Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 195

On January 13 2020 18:05 hiems wrote: rather if all of these ideas that locos world revolves around fail to hold up, his entire world will fall apart. same goes for rikd. think about what the hell is he going to have left? you can say similar things about ourselves, but IMO he/rikd are way less balanced and have way more to lose.

Huh? I shouldn't bother responding to ad homs, but I think it's pretty clear to anyone who's been reading here for a decent enough amount of time that I have no problem with my ideas not holding up, in fact I actively test them on here so that I can improve them. That's kind of what philosophy is about? For instance, I used to be the strongest advocate of antinatalism on here just a couple years ago and it's a belief I had been carrying for many years and now I don't advocate for it any longer because I have come to see the errors in my thinking. Did my life end as a result?

That whole "what will he have left" spiel... where is that even coming from? This is the kind of shit you'd say to someone who is in a doomsday cult lol. I'm making arguments, I didn't build a community around lies, so what could I lose? I'll tell you what "I'd have left": a number of passions, meaningful work, a wonderful partner and friends... I'd have a mind that is open and capable of adapting... what more should I need? Aren't you the one who was talking about how you have no friends and all you have is accumulating money at a job that you hate and being catatonic when you're back home? Unless that has changed, it sounds like you're already at the place that you think I would be stuck in if "my ideas didn't pan out".

I don't think you're likely to convince a whole lot of people that being an antisocial, friendless dick who makes up lies about people is a sign of leading a balanced life. I should mention lack of impulse control as well, because clearly you're bothered by the discussions here, feel no need/are not able to contribute, yet you keep visiting them. (I remember how you were blaming RiKD for "making blog posts that you can't resist clicking on" too... geez dude.) The great irony behind this is that part of my critique of capitalism and neoliberal Business Culture and the self-exploitation it promotes is its effects on mental health and the antisocial behavior that it generates. An online poker forum is surely one of the best places to witness that.

You don't really engage on anything. It's all "pointless words and rabbit holes". Why? I don't buy that it's about "not having the time". You're not working 12-16 hours a day. Lots of your time is wasted on pointless shit. My guess is that you resist exposing your beliefs too much because you're very committed to keeping them as they are, since you're under the impression that they're serving you. Also because you're insecure about your inability to defend them. The real question is: what are the odds that your beliefs are serving you if you're continually miserable and [self-]destructive?

In your case/RiKD's case attacking the messenger is entirely valid. Do you think RiKD's opinions wouldn't be questioned as legal testimony in a court of law in a murder case or something like that? Any lawyer would dismiss it because he is certified as mental. Sorry bro but don't hate me for speaking the truth. Attacking the messenger is an entirely valid method of argument. I hope you can remove yourself from biases and just admit that there's nothing wrong with that.

"Criticism as a fallacy
Canadian academic and author Douglas N. Walton has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue,[24] as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.

The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning (discussing facts about the speaker or author relative to the value of his statements) is essential to understanding certain moral issues due to the connection between individual persons and morality (or moral claims), and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning (involving facts beyond dispute or clearly established) of philosophical naturalism."

^^I dont give a fuck "what academics deem as fallacious or not" btw but since u jizz over academics I decided to spend like 15 secs of my time on you.

As for your individual rabbit holes which are very stupid, I'm not going to address any of those directly even though I can because like I said the only thing relevant here is that the messenger is not sane. If I were a lawyer why would I argue each pointless aspect of your testimony when its clear the witness is mentally ill? Once we move away from the tactical realm and just look at the big picture as a whole, we can see clearly that your points are emotionally motivated drivel.

Firstly, it would depend on what the link between the person making the testimony and the victim is, as well as what the behavioral disorder is. In some situations it can undermine a witness's credibility and in others it wouldn't. You can't discriminate against someone who has an anxiety disorder for instance and assume that they are disconnected from reality just because that's a behavioral disorder. I don't know enough about bipolar but assuming the person is properly medicated I assume they couldn't be discredited solely based on that either. If they were in a manic episode that's a different thing. Either way, there are experts who make those decisions, and those experts are not you. And there is a reason why the utmost care has to be taken to make sure the person is credible: someone is going to be spending the rest of their lives in prison based on their testimonial. This has strictly nothing to do with a situation such as this one where you are attacking someone you don't know over the internet and attempting to gaslight them directly.

