#121
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babyfinland posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:
After reading this thread and the nationalism thread I realize rhizzone is the only fascist forum in the entire world. Anti-capitalist, anti-rationalist, more Hegelian than Marxist, we're bringing back Gentile, Schmitt, Sorel, Evola who have been lost in the liberal slander of fascism and communism as the same thing. I respect fascism as a serious ideology that must be fought by genuine Marxists at a theoretical level instead of stupid shit like street gangs beating each other up or calling everyone a fascist. Much more interesting than debating liberalism which is mostly incoherent or "conservativism" which is doesn't even pretend to be coherent.

sorel, schmitt and evola were all anti-fascist



you could say they were against "actually existing fascism"

#122
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there is no new atheism. it's the same old atheism that's existed since the beginning of modernity.
#123
[account deactivated]
#124
tardy on these heaters
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gruntstein posted:

babyfinland posted:

BehemothTheKatte posted:

deadken posted:
BehemothTheKatte posted:
nope it's really simply.

if you value piety above all else you will start interjecting the decrees of your mythological thinking upon physical reality which might cause difficulties down the road.


interjecting mythological thinking on physical reality is all human beings have been doing since we first worked out how to daub pigment onto rocks to look like animals. Welcome To The Desert Of The Symbolic

yes and what "we" call "progress" is moving past our subjectiveness and accepting common terms for human interaction based on the Universal Experience, i.e through Empiricism and Positivism.

No one is as hopeful and full of faith as the self professed Positivist.

empiricism and positivism are immense failures lol

also theyre responsible for the holocaust just sayin

empiricism is the basis behind every advance in thinking or technology, ie most of the total ever, in the last three centuries.



the last three centuries: Great Success

#125
tardy on these heaters
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babyhueypnewton posted:

babyfinland posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:
After reading this thread and the nationalism thread I realize rhizzone is the only fascist forum in the entire world. Anti-capitalist, anti-rationalist, more Hegelian than Marxist, we're bringing back Gentile, Schmitt, Sorel, Evola who have been lost in the liberal slander of fascism and communism as the same thing. I respect fascism as a serious ideology that must be fought by genuine Marxists at a theoretical level instead of stupid shit like street gangs beating each other up or calling everyone a fascist. Much more interesting than debating liberalism which is mostly incoherent or "conservativism" which is doesn't even pretend to be coherent.

sorel, schmitt and evola were all anti-fascist

you could say they were against "actually existing fascism"



eh i don't think that's really fair. i see your point but i don't think it's very useful to reject each of those thinkers wholecloth. each of them had important things to say. evola maybe not so much but still

#126
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tpaine posted:

babyfinland posted:

thirdplace posted:
i think intellectuals/atheists seriously underestimate just how much powerful people can swoon for kooky mysticism, let alone vanilla religion. look at greek orgs/masonry (and if you don't think a large number of rich old fuckers don't take that shit very very seriously i don't blame you but you're still wrong)

intelligence and rationality have nothing to do with obtaining power in most structures (certainly not american politics). it's all about drive, motivation, and charisma, all of which can exist very comfortably with any manner of spirituality

they make this underestimation because it is applicable to themselves, and like all rationalist-positivists they assume everyone shares exactly their own subjectivity. these sorts of beliefs lie on a mountain of articles of faith but they are mystified by hand-wavey arguments and mythologies about science and such

this is really nihilistic.



islam is pretty hardcore bro

#127
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Lessons posted:
there is no new atheism. it's the same old atheism that's existed since the beginning of modernity.



agreed, it is the bourgeois naivete of nouveau riche imperialist

#128
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WOAH, this thread is really serious. o_o
#129
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babyfinland posted:
the last three centuries: Great Success



in terms of science, technology and knowledge more generally, yes, indisputably, and nobody cares if some lunatic on the internet thinks they were responsible for Hitler

Edited by Lessons ()

#130
tardy on these heaters
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Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
the last three centuries: Great Success

in terms of science, technology and knowledge more generally, yes, indisputably, and nobody cares if some lunatic on the internet thinks they caused Hitler



in terms of good things yes its good. if you ignore bad things then you will see nothing is bad about the way i negotiate the world.

