He’s about to get u, Biggs. You gotta make a solid commitment man and no more of this ‘leaning toward’ one or the other nonsense. Either hold firmly to a contraption in a particular context or don’t, cuz these niggaz is waiting on a dime for you to contradict urself.
Well, as happy as someone waiting for godot who is fractured and fragmented in what I believe to be an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence can be, I suppose.
Again, in one ear and out the other…
I make it clear from time to time here that my own observations about others are no less subjective reactions rooted existentially in dasein.
Thus, as I noted above or an another thread, all I can do is to react “honestly and introspectively” to the exchange I had with Maia as I in fact did. While making it clear that I am not arguing that her own reaction was wrong.
I can only respond to others as I do. And then, in further exchanges, change or not change my mind. And I certainly did not react to her as either an objectivist, a Stooge or a chickenshit.
As for you, from time to time, you do prompt me to use the words objectivist and Stooge. Though never a chickenshit.
You know, so far.
Clearly, you know very, very little about Marxism, if you actually believe that he was, what, a political idealist?
Marx explored the historical interactions of human beings as they evolved down through the ages given the manner in which the means of production itself evolved. Nomadic, slash and burn, hunters and gatherers, Feudal, mercantile, capitalist, socialist, Communist.
As opposed to, say, Ayn Rand who basically was a political idealist in that she insisted that capitalism reflected the most rational [and thus the most virtuous] manner in which human beings could interact. All the earlier political economies simply didn’t have a John Galt around to persuade them to embrace capitalism.
Or, sure, your own rendition of it. Your own experiences with the Commies leading you to just know that what you and others around you experienced was all that was necessary to fully understand that Marx was wrong. As though anyone who called himself a Communist would meet with the approval of Marx himself.
It’s not “in one ear and out the other”.
It’s me wondering how many times something can be pointed out to you before it clicks and you realize what a double standard you have.
That you routinely do things which you criticize others for doing.
But enough about you.
If I wrote in this forum what Marx wrote, you would go into your “intellectual contraption”, “general description”, “believe in your head”, “abstract”, “in the clouds” routine all over me.
Oh and “we need a context, of course”.
Right, like, with the exception of KT, most of those those who “point things out to me” aren’t themselves objectivists. With so much at stake if they ever came to believe that my own frame of mind is applicable to them.
But then back to what I construe to be only viable option: to focus in on a set of circumstances relating to conflicting goods, human identity and political economy; and, in an ongoing exchange, them being able to point to specific instances of this double standard of mine.
And, yes, exactly, you just can’t seem to stop yourself from making it all about me.
Sounds like a personal problem to me.
Bullshit. So, what else can I say here:
Address that please.
But watch out…you’re getting closer and closer to Larry taking over. 
Bullshit to your “bullshit”.
You didn’t address my points at all.
Marx wrote the same kind of shit that you constantly criticize.
I toldja it wuz coming, Biggs. I fucking toldja.
Looks like we’re stuck again.
Still, what in your view is the most important point I didn’t address?
Did Marx demonstrate the truth of what he wrote so that all rational men and women are obligated to believe it?
Okay that’s your point. And, no, he did not demonstrate it. That was the task he set for those in a position to actually bring about a revolution. He provided the social, political and economic arguments that would persuade them to take on that task. And, in particular, during the Industrial Revolution where class exploitation – and thus class struggle – was far, far more readily discernable.
What he did revolves more around my point: exploring the organic, historical evolution of the means of production embodied and embedded in the economic substructure over the centuries. How the superstructure is then in sync with that.
This part: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure
But more crucially my point revolves around the distinction that is made between materialism and political idealism. Derived in part from the conflicting reactions to Hegel’s take on dialectics: medium.com/@ardarrian/hegels-id … 9ff9e1ee9a
Most Libertarians and Ayn Randian Objectivists are, in my view, political idealists. They put far, far more emphasis on the rational mind “thinking up” the best of all possible economic systems. Then concluding that is capitalism.
That’s your personal bias talking.
In spite of your nihilism, your “fractured and fragmented self”, you still favor Marxism over capitalism, libertarian-ism, Randism. You don’t give them equal evaluations. Marxism seems “scientific” although he conducted no experiments and did not use the scientific method. He observed and drew conclusions. Founders of other systems did the same.
Anybody, reasonably intelligent, can come up with a system. (Cue James 
).
If it passes the logic and sanity analysis then it has tested to determine in what ways it succeeds and in what ways it fails. Testing in the real world is the only to figure out if it’s a good or bad system.
Only the ones that care about exploitation and fairness.
Sadly we are in the mercy of those that seek to enrich themselves at the expense of others.
You only need a small proportion of psychopaths in the world and a system that allows them to thrive to create hell on earth.
Were it not for advances in technology it would be hell on earth for the vast amjority as it has been since the dawn of civilisation.
Many men have asked, would it not be possible to balance the economy for the benefit of all, then you get a Trump come along and fuck every thing up.
phyllo:
‘‘If it passes the logic and sanity analysis then it has tested to determine in what ways it succeeds and in what ways it fails. Testing in the real world is the only to figure out if it’s a good or bad system.’’
K: so under your theory, it must be “tested in the real world” to figure out if it
is a “good or bad” system?
