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@fuckwork i understand the desire to have a "more scientific" way to grapple with socio-political problems, but this is also a narrow conception of science. grappling with complex problems through logic and analysis is valid even if you can't create a falsifiable experiment. social sciences broadly fall under this category and tend to use statistical models and other tools to extract interesting features from historical data and try to draw conclusions from there. its a less "hard" method, but you can't experimentally verify the way cultures evolve over time or how international conflicts play out depending on different factors. there are too many variables and the events can't be repeated. it just comes with the territory.

imo one of the many issues with marx is his incomplete understanding of the periphery. his racist and frankly backwards conceptions about the world led him to be overly optimistic about his own people and disregard their relationship to colonization and empire. for example, the french commune failed to overthrow the ruling class and left much of their colonial empire intact. this lack of data is part of why ML fails to correctly predict the evolution of empire. some philosophers may see more clearly, but they are still blinded by the same system that blinds their kin.