On May 22 2018 00:40 Baalim wrote:
1 - I said its the best possible system for the flawed people that live in it, not that its the best possible way these people can be.
2 - I said it multiple times, I dont think that beheavior is fixed, stop putting words in my mouth, you are making an habit out of that.
3 - my argument isnt "if you knew better you wouldnt comlain", my argument is if you knew better you wouldnt make cliché marxist arguments like the exploitation comes from top to bottom and you would realize the exploitation comes from bottom up and all sides
please keep telling me about canadian poverty and how bad my tongue-in-cheek hollywood quotes aren't deep
The flawed people are not born flawed -- at least not to the degree that you think they are in order to posit capitalism as the best system. You point to their behavior under capitalism as an indictment of their nature, rather than their nature under capitalism. Under capitalism they are not given the chance to be less flawed since they are deprived of the environment necessary to be able to develop their full humanity. They are born to serve the economic interests of the powerful or starve. That is the extent of our freedom under this system. It's the best system for the few who do not care about others or the future, that's evident to anyone who doesn't have blinders on.
You were quoting me responding to the fixed human nature claim made by Spitfiree. It's not putting words into your mouth to re-introduce the context from my words which you quoted. And even if you don't believe it is fixed you still behave and indirectly argue as if it was, so you paying lip service to it is irrelevant.
The people at the bottom are not responsible for the hierarchy, they aren't voluntarily signing up to be at the bottom, so it makes no sense to call them exploiters whenever they make a self-interested decision, unless you believe they would act the same given that they have their basic needs met, and that the hierarchy is merit based. Your argument boils down to saying that everyone needs to exploit everyone under capitalism, which is a truism, not a refutation of anti-capitalist arguments.
The only tongue-and-cheek part of it is the way you presented the joker, it's not the substance of the quote, which you 100% stand behind and believe to be deep. Except it's once again not an indictment of human beings, but of human beings under neoliberal capitalism. The quote doesn't make a broader claim than that.
Yes we are born flawed it has been a constant in our species and almost all animals since we crawled out of the slime and neoliberal capitalism has nothing to do with it lol, you believe this is a trait developed in the last few decades? lol
They exploit whatever they can from the system, and it has nothing to do with "basic needs met", you idea of the economy is some kind of feudal charicature, at least you can see why Marx would make such a mistake in the way the industrial revolution happened, but for people to still have such a wrong concept is crazy, and I'm not saying everyone needs to exploit everyone in capitalism, I'm saying is a system that works under the assumption that humans seek self-interest.
I do not believe that saying people would eat eachother to be deep, I think its obvious no idea how that isn't for people like you, as I theorized earlier perhaps its your sheltered life and made up problems with your neo-emo circle
Yes, I suppose you would make the same brilliant critique towards Chomsky. He was just a bored emo who had to rebel against something. There are no significant enough problems with capitalism so he just had to go and make up a bunch of them. He never knew what it was like to drink unclean water so who he is to complain about shit anyway? When he marched to protest against the Vietnam War, it was just virtue signaling to get laid, every biologist (ahem, evolutionary psychologist) knows it. Muhammad Ali also opposed the war and refused to go. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion and he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years. Served him right for being a fucking selfish, unpatriotic exploiter of the system, right?
All anarchists/socialists/communists must be naive and delusional people who have never opened a biology book, we all know about the trait, that trait that makes human beings selfish exploiters no matter whether they are in an environment of scarcity and competition or not. There must be such a trait, I couldn't possibly be ignorant enough to have opposed them for all my life uncritically!
