Welcome again to everybody! Make yourself at home. Happy Hanukkah. In the time-honoured tradition of our cult, here is our weekly discussion thread.
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I work at a Union and I STILL feel hesitant to call in sick lol what an amazing system we live in
Which, of course, is not a problem at all. But after years of working in a sigma grindset environment you have to rewire your brain a bit.
You must be lying down. If you stand up, Our Capy is unfortunately trapped inside a mirror. This can happen by accident. You can't knowingly walk into and through a mirror because the other you on the other side will see you coming and stop you. But if you absent mindedly shuffle about near the corner of a mirror, maybe looking for some grain that might have fallen nearby and be reflected, that's it, you slip through and swap with the other you. You can get back out but it's tough because, again, it's got to be by accident.
I can confirm that I've returned from the evil mirror dimension
The same phone brand both @Aru@lemmygrad.ml and I am currently using lol
, I think grain eater is making a joke about @Oppo@lemmygrad.ml I have a pink case on it
Yeah definitely that Oppo
I am just using the free clear case it came with lol.
I got a cold I think, which sucks.
Also, I'm getting increasingly done with the football (soccer) world in The Netherlands. One of the players of the women national team said she'd love to be a manager in men football and some talking heads are saying that it would be ridiculous to have a female coach at a male team. Like, Sarina Wiegman won two European Championships and two second places are the World Cup. Surely she can be a better manager than many male trainers. The football world is sick.
I got a dope as hell tattoo of a very cool and sweet Chilean riot dog a couple days ago! It's my first tattoo and it is very itchy. I am very paranoid about taking care of it right now, I can't wait for this phase to pass. :)
Don't worry it will pass and eventually you will lose the nervous 'but what if I touch it/hit it/scratch it' phase as well
I didn't realize that lemmy.world had actually reached the point of being worse than reddit ever was.
at least there are a few Marxist subreddits left, there doesn't seem to be anything like that on lemmy.world and similar instances
Liberals, not even once. All the fascism of "honest" right wing conservatives, with even less self-awareness and rampant messiah complexes, so there's not even the hope of them toning their behavior down nowadays.
I used to agree with the whole "if fascism comes to America, it'll be wrapped in a flag and holding the bible" bit- and it still holds halfway true- but honestly? Nowadays it seems just as possible if not more so that it'll be wrapped in a rainbow flag (nothing wrong with that, I'm trans- but it's just tokenism if anything, rainbow-washing) with a slew of token POC figureheads, and crying out its need to defend against fascism... the "more POC/trans/disabled/women drone pilots" meme is in full effect nowadays with the "centrist"-fascists.
I can't believe i didn't know this before.
If you are cooking scrambled eggs, you must add either butter/cream/yoghurt when you are beating them or it will end up dry af. With greek yoghurt it tastes great, creamy texture and its even higher on protein.
For example 3 eggs and a spoon of yoghurt.
I didn't know that either. I've never made scrambled eggs and only very rarely had them.
yea, i always avoided them because plain scrambled eggs fucking suck. With this minor adjustment it's much better and higher protein.
I have no time for my research project.
I want to define exactly to what extent the state is present in America. If the state is defined as the only legal perpetrators of violence, and gun ownership is prevalent to such an extent in the US, then what does that say about gun owners?
Similarly, why is a larger percentage of white men more likely to own guns compared to non-white men?
Like, we know the answer from theory, but what are the laws and regulations that led to this result? Who had put these laws into practice? How does this criminalization used to segregate the populace and enforce privilege?
The civilian gun owners aren't part of the state; civilians can exert violence in many ways, not just guns, but it's not legal outside of special circumstances (even if the law isn't applied equally in practice). As for why more white men own guns, using black men as an example, one reason is that they've been unable to access guns until relatively recently and even when they could legally acquire them, it was either very difficult in practice or caused them to be targeted by the state (especially in revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers)
In general, I would agree with you, but I think it’s a special case in the US. I would argue that with the way that gun ownership exists in the US, that civilian gun ownership is part of the state, as much as propaganda is a part of the state. As in an oligarchy, it would make sense that the government wouldn’t comprise of the entirety of the state.
There is a reason that gun ownership is mainly attributed to reactionary elements. This is intentional, resulting from the propagation and polarization of gun culture across party lines, and the subsequent rejection of gun culture and gun ownership by the opposing party. This results in the means for violence being concentrated in the most reactionary elements of society.
The state, through propaganda and law, has essentially set up this reserve militia as a reserve bulwark against progress. We have seen that it’s these reactionary forces that are the most willing and most able to use violence.
It’s not just gun ownership, but rather reactionary adventurism in general that’s not only encouraged but funded and protected by the state. (Like with the libs of TikTok bomb threats) I would go so far as to say this parallels what we saw in Italy before WWII, and the start of an official fascist regime.