#131
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babyfinland posted:
Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
the last three centuries: Great Success

in terms of science, technology and knowledge more generally, yes, indisputably, and nobody cares if some lunatic on the internet thinks they caused Hitler

in terms of good things yes its good. if you ignore bad things then you will see nothing is bad about the way i negotiate the world.


the point is that it's not convincing, or at least not any more convincing than me trying to discredit Islam by saying it Was Responsible For Tamerlane (arguably a more reasonable proposition since teh fascists were exactly the people telling us we needed to get rid of all this rationalist academic nonsense)

Edited by Lessons ()

#132
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Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
the last three centuries: Great Success

in terms of science, technology and knowledge more generally, yes, indisputably, and nobody cares if some lunatic on the internet thinks they caused Hitler

in terms of good things yes its good. if you ignore bad things then you will see nothing is bad about the way i negotiate the world.

the point is that it's not convincing, or at least not any more convincing than me trying to discredit Islam by saying it Caused Tamerlane (arguably a more reasonable proposition since teh fascists were exactly the people telling us we needed to get rid of all this rationalist academic nonsense)



im not arguing that atheism causes holocausts, but that it doesnt prevent them. ideas are not magical wards against evil.

this is extremely tedious and stupid so im gonna bow out. im happy to continue the conversation with baby huey tho

#133
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thats literally what you said.
#134
tardy on these heaters
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Lessons posted:
thats literally what you said.



bleep blorp

responsibility is not causality

#135
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edited for semantiks krew
#136
tardy on these heaters
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i dont understand how you can argue that empiricism and rationalism, as the privileged doctrines of intellectual institutions of the time, are responsible for the scientific and technological production of the recent past but not the biopolitical production

Edited by babyfinland ()

#137
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babyfinland posted:
i dont understand how you can argue that empiricism and rationalism, as the privileged doctrines of intellectual institutions of the time, are responsible for the scientific and technological production of the recent past but not the bioproduction



if you mean empiricism and rationalism as formalized philosophies, along with latter-day logical positivism and analytic philosophy, i wouldn't disagree. those didn't have much of a direct effect on anything. but if you mean the larger scientific tradition of empirical study, skepticism and the critical approach to knowledge that these were distilled from, i don't understand how you can argue otherwise. in any case weren't you just reminding us that we have to acknowledge both the good and bad consequences of these things?

#138
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Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
i dont understand how you can argue that empiricism and rationalism, as the privileged doctrines of intellectual institutions of the time, are responsible for the scientific and technological production of the recent past but not the bioproduction

if you mean empiricism and rationalism as formalized philosophies, along with latter-day logical positivism and analytic philosophy, i wouldn't disagree. those didn't have much of a direct effect on anything. but if you mean the larger scientific tradition of empirical study, skepticism and the critical approach to knowledge that these were distilled from, i don't understand how you can argue otherwise. in any case weren't you just reminding us that we have to acknowledge both the good and bad consequences of these things?



the tradition of science / natural knowledge (what you call "empirical study, skepticism and the critical approach to knowledge") is categorically distinct from philosophies of empiricism and rationalism et al, and even furhter distinct from atheism. i.e. from a historical perspective, empiricism and rationalism are schools of dogma, and atheism belongs to the tradition of mysticism. i intend no negative connotations to these terms whatsoever. practically every school of dogma has participated in scientific production at some point, and scientific production probably depends upon a school of dogma for intelligibility. mysticism (religious and irreligious both) and the study of the natural world intersect quite often (to the point that you might argue that they are interdependent as well), but you can't really fold one into the other and produce a coherent history of science / natural knowledge imo. you need to make distinct the doctrinal context, the participants' truth-mysticism and the scientific production itself without conflating the elements in order to make sense of any given period. so in the modern period we might say empiricism and rationalism form the philosophical doctrines that provide context, the participants adhere to atheistic truths and the scientific production includes Xbox 360, white phosphorus and holocaust.

#139
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i can't help but notice you're leaving method out of this equation entirely and assuming scientific production directly as a product of scientific doctrine, probably so you don't have to admit modern and enlightenment scientific methods are far more prolific and revolutionary, (respectively), compared to classical methods and move on to the more important business of telling us atheism is a religion too and rationalism caused is responsible for the holocaust.
#140
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no i dont, like many contemporary scholars, subscribe to those notions. colonialism is a much better causal factor for the prolific scientific production of the period than enlightenment thought being magical

as Revolutionary Communist i'm sure you appreciate the privileging of counter-hegemonic truth over regurgitating establishment mythology

anyways, method lies somewhere between production and mysticism. there's no reason to assume that our specific scientific modality is more prolific for essentialist reasons when there is far more obvious material factors that prove influential

Edited by babyfinland ()

#141
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babyfinland posted:
no i dont, like many contemporary scholars, subscribe to those notions. colonialism is a much better causal factor for the prolific scientific production of the period than enlightenment thought being magical

as Revolutionary Communist i'm sure you appreciate the privileging of counter-hegemonic truth over regurgitating establishment mythology

anyways, method lies somewhere between production and mysticism. there's no reason to assume that our specific scientific modality is more prolific for essentialist reasons when there is far more obvious material factors that prove influential


this all boils down to 'method isn't important' which is prima facie false. you don't just do whatever and get equal results in science and you'd have to be a moron to believe so. you're making a show of being broad-minded and considering a broad range of factors but conveniently ignoring those that run counter to the conclusion you want to draw, that is, obscurantism Ftw.

