I feel like he's the definition of a lib that CAN be redeemed. Like, if any libs are redeemable (and I sure hope they are, since I used to be one), he's one of 'em.

Consequentialism covers all morality that's based in the outcomes of actions. Utilitarianism is the kind of consequentialism focused on maximizing happiness. Deontology is rules-based morality.

I think hypotheticals can be useful as long as the example actually is universifiable. In the trolley problem, the real question is "Is it okay to directly cause a bad thing to happen if it will prevent a worse thing (which you did not directly cause) from happening" which is IMO a worthwhile question to ask whose answer is applicable to many different scenarios. I think it's possible to misapply a hypothetical, since the scenarios might not actually be comparable, but if they are, I think we should apply our principles consistently, and having hypotheticals helps us do that.

No, it makes sense in the context it was made for, which is illustrating the difference between deontology and consequentialism.

Thank you!

Where can I learn more about this? I've picked up a good bit of hearsay about the bureaucracy/deep state/whatever but I've never seriously studied it.

But what about my father's dragon ? He never hoarded any gold!

I honestly think I was almost destined to be a communist. I've always had a strong dislike for the rich, a progressive worldview, and a general feeling that society is changeable and that sometimes extreme measures are acceptable to achieve that. Plus my dad drilled historical materialism into me from a young age because his dad was a communist historian.

I just had all these barriers to taking my thoughts to their logical conclusions. Gradually, after prolonged exposure to online left spaces, those little bits of propaganda were dismantled one by one. It's not as though someone posted a big argument and I was instantly convinced, it's just that once I harbored enough doubt to stop viewing "Muh human nature" and the like as good excuses to completely dismiss the ideology, and once I understood that there were different tendencies and more nuance to the ideology than a simple caricatured Stalinism, I became able to view it clearly and to consider its arguments seriously.

I think there are a lot of people like that, who would be very receptive to our ideas if only they were able to allow themselves to seriously consider them. This why I think it's important to challenge those little anti-communist tropes wherever you see them.

Start with Marx's Wage Labor and Capital . It covers some of Marx's key economic ideas without requiring you to actually read all of Capital.

The demographic trends in the US still look good for us, and neoliberalism absolutely cannot survive climate change. We can't guarantee that we'll win, but the conditions will be far riper soon enough.

I feel like ICP the band and ICP the prison gang and ICP the group of people who go to a festival to wear face paint and do drugs for free are all different things and this should be acknowledged more often.

Playing with blocks is and always has been dope.

Note that they say "people" when they mean "capital".

We denounced the British because they wouldn’t let us be racist enough.

Source? Sounds interesting.

Trolling can be funny a bit can be anger-inducing, but the purpose of a bit is to elicit laughs, while trolling seeks to elicit anger.