My radicalization was as unremarkable as my lived experience, or lack thereof. I and my family all work for a living but we have been lucky to be reasonably comfortable. Gradually went down the leftist pipeline, first as a left-liberal, then demsoc, before I read Marx and realized that the obvious problems with society are not due to campaign finance or electoralism or individual bad actors.

So I’m in the awkward, probably common, position of being a leftist without any immediate “need” to be, outside of an awareness of the fragility of my own position. While I’m comfortable now, it would not take much to put me on the streets. This is further strengthened in interacting with leftists, befriending people who are genuinely screwed by capitalism, and hearing perspectives I have not lived.

I try hard to listen to others experiences, not to prioritize my experience above theirs which is common for Western leftists. It has been a process to hold my tongue, to realize that my initial idea of how things work is from a middle class perspective. The last few years especially have opened my eyes to significance of imperialism in propping up my Western standard of living, whereas before I was focused more exclusively on domestic exploitation.

One memory that sticks out to me is, I was reading some comment thread about like unemployment or something, and somebody wrote a comment that was something like the following:

“Republicans dream of a country where everyone is their own small business owner, but that’s literally impossible to achieve because then there wouldn’t be any workers. Capitalism needs workers.”

Suddenly a lot of things about the economy started to make more sense. I became a socialist not long after that.

I think it was an r/politics thread, strangely enough

Realizing capitalism is fundamentally incapable of even mitigating climate change. I’d rather we not all die in the water wars.

When I discovered that communism has and does work (i.e. learning about the achievements of USSR, China, Cuba, DPRK. Never hated any of these countries, I just knew nothing about them)

Pretty much always had the same values as I do now but I was extremely captured by capitalist realism and believed only through that system could anybody escape wage slavery

The overall feeling I had as a kid that our society is inherently unfair came to an explosion when I was 13 and became friends with someone from Gaza and learned about Palestinian oppression.

Growing up in a country destroyed by neoliberal shock therapy

I worked at a giant News Media conglomerate in 2014-16.

I can say with absolute certainty that the Bernie ratfucking was an actual conspiracy from things I heard from producers and on air reporters off camera. They also very much enjoyed Trump for the ratings.

I then worked min wage jobs to get into a new career and meeting working class people for really the first time in my life

Many things, but here’s one that’s fairly unique:

I was fixing some C-level executive’s email, and somehow wound up with that person’s email password. Since I didn’t get paid that much, I started snooping in their email to see that’s up. I focus on their sent email because people usually don’t pay attention to their sent box, but since people are usually replying to other people, I could still see the conversation that’s happening.

And what did I find? Absolutely terrible spelling and boomer ellipses for one. Like “r u serious…that was r biggest cleint.” level of misspelling. A complete cold disregard for the people who are actually doing the fucking work. So many emails of them rejecting someone asking for a raise. I also got payroll records and that pissed me off. Seeing the owner give himself a Christmas bonus that was more than double my annual salary plus my Christmas bonus pissed me off. Every C-level asshole acted like a big baby and are constantly having emotional meltdowns and temper tantrums. That really burst my bubble of capitalists somehow deserving their spot because of their genius compared to us unwashed workers who should know our place and grovel at their feet.

Childhood, being raised by a single mother

Can’t say I ever had faith in capitalism. Started listening to anti-capitalist punk music when I was fairly young and was like “yeah that makes sense to me”.

But I guess my best answer is seeing homeless people living in tents on the streets of San Francisco, probably before I even knew of the word “capitalism”. I didn’t know how the world worked but I knew however it worked wasn’t the right way.

Before depression kicked my ass outta school, I was an ecology major

The answer is naturally “lots of little things”, but I would like to mention in particular:

• Norwegian e-waste in Agbogbloshie, and other failings relating to the global south and the environment
• The shutdown of Google+ and other grievances with Silicon Valley
• The Christchurch mosque shootings and their context and response
• COVID-19, what made it worse, and its potential for societal change
• Being trans and autistic, having an autistic brother, and a widowed immigrant mother
• My dad’s death itself
• The faltering of our support network in Norway, the health system etc of Minnesota
• The state of Leech Lake reservation
• The fall of Norwegian culture in Minnesota

Not all of these were necessarily major factors, but some of these I think are more unique grievances.

When I realized how expensive a medical emergency would be while I was working an unpaid internship.

Not being able to hold down a job because of mental illness and depression but not being able to get any kind of assistance because I didn’t have a medical history or a doctor to confirm I had any problems but not being able to see any doctors because I couldn’t afford one since I could hardly hold down a job. Having to pick between being homeless or having to live in abusive situations and was constantly having suicidal thoughts. Covid was the best thing that ever happened to me because that two grand got me a shitty car and I milked the rent relief they had in my state for as long as I could until I found a job that doesn’t immediately make me want to die. Also I’m pathetically allergic to work and I hate nap times.

I have faith the damn thing is writing it’s own slow gradual ending and I’m gonna do my best to make it work double time.

Doctor Stone says: Der Antz colony is run by all der Antz not just the queen.