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Defasher wrote (edited )

Reply to comment by RespectWomen in Toward Anti-Anti-Civ. by RespectWomen

The point is that many of the inadequacies of advance technology can be traced to the profit motive. For example, there is a minority of humans that finds radio waves deeply uncomfortable. Sustainable alternatives could be explored, but if they aren’t profitable, it’s less probable that scientists will attempt to obtain them, let alone popularise them.

There you go again with the strawmanning. Postcivs and most anticivs support sustainable technology that can be produced without exploitation.

We need to use democratic means to decide how we wish to manage resources. Capitalism prohibits this.

We're already using democracy. It's why we're in this mess. Rule of the majority does not work.

Goods will be built to last. People won’t need to take more than they already have, and products could be either repaired or upgraded. By the way, some of the communists that I’ve seen oppose individually owned automobiles; public transport can suffice.

You just described postciv, genius.

This almost sounds like a classic liberal distortion. People will labour as hard or easily as they want to,

You have no understanding of how things like cellphones are made. Africans aren't going to do that kind of labour voluntarily. Unless you can make it locally, there's no way it's being made without exploitation. Your industrial communist utopia where everyone gets everything we have under capitalism for free is not happening. Millions of free people aint gonna slave in mines so everyone on the planet can use twitter on their 8 slightly different devices.

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RespectWomen OP wrote

There you go again with the strawmanning. Postcivs and most anticivs support sustainable technology that can be produced without exploitation.

Is that so?

Technology, like civilization, can be seen more as a process or complex system then as a physical form. It inherently involves division of labor, resource extraction, and exploitation by power (those with the technology). The interface with, and result of, technology is always an alienated, mediated, and heavily-loaded reality. No, technology is not neutral. The values and goals of those who produce and control technology are always embedded within it. Different from simple tools, technology is connected to a larger process which is infectious and is propelled forward by its own momentum.

We're already using democracy. It's why we're in this mess. Rule of the majority does not work.

No we aren’t. The bourgeoisie makes the rules and tells us how to think. They use their money to purchase votes and manipulate the poorly educated. It is the illusion of democracy: it’s the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (to put it in Marxist terms). Businesses are the most obvious examples of antidemocratic places.

You just described postciv, genius.

I described socialism. Do these look like fellow primitivists to you?

You have no understanding of how things like cellphones are made.

You got me on this one, but I do know that working conditions in China & elsewhere are even worse than they are in most of the Occidental World. They are in dire need of workplace democracies.

Africans aren't going to do that kind of labor voluntarily.

Even if they want useful devices? But I do agree that few people would agree to labour in places devoid of safety regulations.

Unless you can make it locally, there's no way it's being made without exploitation.

I could give mining a shot. It sounds like good exercise.

Your industrial communist utopia where everyone gets everything we have under capitalism for free is not happening.

All liberals agree with you on this.

Millions of free people aint gonna slave in mines so everyone on the planet can use twitter.

Probably because Twitter is trash. But seriously, if people still want to use crappy social networks, they could do some volunteer work as miners. There’s no reason for them to toil for twelve hours a day with almost no breaks and no safety regulations. Overproduction is something that we all want to solve.

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Defasher wrote (edited )

Lmao @ you linking to a primitivist text to prove what postcivs and anticivs believe. How many times do you need to be told that they're 3 different things? This is getting tedious here.

On your heated defense of sacred democracy, you need to brush up on your ideology.

So at heart, we are against democracy because its very existence maintains this division that we’re seeking to abolish. Democracy does nothing but maintain the existence of alienated power, since it requires that our desires be separate from our power to act, and any attempts to engage in that system will only serve to reproduce it.

Democracies of any type make decisions via elections, the very essence of which transfers one’s will, thought, autonomy, and freedom to an outside power. It makes no difference whether one transfers that power to an elected representative or to an elusive majority. The point is that it’s no longer your own. Democracy has given it to the majority. You have been alienated from your capacity to determine the conditions of your existence in free cooperation with those around you.

"There is an important distinction here. Parties are political in their claim to represent the interests of others. This is a claim to alienated power, because when someone takes power with a claim to represent me, I am separated from my own freedom to act. In this sense, anarchists are anti-political. We are not interested in a different claim to alienated power, in a different leadership, in another form of representation, in a regime change, or in anything that merely shuffles around the makeup of alienated power. Any time someone claims to represent you or to be your liberatory force, that should be a definite red flag. We are anti-political because we are interested in the self-organization of the power of individuals. This tension towards self-organization is completely orthogonal to democracy in any of its various forms."

I can link you to more in depth texts if you want, but knowing you, you'll continue to cling to whatever the fuck tankie politics you've branded yourself with.

I described socialism. Do these look like fellow primitivists to you?

Motherfucker. One more time. Postcivs are not primitivists. Did it take this time? I've lost count of how many times I've told you this and linked you to literature that screams it.

Even if they want useful devices?

Would you risk your life mining minerals every day and die young so everyone can have a new ipad every xmas? Don't fucking answer that. You've never worked a day in your life and you're never gonna Mr. "I do manual labour when I go to ikea to buy a new cabinet to display my vintage He-Man action figures in".

I could give mining a shot. It sounds like good exercise.

Don't make me puke you insufferable bourgie.

Comments like that are why white people will never learn.

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RespectWomen OP wrote (edited )

Lmao @ you linking to a primitivist text to prove what postcivs and anticivs believe. How many times do you need to be told that they're 3 different things? This is getting tedious here.

Point made. An anarchist friend simplifying postciv as a form of primitivism, coupled with your ideological specification in March, threw me off.

On your heated defense of sacred democracy, you need to brush up on your ideology.

You mean this? I’m not interested in so‐called ‘representational democracy’, if that’s what you had in mind.

I can link you to more in depth texts if you want, but knowing you, you'll continue to cling to whatever the fuck tankie politics you've branded yourself with.

I’m not a Leninist, but I can see how you might make that mistake given my (arguably misplaced) willingness to work with them.

Motherfucker. One more time. Postcivs are not primitivists. Did it take this time?

Apparently. I should have doublechecked that post that you made a few months ago.

I've lost count of how many times I've told you this and linked you to literature that screams it.

I must have missed it in this thread, or maybe you posted it elsewhere on the site.

Edit: you did post them, sorry. My adrenaline was probably so high that I completely forgot about it. I’ll give them a look.

Would you risk your life mining minerals every day and die young so everyone can have a new ipad every xmas?

Given my clinical depression and the apparently useless regulations, yeah, I guess so.

Don't fucking answer that.

Too late; I’m a huge asshole.

You've never worked a day in your life and you're never gonna Mr. "I do manual labour when I go to ikea to buy a new cabinet to display my vintage He-Man action figures in".

I understand that mining and furniture assembly are apples and oranges, so I guess that I was being pedantic when I specified what manual labour I’ve done.

(Also, I don’t collect toys or use display cases. I’m in my twenties.)

Don't make me puke you insufferable bourgie.

Would you prefer to put a gun to my head instead?

On a side note, I’ve never owned a business, but my mum owns a tiny one wherein she’s (almost always) the only employee.

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