#142
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no i dont think so mr lessons. refuting an attribution of magical powers to atheist belief is not the same as rejecting the scientific method or recognition of its development. you seem to want to say that the scientific method fell out of the sky once some italians flipped the bird at the pope and then they became science lords on the back of their revelation. this is absurd. modern scientific production was spurred by colonial accumulation. for a marxist you seem very hesitant to employ historical materialism.

Edited by babyfinland ()

#143
Kurdt
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Lessons posted:
this all boils down to 'method isn't important' which is prima facie false. you don't just do whatever and get equal results in science and you'd have to be a moron to believe so.


#144
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babyfinland posted:
no i dont think so mr lessons. refuting an attribution of magical powers to atheist belief is not the same as rejecting the scientific method or recognition of its development. you seem to want to say that the scientific method fell out of the sky once some italians flipped the bird at the pope and then they became science lords on the back of their revelation. this is absurd


well, none the less, you did just that, in addition to whatever straw people you might have knocked down. now apparently you don't believe that? it's very difficult to discuss anything when you're all over the page like this. in any case no, of course it didn't fall out of the sky, but it wasn't successful purely because of colonialism either (though that surely didn't hurt).

#145
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gyrofry posted:


i've never read fereyabend but my understanding isn't that he thinks method is unimportant but rather that he opposes the imposition of a hegemonic scientific method. whether i agree or disagree with him i'm not sure, since i don't know enough about it. though even a 'positivist' like Popper doesn't think experimental science is the only path to knowledge, just the best.

Edited by Lessons ()

#146
Mike Nelson here.
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i skimmed part of this thread and i'm pleased to see baby finland arguing for nihilism. he doesn't use that term but he believes in nothing and its beautiful.
#147
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Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
no i dont think so mr lessons. refuting an attribution of magical powers to atheist belief is not the same as rejecting the scientific method or recognition of its development. you seem to want to say that the scientific method fell out of the sky once some italians flipped the bird at the pope and then they became science lords on the back of their revelation. this is absurd

well, none the less, you did just that, in addition to whatever straw people you might have knocked down. now apparently you don't believe that? it's very difficult to discuss anything when you're all over the page like this. in any case no, of course it didn't fall out of the sky, but it wasn't successful purely because of colonialism either (though that surely didn't hurt).



no im not doign what youre saying im doing actually, and im not "all over the place". me having to reject your mischaracterizations does not mean that i am "all over the place", it means you are flailing about and desperately avoiding engaging the argument by throwing ad hominems and strawmen as much as you can. i have made no rejection of method, ive just proposed a model that does not monopolize method as the be-all and end-all. that classical narrative clearly privileges the negative articles of faith in atheism, empiricism, rationalism, et c. as they are derived from transplantation of the principles of the method. it follows from this that the institutionalization of such things as in bourgeois political economy and its historical projects (colonialism, capitalism) are glorified by this narrative. it was not colonialism that elevated the west to imperialist ruler, it was the revelations of the scientific revolution, by coincidence! the divine intervention of chance, thats all. there's a number of problems with this narrative that are obfuscated by claims of scientific and philosophical "revolutions", the "decline" of science in other civilizations where colonialism and capitalism did not develop and it asserts instead the supremacy of western culture as such, particularly devoid of any positive moral bounds on power that would prevent the accumulation of capital that are to be regarded as backwards, antiscientific, antirationalist, etc

maybe you should re-read your mao, maoist

#148
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getfiscal posted:
i skimmed part of this thread and i'm pleased to see baby finland arguing for nihilism. he doesn't use that term but he believes in nothing and its beautiful.



thanks

#149
Kurdt
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getfiscal posted:
i skimmed part of this thread and i'm pleased to see baby finland arguing for nihilism. he doesn't use that term but he believes in nothing and its beautiful.

that must be exhausting

#150
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In my last year of college, it was announced that Derrida was coming to campus to give a talk. It was in 2000 or 2001, I think. I knew he was a philosopher, but I didn't know he was still alive; I probably would have guessed he was one of those old Enlightenment philosophers. Anyway, I went to the talk, and it was standing-room only. The aisles were packed, people were sitting on the floor, and people were hanging out the entrance doors. A real-life, big-name philosopher! The fire marshall would not have been pleased. I expected some postmodern B.S., but I also thought this was a good opportunity to try and glean something insightful from it.

