#41
Post rating: +
just a heads up that the future of agriculture is not fully automated self driving combines but millions of labour parasites dispersed throughout the global south to shovel animal shit

e: JDPON snipe
#42
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
they were very concerned about what people in the United States and Norway and so on would think about communism. like i asked what if hypothetically they had to confront head-on an irrefutable conclusion that limited resources meant reduced luxury items for the first world in the foreseeable future and one of them said it would require rethinking whether communism was ethically sound according to utilitarian ethics (Alarm.gif) and the other said that it wasn't worth thinking about because "no one" wanted that. and it's like folks, people in those countries already don't like communism.
#43
Post rating: +

cars posted:

they were very concerned about what people in the United States and Norway and so on would think about communism. like i asked what if hypothetically they had to confront head-on an irrefutable conclusion that limited resources meant reduced luxury items for the first world in the foreseeable future and one of them said it would require rethinking whether communism was ethically sound according to utilitarian ethics (Alarm.gif) and the other said that it wasn't worth thinking about because "no one" wanted that. and it's like folks, people in those countries already don't like communism.



No, John. You are the utility monsters.

#44
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
if anyone can point me toward someone i could ask who has approached these ideas in a system-style way i would appreciate it. i feel like i was not necessarily talking to the sharpest tools in the cyber shed, i mean they seemed to be plenty smart but not about communism really.
#45
Post rating: +++++

cars posted:

one can hope. iirc too they presented it as collectively authored too but a bunch of people assumed Frost wrote it. I haven't read enough of what she writes to know why, i have just read her advice column which is hit or miss like those always are.


Ah, that's why I couldn't find it--it's not her byline. She does talk about the same issues under her own name and it was presented to me as her article, so I just assumed it was. Anyway, I'm just amazed by how little imagination most of these luxury communism people have--they don't even try to think about what a classless future might look like.

The entire purpose of luxury goods is to signal class--in many cases, the goods themselves are actually inferior, their only advantage being that they require wealth or elite tastes to obtain. Working from that premise, the idea that the end of hierarchy means conspicuous consumption for everyone fundamentally misses the point. If you long for the artifacts of a profoundly hierarchical capitalist society, you're not going to do better than capitalism (and I have to think that many of these people will pivot rather sharply when they realize this).

The tableau presented in that article--with a mansion full of future communists larping as aristocrats and servants--reminds me of the laziest, shittiest sci-fi, where there are lasers and spaceships but society is inexplicably exactly the same. It's like someone within feudalism tried to imagine the future, and decided capitalism would be a giant Medieval Times franchise where people mindlessly reproduced the affectations of feudalism within a capitalist framework, despite the fact that the economic structures that underpinned those social relations had long since withered.

I think it's a point well taken that you have to present an optimistic view of the future rather than dour asceticism, but it has to be one that demonstrates how the end of class reshapes lives, relationships, and communities in a positive way, and allows people to thrive without unsustainable resource use. None of these people seem remotely up to that task.

#46
Post rating: ~

kruki posted:

i appreciate the revleft bordiga memes

you appreciate revleft? shit I thought I was bad

glomper_stomper posted:

cars posted:

the whole cluster of NYC demsoc online intellectuals seems desperately, collectively terrified it will be found out as something bad. what exactly beyond their already fully public lives as yuppies, i don't know, but they're prematurely hyper-defensive about it in their public presence in a queasy kind of way. it's like they mix up authenticity and proletarian identity and are suppressing self-loathing, or they think that everyone else mixes up the two and they're the last defenders of the distinction and thus of their own existence under a later socialist system, or something. i don't know really, i have been trying lately not just to assume they are bad faith opportunists.

this is a problem i've run into a few times. part of it is bad-faith opportunism but it's also that they've been taught to regard all ideology even an inch to the left of US imperialism as both totally authentic and a value-judgment. rather than seeing a corrective to bourgeois ideology, in the interest of the solidarity, honesty, and criticism/self-criticism among comrades, they see an inherent affront to their personalities and their relation to class society, which they must subordinate to. they believe that the ideas and actions of oppressed and exploited people, irrespective of their correctness, ought to be held to a standard above and beyond the "privileged".

through this process, you get a number of demagogues from the jacobin mill suddenly crying about how "identity politics" is alienating the white working class (!!!) and all that strasserite garbage. the fact is it has to do with class/national/gender "positions" only indirectly, and the general problem persists only insofar as they're resistant to taking criticism, making criticisms and self-criticisms, and correcting their fucking mistakes in practice.

This is why I care far more about how someone comes to reach their conclusions than about what their conclusions they've reached so far are. Of course that depends on how shitty they are, but you know, socdems &c are already out on this count regardless. In order to actually do revolutiony things one needs to be able to come up with new outlooks by applying ones analysis to new issues as they crop up. If a group of activists (ie, people who use telegram) cannot go off to analyze a new development and reach the same conclusions on their own, there's no way in hell that they can function coherently against the order-giving of the bourgeois hierarchy.