No one has ever denied that humans seek self-interest. As I've repeated multiple times and asked you, the question is to what extent are we self-regarding and how much of that is inborn and to what extent it changes in different environments. I've even provided you with research over a week ago that seeks to answer this question and it's been ignored completely. So we're back to square one: you assert things and I should be taking them on faith, because you are an authority on these matters. You don't need to provide evidence and you are justified in ignoring the evidence I present because it doesn't fit with your neoliberal dogma, which is really just a radical defense of the status quo. Except now it comes with the petty insults added.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
"How will it work" & "how do we get there" are questions that anarchists seem to be answering with faith. Communists less so, because at least they have specific methods effectively used in the past to seize power and maintain a functioning society over long periods of time. They just have to figure out how not to turn into a terrible dictatorship, sounds tough but it's easier than what anarchists are supposed to achieve. Their biggest historical success didn't actually last long at all, they were crashed by opposition and Spain ended up in a worse place at the hands of fascists for decades later. It's a situation also fairly impossible to replicate in a world where war isn't fought by barricading roads or digging trenches. Perhaps in the future some sort of revolutionary tech could make it more viable, until then it just seems like good intentions paving the road to shitty situations.
new shit has come to light... a-and... shit! man...
I'd say it's the communists who rely on faith that authoritarianism will not prevail after the revolution, while anarchists are more cynical and uncompromising and embodying a way of life. Of course one gets shit done more easily than the other, but we have little reason to think it can do better than it did historically. It does indeed seem impossible for an anarchist society to exist among barbaric societies that can overpower them, but I think it's hard to imagine the human species having a future without having evolved into it.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Skeptic: Well, I might take this whole anarchism idea more seriously if you could give me some reason to think it would work. Can you name me a single viable example of a society which has existed without a government?
Anarchist: Sure. There have been thousands. I could name a dozen just off the top of my head: the Bororo, the Baining, the Onondaga, the Wintu, the Ema, the Tallensi, the Vezo… All without violence or hierarchy.
Skeptic: But those are all a bunch of primitives! I’m talking about anarchism in a modern, technological society.
Anarchist: Okay, then. There have been all sorts of successful experiments: experiments with worker’s self-management, like Mondragon; economic projects based on the idea of the gift economy, like Linux; all sorts of political organizations based on consensus and direct democracy…
Skeptic: Sure, sure, but these are small, isolated examples. I’m talking about whole societies.
Anarchist: Well, it’s not like people haven’t tried. Look at the Paris Commune, the free states in Ukraine and Manchuria, the 1936 revolution in Spain…
Skeptic: Yeah, and look what happened to those guys! They all got killed!
The dice are loaded. You can’t win. Because when the skeptic says “society,” what he really means is “state,” even “nation-state.” Since no one is going to produce an example of an anarchist state—that would be a contradiction in terms—what we're really being asked for is an example of a modern nation-state with the government somehow plucked away: a situation in which the government of Canada, to take a random example, has been overthrown, or for some reason abolished itself, and no new one has taken its place but instead all former Canadian citizens begin to organize themselves into libertarian collectives. Obviously this would never be allowed to happen. In the past, whenever it even looked like it might—here, the Paris commune and Spanish civil war are excellent examples—the politicians running pretty much every state in the vicinity have been willing to put their differences on hold until those trying to bring such a situation about had been rounded up and shot.
There is a way out, which is to accept that anarchist forms of organization would not look anything like a state. That they would involve an endless variety of communities, associations, networks, projects, on every conceivable scale, overlapping and intersecting in any way we could imagine, and possibly many that we can’t. Some would be quite local, others global. Perhaps all they would have in common is that none would involve anyone showing up with weapons and telling everyone else to shut up and do what they were told. And that, since anarchists are not actually trying to seize power within any national territory, the process of one system replacing the other will not take the form of some sudden revolutionary cataclysm—the storming of a Bastille, the seizing of a Winter Palace—but will necessarily be gradual, the creation of alternative forms of organization on a world scale, new forms of communication, new, less alienated ways of organizing life, which will, eventually, make currently existing forms of power seem stupid and beside the point. That in turn would mean that there are endless examples of viable anarchism: pretty much any form of organization would count as one, so long as it was not imposed by some higher authority, from a klezmer band to the international postal service.
