, and so that's not something I am equipped to work through right now.
Secondly, the assumption is already there that a context only belongs to one audience. We will not change that expectation.
@julianFEP-f15d: Context Relocation and RemovalI have two objections to this proposal. We discussed them before in Moving topics/contexts between communities...
The Russian leader recalled that there are general agreements to the effect that the security of one state cannot be guaranteed at the expense of the security of others
Just wait till the day when the average person wakes up to realise that it was never about fair play or international law. It's about power and the use of force and it always has been.
I work in a corporation with an IT-department that is all in on whatever Microsoft is offering. My team has for some time gotten more and more autonomy in tooling as IT is overloaded and forced to relinquish some control, but we still rely on them for supplying compliant machines that have access to our resources.
I requested a Linux machine just over 5 months ago, and I finally got it this week. It is running Ubuntu with GNOME, not my first choice, but the only thing that is Microsoft Intune compliant as far as I know.
So far it is such a relief. A better specced machine with less bloat running on it. It should be far between any OOM-issue I get now... Slightly annoying having to use Edge for any service requiring corporate SSO, but I'll swallow that pill...
Yeah, but it has also required many hard fought battles internally, and I can be happy with my coworkers and team lead for taking the charge in several of those. It helps having had multiple examples of their policies getting in the way of getting stuff done, and that we are able to accomplish our jobs when we get our way.
Worst part is that we're not a terribly big company - but the IT department can still make it feel like I work in a multinational megacorp some times. I can only imagine what it is to actually work in one of those....
I'm in a similar boat, except I had to white-knuckle the install myself. White-knuckle, because I had to set up unique to my laptop certs beforehand to get on the corporate VPN. And if it disn't work, I'd be off the VPN unable to connect (I work remote). Got it working, but, fun fact, my ubuntu laptop is running Microsoft Defender! (per requirements) I feel super protected.
I mean, technically Defender is a pretty decent antivirus. Nothing wrong with that. Hopefully they use more than antivirus to keep you safe though. I think most decent EDR/XDR support Linux.
Someone has obviously not been forced to work with Windows 11? :p
It's a massive upgrade and miles better than what I came from, and while not ideal, I'm certainly not letting perfect be the enemy of the good here. Edge is just for those MS365 apps I need to work with once in a while (and a couple of other services that rely on SSO, most annoyingly GitHub). I'll live
Also, I'm a KDE person, but so far I don't hate GNOME.
I just run whatever linux I want in a hypervisor and make it my daily driver for everything other that teams calls... (I can't seem to make Linux do any echo cancellation). The mac just can't do the basics I need on its own, it's workflow nightmare. Short of pains of being on an ARM64 CPU, the VM does pretty well. Started off using UTM, then switched to Parallels. It's not always perfect, but it is SO much better that straight up MacOS.
Axonius is commonly described as an American company. While its headquarters and administrative functions are in New York, its founders, senior executives, and its primary financiers are all Israeli, and, critically, its software and engineering functions are based in Tel Aviv. Axonius has more than eight-hundred employees, and a search of LinkedIn profiles confirms that a majority of Axonius's engineers in Tel Aviv have a background in Israeli military intelligence.
Perhaps none of this matters, and Axonius is simply indicative of the sleazy, symbiotic nature of the relationship between the US and its colonial outpost.
This would be a fair argument if it wasn't for Israel's long history of espionage in the United States. From
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Axonius is commonly described as an American company. While its headquarters and administrative functions are in New York, its founders, senior executives, and its primary financiers are all Israeli, and, critically, its software and engineering functions are based in Tel Aviv. Axonius has more than eight-hundred employees, and a search of LinkedIn profiles confirms that a majority of Axonius's engineers in Tel Aviv have a background in Israeli military intelligence.
Perhaps none of this matters, and Axonius is simply indicative of the sleazy, symbiotic nature of the relationship between the US and its colonial outpost.
This would be a fair argument if it wasn't for Israel's long history of espionage in the United States. From recruiting Hollywood producers who ran front companies that stole nuclear technologies, to selling bugged software to foreign governments, spying (especially cyber spying), has been central to Israel's foreign policy. Robert Maxwell, the father of Ghislaine Maxwell, was a spy for Israel, and a significant amount of circumstantial evidence suggests Jeffrey Epstein was also an Israeli military intelligence asset. More recently, during Trump's first term, Israel planted miniature spying devices around the White House and other US government buildings in Washington DC to monitor US officials.
Is it just me that finds the term "forever chemical" completely meaningless? I have no idea what is trying to be conveyed except something fear inducing.
As far as I understand it’s just chemicals that don’t decompose (within a reasonable timespan), meaning they may stay in your body forever, which is usually a bad thing.
I'm considering a smart watch for exercise with streaming music and heart monitor without my phone, but have no idea how they work. Do smart watches have their own app store? Is there an f-droid for them?
I have been using a BangleJS 2 for the last year, and have quite liked it. There is a companion app, Gadgetbridge, to install on your phone, which is available through F-Droid (there is a Bangle-specific version of it, or a generic version that supports a bunch of other smart watches). There is also an app store (all free software) for apps that run on the Bangle itself. It includes a heart monitor, but no music streaming.
