I used to be like these types, and then I realized a lot of leftists, or more specifically Marxists base their entire political ideology off of theory that’s like 200 years old. Marx was writing at the peak of the Industrial Revolution probably when capitalism was in its most grotesque form (child labour, no regulations etc.) there’s no way in hell Marx could have ever imagined the complex world we live in today.
And also evolution is false because On the Origin of Species was written 200 years ago and there's no way Darwin could've accounted for all the complexities the molecular biology revolution revealed in trait heritability.
Also why do liberals like to pretend their own theory doesn't predate Marx by decades or centuries. Marx was literally building on top of existing liberal theory
They have guys like Hobbes, who died in 1679. They'll regularly quote Plato or Aristotle too. Ask them what western society is based on and they'll start saying nerd shit about the Manga Carta or ancient Rome. Liberals are so unserious
God can you imagine if we lived in a hellishly cruel and exploitative world of industrial genocides, child labor and deregulation, like in the dirty stinky past? Then those communists might have a point, haha
Once I had someone try to refuse communism with something like "Marx was writing at a time where everything was made in factories. Times have changed."
ok which star trek replicator did your clothes come from mr liberal
You mean to tell me that the people making all commodities aren't making $300k/yr and working from home with their output coordinated through a series of gig economy apps? I don't know about that, sounds pretty old fashioned.
Nonono neoliberalism fixed all that, look at the global extreme poverty graph, the line is going down! (Please don't look at what happens when you take China out).
You should post what happens to !agitprop@hexbear.net
There's probably a whole effortpost to be done on the sketchiness that is global extreme poverty headcount measurement. I'll have to add it to my to do list after visualizing per-capita greenhouse gas emissions.
they're re-legalizing child labor in some US states, and finding illegal child labor in others. capitalism is oopsie daisy still in its most grotesque form.
I started a podcast about end of history nostalgia and I kind of want to use prolonged vampire euphoria at least once, you mind?
Playing Toreador was never the same after those movies came out. Nosferatu really intensified for some time.
the Pythagorean theorum is outdated because the ancient Greeks would have fainted in terror at the sight of a protractor
It's wild how the people who approach capitalism like it's a religion are able to sort of just state between the lines that there isn't child labor or how there supposedly are functioning regulations in global capitalism today. Completely ignoring the exploitation their neoliberal world order requires to maintain itself.
It's not that complex, they are calling it complex the same way they call the Middle East complex. Understanding it would require engaging with something that takes some work. And if we ask a lib if a lib will "lib or not to lib", the lib will always lib. Because it takes zero effort to keep on libbing.
All the people who post on reddit are pretty much just evil demons. They're aware of how things work. How could they not be when they're constantly saying "Pfft. All these MARXIST tankie McTankersons talking about value and workers and whatever. It's like, hey man, stop harshing the vibe!" They read the random paragraphs and instantly their brain sections it off so they can cope in real time. We all do it with information we don't want to internalize. Like horrifying news, whatever else. You read it, process it, "know it", but it's pushed off somewhere in your mind beyond real comprehension because it directly opposes your chosen beliefs.
Anyway, so that's one type of person basically beyond help. The posters who are open neolibs.
Heavily generalizing, I think there's two groups. The reddit demons and the "truly ignorants." And I don't mean ignorant of western, American, exploitation of China, etc. Everyone knows about that. Maybe they'll deny it, but, yeah. I mean those who know about it but sort of accept it because this is the life and world they born in to and they were told all along the way that the people of China, etc. must suffer in order for this world to keep existing. Or the implication was made clear anyway. Every single American knows it in their heart. So in that way, that they all know the truth, every single American is complicit in ongoing exploitation. And benefits from it. However, the part that I argue makes them truly ignorant is they were never told, of course, and never bothered to look much into it that... it doesn't have to be this way. It hasn't been this way for all that long historically. And this total outsourcing of labor has only become so ubiquitous since ~1970s.
Anyway, my only point here was yes you're right. They do ignore it. I don't know how many of them are doing Mr. Burns fingers while thinking about exploiting people to enrich capitalists, but it also doesn't matter. If you even lightly pay attention to "politics" even the sludge Americans call politics, there's no way to be a moral person and walk away with anything other than an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and really, boiled down, broadly anti-USA as a nation outlook. All the excuses of "brainwashing" and such ring hollow to me when these "people" see children and other obvious innocents murdered by the thousands, even millions on the bigger timeline, and still support their own Nazi state. I was born and raised in the USA and I came to see it for exactly what it is. Someone else just as "online" and exposed to reality has no fucking excuse in my book.
As said in Masses, Elites, and Rebels
Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live. The psychic and material costs are rationally worth the benefits
Westerners are willingly complicit in crimes because they instinctively and correctly understand that they benefit as a class (as a global bourgeois proletariat) from the exploitation enabled by their military and their propaganda — organs of coercion and consent.
I'm sorry but I think both of you and the author massively overestimate the amount of critical thinking the average westerner is doing in regards to geopolitics.
