Yes. This. This is exactly what I was talking about in my other comment in this thread, posted before seeing this one. I was calling it scale instead of scope, but this is spot on.

People will pick and choose how things function at one scope and pretend it applies at others. A lot of people, even good well-meaning ones, will do this and fall into this trap, but particularly shitty people will do this as a way to justify their garbage beliefs or justify hurting and demeaning others. Exactly like OP image "you don't matter 'cause the Earth doesn't give a shit if you're here or not as one person. You're a loser for thinking you matter at all." FUCK that. You absolutely matter, just not necessarily at the scale/scope of an entire planet orbiting a star, that doesn't invalidate or make meaningless the just as real scale/scope at which you DO matter. Their application of how things function at scale is always used in whatever way is beneficial to them at the moment or to prove whatever flawed, even sadistic point they're trying to make. Capitalists, politicians, and of course the mass media under their control do this constantly and it infuriates me to no end.

It really is a matter of scale. Even at the scale of society as a whole, you as an individual don't "matter" in that your presence (or lack of it) isn't going to impact its course or functionality. It's literally why we have to organize in order to even have any hope of achieving our aims. We certainly don't "matter" on a global scale. However, what the person in the OP image said is entirely true. At the scale of our families and social group, and absolutely at the scale of our individual experience, each of us matters profoundly. At the scale of our individual experience, each of us is a universe unto ourselves.

It is infuriating to me when people refuse to understand that what is true at one scale may not be (and usually isn't) true at another scale, but that this does not invalidate how true things are at any other given scale. The fact that your impact on the galaxy as a whole is so small as to be effectively insignificant does not mean that your impact on the world you live in, literally your sphere of experience and influence, is insignificant, because the truth is that it is extremely significant at that scale.

Western culture and society is pathological in how it simultaneously acts as though the only reality is what exists at the scale of the individual when it comes to blame and "rEsPoNsIbiLitY" but will utterly diminish and demean the experience of any individual that doesn't spend their existence on this earth in service of the great evil god of capital. It's Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women and families." Meanwhile every single one of those individual men and women (rather the ones who don't own or control capital) are treated as nothing more than a cog in a machine, a sliver of utility to be used as such then expended and replaced as such. It's a philosophy that cherry-picks only the convenient truths of how things work at various different given scales and applies them across the board as if they're true at all other scales, all of course to serve the interests of the ruling class. It is a source of many of the philosophical contradictions of capitalism and the diseased society that results from it.

https://htwins.net/scale2/

I've loved (and since missed) your weekly rankings. Fucking hilarious content. But I'm really happy to know that the reason they've been put on hiatus is because you're gonna be a papa. Not happy about the difficulty part of course, I hope that all gets worked out comrade. Anyway, congratulations! Health and happiness to you, your wife, and your soon to be introduced to this world son.

Compare China with the capitalist project? Ok, China is clearly winning in just about every conceivable way. Were you trying to make some sort of point?

Well that's the whole thing though, we have no idea how phenomenal consciousness really fits in a (supposedly) completely physical universe. Our current models are just mathematical descriptions of fields and particles, we have no mathematical model for "love" or the "redness of red".

But this just isn't true. We have an understanding of emergence, emergent properties, and emergent processes. Consciousness (including experience and qualia) are emergent properties of all that mathematical physics we understand quite well. Any time the whole "why do feel then and why am I not a philosophical zombie?" question comes up as a response to this, it's asking a question that doesn't have an answer. And not in the way that it's a question that doesn't have an answer because we haven't discovered it yet, but a question that doesn't actually even make sense when you consider the philosophical context.

To use another example... It's like asking "why is there a universe?" Well, who says there even is a "why" answer to that question? If we do end up resolving the issue of how Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don't perfectly align in extreme conditions, we may well answer the question as to how there is a universe (which actually still is an unsolved problem). But again, asking "why" there is a universe is making a giant and unfounded assumption that there is a "why" or a "reason" that the universe exists when there is absolutely nothing that necessitates there being a "reason" for "why."

