when what I’m actually talking about is the idea that a business owner should lose his business to the employers
or that a house owner should lose his house to a tenant
as evidenced by … literally what we’ve been talking about
if you just read the words
instead of reading the words “as”
ok i misinterpreted. my bad.
Let’s take a look at your first post in this thread.
What exactly have you demonstrated here?
The post mostly consists of assertions.
(And assertions aren’t demonstrations.)
[tab]It’s one assertion:
After another assertion:
After another:
After yet another:
And it goes on and on, like so:
[/tab]
The following is the only argument in the entire post:
The problem with it is that it misses the point. I’m not aware of a single person posting in this thread who actually thinks that risk taking shouldn’t be rewarded. The question is: by how much? You never tackled this question. (Other people did, such as phoneutria, but you yourself never did.)
[tab]And of course, at the end of your post, there’s the most important assertion:
This is what it boils down to.[/tab]
Sil wrote
The government NWO, not elected but appointed by mysterious factions, controls all freedom (limits speech and free thought, right to peacefully assemble, right to defend yourself, etc) while under 24/7 surveillance and you are brainwashed to report your friends and families to the state for any infractions, 24/7 curfews under martial law, controls movement of people, movement of goods, goods manufactured, how much food you can eat in a day, how much electricity you can use, how much water you can use, how often you can seek medical care and the type of care, allocation of living space (size, number of rooms, number of windows, number of doors, bathrooms, color of walls), how you move, when you move, where you move, where you work, what you are paid (you don’t get to negotiate or seek employment elsewhere), they will score your participation in everything the government wants you to do such as how you follow social correctness and governments laws (already being done in China), if you can marry, if you can reproduce, if you can enjoy any entertainment. Everybody works for the government, but only a few or one unelected official decides the fate of all of mankind, violence and fear control the masses. Radical communism is 100 times worse than 1984.
Brewing in Argentina now.
On the horizon of all Western countries as well. But The United States must be completely destroyed first, democracy and freedom curtailed before the globalist left agenda can really spread unchecked. The wild wild West must be obliterated from the inside out, hence the lies and the brainwashing.
Yeah, fair. It’s generally not my style to get anecdotal.
Also, don’t worry about me - I care precisely zero if people “judge (the fuck out of) me”.
I just wonder to myself what value you get from your judgment? Do you think your guesses were close? Would they affect the logic of my arguments if they were or weren’t? I don’t see the point, but please feel free to judge to your heart’s content.
Anecdotes do have their small niche in logical analysis - to disprove proposed general rules, as with your appeal to nature e.g. the urge to mark your territory.
They don’t do much in terms of degree, but they do accomplish the simple task of showing a generality isn’t 100% universal.
My use of them simply served to counter the distinct notions of “human nature” that you were trying to push - as at least prevalent amongst humans if not universal (you do say “you seem to agree that nature varies” so I take it you agree that human nature isn’t uniform). My position is that human nature isn’t infinitely variable, but it is significantly variable such that no one shoe fits all. I think this is much of the traditional left-right disagreement. The right evaluate the left according to their nature, and the left evaluate the right according to their nature - and they too easily create straw men if they fail to understand different human natures.
That’s why political discussions are so rarely fruitful - and why I made such an effort to get people to stick to the words that Marx actually wrote, which are the same whoever is reading them. Value judgments cloud the whole thing in biases and corrupt any constructive progress, as do interpretations. History is largely factual, but necessarily contains significant interpretation. So in the interests of coming to an agreed conclusion about what Marxism really is, history can’t be ignored, but if it contradicts the actual words, the actual words ought to take precedence and the historical contradiction examined in light of this. By the same token, history admittedly gets far closer to the practical application than the theory alone, but there is a far superior method of evaluating practice compared to historical record - and that is science.
I do stress that the prospect of scientific experiment is particularly iffy when it comes to testing Marxism, seeing as uncontrolled experiments that have assumed the Marxist banner went so horribly wrong. That can’t happen again.
