Those people are weirdos lol, not representative of the greater leftist currents across the world or even in the imperial core. Cults of personality and such.

I was taught Pythagorean theory in junior high. Science does that shit all the time.

Marx is to socialism what Newton is to physics. In order to understand what comes after, you still have to understand their works.

Yes, socialism has progressed. Our understanding of the nuiances of struggles and intersectional politics under colonial hegemony have expanded. Lenin provided a lot of expansion of Marx (specifically in the realm of colonialism and racism as a factor in capitalist opression) which is why a lot of people are Marxist-Leninists and not “orthodox” Marxist.

Beyond Lenin, many more have expressed their voices and explained their struggles against capitalism and how the base tenants of oppression outlined by Marx and Lenin manifest to them. Socialism is a living, organic movement that seeks to incorporate all struggles into itself and provide liberation to all, and no one person can understand the intricacies of every struggle.

So yes, it’s important to understand the teachings of past socialist figureheads, but in no way does socialism end with them.

It’s more like you’re not a true Marxist if you haven’t read Capital, which is kind of obviously true. You’re still a leftist, but a non-Marxist leftist.

No science in the world places such emphasis on a 150-year-old text, and rightly so.

No science is the same. What exactly is your issue here? Do you think that Marx is wrong? If he is right, then what’s wrong with emphasizing the foundational text of scientific socialism?