Secondly, this tactic of joining RiKD and I in every criticism you make is extremely disingenuous and disturbing. I have not been diagnosed with any behavioral disorder, and you have presented zero evidence that I have (or that I should be). If you were a lawyer, you'd have to be neutral and present evidence. You couldn't rely on what you are relying on now, which is uniquely your own subjective judgment, one which is clearly coming from a place of bitterness and disingenuity.

Isn't it somewhat odd though for you to make the claim that I am clinically insane, all the while you have been very open in your blog about avoiding mental health professionals despite having major struggles, while I advocate the opposite? Even though it's covered by your employer, you were too prideful and/or avoidant to make use of it. If that's not a huge red flag that someone's judgment of other people's mental health is not likely to be credible, I don't know what is.

It's good to know that you think you have a good view of the "whole picture" though, seeing how all you know about me is what I've posted about on here, which is very little, since we debate ideas, and I don't blog about my life. Some detective you are, you don't even need to investigate or question people, you just know stuff. Maybe we should call you Mirror Guy.

seeing how all you know about me is what I've posted about on here, which is very little

Loco Canada. Today 22:06. Posts 20049

LOL. BRO you dont need to blog about your fuckin life 20000 posts this IS YOUR LIFE. lol. Maybe you should go back to playing poker cause I guess nobody can learn anything about you after 20k posts here youd probably just be an endb0ss from day 1 you start playing again.

My post count doesn't say anything about how much I've revealed about my life, it only says that I've posted that much in the last 15 years I've been on here, which amounts to less than 3.88 posts a day according to my profile. 3.88 posts a day isn't "my life", it's significantly less than an hour per day overall. Some people spend more time than that just watching porn. 99% of those posts are poker shit including quick spamming the hand section and putting forth/debating impersonal ideas. I've revealed little about my personal life and mental health, less than what can be gleaned from a couple of your blog posts. Baal has 33k posts and the same is true for him.

Anyway, this conversation is over. You're not even self-aware enough to realize your argument is self-defeating. You admitted to having poor mental health, which means that by your own logic I can discredit every single thing you say.

On January 13 2020 14:22 hiems wrote: in law = rich guy/corporation hiring team of lawyers to flood u with endless paperwork/legal fees = valid defense in us politics = filibuster = valid defense in liquidpoker = loco/rikd have the most free time // lowest hourly$ labor value // are crazy hikikomoris therefore are able to flood u with endless words, rabbit-holes, etc = not a valid defense. never listen to these dumb fuck HiKiKOMORRRIs lollll seriously wtffffffffffff

I leave the house just about everyday. I don't seek isolation or confinement. I don't think I come close to qualifying for Hikkomori. I don't work 60 hours a week nor do I want to. I am not willing to give up what it usually takes to give up for a high hourly job. I definitely have a lot of free time to actually be responding to your posts..........

On January 13 2020 18:05 hiems wrote: loco is not "trying to win" rather if all of these ideas that locos world revolves around fail to hold up, his entire world will fall apart. same goes for rikd. think about what the hell is he going to have left? you can say similar things about ourselves, but IMO he/rikd are way less balanced and have way more to lose.

I don't have a lot to lose. I live a pretty simple life. I don't have a lot. Nothing will fall apart. If capitalism somehow gets bailed out with some technological breakthrough that might quell climate change the potentially bigger problem here is the collapsing of the mental. You are a part of this too buddy. It's the crunch, it's the Burnout Society. I don't actually believe we will have technological breakthroughs to quell climate change but I really don't believe we will find something to quell the depression, the anxiety, the mental disorders that are only continuing to get worse in late stage capitalism.

Yeah, Loco and I are not the same person. I don't even want to go down some of the rabbit holes you started hiems. Your posting is clearly displaying you are part of the mentally on edge that is increasing as late stage capitalism gets more and more dystopic. We are all in this together buddy. It's not your fault. You seem a bit younger than me so that is only more of a reason to figure some of this stuff out. The mental degradation and spiritual malady of late stage capitalism is real. How do you plan to combat it?

*Note: I doubt coming on here and lumping Loco and I together and calling us hikkomoris and insane and etc. is going to help.