However, I do know that an actually exhaustive controlled study would benefit all by finally putting the question to rest.
Otherwise it’s the right’s interpretations of the history versus the left’s interpretations of the texts forever and ever in the same tedious limbo.
I’m interested in the possibility of safely testing economic alternatives scientifically and in a controlled environment - the same as for all scientific experiments. Fully marxist or no, with only cherry picked elements of Marxism or none at all - just so long as it can be legitimately defined what’s going on, because as certain as everyone is presenting themselves to be with their “opinions” on Marx, it’s a fact that nobody actually knows. They just judge themselves to sufficiently know and from there too easily call it quits.
I agree that our physical bodies are very much the same as they were 80k years ago, but it’s not insignificant that our material conditions are so different from 80k years ago that it seems almost impossible to contemplate just how different they are - and the proclivities of our physical bodies to adapt to changing material conditions are also very much the same as they were 80k years ago. Humans, like all animals, are very much a product of BOTH genetics and environment. Even if the former were exactly the same, humans have changed by approximately a fuck-ton in the last 80k years.
Not going vegan is largely indefensible, but I still eat meat anyway because like you say, people often still desire meat. I have my arguments to “excuse” me from veganism, but that’s not a hill I’m going to die on. The relevance to the thread is that these days there’s hardly any difference between vegan and meat diets in terms of what’s available and what can be nice to eat and nutritious to some reasonable standard - we can choose between animal or plant murder practically arbitrarily. Growing up into what we have now just doesn’t present any innate necessity to cling to meat anymore, and the same thing goes for many aspects of what our nature would have been growing up into a 80k year old society. The appeal to how we were back then is only valid insofar as our bodies aren’t that different, but at best that’s barely even half the whole picture of what else we are. As a whole, humans have moved on so far from how we used to be that most of the norms back then would probably be unrecognisable to us now unless we intentionally tried to get back into how we reckon it used to be.
Imposition in the form of policy is meant to answer a question of perceived “fairness”. Obviously everyone is different, and you could imagine as a thought experiment how it would be to be able to live according to policies specifically taylored to ourselves - but I would bet most people would still get jealous and intolerant of the decisions of others, especially given the fact that we can’t all live in a bubble and our actions have repercussions on the rest of us and our shared environment. But even if I lost that bet, you could also imagine the personal intrusion and violation of privacy involved in a third party determining our unique tailor-made policies if any verification process was involved. Otherwise it’d just be everyone determining whatever policy they wanted themselves - which could either be interpretted as what most people already do in some relative (socially moderated) way, or a permenant state of infantile hedonism where we pursue only our basest and most “natural” selfish desires in some absolute way. I doubt the success of the latter except maybe in some virtual future simulation way, the third party verification way would be dystopian, and the jealousy way hardly ideal. So we resolve to the largely self-actualised way that we have now, but socially tempered since our decisions affect others and we even prefer interaction with others in various social ways. That’s why imposition in the form of policy is relatively ethical, at least given our current material limitations/technologies.
Of course there’s no rules against being charitable. But it’s quite evident from practice that when it’s left up to the individual, too little charity goes to too few channels - and usually where it does go has some selfish reason for it and not towards worthy sources that irrational biases put people off giving to. And it’s often through a for-profit business… Charity under Capitalism is in a sense absurd: the system operates to make a few people very much more rich than the majority, so that they can give back to the majority in some targetted fashion and in such a way that doesn’t remotely disrupt the few continuing to get much more rich than the majority. It’s like trying to splash a waterfall back up to the top - but doesn’t it seem to assuage all that guilt all the same, eh? If capitalists really wanted to be charitable they’d change the system that essentially “donates” the majority of charity up to them by default. Only they won’t, not least because they assume other capitalists won’t either - precisely because they don’t have to. They have all that initial-idea-pay, and initial-organisation-pay, and self-fulfilling-risk-pay to continually extract from the continued work of their employees long after the equivalent wage for the same labour (of delegated ideas/organising/handling risk) is paid for. Charity under Capitalism is taking plenty with one hand and giving back little with the other.