Ok, let us try this, Is capitalism which has been tested for over 150 years,
is it a “good system” or a "bad system?‘’
those who have profited from capitalism, village idiots like George Bush Jr.
and IQ45, sons of very wealthy men, they hold that capitalism is a great
system because in the real world, they got wealthy (whereas in fact
they only inherited wealth… the benefit was they were born into wealthy families)
ask someone who is barely surviving, living on minim wages and forced to work
two or even three jobs just to survive… is capitalism a “good” or a “bad” system?
whereas with one illness or a broken leg, and they are literally driven into
bankruptcy…
is capitalism working for them?
a few years ago, I had to have part of my colon removed, we have ok insurance,
but medical bills wiped out our savings, we had to pay over 70,000 dollars of
our own money to cover the cost… the medical bill came to over $360,000…
ask us if capitalism is working for us?
my point is that understanding if an economic system or a political system is
working in the “real world” still requires us to interpret from our own
place within the system as to its “goodness” or “badness”…
if I am rich, capitalism is great and works, if I am born poor, then capitalism sucks
the big wang and doesn’t work, at all?
so, tell me, who is right, and how do we know if they are right?
Kropotkin
I only used ‘good and bad’ in order to keep things simple and not to water down my point. My point was that real world experience is needed to test the effectiveness of systems. As opposed to accepting it because it is supposedly “scientific” or rejecting it because it comes from “political idealists”.
The reality is that it’s not black and white … some people win, some lose, some benefit, some are hindered … to various degrees.
We, the ones selecting the system, are choosing some sort of compromise.
But I find that it’s impossible to talk in this way at ILP because the members here are so binary. Here it’s either good or bad, right or wrong, capitalism or communism, works or doesn’t work. No shades of gray or no subtlety here.
K: but in fact, your very response was binary…how do we judge the “effectiveness” of any system?
I am not being binary, but I am asking a question that ask, how do we judge
the “effectiveness” of any system? What standard should we use to understand the value
and worth of any given system? the very question I ask is a question of shades of gray,
and about subtlety…
even your statement of “We, the ones selecting the system, are choosing some sort of
compromise” even that is A. asking a question and B. by what standard should we use
to select and choose any given system? If we cannot choose a system by rationality or
logic, and we cannot choose by its results because that is as biased as those who
choose by logic and rationality…the reality is we are choosing the “effectiveness”
of any given system via our bias and superstitions and habits formed since birth…
our childhood indoctrinations and biases actually are doing the selecting of a system…
and if we compromise, it is a compromise of our biases, superstitions, childhood
habits that we have not escaped from…
in other words, I object to the very assumptions you begin with…
that ILP members are binary, unable to detect good or bad or
right or wrong or what systems are “good” or “bad”
they can tell, but they can’t tell you the standards they used… how did they
achieve their understanding of what is “good” or “bad” or why is “communism”
as a system a failure? there are a whole group of ILP’ers that love to spout off
about the “effectiveness” or “failure” of communism… the problem is that they
can’t tell you upon what grounds they find communism to be a failure or a success?
what is the standard used to judge the “good” or “evil” of any system?
give us the context of your standards for judgment about the failure or success
of any system?
Kropotkin
Marx’s big mistake was his thinking that determinism meant predictability, and that the scientific method could easily be applied to the mass of humanity with the diversities in culture, history and environment (social and ecological). His dialectial materialism may well have sounded great at the time, and had many valid observations.
But like Asimov’s Hari Seldon failed to predict the mutatnt that was The Mule, Marx did not account for the callous, mean, and duplicitous rich who have been able to mobilise many diverse ideologies to ensure that the proletariat continued to persistently participate in their own opression.
Nationalism, racism, patriotism, monarchism, consumerism, christianity, have all been used since Marx to keep a lid on the poweder keg that is poverty.
As for shades of grey - they are legion.
Various types of communism work and have worked here and there.
And if you are able to accept the continued destruction of the world’s ecosystem and the oppression of the poor then capitalism works too.
Again: Unbelievable!!
As though I am able to close the gap between what I think is true about Marxism and all that there is to be known about it in order to pin down objectively what is in fact true about it.
You know, like I presume the objectivists among us do. Like, say, you do?
Yes, given the life that I have lived – my experiences, my relationships, my access to information and knowledge – I have come to embody certain political prejudices. And I suspect that had I not been sent to Vietnam and met those like Mac, I might well still be spouting the political prejudices of the fulminating fanatic right wingers instead.
But if you still can’t see the profound difference between Marx’s historical/materialist/dialectical approach to political economy and Rand’s ahistorical “metaphysical” idealism rooted in the belief that the human mind – philosopher kings and queens! – can successfully defend capitalism as the most rational economic system there can ever possibly be, then, nope, I won’t try to persuade you otherwise.
With Saint back when and with those here today like Obsrvr524 and Fixed Jacob, what I am interested in is bringing their own TOE out into the world of human interactions and, given particular contexts involving conflicting goods, exploring the components of our respective moral philosophies. And then connecting the dots between that and “immortality”.
Again, what on earth are you talking about here? In regard to Marxism, what passes the logic and sanity analysis test? And a good or bad system from whose point of view given a particular set of circumstances. And then how does the manner in which I construe “I” here as an existential fabrication rooted historically, culturally and experientially factor into it all?
Notice how you selectively choose to think that Marx was able to “close the gap” or you choose to ignore that he was not able to “close the gap”.
Either way, you are giving him a free pass.
Think about the “profound” similarities.
Immortality is not the subject.
James’ stuff doesn’t pass the logic test. His affectance doesn’t have enough properties to account for the variety of phenomena that we see … electricity, magnetism, gravity, etc. If it’s not a sufficient physics, then it’s not going to be sufficient in other areas.
Antinatalism is something that does not pass the sanity analysis.
I already responded to PK about this.