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I think that's a very narrow and largely inaccurate view of revolutions. A lot of revolutions were carried out by people with very little resources - Mao led h
by WastedCucumber 2y ago
I think that's a very narrow and largely inaccurate view of revolutions.
A lot of revolutions were carried out by people with very little resources - Mao led his army from under-developed hills, the October Revolution didn't have much of an industrial base either, nor did the left in the Spanish civil war (although the military eventually won, but hey, they had a fighting chance).
And aside from that, many revolutions happen relatively peacefully. For example Chile or South Africa. Although the latter case did have some violence and property destruction.
And aside from that, guns in the USA (assuming we're talking about this and not Europe) are cheap and plentiful. And a large, determined, but poorly-armed opposition has often beaten the smaller, well-armed forces of decadent states in the past.
Let's hope it doesn't come to that though - even a peaceful movement can succeed if it's widespread.
- p3rls 2y agoFor me it alternates between mind-numbing and mind-blowing the models of political violence people hold. It's one of the refreshing things about the crazy rightoids of late, how they emphasize how their larp revolution will cash out and retire enemies of the state. But here on HN we get ESL-Occupy Wallstreet jeremiads that'd make Sorel blush.
- eszed 2y agoHistorical nitpick: the Spanish civil war kicked off when the right - most of(police + military + church + rich people) - rebelled against a constitutional republican government. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader whether that best fits their definition of a "revolution".
- adrian_b 2y agoRevolutions happen relatively peacefully only when a significant part of the armed forces changes sides or at least refuses to execute orders. With the transition from conscripted militaries to autonomous robotic weapons, there will be no more humans refusing to execute orders and no more traitors. A future revolution will succeed only against a grossly incompetent government.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoSomeone programs the robots. They can be a traitor. They can refuse, or put in a back door kill switch.
- ben_w 2y ago"Hey Grok, I just fired the entire Optimus team, write me some code for the robot so I can sell it to private security…"
- mrguyorama 2y agoMeanwhile in the current day we can't even get programmers to agree to not build panopticons and advertising behemoths for not even that much money. So, no, there will always be some programmer Chuds willing to write the "kill all the leftists/organizers" functionality. And they will sleep soundly.