train

train wrote

Bookchin is actually a pretty recent political theorist. He tried squaring differences between communism and anarchism to create a political philosphy he called communalism. His work heavily influenced the politics of the PKK in northern Syria which ended up founding Rojava.

The relative success of Rojava, which uses a system they call Democratic confederalism, has definitely generated enthusiam for Bookchin and his ideas abroad.

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train wrote

Its a conflict between egoist and communalist anarchists as far as I'm aware. They both call themselves anarchists but have a different understanding of what defines hierarchy. Many of the former seem to consider themselves "post left" and will heavily critique concepts like democracy. The latter might see such views as harmful because they can be interpretted to be cynical and fatalistic.

Ziq and a number of users here are very much of the individualist/egoist camp. I don't think they represent everyone on this site but judging by the number of Max Stirner memes it's definitely a thing here.

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train wrote (edited )

I mostly like this article. Framing social issues as an epistemic imbalance between people with differing identities is not really the problem. However, it's the problem that "conversations" are ostensibly trying to solve. Thus of course they are innefective.

Additionally, I've found many radical activists kind of assume that conversations don't work because people on the other side of a conversation are acting cynically in order to defend their own identity and/or class position. While that's sometimes the case, I think more often than not the reality is that peoples frameworks for understanding how the world works vary depending on ones own material conditions.

That's why I think you can show liberals the legacy of Jim Crow, the horrors of global poverty, and the terrible violence of war and yet the solutions they offer won't change. It's not simply that they don't understand the scale of the suffering under capitalism. It's also not even that such people don't emapthize with those that are suffering.

This ironically is why I think issues of inequity get framed as epistemological problems in the first place.

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train wrote (edited )

Reply to -__-<>-_-- by topa

Left Unity 🥱
Forest Unity 🥳

For real though I'm all in on the gaia hypothesis.

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train wrote

Reply to comment by zoom_zip in Raddle by emma

Ooh let me try.

ChapoTrapHouse has a leftist comedy podcast. Someone made a subreddit for it. The subreddit grows beyond the podcast and gets real cringy. Some real weirdos obsessed with China, Mao, and Stalin become mods of the subreddit. The subreddit gets banned and the userbase looks for alternatives. Raddle exist. The old subreddit mods declare raddle an anti left unity zone of evil and build their own website, Chapochat. The most toxic users of the old subreddit go there (and some other poor saps). Turns out one of their mods may have been grooming kids. Now I guess people are getting banned for insulting the mods. Again raddle exists.

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train wrote

Reply to comment by ziq in On federation by ziq

Hmm would your concerns then be alleviated by having federation rely on whitelisting instead of blacklisting?

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train wrote

Reply to On federation by ziq

Current methods of federation certainly need to be improved in order to make it more accessable and seamless to end users. However, that doesn't mean it's just a fad. Having decentralized forms of social media is probably a good thing in the long run. If that's not something that anyone wants to add to postmill then that's fine.

Beyond that, I think your arguments against federation are unnecessary. What's the point of having free and open source if not to let other people use your work as they please given that intellectual property is easily replicated? Why care what some Tankie or right winger does with their website? In other federated networks such instances have ended up isolated from the rest of the network anyways.

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train wrote

Reply to by !deleted8445

I like them because if I'm interested in a particular point I can use a citation to go find out more information.

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train wrote

I mean the Nation of Islam endorsed and spread some really messed up views on race and white people. Malcolm eventually rejected many of those views much to the dismay of the NOI. However, it is still part of his legacy and something worth thinking about.

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train wrote

I don't buy some of the more vague assertions in this article that suggest academia is not really responsible for economic inequality.

Academia plays a key role in pushing the idea that society be based on meritocratic principles. Contrary to that meritocratic vission, success in academia as a student or as an educator is greatly determined by your class position. This reflects the contradictions that undergirds modern capitalism particularity in the technology sector.

For example, many genuinely believe Elon Musk became the wealthiest man alive through effort and talent alone. In reality his success is a consequence of his inherited wealth and narcissism. Academia and it's own ties to private enterprise are in part to blame for perpetuating these kinds of mythologies.

Of course, I agree with the article that education and information should be accessible to a broader public. However, contrary to what the article purports that is not what universities are doing. Instead, I see extension campuses handing out meaningless certificates as part of a profit driven learning model. Claiming that such efforts are part of some broader vision to increase access to education is a farce.

Ultimately, I agree you will not improve access by cutting funding to education. However, academia needs radical reform if it's ever to live up to it's own lofty vision of what educational institutions could be.

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train wrote

Reply to comment by !deleted20335 in by !deleted20335

I think it's also because for many wealthy people work is not exactly work. For executives especially they don't actually do much of the menial labor involved in running a business. Instead work for them is a mix of socializing and exertion of power.

Although I also think many retired people don't actually want to stop working. For many, the financial independance of retirement often means they can work on projects that are not economically productive but still fullfilling like gardening, artistry, childcare, etc. However, there are people who truly do enjoy what they do and what to stay involved in their work even in a limited capacity. Many researchers or professors often maintain their positions but take a more hands off approach once they reach retirement age.

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train wrote

Oh man this is going to be tiring. Already Biden is tempering expectations and setting bare minimum standards for success.

