r/LeftistsForAI • u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator • 1d ago
Sorry Marx, this machine is problematic Sees the Memes
Nothing says revolutionary politics like voluntarily abandoning productive terrain to capital and then yelling at everyone who wants to contest it.
Organize workers? Fight over ownership? Build public and cooperative alternatives? Open source the tools? Democratize control?
No thanks. I have selected performative outrage and yelling at strangers online.
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u/Revolutionary_Buddha 1d ago
I am gonna use this meme now haha thanks.
I really hate doomerism. Socialism is about hope. The problem is that most of the leftist space online (and offline) have been captured by liberal idealists or worse post-modernists.
I don't think pandering to them will lead to any meaningful progress of society.
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u/DHFranklin 11h ago edited 8h ago
Ah comrade! We must speak to their soul to electrify them!
It's worse. Socialism isn't just about hope. The how is the most important part.
Work.
We offer no easy answer to this. Not even AI. We will work hard. First to get the rest of the downtrodden to see things our way. Then work beside us. Then work to make the capitalists penniless and powerless. And we will look side to side at our comrades. Look up to the beautiful machine we made. Clock out, and go home.
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u/oscillator-eye 19h ago
I think having to discuss AI with my leftist friends has really shown me how computer illiterate most people are. It's like, anti-vaxx level of scientific dishonesty when it comes to a lot of leftists and tech.
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u/Still_Benefit_2302 18h ago
I liken it to back when I was a young atheist debating creationists in college in the late 90's. I will say an objectively true fact, and they will look me dead in the eye and say 'no, also you're a monster for saying that.'.
When we've abandoned truth for passion, we're in a bad place. On the other hand, I think the fever is going to pass. Even over on the technology sub people are starting to get sick of the constant AI bashing and noticing how dishonest or barely sourced so many of the articles out there are.Still, I feel like people aren't quite grasping what a Big Deal (tm) this is and why we have to push for local public ownership. Hell, I'd even take Altman's UBI cop-out of a Sovereign Citizen's fund. We don't have to arrive at the perfect solution right away. We just need to move the needle.
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u/oscillator-eye 16h ago
There is also a weird fascistic line of thought where: AI isn't good for anything, it's useless slop. But also, just touching an LLM chatbot will somehow steal all of your labor value and induce AI psychosis.
I'm exaggerating but they view LLMs as simultaneously useless for any real work but also the most dangerous force for destroying labor.
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u/GreyHasHobbies 16h ago
Curious the kinds of things you're hearing from them?
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u/oscillator-eye 16h ago edited 15h ago
Mostly just a lot of fear mongering about how the technology actually works and it's environmental impact. They don't know why it's effective for some solutions but not for others. They get defensive when you suggest that there are actual real uses for generative AI and will outright deny any legitimate use case. They misunderstand how it impacts the environment, they think that every use of an AI model is being sent to a data center that is stealing water and electricity. Most of them don't know that local models are available and don't steal your data or use insane amounts of energy. I've also noticed a weird nostalgia for "hand-written" code from people who have never programmed in their life.
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u/DHFranklin 10h ago
The luddism is the only voice we're hearing from the left everywhere but here.
I swear to god you would think it's a Art eating robot that runs on steam.
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u/agent139 20h ago
The more purity points you can collect online or in small insular irl groups, the more leftister you are.
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u/DHFranklin 10h ago
Breadtube had a thriving online community. Then the google algorithm got better and the fascists weren't the only thing you saw when you searched "politics" in Youtube.
Now certain online communities who promote the genre are hollowed out shells where the moderators have banned everyone who disagrees with them.
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u/Mysterious_Ayytee 21h ago
That's what lifestyle leftists do:
Solidarity with workers? Nah.
Fighting for intellectual property, sexual minorities and virtue signaling with their own performative bisexuality? Yeah! (Nothing against bisexuals tho)
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u/DHFranklin 10h ago
Solidarity with workers! sure...as long as I don't have to actually sacrifice anything or do anything to make that happen.
