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If anyone here is still perplexed as to why Marxism has historically been such a popular ideology, and remains such a popular ideology: this is why. This same fundamental desire will always continue to reemerge in various forms, as a natural biological response to suffering: the yearning to be freed of the burden of differentiated subjectivity, the transcendence of the individual/collective distinction, a suicide without death. The only difference between singulatarianism and Marxism is that today's transhumanists think the Soviets were too early; they jumped the gun, the necessary scientific advancements hadn't materialized yet. But the underlying impulse is the same.
Marxism originated because brutal working conditions of the proletariat in Western Europe during the Industrial Revolution combined with dense cities and mass media that enabled easy organizing of labor movements. It had little or nothing to do with "the burden of differentiated subjectivity, the transcendence of the individual/collective distinction, a suicide without death". Labor movements did attempt to abolish the individual/collective distinction but this was a tactic, it was not the emotional motivation of the movements. There are of course communists whose motivations are mainly psychological, and there always have been, but they are more common now than they used to be, for the simple reason that working conditions have improved to the point, and states' surveillance capacities have increased to the point, that workers are both much less motivated to revolt than before, and have less chance of success. One should not believe that Marxism as a historical phenomenon has been mainly motivated by some sort of singularitarian-esque drive. Certainly Marxists have always had their own utopian eschatology, but it has never been the core emotional driving force of the movement. If it was, then improved working conditions would not have taken the wind out of labor's sails nearly as much as they did. The core driving force behind Marxism, whenever and whereever it is a vital force and not just an intellectual plaything for bright outcasts, is material poverty.
The appeal to the plebs is really irrelevant. You can convince the urban proletariat of anything. The draw to the disaffected bourgeois and occasionally even upper classes is more interesting.
The appeal to the plebs is the decisive factor, since without massive emotional momentum for economic change among the plebs, the intellectuals would have just sat around cafes arguing like they do now, instead of leading actually vital, powerful leftist movements.
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Because I don't expect the technology to freeze at its current position is the reason why I want a suicide without death. It's the best I can hope for. The only other option is whiling away in my pod munching on the bugs, waiting for the MAID bots to come for me. But if we are all connected, even if my share is 10^-12, they might not euthanize me. I'm not cutting off my left hand, despite it being the left one.
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