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From The (In)Effective Altruism Diaries: The Case Of Centi-Millionaire Marxist
You possibly already heard about James Cox Chambers Jr.
He is character that would be laughed at and rejected outright in any creative writing class as crude, primitive and unfunny caricature of leftist written by hate filled right wing bigot.
And he is real.
Descendant of long line of distinguished WASP's. As close to hereditary aristocracy as you can get in today's world. Wikipedia article of your own is now what noble title used to be.
(Yes, pure Anglo Saxon ancestry, no documented Jewish ancestors, if you are looking for this thing, you can be disappointed)
Who is, since early age, dedicated Marxist devoted to fighting for revolutionary cause.
Now, his means are not negligible. 250M hard bourgeois bucks is nothing to sneer at.
Distinguished revolutionaries in the past used cash with great efficiency as weapon to hasten the demise of capitalist world.
Comrade Cox-Chambers is not one of them. In 30 years of struggle, he really achieved nothing much worth showing. The Berkshire Communists, The Berkshire People's Gym, The Butterfly Collective etc. are not up there with The Sealed Train.
Neither are Dakota pipeline protests or Cop City protests.
At least the Georgia commune members had some fun, while it lasted.
This shows once again weakness of premise of effective altruism and 80,000 hours movement that money alone is sufficient to change the world. It is not specific to communism/leftism, many cases of right wing money wasted in even more pointless way.
Now, if you are inclined to laugh at the outgroup, show how would you do better. Your homework, your hypothetical scenario for today is:
You are given 250M in USD.
Your mission is to promote COMMUNISM. Not some petty bourgeois hippy nonsense, but real, scientific and authentic Marx-Lenin-Stalin thought.
How would you get the greatest bang for the buck, how would you most efficiently use capitalist cash to bring forward glorious communist future?
Show your work. Best entries will be rewarded with eternal revolutionary glory and virtual Stalin Golden Prize.
I would pay the Mondragon people to consult on the creation of a parallel institution in America - basically, run a startup in some field related to national defense. Socialist left-wing SpaceX is a market niche that is begging to be filled: I'm sure that MIC dollars would be poured into a non-chud rocketry program even if it never produced a working rocket. Anyway, the point isn't to make a working rocket, but to spread Communism: and funding it off venture capitalist funding rounds and government subsidies sounds like a great grift to have. If we actually produce something of consequence, bonus!
This scheme is already in place in the Linux and Firefox foundations. (All credit to Lunduke.)
Nothing is stopping leftists from establishing some American equivalent of a kibbutz. Attempts at communes have been made, most failing for the standard reasons communism fails at scales larger than Dunbar's number: everyone wants to make lattes and write poetry, nobody wants to wake up at 0400 to milk cows, plow fields, and fix septic systems.
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