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Gotta be right about everything 100% of the time
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this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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Chapotraphouse
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Inscribed on the tomb of Karl Marx is the quote "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it".
What does this quote mean? Many people have tried to predict the way that the world works. This is useless if the predicted outcome is not the outcome that you want. The point of understanding the world is to change the world to be the way that you want. If you cannot change the world, then being correct means nothing. Being correct is immaterial; it exists only in your headspace.
There is no benefit to cynical predictions. Nobody is impressed by cynicism. There is no reward. If anything, people will remember your cynicism and resent you for making them feel bad.
Not cynical, but the benefit to correctly predicting that a strategy will not work is that it enables you to pick different strategies. One day I'm hopeful that a large number of Americans will pursue a strategy other than voting for a social democrat running in the right-wing donkey party.
I think many of the people who criticize Mamdani are not happy to be right. Personally, I'd be glad to be wrong. But this is a socialist website. People have seen Bernie, and AOC, etc. Recognizing a pattern and recognizing the underlying reasons for that pattern doesn't make them cynics.
I wanted to address this specifically. Being correct is step zero in changing anything. You can't change the world effectively without interpreting it first. Marx interpreted the world constantly. The point isn't that there's no value in understanding the world, it's that understanding the world should be a basis for changing it.
GOOD comment. Marx wasn't saying "those ignorant philosophers wasted time analyzing." He was saying that they wasted their analysis by not following it with change (or, more likely, by not having change be the goal of the entire process of analysis)
How is it cynicism when people are only basing their negative opinions on objectively true, factual things that he has done/said that completely contradict the more radical platform he won his primary on?
How is it cynicism to understand how the government works and/or how the economy is run in NY and point out that based on not only class interests, but actual power structures and laws that exist that he cannot do the majority of what he promised anyway? People's criticisms are valid because they are based in reality.
Let's say you're the meteorologist and you say that it's going to rain tomorrow. Another meteorologist says that it's not going to rain tomorrow. Well it does rain tomorrow. Did you bring an umbrella? Will you share your umbrella with comrades? Is there a lecture attached to the umbrella? If it doesn't rain, will you still hold the umbrella?
Let's say Mamdani turns out to be a real piece of shit. Is this the outcome that you wanted? Did you prepare for that outcome? What are you doing to change future outcomes?
What if Mamdani isn't awful but only accomplishes 1 of this promises? Maybe he makes the buses free. What are you doing to change future outcomes?
If you predict that a train wreck is going to happen and then a train wreck happens. It doesn't really matter if you were right because the bad thing happened still. Did you want a train wreck to happen? The point is to stop a train wreck rather than to just predict the train wreck.
The point of understanding the world is to change the future, not just to predict the future. If you predict the future and it is not the outcome that benefits your materially reality, then you accomplished nothing.
If you predicted the trainwreck would happen (with an explanation of why it would, and examples of past trainwrecks) and people disagreed, then it happened, those same people might do well to pay attention next time you predict a train wreck.
This is a forum. We are commenting on current events.
I'm saying that you being correct doesn't matter if you don't change future outcomes. When you predict the second train wreck, will you have created a mechanism to stop it or are you going to write the draft for another "I told you so"? Are you going to form the "stopping train wrecks" coalition or do you expect other people in the scenario to form it spontaneously? If you are saying that you have to do more than just being right, then you are agreeing with what I wrote in my previous comments.
Going onto a web forum and saying "I told you so" is not a mechanism of changing future outcomes. It is only a mechanism for collecting upbears.
Yes, this is a forum where people discuss things and argue about things. The purpose of predicting things and then later reminding people that you did so would be to convince them your analysis has merit and they should look into it. This is not a revolutionary organization that is able to create "a mechanism to stop it". I'm not sure why you're telling people that being right online won't change the world, they know that. Being right online might change the minds of people who read your posts.
I agree with you that "I told you so" alone probably isn't productive for discussion. But "as I said before, because of XYZ, ABC" absolutely is.
@dead@hexbear.net the person you’ve replied to has left 27 comments on this post alone. Either they get a dopamine boost from the engagement they receive or they’re a troll.
Yes, I enjoy interacting with people on this website. Otherwise I probably wouldn't be doing it.
I think you just enjoy the dopamine boost from getting “upbears, it’s okay to be wrong sometimes.
A suggestion I would make is you would fair better if you put more of this energy doing things off the web than pointlessly commenting on a shitpost from a person you call a troll. Says a lot more about your character than it does me.
The first good point you've made to me in this thread is that interacting with you is pointless. And you know what, you kind of got me with that one.
here's how Bernie can still win