I was disappointed, to say the least. After a minute or two (that's all it took) the talk was totally incomprehensible. Now, I'd also been to a similar physics lecture with a physics grad student I was dating, and I didn't understand that either. But at least the physics lecturer used language intelligibly. Derrida just played word games: He would talk about the various meanings of one word, which led to defining one of those meanings, which led to "exploring" the web of meanings for another word, peppering it all with bizarre "isms."

After maybe twenty minutes (maybe more, I don't really remember), I just couldn't stand it anymore. I squeezed past the people in the aisles and the people hanging out the door, bitterly disappointed that I lived in a world where no adults seemed to even be interested in intelligibility or in life's important questions. Outside the doors, I spotted a classmate and we talked about the nonsense that today passes as philosophy. We were at least able to confirm for each other that some sanity was left in the world, but a few students standing against the whole of academia aren't going to feel very secure about their independent findings. Thankfully I had already discovered Ayn Rand's writings, which are a model of clarity, and met some other Rand fans I could philosophize with.

I fucking hate postmodernism. It's a totally inexcusable breach of rationality, of character, of the trust that students have that their teachers can point the way toward meaningful answers to humanity's deepest questions. Postmodernists are frauds, pure and simple. Any merit that it may actually have is apparently buried so deep in bullshit that only the tenured have the time and inclination to wade through it. Meanwhile, legions of students are being taught every year that life is meaningless and incomprehensible, and any desire to make sense of it all is a sign of intellectual immaturity, something that college should help them grow out of.

Sorry for the length. I'm pretty bitter about the subject, to say the least.
#151
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babyfinland posted:
no im not doign what youre saying im doing actually, and im not "all over the place". me having to reject your mischaracterizations does not mean that i am "all over the place", it means you are flailing about and desperately avoiding engaging the argument by throwing ad hominems and strawmen as much as you can. i have made no rejection of method, ive just proposed a model that does not monopolize method as the be-all and end-all. that classical narrative clearly privileges the negative articles of faith in atheism, empiricism, rationalism, et c. as they are derived from transplantation of the principles of the method. it follows from this that the institutionalization of such things as in bourgeois political economy and its historical projects (colonialism, capitalism) are glorified by this narrative. it was not colonialism that elevated the west to imperialist ruler, it was the revelations of the scientific revolution, by coincidence! the divine intervention of chance, thats all. there's a number of problems with this narrative that are obfuscated by claims of scientific and philosophical "revolutions", the "decline" of science in other civilizations where colonialism and capitalism did not develop and it asserts instead the supremacy of western culture as such, particularly devoid of any positive moral bounds on power that would prevent the accumulation of capital that are to be regarded as backwards, antiscientific, antirationalist, etc

maybe you should re-read your mao, maoist



if we're just going to accuse each other of strawmannery and write longwinded repetitions of things we've already said like this then there's no point here. i don't have any problem with socio-political explanations for the scientific revolution, just ones that leave no room for method, declare any claims of methodological superiority to be 'essentialist', and propose a reductionist schema such as: "In science, first you get the colonies, then you the atheism, then you get the Holocaust."

#152
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there was no scientific revolution

also if youre goign to continue to strawman me harder than anyone ever in thte history of noobery then im going to keep calling you out, ya dumb mook

youre still unable to detach the development of capitalism from the development of science, whats it like being a huge racist
#153
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babyfinland posted:
there was no scientific revolution


a trenchant observation. tell me did you come up on this whilst contemplating the hadith, or wert thou devouring descartes?

#154
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your penis look like pulled pork
#155
[account deactivated]
#156
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babyfinland posted:
your penis look like pulled pork


the only penis i see here is you, friend. as the prophet said, be modest.

#157
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how does it feel to be owned on your own turf by someone who believes in angels








<---------- thats me all like going ham on your shit
#158
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babyfinland posted:
how does it feel to be owned on your own turf by someone who believes in angels








<---------- thats me all like going ham on your shit


the difference is i'm not aiming for easy targets

#159
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Lessons posted:

babyfinland posted:
how does it feel to be owned on your own turf by someone who believes in angels








<---------- thats me all like going ham on your shit

the difference is i'm not aiming for easy targets



ok i will go easy on you from now on then. your humility is touching.

have you heard of the continuity thesis

#160
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babyfinland posted:

empiricism is the basis behind every advance in thinking or technology, ie most of the total ever, in the last three centuries.

the last three centuries: Great Success



We've developed virtually everything we know in every field of science from physics to biology to sociology to astronomy, we've developed medicine that actually works, destroyed polio and smallpox, which killed half a billion people in just the 20th century, tripled the human population and increased standard of living, developed feminism, Marxism, implemented popular democracy, developed historically unprecedented opposition to slavery, toppled the royals, and the horrors of the 20th century are negligible compared to those regularly committed in the centuries prior

Edited by gruntstein ()