Lol why would I care if anyone heard me say that?
I kept telling you I’m not a Marxist fanatic, just a Marxist by virtue of his analyses of Capitalism and a few other concepts of his such as his theory of alienation.
However radical that makes me in your eyes for just agreeing with some of him, it doesn’t make me agree with all of him (in the same way as I did right at the start of this thread) - but that’s not even the title of the thread. The thread isn’t what anyone thinks about him, simply WHAT he really is. Only then can anyone begin to perform evaluations. And I stated at the start of this thread how best to arrive at this.
I see.
What passages of Marx’s writings detail each of these requirements of Communism, exactly?
What’s wrong this this thread? The one that is entitled “what Marxism really is”?
We don’t have to make our own personal dasein threads in addition to this one do we? 
Even if we did, what might make you think they won’t suffer the same fate as this one, getting overrun by Smee et al. patting each other on the back about how right and great they are?
All things considered though, there’s still some distinct effort on the part of an appreciated few sticking to the relevant topics in good enough faith - so in spite of the noise it’s still a marked step forward for ILP as of recently.
That’s the beauty of discussing “what Marxism really is” in a philosophy forum. All we are judging here is each other’s intellectual contraptions. What did Marx say and what did he mean? We can start perhaps by pinning down the definitions of all the words he used to bridge the gap between what he thought was going on all around him in his world and all that others living very different lives thought otherwise instead.
Then the task becomes sifting through all these subjective/subjunctive, existential points of view and determining what in fact all rational folks are obligated to think about it all.
Ah, but on this thread tempers flare up over any number of things. Why? Because the actual history of Marxism precipitated all manner social and political and economic contexts – upheavals – that generated all manner of consequences that enhanced the lives of some and crumpled the lives others. Literally millions of men, women and children died as a result of actual flesh and blood human beings interpreting what “Marxism really is”. In Russia, China, Vietnam and through any number of Third World counties where Marxist/socialist/communist rebellions were fought.
Here though the “judgments of others” are easily shrugged off because ILP is just a forum for exchanging words only. No actual bullets or bombs or gulags or re-education camps or government policies to deal with.
Yes, in my view, we do. And that is because my argument revolves precisely around the existential relationship between our reaction to things like Marxism and the lives that we lived. And at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political economy. And to the extent that Marx believed that his Manifesto reflected the most rational understanding of the human condition is the extent to which he becomes another objectivist. A very sophisticated and perceptive objectivist but nonetheless just one more rendition of this: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. But you know me: Note a particular set of circumstances in which an understanding of “what Marxism really is” is important, and reconfigure your point into that.
Same here. Note a context involving conflicting political prejudices, and let us examine what you mean by “sticking to the relevant topics” more substantively.
I have found from long experience dealing with objectivists [and not just the Kids] that when someone notes something like this, others are “sticking” or “not sticking” to the topic depending on the extent to which they share the objectivist’s own point of view.
There is a binary conception of ‘ownership’. —You own X or you don’t. For any given X, either the private individual owns it or else the public sphere does. Capitalist or a Socialist. So in proper classical logic, any movement toward one direction could only come from the polar opposite.
That is not how ‘ownership’ works as a concept.
To ‘own’ something is to have control over it. --Control to use, alter, destroy, sell, and exclude others from. Control comes in gradations. We protect control with rights, and limit it with responsibilities (e.g., regulations, taxes, laws, enviro protections). Since control is a matter of degrees, so is ‘ownership’. A fuzzy logic suits this debate.
Unfortunately, when you think in binary, then any responsibility foisted on a property owner becomes the act of a totalitarian regime. It’s a constraint on free market, after all. It seems like every election period there is someone tearing up on TV pointing to the direct line between a Democrat and Fidel Castro. Any imposition of values or limit to individual freedom is …a totalitarian-style of evil. Nevermind that there are plenty examples of them that you could not live without. Nevermind that your personal rights mean responsibilities for others, and vice versa.
