

I think I’ve read that the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia) historically was the most lucrative (i.e. highest net-profit) colony by a large margin. I cannot remember the numbers though.


I think I’ve read that the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia) historically was the most lucrative (i.e. highest net-profit) colony by a large margin. I cannot remember the numbers though.


In general the type of people from Europe who are A. Willing to travel to the US and attend this WC and B. Can afford to do so, are not generally gonna be the same people who hold animosity towards the US. For most it is probably the opposite and they are thrilled to go there.


Yea, it is just frustrating. I really threw myself out there during the entry-into-NATO phase, and there was just…nothing; no public discourse, no pushback from “leftists” to liberals alike, everyone just agreed that it was somehow a good thing and that you were stupid if you were against it. They didn’t even need to do a referendum because the political class united so quickly and attenuated every contrary opinion – none of the politically adjacent organizations I was/am involved in wanted to talk about it. It somewhat broke me to be honest.
Now, I am generally optimistic that globally the marxist position will continue to be strengthened and prevail, but I don’t think we will see changes in this
opportunities for the left to provide an alternative vision and narrative if it can manage to finally set aside its Western chauvinism, embrace real anti-imperialism and internationalism, and stop falling for the liberal-imperialist “anti-authoritarian” psyop.
in Europe for a long time. We have generational brain rot, and I am starting to think that wont change until a few generations just die off (either by age or heatwaves). This is not that I think people can’t change and more that I haven’t seen populations capable of this unless there’s a popular revolution, and I don’t think that will ever happen in Europe (at least not in a way similar to previous ones).
That doesn’t mean I disagree with trying though, and I’ll keep doing that. I’m just venting here because IRL I am the one who takes the vehemently optimistic position, so as to not discourage the baby leftists around me.
decaying material conditions will sharpen the contradictions between the chauvinistic outlook and the lived reality to a point where some kind of reckoning must happen.
My skepticism here is that for Europe this usually means Fascism and we see no signs of it being different this time – on the contrary – I think socially the case for socialism is much weaker than it was in Germany, Italy, Spain, etc during the 1900s. At least the labor movement was organized, we had a strong Soviet Union and people were not so entrenched into the narratives of the capital class. The political class itself was much more fragmented than today and if we couldn’t succeed with a socialisation of our institutions during those conditions, I am relatively restrictive in holding out hope for it happening under our current conditions, which I feel are much worse.
The coming decade of post-Ukraine policy will dictate a lot of what happens. As the material conditions continue to degrade, it almost feels like the most optimistic scenario is implosion and a further weakening of european standing in the world, increasingly forcing us to make amends and respect Africa and Asia. As long as we have a strong Russia, China, Iran, Sahel states, etc, there is at least hope that the EU by necessity is forced to acknowledge multipolarity – which in the long run will birth a new political consciousness that isn’t as chauvinist as the current one.


*(By the way, they also briefly address Sweden and its racism toward the end of that linked video discussion, you can check it out if you’re interested.)
Yea the point was spot on. And I don’t even know how this course should be reversed, one of the most pressing issues is that is the same (class of) people still running the countries (in both Germany and Sweden). Denazification in West Germany was a joke, and in Sweden there never was anything of the sort – which just leads to unconditional chauvinism. You start to understand why Lenin just shot people, and why the cultural revolution was necessary.
Ah, I am so done with all of it.


But when it comes to general racism my experience has been that Scandinavian countries are actually the worst and where it’s most insidious, precisely because they pretend to be all progressive but in really they have a massive superiority complex.
Sigh, I’d say that you’re generally right sadly. It is hard to argue against it when around 20% of people vote for a party that is a whitewashed literal Nazi party (and the current leader joined when it was branded as such).
massive superiority complex.
Yes, and I’d also claim that we are among the most propagandized people on the planet. I have a hard time actually thinking of a people more propagandized, possibly the Germans – but I feel like even for them there’ll always be a tiny tiny hint of doubt since they actually DID do the Holocaust once. For swedes there is zero guilt, zero introspection and total belief that your outlook on the world is correct.
The population is also just…ignorant. Our current prime minister literally wrote a book about his ideology a couple years ago where he equaled the Swedish wellfare state to apartheid and stated his life’s purpose to be the destroying of it – but people still vote for this guy and then are chocked when he does just that. Don’t worry, 44% of adults have a university degree, surely this means they can read one book.
I could write a lot about my people but it’ll probably amount to a book (and I fear it’ll be even harder to make them read two books).


Don’t feel bad for made up shitposts, sir. Me and my friends used to do many such as these for fun in elementary school, it is probably the same person writing the text and “grading” it with a red pencil.


What is the modern form of “social democracy” even? Are the Greens in the UK social democrat? Are the swedes Socialdemokraterna social democrat or the danish, etc…
Or are we mostly talking about existance of a welfare state or not? If it is the latter it is true that it will come crashing down, otherwise there is little about the mentioned organizations that I feel signifies “social democracy”, for the last 3 decades they have turned rightward with an insane pace - and are still accelerating.


Wdym? They are among the top european manufacturers of quantitative financial analaysis spreadsheets. Only uncivilised countries (usually inhabitated by non-whites) produce material things - meanwhile my superior intellect has concluded that another $100 million should be invested into AI-datacenters, long live the UKKK!
I was always under the impression that the cognitive outsourcing is worse the earlier it starts. I am in academia, and a lot of really bright researchers, professors etc are using generative AI tools, but they have spent a good 20-30 years already reading, researching and producing high-quality output already, they are not using it to get away from thinking about hard problems, simply to speed up the process of tackling them.
It is way worse for students. I can only speak for mathematics, but the field is trying to come to gripes with what this whole ordeal will mean, and even then we are at least quite shielded from some of the problems with education (quite easy to expand and assess in-person exams, for instance).
You generally NEED a minimum of 10-20k hours working and thinking about this stuff to understand it at a high level, there are no shortcuts. Now the barrier to be able to put some slop together and pretend you’ve come up with a result is a lot lower, which is the shortcut many students are going for sadly.
If anyone is interested in the discussion I’ll just put some good starters:
https://nitter.net/aaswaminathan01/status/2025418710198960388
https://davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-the-theorem-economy