- David Graeber
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
On May 22 2018 04:51 Stroggoz wrote:
I just read a journalistic book called scattered sand. I had no idea those below subsistence level migrants from rural china were exploiting the factory owners, no idea at all!!! Thanks for refuting everything that i thought was completely obvious Baal.
The rule is they are only allowed to have 2 cups of coffee but some of them have 3 cups of coffee!
AA is an anarchist organization. It is kind of unified under a "God of your understanding" which is bullshit but also not true because myself and many of my friends have no god whatsoever. Although, it's also basically a charity. All positions are service positions that are expected to be rotated. AA does not govern or have any outside opinions or endorsements. There are very few occasions where there can be paid outside help but that is voted on democratically. All the funds come from members of AA. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.
As far as their goal to carry their message to the alcoholic who still suffers I would say they are rather successful even though the message is mostly bullshit. The message being you are powerless, you need a power, get God, the inventory is actually pretty worthwhile, speaking to someone about it is pretty worthwhile, praying is stupid, praying to remove defects of character is stupid, making amends to people can be worthwhile, keeping tabs on how you are doing can be worthwhile, praying is stupid, carrying this message is basically impossible for me because I didn't do it. I can just share my experience or tell atheists why I think I am sober and how I did it.
I think a stat on AA's effectiveness is 5% (Dodes in "The Sober Truth" but I don't know how they get that number and it was criticized.
AA as a "successful" anarchic organization? You be the judge.
On May 22 2018 00:40 Baalim wrote:
1 - I said its the best possible system for the flawed people that live in it, not that its the best possible way these people can be.
2 - I said it multiple times, I dont think that beheavior is fixed, stop putting words in my mouth, you are making an habit out of that.
3 - my argument isnt "if you knew better you wouldnt comlain", my argument is if you knew better you wouldnt make cliché marxist arguments like the exploitation comes from top to bottom and you would realize the exploitation comes from bottom up and all sides
please keep telling me about canadian poverty and how bad my tongue-in-cheek hollywood quotes aren't deep
The flawed people are not born flawed -- at least not to the degree that you think they are in order to posit capitalism as the best system. You point to their behavior under capitalism as an indictment of their nature, rather than their nature under capitalism. Under capitalism they are not given the chance to be less flawed since they are deprived of the environment necessary to be able to develop their full humanity. They are born to serve the economic interests of the powerful or starve. That is the extent of our freedom under this system. It's the best system for the few who do not care about others or the future, that's evident to anyone who doesn't have blinders on.
You were quoting me responding to the fixed human nature claim made by Spitfiree. It's not putting words into your mouth to re-introduce the context from my words which you quoted. And even if you don't believe it is fixed you still behave and indirectly argue as if it was, so you paying lip service to it is irrelevant.
The people at the bottom are not responsible for the hierarchy, they aren't voluntarily signing up to be at the bottom, so it makes no sense to call them exploiters whenever they make a self-interested decision, unless you believe they would act the same given that they have their basic needs met, and that the hierarchy is merit based. Your argument boils down to saying that everyone needs to exploit everyone under capitalism, which is a truism, not a refutation of anti-capitalist arguments.
The only tongue-and-cheek part of it is the way you presented the joker, it's not the substance of the quote, which you 100% stand behind and believe to be deep. Except it's once again not an indictment of human beings, but of human beings under neoliberal capitalism. The quote doesn't make a broader claim than that.
Yes we are born flawed it has been a constant in our species and almost all animals since we crawled out of the slime and neoliberal capitalism has nothing to do with it lol, you believe this is a trait developed in the last few decades? lol
They exploit whatever they can from the system, and it has nothing to do with "basic needs met", you idea of the economy is some kind of feudal charicature, at least you can see why Marx would make such a mistake in the way the industrial revolution happened, but for people to still have such a wrong concept is crazy, and I'm not saying everyone needs to exploit everyone in capitalism, I'm saying is a system that works under the assumption that humans seek self-interest.