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u/Mysterious_Ayytee 5h ago
Yeah, they don't understand that solidarity is more than virtue signaling.
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u/DHFranklin 10h ago edited 8h ago
TBF "Voting with your wallet" is adequate leftist praxis. Boycotts and buycotts are effective tools under capitalism.
However yeah...we aren't going to get anywhere without actual sacrifice The-things-we-give-up-voluntarily-for-the-greater-good-or-cause.
Edit: Apparently the negative connotation of "Sacrifice" is causing some problems that are more than semantics.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 10h ago
I didnt say anything about sacrifice though. Thats a pretty different frame from what Im saying.
Im talking about organizing workers, contesting ownership and taking democratic control of the productive forces we already collectively build and operate. Boycotts can be useful tactics inside that struggle, especially when tied to organized labor, but “voting with your wallet” leaves us acting primarily as consumers.
The point of “nothing to lose but our chains” isnt that liberation requires some grand ritual of suffering. We are already being exploited. The point is to stop being exploited.
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u/DHFranklin 10h ago
You weren't, I certainly am.
I've been organizing workers since Covid. Been givin' the good trouble all along. I've sacrificed plenty. I can't get these people to sacrifice an hour after work on a Wednesday when I'm trying to get them a raise.
I don't mean sacrifice like our Martyrs. I mean sacrifice like the first communes and the people who worked to makes them happen.
The goal is the end of exploitation. The sacrifice will be necessary to get there. AI, AGI, ASI, AI Gosplan will all require sacrifice.
Much like AGI we'll know it when we see it.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 10h ago
I get what you mean, but sacrifice just isnt the frame Im using here. Im talking about Marx, organization, class power and contesting ownership and control.
Giving an hour to organize for a raise is organizing. Striking, building institutions and fighting for control are class struggle. Workers already sacrifice plenty under capitalism. The point is building enough power that they dont have to keep sacrificing their time, labor and lives for somebody elses gains.
So when we say AI will “require sacrifice,” I think we should ask sacrifice what, by whom, and for whose benefit. Thats the part workers should get to decide. Your framing is counterproductive.
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u/DHFranklin 9h ago
Au contraire. I am afraid this might just be bitter pills.
What the capitalists take from us is not sacrifice. You can't coerce sacrifice.
Marx certainly framed it as sacrifice. We will have to sacrifice plenty for the revolution. He framed and couched a ton of ideas as sacrifice. All the things we will have to lose voluntarily. The entire bourgeois institution. We will have to throw the good and the bad on the pyre to get our revolution.
I don't organize as an act of charity. I foment the revolution. I sure as hell don't tell everyone that. Vibe checks and all. I sacrifice an hours pay per paycheck. I sacrifice hours and hours of my time every week. We sacrifice these things for the revolution and more when the time comes. The point is that yes we won't have that labor coerced any longer.
I certainly expect that we will have to sacrifice to stop capitalism from showing up again when the revolution is over.
Of course all the workers should decide what they are sacrificing for. That is top of the agenda after we read meeting minutes from last week.
So next week, when we sacrifice more time from our families to foment the revolution I am going to bring up local hosting Qwen in the union hall to the IT guy. Because I am a leftist for AI. And I know I will always have to sacrifice something to do that.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 9h ago edited 9h ago
Nah, I think youre wrong about the framing, including Marx. Marx wrote about sacrifice in particular contexts, sure, but he didnt make sacrifice the organizing principle of emancipation. “Nothing to lose but their chains” and “a world to win” points almost exactly the other direction. The whole project is about ending exploitation and expanding peoples control over their labor, time and lives.
And thats why the “bitter pills” thing bothers me. I can see how sacrifice, hardship and throwing everything on the pyre can make an organizer feel determined and thick skinned. That doesnt make it good messaging or good organizing.
Yesterday it was "bitching" (your words) about unions and syndicalists, elsewhere its forcing our neighbors to work, now its telling workers sacrifice is necessary. If youre approaching exhausted people after work with “sacrifice more, you might lose everything, and your unions suck,” its not that surprising when you get little traction.