#47
Post rating: ~

tears posted:

just a heads up that the future of agriculture is not fully automated self driving combines but millions of labour parasites dispersed throughout the global south to shovel animal shit

e: JDPON snipe



They're gonna shovel your posts?

#48
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
i have kind of noticed that "this will anger the white working class" has become in certain cases code for "this angers me, a petit-bourgeois Internet irony liker" and it's striking because the person using "white working class" as political cover is often enough neither working class nor white, and from my perspective they're turning this '70s TV sitcom idea of the Rust Belt into a category of "identity" in the sense of identity politics and then treating themselves as Teamsterkin. it's like the Maoists who accidentally became liberal trade union stewards in the years following the U.S. cop crackdown on the New Left but the whole process is taking place inside their heads before they sit down to write an article in defense of their assumed identity.
#49
[account deactivated]
#50
Post rating: ~
wait is the full space luxury thing an actual ideology or is it just an internet way of pointing out communism doesn't necessarily mean austerity and rationed vodka?
#51
Post rating: ~

janefondafanclub posted:

wait is the full space luxury thing an actual ideology or is it just an internet way of pointing out communism doesn't necessarily mean austerity and rationed vodka?

it means basically communism will be like that scene with all those fat people in wall-e

#52
Kurdt
Post rating: ~
readthorsteinveblen.cx
#53
[account deactivated]
#54
[account deactivated]
#55
YUNG JIRO AKA SHOWA STUNNA AKA
Post rating: +
Marx didn't predict the growth of the robot class
#56
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
i met some of the neoyorkisant DSA-orbit types and they are smart and nice, and not a homogeneous bloc. i agree with forum policy that we should never be charitable towards people we don't know well, but most of them will deserve to survive for weeks, maybe months, after the revolution. my sense is that none of them have studied stalin's 'foundations of leninism', so yes, we shouldn't take them seriously as stalinists. but, hell, maybe we should take them seriously, as people.
#57
[account deactivated]
#58
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +

getfiscal posted:

i met some of the neoyorkisant DSA-orbit types and they are smart and nice, and not a homogeneous bloc. i agree with forum policy that we should never be charitable towards people we don't know well, but most of them will deserve to survive for weeks, maybe months, after the revolution. my sense is that none of them have studied stalin's 'foundations of leninism', so yes, we shouldn't take them seriously as stalinists. but, hell, maybe we should take them seriously, as people.



sure, all i can talk about is aspects of their public presence and how i don't know their motivations because i don't know them. you do, kind of, so you can tell them to get it together, and so on, while cracking jokes based on the ubiquity of slander against stalin's government, which lead us to remember that we are humble sons and daughters of the offsite. we're all counting on you.

#59
Mike Nelson here.
Post rating: +
I don't have his strength. I can only do so much. The weight feels immense, Tomlike.
#60
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
jokes aside... i don't think DSA people in NYC are bad people just because i think some of the opinions fostered among that set are bad. assuming bad faith and cynicism in general has been a very bad habit of mine and i mentioned i'm trying to break it. personal relationships always matter. a couple of my buddies are people who feel a little under siege sometimes by Jacobin and the platform of DSA and so on because the people i know consider themselves socialists and have their own connections to targets of U.S. imperialism. they perceive the writing of some people in the demsoc media circle as scoffing at their concerns and doing it in ways that attack their allies as kooks instead of recognizing their own existence and their cause, and consider others around those writers to be enabling that with silence, and they recognize that many of their peers in the united states are turning toward the left and seeing some of these people and their publications as the public face of "socialism" as a term. they feel justified in saying very harsh things about these writers and their opinions have rubbed off on me, which maybe isn't the best way to acquire opinions. i feel loyal to the people i know and like because they are they people i know and like.

the reason i talk about the young new demsoc opinion makers even though i don't know them is because they are, some of them, what currently passes for prominent public figures for young people on the left, something that is good to have in general. i'm not and probably never will be, which is sometimes a nice place to be, like, they'll probably never wonder about the motives behind my rude 'tude on a public forum frequented by up to ten or more people daily.
#61
Kurdt
Post rating: +
actually the rhizzone is extremely influential
#62
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
of course, just not me. i'm at best a mid-effort short colonel in the posting corps and was selected as moderator only due to state of emergency. i know i've given sam kriss a few things to think about concerning a very tall building in saudi arabia though and i'm content with that as we all proceed toward our future positions as unironic maoists (third worldist).
#63
Post rating: ~

MarxistLeninistMcRibist posted:

They're gonna shovel your posts?