Likewise, when you think in binary, any contribution of a person’s labour entitles them to full ownership—because they made it, after all. And if you use a thing, you must own it. Because if you didn’t own it, you couldn’t use it. But since you use it… it must be yours completely. So taking it back is justice.
Anyways, so there’s another criticism of Marxism, and some of you.
There’s an old oak tree near Toronto that stands next to a little house in the shadow of skyscrapers. This old oak tree is 300 years old, which is older than Canada. Unfortunately, the property owner cannot afford the maintenance fees of her tree. And the roots of the tree are breaking the foundation of her little house. She tried to get private donation to care for the tree, but there wasn’t enough. But, if the tree is properly cared for, it may live another 200 years or more.
In a free market, this little house and old oak tree becomes another skyscraper. Gone. Because you can’t make a profit on a tiny park.
In a commune, who knows what would happen. Maybe her house would be levelled to protect the tree, and she’d be moved to an apartment in the skycraper next door. Maybe it’d just be another skyscraper too.
When you think in binary, this would be all there is.
This is what Marxism really is:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig4pbtMxO0w[/youtube]
It has come to bear fruit. The Liberal-Left represent the new Tyranny that must be toppled. They have pushed as far ‘left’ as possible. What’s next, except the rise of the far ‘right’?
You wanted a new Hitler, so you create and summon a new one. Your fears become reality. You are to blame, without realizing.
PK, Silhouette, Prom, Magnus, Von, these are your ilk, your kin, your kind, your kindred. Marxist, Communist, Socialist.
Murderers.
And then, the celebration, of a murdering a random-person on the street:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgOb-7jkmsg[/youtube]
Pick one:
I pick: that you’re sick and depraved. Your head is fucked. Laughing at somebody executed in the streets in cold-blood.
On the other hand, given my own political prejudices, it never occurred to you that perhaps I was laughing at you? You and all of the other Kids here.
You know, those rabid partisans turning ILP into their very own rendition of Romper Stomper.
Look, it’s not the “arguments” you make but what I construe to be the utter lack of intellectual depth supporting them. Huffing and puffing about a Good vs. Evil world you reduce down to cartoon characters. An extremist caricature of political debate.
As opposed to, say, the ideological bent of folks like Satyr at KT. He may be an objectivist in my view but at least he displays evidence of having actually thought out his own set of assumptions in a philosophy forum.
Now, sure, I am often quick to point out my own objections to “serious philosophers” here who don’t bring their technical prowess to assessments of events unfolding in Portland or D.C. or on Wall Street.
But, in my personal opinion, your own outbursts here are even farther removed from the actual complexity of the world we live in.
And, as well, I recognize that some will insist that in my own way I am equally unqualified to post here.
lamb, no offense, but you’re so dumb and dense that everybody pretty much ignores you and nobody gives you respect. You rarely, or never say anything interesting or relevant. The fact that you laugh at the cold-blooded, murder in the street going on, further confirms this. You’re a non-entity, and one that supports the Liberal-Left. No effort is required on my part. I’m only displaying what has already happened, but people (including you) try to hide and sweep under the rug. Your laughter is representation of the Liberal-Left, causing this violence and also believing you are ‘innocent’ and “not part of it”. Although you are a part of the Cause, not the Solution.
Dangerous games, and your ignorance is not interesting to me. You don’t need to respond. What can you possibly say at this point that will matter to anybody but yourself?
I might be directly responsible for that poor beggar’s death but you are certainly responsible for spamming in this thread.
It humors me that you don’t even deny it.
This thread keeps proving me right, is that “spamming”?
Why should I?
What always fascinates me about Kids is that it never even occurs to them they should feel embarrassed to be posting this sort of sanctimonious cant…in a philosophy forum.
They actually take themselves seriously!
Well, unless of course I’m wrong.