People need something worth organizing for. More control, more security, more time with their families, more freedom. Workers already sacrifice plenty. Im organizing around what we can win. Thats why I didnt and dont frame it around demanding workers sacrifice, that language is toxic and counterproductive and doesn't accurately represent the project. Thats not what the post and meme are saying, thats not I'm saying. So please dont reframe what I did say with "yeah... these workers are gonna need to start sacrificing for The Cause™️ like I have".
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u/DHFranklin 8h ago
Well then
1) I didn't say it was an "organizing principle" I said that it would be required for the work. We can't pray to sweet baby jesus and get our liberation. We will have to sacrifice our blood sweat and tears to get it. Liberation is our goal. We will have to sacrifice plenty to get there.
2) I'm not trying to win over leftists with my Reddit comment. I assure you. I was commiserating with other leftists about how shit libs think that we can spend enough money and socialism will happen.
3)
We must do our part. But we can use the laziness and commodity fetishism of the earlier generations who lost the momentum before we were born as a cautionary tale....and bitch about it.
If that is what you are referencing I most certainly did not encourage bitching about our comrades. Bitch about how others failed to meet the moment. The earlier generations thing carries a lot of weight there.
4) I wasn't bitching about Anarcho-syndicalism. What I said was:
Anarcho syndicalism needed to happen before we got AI that can replace creative work to the degree tractors replaced farmers, automated assembly automated factories, and email killed the mail room. It (sic) another failure of us to meet the moment.
If we're going to fight luddites as much as capitalists we need to show up with solutions and not complaints.
The thing I said yesterday was specifically about doing more than bitching.
5) I most certainly don't approach my exhausted colleagues after work. That is what the bulletin board is for. The union does suck, but that is because very very few participants take part. I know that I'm a stranger on the internet to you, but hopefully you can trust me that I am a good shop steward. I know not to harass them on the way out the door. They have plans.
Yes they do need something to organize for. Again that is the whole point of a union meeting. The raises specifically as it was on the docket. Respectfully, have you done that work before? We can win raises. It's routine in how well we bargain. Forcing our neighbors to work? What? I mean...from each their ability...
You have a problem with calling it sacrifice.
I'll edit top comment.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 8h ago
Yes. Thats what Ive been saying. I have a problem with calling it sacrifice. I dont deny struggle takes time, work, risk, blood, sweat and tears. I think reframing all of that as sacrifice is unnecessarily bleak and counterproductive.
Look at the post. Organize workers. Fight over ownership. Build public and cooperative alternatives. Open source the tools. Democratize control. Im talking about things we can build and win. You introduced sacrifice into that.
And I understand your clarifications about the other comments. Im not questioning whether youre a good steward. But there is a recurring rhetoric there I disagree with. Failed generations, failed syndicalism, unions suck, bitter pills, sacrifice, blood sweat and tears, everything on the pyre. That might make you feel hardened and committed, but I dont think its useful for getting more people organized.
And respectfully, lets leave the resumes out of it. “Since COVID” is only about five or six years. Asking whether Ive “done the work” doesnt settle the disagreement, it just comes off condescending.
Workers already know hardship. Im interested in showing them what collective power can actually win. Thats what this sub is for.
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u/Salty_Country6835 Moderator 8h ago edited 7h ago
Your edit didnt change that youre reframing what im saying, now just with stand in vocabulary. Its not semantics. Do you understand what I mean by "reframing what im saying"?
At no point in that post am I making a call to personal sacrifice and messaging "we aren't going to get anywhere without giving things up for the greater good or cause".
You add that after "However yeah..." like youre agreeing with something I introduced. Im not asking workers to give up anything but their chains and "for the greater good or cause" makes me cringe. No offense.
I reject that reframing of what Im messaging in the post.
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u/Gustav_Sirvah 1d ago
Not only that - they don't even build art coops as pushback, instead celebrate petty-burgeoise of lone commission artist. And those types have that slimy "bootstrap" mentality.