But of course, this is just a framework for my research, and a lot of these claims are something I would still need to prove or deny. But this is a trend that I’ve been noticing recently.
I still wouldn't classify them as part of the state; they may act in the interest of the state (knowingly or not), but they have no institutional power, even if those who are part of the state may use their institutional power to defend them in some cases. Cuba also has an extremely high level of gun ownership and its gun owners also act in the interest of the Cuban state (which is also in their own interest), but I wouldn't say they're part of it
I don't think any of us would argue that the government (meaning the president, the congress, etc.) is the state; it's just there to hide the fact that the big bourgeoisie is fundamentally in control
I’m not arguing that either. To expand on the idea of a state in an oligarchy, since power stems from the capitalist and not the official government body, then the concept of the state can extend beyond the law and (official) institutional power.
I think we can all agree on the fact that the propaganda apparatus is part of the state, including mainstream media, and is beyond official government control. However, as described by Edward Bernays, propaganda stretches beyond just print and electronic media, but also includes think tanks, special interest groups, and movements. Like the NRA, GOA, etc.
For example, you can’t say that the Cuban American lobby or the Zionist lobby isn’t part of the state. On the surface, they appear to be grassroots organizations, but they are propped up and given power by capitalists because they support capitalist interests, and in return, they influence the people through false narratives, and gives an excuse to justify reactionary domestic and foreign policy.
Mainstream media may not be directly controlled by the government, but it is controlled by the core of the state (the big bourgeoisie), which is not the case for the average gun owner. This is also more or less true for "non-governmental" organizations like lobby groups and think tanks. It ultimately depends on how wide a definition of "state" is used, but including every gun owner would mean that at least 30% of the population are part of the state, and (IMO) such an extremely broad definition doesn't seem very useful
Regardless of the exact definition of "state", we can certainly agree that the majority of USian gun owners are aligned with the interests of the state, whether they know it or not
Interesting topic.
If the state is defined as the only legal perpetrators of violence…
Is that the right definition? It could be a good place to start. You might want to look up John Austin. This article may be useful: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legal-positivism/ If Austin is useful, you might want to check exactly how he reflected Bentham and then see if Marx said anything about that part of Bentham. Marx wasn't generally kind to him lol.
If you find this legal view of the state and keep reading you may come across Kelsen. If so, or if you're otherwise interested, have a look at Max Adler, The Marxist Conception of the State: A Contribution to the Differentiation of the Sociological and the Juristic Method. It's an old text but may be useful.
Otherwise, is the state the 'only legal [perpetrator] of violence' or does it have a monopoly on violence? Is there a difference?
I've yet to read it but Ralph Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society could be useful, too.
If you are going down a legal path, Pashukanis and Renner may be essential reading. Even anti-communists treat them seriously. I'm unsure if he's an anti-communist, but Fuller's Morality of Law relies on Pashukanis. Fuller was involved in one of a few great debates in jurisprudence in the twentieth century. His was the Hart-Fuller debate. Hart being the arch-positivist. You'll see him mentioned in the Austin article cited above, along with Kelsen (Pashukanis gets a line about some Marxists rejecting positivism).
(For those who are just passing by, legal positivism is basically the idea that there is a difference between what law is and what law ought to be. I.e. law doesn't necessarily tell you what is moral and law doesn't necessarily have to be moral.)
Oops actually I wanted to comment on the post but I must have made a mistake
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this guy is head of research at openai. also the head is making tweets criticising american left for not supporting israel
IDF-supporting nazis must not know what buildings look like, there's no way you can look at that and think that those buildings used to be "palaces"
I tried playing "Last Train Home". I couldn't, it was too stupid for me. It got me interested in the [Russian] civil war though, anybody got anything good to read?
Lol yeah, I dropped that game after the first mission. The rest of it didn't seem interesting either.
I should actually just work on my epubs instead of wasting time with games.
About one hour ago I finished reading an article titled ‘Is it ‘anti-Semitic’ to acknowledge that Arabs are Semites too?’. It mostly quibbles over how misleading terms like ‘antisemitism’ are, but it gave me some food for thought on something that the author had the opportunity to address but managed to miss.
Anti‐Arab and anti‐Jewish sentiments overlap in numerous ways. There are not only some similar stereotypes—that they’re unfair merchants interested in world domination—but fervent Judeophobes also tend to hate Arabs, often seeing them (and other races) as ‘pawns’ in Jewish plans. Admittedly, it is unlikely that anybody would mistake Ashkenazim for Arabs, but it is very tempting to think of anti‐Arab racism as not only an Arab but also a Jewish concern, because often such attackers are just as willing to target Jews as well; Judeophobia is not far off.
I am planning to read The Arab and Jewish questions: geographies of engagement in Palestine and beyond, because I have a feeling that I may be onto something here, but presently it sounds like I’m grasping at straws. I have a lot to think about; maybe these two prejudices are more closely related than they look.