I've also been watching rePebble as they start making new Pebble smartwatches. I've never owned one, but a lot of people swear by them. They are now fully open source and have an app store. No idea if they can stream music.
Yes, but it isn't available (yet). The pebble 2 duo does not, but it has already shipped. I don't know how many are still available and/or will be made.
Currently the app also has zero support for anything health-related, including sleep. If that will be fixed by the time the pt2 is shipping, who knows. This is probably not a huge problem for op, as he's explicitly searching for a watch without smartphone reliance.
Even in the old app and on the old pebble watches, anything health related was an afterthought at best, and it also isn't a focus of it officially. The new ones are using the same OS, so are incredibly similar. Which is generally a good thing, but also includes the lack of features related to anything "health".
Recently upgraded GPU and went from nVidia to AMD. Since AMD drivers are already baked into the kernel, I simply uninstalled nVidia ones by
sudo apt purge ~nnvidia
but after doing so and rebooting with the new GPU, the game I had been playing until minutes before the swap started giving me an unbearable amount of audio crackling, mainly (but not exclusively) when there's audio besides the one from the game playing (e.g. background music player).
Searching online I found out it's an issue with pipewire, and found someone mentioning a solution that edited the quantum values, though that didn't work for me; specifically, making default.clock.quantum larger.
The second issue happens everywhere but fullscreen applications (e.g. games): if I quickly draw circles with my mouse, at some point the pointer starts drifting away in erratic ways, even though I'm still drawing circles with my mouse; other times, especially when there's a windowed app (such as FreeTube while playing a video), even simply moving the
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PoP_OS 22.04.
Recently upgraded GPU and went from nVidia to AMD. Since AMD drivers are already baked into the kernel, I simply uninstalled nVidia ones by
sudo apt purge ~nnvidia
but after doing so and rebooting with the new GPU, the game I had been playing until minutes before the swap started giving me an unbearable amount of audio crackling, mainly (but not exclusively) when there's audio besides the one from the game playing (e.g. background music player).
Searching online I found out it's an issue with pipewire, and found someone mentioning a solution that edited the quantum values, though that didn't work for me; specifically, making default.clock.quantum larger.
The second issue happens everywhere but fullscreen applications (e.g. games): if I quickly draw circles with my mouse, at some point the pointer starts drifting away in erratic ways, even though I'm still drawing circles with my mouse; other times, especially when there's a windowed app (such as FreeTube while playing a video), even simply moving the mouse across the screen results in the pointer lagging behind as if the screen were jelly, and if I start drawing circles, the video stutters to the point of freezing.
Now, the audio issue is extremely problematic since I have to keep volume very low, as even an average volume means crackling is loud to the point it hurts my ears; the jelly-pointer is less of an issue, but still very annoying.
Any ideas?
Anyone who had these issues and is now on PoP 24 beta? Long shot, but it releases next week and if the issue was fixed for you, I'll wait, otherwise I might just try a different distro.
I think you may need to go onto the 24.04 beta to get the newer kernel and mesa… please check which kernel version you are running right now befote attempting such an upgrade
Kernel is 6.17.4, not the latest but not that outdated I think. I'm. not jumping onto the beta since the full release is just a few days away, in the meantime I'll make do with the workaround for the audio issue. Thanks!
I have crackling issues sometimes too in games. It comes and goes.
On mint, 15 year old cpu and a rx 6700 card.
Like others said, make sure its not psu or mobo. Check your psu fan, for starters. They die often and the pc will run but act very weird and eventually shut down abruptly.
Im actually using 1 pc with a dead psu fan and I throttle the graphics card so it doesn't crash, it works.
I get a lot of weird audio issues in linux too. I don't remember having those issues in linux when I was younger, but I'm often getting weird audio artifacts when playing games on Mint.
I'm new to Linux (and very inexperienced, since PoP just worked out of the box until now), so I can't relate haha though apparently the audio crackling is due to the CPU not being fast enough to do everything it's required to, and when it starts lagging behind too much and can't respect the min-quantum value anymore, the weird audio issue shows up.
setting min-quantum to a higher value (PoP ships with 32 min, I set it to 256) mitigates the issue a lot
It's not a laptop so I don't have power saving options that would affect performance (I only see automatic suspend and screen inactivity).
I tried performance power mode, but that did nothing for crackling. The only thing that works is setting the min-quantum value like the top comment suggested. Thanks!
Good suggestion, unfortunately I don't have an extra empty drive. For the time being I'm mitigiating the audio issue with the fix suggested by the top comment (higher min-quantum), hopefully PoP 24 ships with "better" defaults and fixes this out of the box!
That probably didn’t do anything. I think it sets the quantum if it isn’t otherwise set.
Check pw-top while you’re playing from a source where you experience crackling. You can see the quantum value, if it’s low (usually 1) then that source is using the minimum quantum.
You can change it, temporarily (until reboot/pipewire service restart) with
There's a config file somewhere to make it permanent, if you can't find it just let me know and I'll dig through my notes (if you find out, post it here for future googlers)
panda_abyss
in reply to Sunshine (she/her) • • •What we give people for disability is a joke.
They're disabled and we treat them like shit just for needing help.