Imperialism is not so cut-and-dry and easy to comprehend as something like slavery and it's reprecussions, which to this day is something people still fail to comprehend.
I don't think the argument would be that the opinions that people form, or want to form, always come from a conscious understanding of imperialism. The author would likely say that Westerners want to believe, and do believe, the rest of the world is bad, dangerous, unfree, undemocratic, totalitarian, etc. to make them better about their own lives - even if, or because they are, facing difficulties themselves.
The article mentions China and the supposed genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as an example. The phrase may as well be gibberish to Westerners. They don't know, nor want to know, anything about the topic.
You are right, they aren't doing any critical thinking. They are simply repeating nonsensical lines and absurdities, and they don't want to think about it.
They don't understand imperialism on a conscious level. But they want to believe that even if they can't pay their bills, and their own life in the West has its hardships, and their state could be doing more, that at least other places are worse. And they want to feel superior to the rest of the world, so they believe any atrocity propaganda they stumble across to fuel their coping mechanism. But it doesn't require an understanding of imperialism on their part. If they think about it at all, I'd guess they would attribute the superiority of the West to white supremacy, "democratic values", etc.
These are probably the same people that smugly go "uhm whatabout Uighur slave labour? :smuglord: what about Muslims enslaving people? Heh didn't think so, tankie :smuglord: "
Something something "my life is good and if yours isnt its your fault"
Damn thats crazy how i don't buy stuff produced under the command of capitalists anymore, its a very different system cause they got flatscreens. Interestingly they only produce stuff that brings them profit, another mystery why they do that
just different i guess.If someone were to say this about their beloved constitution.... And why are they acting like we aren't facing climate crisis and potential overshoot?
Abruptly stand up and challenge the speaker to a debate. Your opening statement should be a 15-minute monologue that invokes your IQ, your depth of knowledge of Milton Friedman's literature, and your immunity to simple emotional appeals. Leave the ball in their court. But they'll simply be too stunned to respond with anything but silence and awe. They'll concede, and you will likely get a standing ovation and a few phone numbers.
Doing the John Galt speech irl and getting spitballs fired at you the entire time
https://archive.is/wip/dN7Lk Fresh archive of what needs to be a site tagline:
I just attended a Marxist lecture for extra credit and had to sit there while the guest condoned not voting, claimed Obama didn't end the war, and called the 2009 loans bailouts. Please make me feel better before I puke.
I'm not joking my more immediate coping mechanism was the catering provided so I had a lot of cookies.
One of the top comments is telling OP to lie about their politics to sleep with people
It often doesn’t work because they think idpol is all they need to be correct on and can’t be fucked to read enough theory so that they can bullshit through it
Two top comments is how deep I'll let myself go, and both of them mention reading Dune, one of them as theory. Liberal injokes are lame.
I'm still not sure if those top two comments are leftists making fun of them or not
They love to claim it's a joke sub, while also being proud of the neoliberalism ideals so who knows
I'm aware, but it's so monumentally dogshit that it still comes off as a joke lmao
I don't get it, Dune is a critique of everything they stand for.
Are the libs irony poisoned too, or just media illiterate?
a little bit of column A and a little bit of column BI think that it’s a “Bro it’s just a book/movie bro. Don’t take it seriously bro,” type of joke. See if you analysis media critically you’re a real nerd, just as dweeby as those leftists telling you to read theory. Don’t they get that theory is just books?
I just went to a lecture where the lecturer told me a bunch of true things I don't like and now I'm shaking and crying uncontrollably
I imagine they're talking about Iraq? Which Obama eventually pulled out of past the timetable Bush set. And only after many successive parliamentary votes by the Iraqi people for the Americans to leave. And then during his second term it collapsed into another civil war and Obama went back to Iraq.
“The.” Oh you don’t know which war was “the”? Shame. Sounds like someone hasn’t been keeping up with their news.
Obviously, “the” war is the one most prominently covered by US media. The other ones are only sparkling wars.
/s
Honestly I'd argue being open to feedback is the primary requirement to succeeding at...well most anything long-term. So it's not exactly a small difference
i think people of almost every political position like to flatter themselves by saying they're uniquely receptive to feedback and new information and therefore a superior critical thinker. like, saying it does not make it so.
This is a thread about needing a coping mechanism because someone told them two factual statements about the Obama administration that they didn't like. We definitely get ahead of ourselves about this stuff too but NL is just page after page of
"They insulted Obama. OBAMA. please make me feel better and coddle my insecurities, reaffirm my biases plesae"
Actual adult children. neophyte brainage. how are these people real
I'm glad I did kickboxing as a teen, the experience of having to keep a neutral face after getting beaten up in front of a crowd that includes your parents will humble a person.
Oh ok. Seems pretty unserious because it makes no sense, but I suppose that fits too.
Dune is really most obvious message of "do not trust the prophets, tyrants, monarchs" but a lot of people don't get it and idolize figures like Leto or Muad'dib or Leto II. I mean, they are even named "Atreides" that had to be thickest hint ever. Even Frank Herbert himself was annoyed by them.
Users of that subreddit would better serve the planet as fertiliser.
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