I do not believe that saying people would eat eachother to be deep, I think its obvious no idea how that isn't for people like you, as I theorized earlier perhaps its your sheltered life and made up problems with your neo-emo circle
Yes, I suppose you would make the same brilliant critique towards Chomsky. He was just a bored emo who had to rebel against something. There are no significant enough problems with capitalism so he just had to go and make up a bunch of them. He never knew what it was like to drink unclean water so who he is to complain about shit anyway? When he marched to protest against the Vietnam War, it was just virtue signaling to get laid, every biologist (ahem, evolutionary psychologist) knows it. Muhammad Ali also opposed the war and refused to go. He was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion and he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years. Served him right for being a fucking selfish, unpatriotic exploiter of the system, right?
All anarchists/socialists/communists must be naive and delusional people who have never opened a biology book, we all know about the trait, that trait that makes human beings selfish exploiters no matter whether they are in an environment of scarcity and competition or not. There must be such a trait, I couldn't possibly be ignorant enough to have opposed them for all my life uncritically!
No one has ever denied that humans seek self-interest. As I've repeated multiple times and asked you, the question is to what extent are we self-regarding and how much of that is inborn and to what extent it changes in different environments. I've even provided you with research over a week ago that seeks to answer this question and it's been ignored completely. So we're back to square one: you assert things and I should be taking them on faith, because you are an authority on these matters. You don't need to provide evidence and you are justified in ignoring the evidence I present because it doesn't fit with your neoliberal dogma, which is really just a radical defense of the status quo. Except now it comes with the petty insults added.
Again misconstruing my arguments and ignoring all I said, you claim that I ignore the hour-long youtube videos you post yet you ignore the couple of lines I write constantly.
I've never criticized you for being a "rebel", I'm an anarchist myself, and I've said many times that capitalism has many flaws (no need for Chomsky to make them up), I already explained to you that I didnt say that since you didnt suffer you didnt have a righ to bitch, I said that your world view is skewed and see the free market as a charicature of feudalism, but again you repeat this stupid argument ffs.
The only way one can stop a war is by directly protesting a government, that is not the case for fhe thing SJW complain about but I find it funny that you put your bullshit right along the likes of Chomsky and Ali lol.
Now you think im a dogmatic neoliberal when I'm an anarchocapitalist, your arguments are getting progressivly worse to the point is getting hard to reply to them, and btw the stuff you have shared about the source and malleability of human traits were not ignored, it is you the one who dogmatically dismisses anything that goes against your world view not me, you are projecting your flaws.
I'm curious, I've said many times that it doesnt matter if humans are genetically self centered or not, but you think its fundamental, so if some research found a "selfish gene" (no reference to dawkins lol) that showed a strong natural drive for selfishness kind of like the one we have for sex, would you swap your anarcho communist views to neoliberalism or something?
Every time I start thinking about how anarchy would work I hit a brick wall in the face of hierarchy. Our whole world is based on hierarchic models on every single level, regardless whether you're in a government institution, in your workplace, or viewed through the perspective of gender or social status. All of these hierarchies are not something the common person thinks about and are deemed as something very natural, although they're all manmade.
People would need to start relating to the lack of authority and thus lack of pyramid hierarchical structure through practical examples which they find value in. That's the biggest reason I'm such a fan of decentralized cryptocurrencies and blockchain as they could be the first massive step towards anarchy. That being said I still don't see how most of the hierarchical structures would be demolished even if FIAT and banks seize to exist in their current form and crypto becomes the main financial resource for payments.
Anyway if someone has some good materials to read @ hierarchy in anarchy that d be awesome as I feel like I don't fully grasp the idea. Even if hierarchy doesn't exist in the pure definition of the word, there'd still be need for organisation on all of those levels.
