I haven’t heard the podcast for context but if he thinks “people aren’t willing to deal with the discomforts inconveniences and pain” of revolution, he’s only talking about a small handful of the people in this world. The white people in the imperial core.

Now not too long ago that handful of people had a disproportionately huge bearing on humanity’s prospects, so you couldn’t really fault anyone for ignoring everyone else in their evaluation. But that disproportionality is eroding, and it’s being accelerated as the world rejects the US.

So his statement about that specific set of ‘people’ may be true, but it increasingly doesn’t matter.

This is the take of a person living in a privilege bubble. The people who will make the revolution are already experiencing much worse than just “discomforts and inconveniences”. The revolution will be made first and foremost by those who have nothing to lose but their chains and a world to win.

Even in the case of white settlers in the imperial core. Conditions will worsen for enough of them for the plurality to see it in their own interest to do revolution rather than keep on carrying on with the capitalist bullshit. First, however the third world will get what they are owed in wages, then the rest shall fall into place.

Maybe crackers aren’t willing to deal with the discomfort.

When their material conditions get worse, they will be.

I am inclined to agree, but I believe it is more that we have been conditioned to tolerate the discomforts, inconveniences, and pain of capitalism.

I think it has less to do with not wanting to lose comforts as much as it has to do with hypernormalization, which you’d think Curtis would be familiar with since he made a fucking movie named… hypernormalization.

What Curtis I don’t think has discussed enough in regards to is is capitalism and psychology. The unfortunate truth is the best way to make a living as a psychologist in the West is to work for a private corporation making advertisements and/or propaganda, or working for a government making propaganda.

By and large, beyond the limitations of our technology that Curtis has covered in detail, the biggest way you normalize these things is with psychology. We have the smartest and most capable psychologists working against the common good for most people.

Even on a personal level, when you’re seeing a psychologist for mental health help for yourself, if you tell them about how stressed you are because you’re not making enough money, yet you’ve done “all the right things,” but you’re still struggling and it is weighing on you… Well they can’t prescribe “money” so they just shove antidepressants in your face, telling you “these will help.”

(Aside: undoubtedly, this isn’t meant to be some kind of take-down of modern psychology, many, many people need things like anti-depressants and anti-psychotics to function. I’m speaking almost exclusively about people who are mostly okay mentally, but their mental state is damaged by their poverty.)

In many ways, instead of addressing major problems, we teach people in our society to take drugs to avoid thinking about the major problems. We have psychologists using their training to promote advertisements or propaganda to make us question our own knowledge and how we feel about our own lives.

In past revolutions, the ruling class simply didn’t have access to this kind of knowledge of how humans and groups of humans function psychologically. Through this knowledge, there is a finer grained control over modern society than there has ever been.

How do we begin to fight the work of the people who know the most about how to exploit the human mind? I’m not sure there’s an easy way.

My two cents are that as someone from the imperialist core he probably just sees people who aren’t willing to deal with all that around him, because they don’t have a reason to. A big problem with revolutions there is that most of production is happening outside of those countries, where labor is a lot cheaper. As a result, most work in the service sector and shit, which is where people are very replaceable, so strikes are just monetary suicide, and those who work in domestic industry don’t have it bad enough to contemplate revolution.

That’s kinda why we need national liberation in places where most of production and mining are. Especially mining these days, because China accounts for a shitload of production and we can only hope CPC doesn’t stray from the path.

I mean I think the region being talked about matters a lot too. USA? Absolutely I agree, when it comes to the 3rd world? Historically speaking, usually the nation that is extremely exploited revolts. Russia and China were backwards and behind the times before their Revolutions. Cuba Laos and Vietnam were struggling under Imperialism before winning their revolutions, the 3rd world still has Revolutionary Potential

I think this is talking about an old chapo episode right after the trump election where they asked Curtis about change, if so his point is being completely misrepresented imo:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mlaPZ-xMPGY

Unless there’s been a new one and he’s gotten significantly more black pilled. Doesn’t help that the meme doesn’t mention the podcast ep or give a direct quote; you can post chairman mao quotes on pictures of Taylor Swift and liberals will share them

I agree with him at this present time, however revolutionary sentiments have always been low during periods of capital expansion. The revolutions of russia, china, and germany required decades of hardship, famines, wars, and humiliation in order to achieve liberation.

Revolution isn’t possible now, but to predict the capital crisis is rather simple really. Capitalism will reach a stage once again on the verge of imploding. The current boiling temperatures that the US economy is experiencing is reminiscing the 1920s, and I argue it’ll be even worse, since absolutism of capitalism flow into one country only, the US.

“Revolution is impossible, until it is possible”

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Keep this in mind.

Curtis has made some creative narratives in his documentaries that provide a sometimes useful and interesting way to present a critical perspective of history, for liberals who are becoming more radical it can be refreshing and thought-provoking. But the moment Curtis speaks about the left and historical/current examples of socialist projects, it is clear that he has anticommunist boomer baby-brainrot. His analysis of the Soviet Union, China, or even more amorphous left social movements is facile and often factually wrong.

It is clear he feels he knows all about socialism, but has never done the reading. After I became radicalized and started reading and organizing, revisiting his works is painful and irritating. Ultimately, it serves some of the very problems he poses in his critique, where he rejects an alternative to the system as it exists and forms a narrative that offers no solutions and only concludes with, “oh, dear!” He has nothing to offer the left, or working class people and the world generally, because he uses all of his creative energy to ultimately undermine the liberation of mankind.

Absolutely not. This is boomer talk. Idealistic rant without basis in reality.

Who is he talking about? Extremely privileged white upper middle class in core capitalist countries?

Because everyone else is living fucked up lives everyday and dealing with it. The working class deal with “discomforts and inconveniences” daily. What the fuck is this guy talking about?

Those people need to get out of their bubble and talk to working class people every now and then.

Right now, currently, yes. However there will come a point where the “inconvenience” caused by the exploitation of the working class becomes significantly greater than any suffering that comes with the transition period of a revolution.