1 million vaccinations a day for 100 days sounds nice. But at that rate it will take most of the year to achieve herd immunity. Also we are pretty much vaccinating 1 million people per day already according to the CDC. Opening up vaccine patents to allow for more production isn't even on the table. Neither are any meaningful containment measures.

The over reliance on the vaccine as a solution is frankly indefensible. Just today research came out which suggests vaccines may not be as effective against some of the new variants. If spread continues at the current rate it's far more likely the vaccine could become innefective and we'd be back at square one.

Hold on... I'm being told science is back in the white house so I guess it's all good now.

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train wrote

Elections are rigged but not really behind closed doors. The electoral college, campaign finance, voter suppression, the two party system, first past the post elections, corporate media, etc. etc. are all mechanisms through which popular will is suppressed.

This is something I think most Americans intuit given their increasing levels of economic precarity. They react to this dilema by either not voting, because they don't think it matters, or by supporting people and movements that appear to be antithetical to American political and economic hierarchies such as Trump.

Basically, if you don't understand the mechanisms by which hierachies are enforced but you also intuit their implicit unfairness then Trump's allegations that the election was stolen may seem believable. However, against the existing evidence his claims are plainly false. Of course that doesn't mean American democracy is actually democratic or fair. It just means Trump was never really a threat to American capital. That is until he decided to question it's legitimacy for his own self interest which has resulted in the events you first mentioned.

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train wrote

Reply to comment by ruin in Post-Vegan Nihilism by celebratedrecluse

In my other comment I tried to explain why I think nihilism is a frameword under which both a rejection of violent action and veganism can be built and understood.

Ultimately it boils down the idea that nihilism can help break down philsophical frameworks and ideologies. In doing so we may understand how and why they are contructed. Assuming humans and ideology are are part of the same natural processes that compel us to engage with the world, then perhaps we will inevitably and actively participate in the contruction of ideology such that life is perpetuated and sustained. These are the premises upon which I believe in veganism and various leftist ideologies without I think relying on moral absolutism or justification.

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train wrote

I don't think so, not unless the ethical basis for the rejection of violence over other kinds of bahviors/actions is utilitarian.

Also feel free to ignore what follows. It's long and I'm mainly just putting to words thoughts I've mulled around for awhile. But I also like discussing these things so do as you may.

Anyways, as I understand it Nihilism naturally concludes that rationalism can not be used to justify itself. What remains is the universe will do as it may full stop. From that understanding all moralism and ideology that use a rationalistic framework can only applied to justify action or inaction when based on a false premise. This is where existentialism might accept such false premises given thst there is no real knowing whether or not such premises are truly false.

Alternatively, I think such limitations in rationalism creates a basis upon which ideology and rationality can be reimagined under a materialist framework. From that standpoint I believe all thought and conciousness and even life are the products of selective processes that simply and naturally occur. Thus we can explain rationalism and morality without worrying about whether or not it is justified. Rather they simply just exist for the reasons that they do.

In this way we are both observer and subject. We can understand that the processes we are a part of will naturally select for certain conceptual frameworks over others. We can also understand that we are bound to act not on any rationale basis but because we are implicitly a part of said processes.

It is thus my belief that we will inevitably be compelled to act using this more fundamental understanding of philosophy and ideology for the purpose of sustaining the self perpetuating patterns of ourselves. If we believe that mutualism is an incredibly successful mechanism for doing just that then I think it will be selected for especially as the effectiveness of expansionary ideologies are limited by material constraints.

Thus veganism in my view is not justified but rather evolved out of the selective processes that promote the sustainability and propagation of life just as aversions to human on human violence are. I personally engage with such an ideology because I am naturally compelled to enable the continuation and propogation of life.

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train wrote

Hmm I don't believe veganism necessitates prohibitionist logic or irrational categorization though.

The epistemological basis for veganism is often rooted in a nihilistic critique of speceism as a justification for hierarchy and oppresion. That ultimately means that whatever rationale one has for valuing humanity should naturally extend beyond that category.

The prohibitionist logic you are then refering to is not implicit to veganism but is rather derived from whatever logic one has for rejecting violence against other humans. However, I believe there is a nihilistic basis for rejecting such violence. Thus if I recognize that the humanity itself is a false category it follows that I must also reject violence towards other lifeforms.

Not all vegans share this epistemological basis for their ideology but many do. This rationale is also not necessarily the most effective for building consensus around veganism. Thus many vegans are fully aware of and comfortable with leveraging the puritanical belief systems of others if the end result is less violence.

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train wrote

Simply put, it's an ideological opposition to the exessive use of labor.

The way I used it does make it sound like it's the antithesis of "work". Rather it's the antithesis of the idea that "hard work is necessary for people to thrive".

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train wrote

I think this is partially because people don't understand that modern scarcity is largely artificial. If you think that scarcity is real then solidarity + hard work is the way out. If you understand that our global economy has a massive surplus of resources and industrial overcapacity then solidarity + antiwork is kind of obvious.

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train wrote

I low key feel like the bioengineers that work on lab grown meat are hacks just enjoying that sweet sweet early investor money. People who work on legit regenerative medicine research are generally far more serious about the idea of helping people even if all their work is going to get coopted by capitalists anyways.

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