Last edit: 22/05/2018 22:47
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Liquid`Drone Norway. May 23 2018 00:04. Posts 3093
I think the most effective, least hierarchical organization of any decent size you can find is probably Wikipedia/the Wikimedia foundation. It's structured in a way that largely corresponds with actual marxists ideals. But even there, you do have a small segment of the user base with more power and influence than others - these are democratically elected and can also lose their positions if people are unhappy with the job they are doing. And with very few exceptions, it doesn't pay at all.
Stroggoz New Zealand. May 23 2018 05:35. Posts 5296
It's ironic that the creater of wikipedia is an ayn rand libertarian and he created a socialist institution.
One of 3 non decent human beings on a site of 5 people with between 2-3 decent human beings
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wobbly_au Australia. May 23 2018 12:14. Posts 6540
As usual Loco makes NO sense to me.. Great discussion from most other people though.
The Last Laugh.
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wobbly_au Australia. May 23 2018 12:30. Posts 6540
Personally I think Jordan Peterson has some great common sense points and I think the way he speaks and his character (timid, reserved intellectual) resonates with a lot of conservative/libertarian people that feel like political correctness has gone too far.
I think he doesnt offer too many new or modern "insights" but is a great father type figure for kids to look up to..
but is a great father type figure for kids to look up to..
And that doesn't scare you @ wobbly? It's actually my main concern and it shows how even modern societies like Canada have failed. If there s a large amount of people that actually NEED that and respond positively to it, there is something fundamentally wrong. It shows how many people fail to grasp common things even though they have the complete freedom to do it. It also hints that these same people were "suppressed" (very loosely said) in some kind of way to end up like that in their 20s.
Otherwise i agree with the rest
Also Loco always argues that he avoids discussions with other reputable scholars, which doesn't really change much, cause those scholars didn't manage to make the impact he did, so even though they might be absolutely correct, that doesn't really mean shit if its not of practical use. So these people should be asking themselves "what can I do to make the same kind of impact?" and if that's not their goal, then its all cool, but even if they face JP and demolish him in a verbal confrontation that wouldn't change shit.
I didn't make that statement in a vacuum. I made it because it reveals his hypocrisy: he's not in the public eye to ask important questions or make attempts at "getting at the truth", which is this narrative that we are sold in every fawning piece that's written on him. You're not interested in exploring anything when you're selling out entire theaters where you're the only person on stage preaching about old conservative ideas wrapped in Jungian mysticism.
He partly admits this himself in a Joe Rogan podcast where he says "I have found a way to monetize social justice activists". One of his twelve rules is assuming that other people have something to say and which you could learn from. Clearly, he doesn't really believe that rule applies when the person is on the left of Dave Rubin, who is himself not even anywhere on the left. Peterson has fully discredited anyone whom he can slap the label "collectivist" on. The real debate has ended before it could even begin. It cannot take place because he calls leftists "pathological" and he claims they are the ones who won't engage in a discussion because they don't believe in reasoned discussion.
It's much easier to have a big impact when it's a negative one. I can go shoot up a school tomorrow and I will impact people more than if I do anything else with my life. The glorification of "making an impact" is just neoliberal brainwashing at work: it's this narrative that in our world we should brand ourselves and focus on growing our brand to make an impact. In truth, people who make an impact are almost never the ones who make a positive contribution to the world. The real benefactors of humanity are ignored by the masses. They are often leaving nothing behind them except the positive experiences that are left in the memories of those who have known them. A few of them are in academia and their works are venerated there, but they cannot get widespread attention, for the same reason that you don't see ads anywhere about the benefits of eating vegetables. What sells isn't what's good. The world has been engineered for distraction and self-destruction for the short term material benefit of the few. Getting the interest or the approval of the masses really means nothing good, quite the opposite.
"Men follow only those who give them illusions. There have never been gatherings around a disillusioned." — Emil Cioran
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 24/05/2018 04:29
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wobbly_au Australia. May 24 2018 04:38. Posts 6540
but is a great father type figure for kids to look up to..
