its not so much that I got jaded, as much as I've seen so many ways people end up squandering their efforts due to intractable internal political strife. in every field I've peeked into.
and mostly I just want people to know that those particular efforts failed for similar reasons to what they're currently doing.
the world sure is fucked up and so much of it feels like no one learned anything, actually, from school and university and you often have to start from 0 on a lot of concepts they've just been cargo culting because that's all school taught them to do.
Which isn't their fault -- in the US, strategic defunding and strategic over-testing means that you don't learn much on the critical thinking for yourself side. Or the 'you're going to have to continually learn even after university'. So family and community and religion can take advantage of the gaps. Which is what we see in the US extreme-right evangelical cults.
i don't have many solutions but an important thing to realize is most people aren't "playing dumb", they really do not know, and also were never taught how to find out. There's a lot of work ahead of us and very little of it is posturing. I wish more people would get that instead of going "its capitalism" to every post when all their followers already know. I wish more people would get that instead of training with their rifles. I wish more people would get that instead of doing more infighting around those misunderstandings than realizing you can't help there and need to be elsewhere. Because the left isn't where your efforts, as a leftist, have to lie. They're already over the rubicon, it's your job to help the rest get there. And even if they don't, your job is to help 'em. Whatever forms that takes. Even if indirectly.
Completely incomprehensible neo-kautskyite politics? just leave, you won't get through to them and they'll do everything in their power to gain power. If you don't give them a foil they have less platform and will be laughed at once people realize they're constantly contradicting themselves. Go find ways you can help around you that aren't meetings that lead nowhere, or group DMs that lead even less far. Most people aren't on t'internet in places they'll see your flare lit in a dense forest.
the vibes are rancid and have been since before 2017.
postscript: The problem with everywhere is it's incredibly hard to be an informed voter, because the sources that are most trustworthy still constantly play an angle that factions that want power will align themselves to. Because those are the concepts most are likely to know, even if they're weirdly contradictory.