The supposed hard problem of consciousness is no different. Qualia/experience is an emergent property of mathematical rules the same way that the complex and unpredictable undulation of schools of fish is an emergent property of individual fish following very simple rules of how to move relative to the fish next to them, and there being a "why" beyond that is ultimately just nonsensical. Obviously, you can give it further and separate explanations that seem to provide a "why," like: "fish evolved to do this because those that did were more likely to reproduce, that's why." And that's perfectly valid, but so too is saying "consciousness evolved this way because it was likewise beneficial to the reproduction of the systems that produced it, that's why." But that's all just other angles to addressing the "how." We have all the "how" necessary to explain consciousness, even if there are gaps here and there, just as there are gaps to every single scientific question there is. I know that may not feel satisfactory to a lot of people, but honestly, I think that's only because of a combination of the unfortunate reductionist scientific paradigm and the resulting underappreciation for and misunderstanding of emergence as a real (scientific) phenomenon.

Same. Deeply grateful for the pushback on it, though.

Don't know of any, but there was a similar (if shorter) list going around a few months ago, and it was pretty much debunked point by point here: https://hexbear.net/post/275117

calm down you fuckin' weirdo. This kind of ridiculous, childish response to having your morals called into question is pretty telling, though. Time for some self crit.

I don't know about mossad/IDF specifically and would guess that is unlikely, but I'm also not so sure everyone here who saying "no way, lemmy is way too small for feds/ops to care about" are really going off anything more than a hope.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they have a few spooks to send in to steer the narrative a bit here and discredit actual realities there. It's not a lot of work for them. It is for us, because we're of course fighting the dominant mainstream narratives. All they have to do is parrot that shit, or say something even worse than what the MSM is saying to shift the window of acceptability (not quite the Overton window, but same idea), putting people talking reality on their back foot. Because the ubiquity and predominance of libs, the feds will have a ton of support, a ready-made base of nodding fools who will upvote them because what they're saying reproduces and reinforces the libs' worldviews. It's a feedback loop, and they're there to ensure it keeps feeding back in the direction that benefits (again, reproduces/reinforces) the existing power structures.

It's not like the feds that we know for a fact that are on reddit can't also moonlight on lemmy a bit, the same way regular users often do. And come on, there are countless documented cases of undercover feds infiltrating the tiniest of innocent orgs, like 5-person book clubs IRL. It's vastly easier to astroturf online communities than it is to infiltrate actual orgs. I think it's a tad naive to think feds wouldn't at the very least dip their toes into lemmy for a bit of astroturfing, especially since that silly reddit blackout. It doesn't take much in the way of resources for them, but I think there's obvious reason and benefits to do it, even on just a small scale.

As for feeling burnt out, if you feel like you could use a break, take a break! Don't sacrifice your own well being for this shit, it's not worth it. But if and when you do go back to the posting trenches, remember that the goal is never to change the mind of the person you're arguing with. That is simply not going to happen, in anything but the most absurdly rare cases. But if others are seeing the conversation, lurkers, the people there just up/downvoting, they're the ones who see your "debates" with the terminally brainwormed and lot of those lurkers really are capable of recognizing the bullshit versus the reasoned and sensical argument, even if it doesn't immediately click for them (though sometimes it does). It's not unlike watching a kind of dialectic. My mind has been changed that way a few times, and I know that's the case for many others. So don't let it get you too down when you're inundated with their garbage and their lies. Someone else saw what you had to say and they were affected by it. Seeds do get planted.

Glad to help!

wtf is retrograde anyway.

Have you ever been on a bike (usual analogy is a car, but fuck that) traveling along at a pretty good clip, and you come upon another bike ahead of you that's moving in the same direction as you but going slower?

They look like they're moving forward against the background scenery at first, no surprise there. But as you're passing them, they look like they're moving backwards against the background hills. Then once you're a ways ahead of them, they look like they're moving forward normally again. Ever notice that? If not, try it sometime. The other bike was never actually moving backwards, but since they are going forward more slowly than you, relative to the background, it does look briefly like they are going backward.

Same thing happens with slower planets further from the sun than we are - as earth passes them, it looks for a period like they're going backwards against the background stars from our perspective. That is retrograde motion. The planets don't actually stop in their orbits, move backward for a bit, stop again and then move forward, but it looks like they do because of our relative motion around the sun.

Now, if you're from a time before it was well known that Earth is in orbit around the sun same as those other planets (and not the center of the solar system and universe), then it would mean those planets were moving backwards. And if you also think of the sky as literally the heavens which determine the fate of people on Earth, this backward motion is going to seem extremely significant (even if it's in reality basically just an optical illusion).

but how can they literally not see this?! Its been repeated over and over in history! How many times do they have to be wrong? How many times do they find out they were deceived on every level?! They know their politicians lie, at least they say they do, but they never once question them! Its so fucking tiring to watch it happen every single fucking time! They never learn! Ever!