*blushes* Im flattered, but no, my posts are not the foundation of all global food production

#64
Post rating: ~

cars posted:

jokes aside... i don't think DSA people in NYC are bad people just because i think some of the opinions fostered among that set are bad. assuming bad faith and cynicism in general has been a very bad habit of mine and i mentioned i'm trying to break it. personal relationships always matter. a couple of my buddies are people who feel a little under siege sometimes by Jacobin and the platform of DSA and so on because the people i know consider themselves socialists and have their own connections to targets of U.S. imperialism. they perceive the writing of some people in the demsoc media circle as scoffing at their concerns and doing it in ways that attack their allies as kooks instead of recognizing their own existence and their cause, and consider others around those writers to be enabling that with silence, and they recognize that many of their peers in the united states are turning toward the left and seeing some of these people and their publications as the public face of "socialism" as a term. they feel justified in saying very harsh things about these writers and their opinions have rubbed off on me, which maybe isn't the best way to acquire opinions. i feel loyal to the people i know and like because they are they people i know and like.

the reason i talk about the young new demsoc opinion makers even though i don't know them is because they are, some of them, what currently passes for prominent public figures for young people on the left, something that is good to have in general. i'm not and probably never will be, which is sometimes a nice place to be, like, they'll probably never wonder about the motives behind my rude 'tude on a public forum frequented by up to ten or more people daily.



I actually think the abstract hate one builds up for imperialists is more useful than the natural tendency to sympathize with real people who have real concerns and real personalities. One because everyone is "nice" and capitalist ideology makes it easy for people to separate out their morals from the real impact of their actions, especially if these are the passive actions of capitalism's systemic violence. Two, we don't meet poor Afghanis very often even if we go out of our way to, most people will never meet the victims of imperialism. It is inevitable that despite our ideological pretensions,we will come to sympathise more with those we know against those we do not, especially when this "personal is political" ideology has become so essential to late capitalist identity politics which permeates everything.

Getfiscal's humanization of liberals is the temptation to be avoided, now more than ever liberals should subject to ruthless criticism on behalf of the victims who do not get a voice. All politics should be treated like a rhizzone argument.

#65
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
i try to loathe qualities, not people, because otherwise i have to take it to the sacrament. but i also try to be as off-putting in person as i am online. i think it's possible to do both
#66
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +
Open question: is odor an ideology
#67
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
by Calvin Klein
#68
YUNG JIRO AKA SHOWA STUNNA AKA
Post rating: ~

swampman posted:

Open question: is odor an ideology



Crust ponx 4 lyfe

#69
Post rating: ~

cars posted:

i don't think DSA people in NYC are bad people


i think they're bad people because they're obnoxious, hateful and bigoted

#70
Post rating: +
i mean most posters here basically view themselves as Chapo Trap House (Marxist-Leninist) so im not that surprised that they get lots of slack here
#71
Kurdt
Post rating: +
who made who
#72
Post rating: +

c_man posted:

i mean most posters here basically view themselves as Chapo Trap House (Marxist-Leninist) so im not that surprised that they get lots of slack here

#73
[account deactivated]
#74
chickeon
Post rating: +

babyhueypnewton posted:

the reason i talk about the young new demsoc opinion makers even though i don't know them is because they are, some of them, what currently passes for prominent public figures for young people on the left, something that is good to have in general.

moly crapapple tho

#75
Nice grasses
Post rating: ~

kcnaofficial posted:

kruki posted:
i appreciate the revleft bordiga memes
you appreciate revleft? shit I thought I was bad



dimmu bordiga is the best thing to come out of that cancerous forum

#76
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~

chickeon posted:

babyhueypnewton posted:

the reason i talk about the young new demsoc opinion makers even though i don't know them is because they are, some of them, what currently passes for prominent public figures for young people on the left, something that is good to have in general.

moly crapapple tho



this was me and not bhpn... but yes she's very sketchy, a known narc & friends with nazis and therefore doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

#77
chickeon
Post rating: +
well yeah obviously but what I was getting at is she's sort of representative of a larger recuperative movement neutering and negating any legitimately radical sentiment, which is the whole point of the DSA. any of those fuckin nerds are completely useless or worse class enemies at the very least until the point where they ditch that shit
#78
Occupied Aztlan
Post rating: ~
people in the DSA have at least made the step of joining an organization. they can learn more in the street, and will (the first time you realize most march security is there to police protesters is eye opening), and i have far more hope for them than the liberals who claim adherence to leninism and havent yet bothered to join so much as a mailing list.
#79
Post rating: ~

cars posted:

i'm at best a mid-effort short colonel in the posting corps and was selected as moderator only due to state of emergency.



you don't give yourself enough credit. besides maybe bhpn, you post more in-depth content here than anyone else

cars posted:

what if hypothetically they had to confront head-on an irrefutable conclusion that limited resources meant reduced luxury items for the first world in the foreseeable future



you mean star trek isn't actually going to happen? *starts hyperventilating uncontrollably*

#80
Post rating: ~
cars is closer to a upper-mid effot brigadier general of the posting corps