Opportunism is a real problem in every system, but you can stop it if you’re well organized. Ultimately I reject your framing because if we were all power hungry we’d be licking fascist boots, not talking to the powerless.

Problem is, you are not my colleague or my boss or similar people. You are someone I might not even end up interacting IRL. Most people will just ignore the people slowly amassing power because they tend to be discreet enough to not raise too many alarms and the same thing might look like just incompetence unless one is looking closely enough. Then there will be people who just find it easier to de-escalate situations, no matter what the outcome, that end up helping the malicious ones get out unscathed. Cover-ups follow. And the power-hungry will mostly be found in places of power. Whether you interact with them directly, depends upon where you end up working.

I feel like you’ve interacted with too many socialists online. That is not my irl experience at all. In fact, your last paragraph there does describe most irl socialists.

Except that they neither identify as socialists, nor do they care about the other’s *-ism. So you see, one neither needs to be any *-ist nor requires to accept all terms of any group, to be able to have +ive interactions with them. The only time that is required, is when it is an extremist group.

I think you’re way too hung up on labels. Why do you give a shit what somebody else calls themselves? Maybe you’ve just been meeting socialists that know you have a weird anti"-ism" thing, so they just don’t use that word and instead describe ideas to you (which is a fairly common tactic to take around somebody that is slightly unhinged). Nobody said everybody needs to be any kind of anything. There are lots of helpful people to socialist causes who don’t consider themselves to be socialists. That’s called critical support is is highly valued.

you’ve just been meeting socialists that know you have a weird anti"-ism" thing No. I have been meeting people who don’t even know about the word.

“Its 2026 and in my third week here on North Sentinel Island, I’ve discovered that, despite a century of a world super power using the word ‘socialist’ in the name of their country, somehow these people have never heard the word, ‘socialism’”. That’s how you sound. Once again, I don’t give a shit what people call themselves, so if they are good guys, they are on the same side as me, because that’s the side I’ve chosen? People claiming to be socialists but they’re not actually socialists, then they’re not socialists. That’s not a bad guy/good guy thing, that’s just how words work. Again, there are incredible people who have been vital to the socialist causes who would never call themselves socialist, and there are no problems with that. My problem is with you specifically. The label isn’t my agenda beyond just trying to get you to stop caring about what someone.calls themselves and start caring about what they do.

“Its 2026 and in my third week here on North Sentinel Island, I’ve discovered that, despite a century of a world super power using the word ‘socialist’ in the name of their country, somehow these people have never heard the word, ‘socialism’”. Well, some people just never learnt English