It's because they know, if even on an instinctual level, that their material interests are fundamentally aligned with the empire. Every time they're lied to, they can easily say "it's different this time" simply because it broadly serves them better to believe those lies.

Most of the propaganda isn't there to "trick" or "fool" them into believing the lie, it's there to provide them with the justification, the excuse that they long for, that they need in order to maintain their view of themselves as good and right and smart. It's not that they're incapable of learning, it's that they have no material incentive to learn and plenty of incentive not to, since doing so would challenge their identity, their firmly-held beliefs that all their privilege and treats are earned and that they have a legitimate and moral right to them. Which of course they don't. Of course they're going to believe the lies over and over and over.

I think I understand better what you meant now that I've read the other thread. Yeah, I'm in full agreement with you. My support is with whatever the Palestinian freedom fighters and the Palestinian people support. Those (here of all places) who are saying that cheering for what's happening is "cheering for blood" need to get the fuck over themselves. Can't help but wonder what other revolutionary action they'd concern-troll. (Not that any of what we cheer or what others pearl-clutch about makes any material difference in the liberation efforts happening right now).

I was about to try to go to sleep. Not anymore.

It's absolutely true that as westerners it would be supremely arrogant to think we know better than the Palestinians about what's going on. Still, I think it's fair and justified to be worried about the well-being of the Palestinian people as this continues to develop and the extreme reaction and terror that Isn'treal is capable of. Regardless: Full and uncritical support to Palestine and their resistance to the genocidal ethnostate.

I know it was deployed against Iraqis during the first Gulf War, with Hillary Clinton claiming Saddam was issuing his troops with Viagra specifically so they could [redacted] more.

I don't doubt r**e was a claim made against Iraqis too, but it's the absurd claim about soldiers taking babies from incubators that most sticks out in my memory when it comes to Iraq and the first Gulf War. However, Hilary Clinton talking about soldiers being given viagra was definitely about Gaddafi. Keep in mind who was in power when those respective conflicts were happening.

I don't mean to refute that but they do have somewhat strict laws around nazi apoligia.

Yeah, about that...

Show

https://hexbear.net/post/720421

1. Mostly it was about fooling you into thinking that, as a worker, you have even an iota of power within that company.

2. You: "The owners deserve all the value that results from owning the company and not the workers because the owners own the company, duh." Reread what you said and note the ridiculous circular logic.

3. The company would continue to function perfectly fine without the owner(s), yet would immediately cease to function or even exist without the workers. The only role the owner plays in the company (that the workers operate), is to siphon the value away from the workers who made it and unto themselves.

Hi JT. I think it's safe to say, you've had a good deal of success in reaching people online and opening them up to socialist concepts. But are there any instances in real life where you've felt you "got through" to someone in some significant way? I mean that in terms of just straight up talking to someone in person who wasn't aware of your online work and making real headway, but also if anyone you know "in real life" has told you that your online work is what helped change their perspective. In either case, did they have anything specific to say about what it was that "won them over"?

Just to add a little context, I remember you mentioning on the podcast that you and some old college buddies still on occasion get together and do powerpoint presentations for each other. First of all, my god, that's some wholesome nerdiness. If I remember right, those friends were more receptive than you had expected, and I always wondered about what they thought much later on, after you became a reasonably big online persona.

In addition to my above serious question, I wonder if you might just maybe indulge me a little further with a second one? Would you be willing to nudge Hakim & Yugopnik into doing an AMA here too? I don't know if that's socially/parasocially uncouth of me to ask, but it would be awesome if we could pick the brains of all 3 of The Deprogram boys I have jokingly said that since Hexbear was fortunate enough to get you, we should let our comrade instance, lemmygrad.ml, have the honor of hosting Hakim's AMA. But then Hexbear and Lemmygrad need to have some sort of posting battle, and only the winner gets to host Yugopnik. Regardless of the particulars, Hakim & Yugopnik may really enjoy it as a respite from the monotony of being forever stuck in your basement, yeah?

(Apologies if any of this was asked before, I'm still working my way through the thread)