And that doesn't scare you @ wobbly? It's actually my main concern and it shows how even modern societies like Canada have failed. If there s a large amount of people that actually NEED that and respond positively to it, there is something fundamentally wrong. It shows how many people fail to grasp common things even though they have the complete freedom to do it. It also hints that these same people were "suppressed" (very loosely said) in some kind of way to end up like that in their 20s.
Otherwise i agree with the rest
Also Loco always argues that he avoids discussions with other reputable scholars, which doesn't really change much, cause those scholars didn't manage to make the impact he did, so even though they might be absolutely correct, that doesn't really mean shit if its not of practical use. So these people should be asking themselves "what can I do to make the same kind of impact?" and if that's not their goal, then its all cool, but even if they face JP and demolish him in a verbal confrontation that wouldn't change shit.
nope doesnt scare me, I grew up without a dad. I wish I had one like Jordan, I think he is a great role model. What is the negative implication of looking up to someone like him..
Tidy your room, have a sense a purpose, freedom of speech, family unit. All great traits..
With that said, there have been multiple instances of him being challenged lately. Not quite at the stage where he faces his real adversaries, but this is still an improvement.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
but is a great father type figure for kids to look up to..
And that doesn't scare you @ wobbly? It's actually my main concern and it shows how even modern societies like Canada have failed. If there s a large amount of people that actually NEED that and respond positively to it, there is something fundamentally wrong. It shows how many people fail to grasp common things even though they have the complete freedom to do it. It also hints that these same people were "suppressed" (very loosely said) in some kind of way to end up like that in their 20s.
Otherwise i agree with the rest
Also Loco always argues that he avoids discussions with other reputable scholars, which doesn't really change much, cause those scholars didn't manage to make the impact he did, so even though they might be absolutely correct, that doesn't really mean shit if its not of practical use. So these people should be asking themselves "what can I do to make the same kind of impact?" and if that's not their goal, then its all cool, but even if they face JP and demolish him in a verbal confrontation that wouldn't change shit.
nope doesnt scare me, I grew up without a dad. I wish I had one like Jordan, I think he is a great role model. What is the negative implication of looking up to someone like him..
Tidy your room, have a sense a purpose, freedom of speech, family unit. All great traits..
Some leftists on this forum don't like those traits
It's much easier to have a big impact when it's a negative one. I can go shoot up a school tomorrow and I will impact people more than if I do anything else with my life. The glorification of "making an impact" is just neoliberal brainwashing at work: it's this narrative that in our world we should brand ourselves and focus on growing our brand to make an impact. In truth, people who make an impact are almost never the ones who make a positive contribution to the world. The real benefactors of humanity are ignored by the masses. They are often leaving nothing behind them except the positive experiences that are left in the memories of those who have known them. A few of them are in academia and their works are venerated there, but they cannot get widespread attention, for the same reason that you don't see ads anywhere about the benefits of eating vegetables. What sells isn't what's good. The world has been engineered for distraction and self-destruction for the short term material benefit of the few. Getting the interest or the approval of the masses really means nothing good, quite the opposite.
True about the glorification and brainwashing, but it doesn't really change the practical aspect of things and it's also why I said "whether its their goal or not" as indeed many of these individuals just don't give a crap if they make an impact as their "audience" is people who've gone through the same "barriers"as them to gain knowledge.
However, this does not the painful truth - you either make an impact and your thoughts and work is memorable and has changed people's lives, or you didn't.
Also you're essentially saying that most of the stuff happening on a global scale are of negative impact, but previously argued that people are not looking to exploit the system and to gain an edge for themselves, which is basically what shoving negative information down one's throat's is. Or are we going into the semantics of those same people's belief system is that they're doing a good deed ?
@GoTunk what a poor post again, too bad you didn't bother to answer to my post to your Trump blabber so you could humiliate yourself further.
United States. May 22 2018 14:55. Posts 8535
but I don't know how they get that number and it was criticized. 
)