If you're going to call out people on a website for having no life and too much free time you probably shouldn't blog on the same website about being depressed, having no friends, and living with your parents.

I don't think I did call him out for having no life and too much free time. That seemed to be his charges for me. I believe I called him out for being mentally unstable and perhaps dealing with a spiritual malady. I will admit I probably have more free time than most. I don't work 60+ hours a week like I use to and my life is not overflowing with engagements. I wouldn't say I have no life though. I am out with friends at least 2 times a week, I paint, I read, I go on walks. I don't wish to be hikkomori but I don't wish to be some socialite either. I do want closer friends. My best friend here started doing drugs again so that is a major bummer. It's depth and closeness of friends like I've had at other times in my life that I crave. I'll be ok either way though. Sometimes I just get depressed. It's a mental illness I only have part control over. And yeah I live with my parents. I'm under The Crunch of Capitalism. I can barely breathe sometimes. The reason I can call out hiems for being mentally unstable is because I can be mentally unstable similarly to the fact that he has a spiritual malady because I too deal with spiritual malady and probably most people on this website deal with spiritual malady including yourself.

@rikD, as Loco referenced earlier, hiems is the one that bloggee about having no friends and living with his parents all while calling you and Loco hikkomori

On January 11 2020 17:07 LemOn[5thF] wrote: FYI Baal that's why I think straight up lies like planet will end in 20 years are necessary. If you get moral people try to push sustainability they will get fuckall actually done. Because they are against billions of dollars of quants psychologists and scientists that work to manipulate people's habits and perceptions, very successfully I might add. You need manipulative psychopaths on your side, and you need to use the means the opposition does, that's just how the world works

I am dogmaticaly against lying almost no matter when.

I remember disagreeing with Drone, he said he would lie/deny race IQ differences to not give ammuniton to racists and his intention is good and the results might be immediatly better, clearly the race-IQ thing hasn't given any useful fruits in terms of science but it fuels a lot of the ugliests forms of racists, yet I chose truth, the same in regards of climate change.

The cost of truth is palpable and immediate, the costs of lies is hard to see, delayed and diluted but it has a greater cost, thats a bit of the theme of the Chernobyl HBO's series.


I may sound like a cynic pragmatist at times but in reality I'm a dogmatic idealist like Loco, willing to walk into extinction in the pursuit of principles

On January 11 2020 23:29 Loco wrote: You are ignoring the complex reality of the relationships between consumer, what is consumed, why it is consumed, and how it's produced and how they are obscured from us on the consumer end of things as well as ignoring the reality of purchasing power. You do so in favor of a simplified view of reality in which all that matters is the responsibility of isolated agents who have the potential to be perfectly informed and moral as they are completely free of internal and external influences to choose one thing or another. You also seem to believe that the things that are found on the shelves have been "willed into reality" to be consumed simply by virtue of desiring them, free of external influences. This is extremely naive.

Very important to point out that I dont expect perfectly informed consumers, just better informed than we are today mainly by realizing that our collective power is in our wallets, what we trade our work/hours for, not stupid ballots.

Its not naive its simply how you see things, you can say "we don't want or need diamonds, yet we buy them because marketers implaned that into us" which is true, but its also true that we our ego desires to show our superiority, our wealth and diamonds are a way to do it, so we do desire these things.

I think the example of chocolate over veggies is bad and misses the point entirely. Let's take an example that should hit home for you: the avocado. The avocado was initially a fruit of luxury that originated in Mexico. It was a fatty indulgence and now it is a food loved everywhere, considered a superfood and often eaten every day by those who can afford it. This avocado boom has had devastating effects on the lives of people in certain places of Latin America, as it requires very specific conditions to be grown and it is a very water-intensive fruit. The areas where they had to be grown en masse destroyed ecosystems and were depleted in water, and the water that was brought in to grow them took priority over the needs of the local people who had to boil contaminated water or purchase bottled water instead. There are four cartels fighting for the control of the avocado business in Chile and the story is the same in Mexico, creating huge amounts of suffering. It's not called "green gold" for no reason.

Now, there are two important things to focus on. First is the reason why there was an avocado boom in the first place. Did everyone in the world who consumes them now just wake up one day and thought "I desire this thing, let me seek it out" without any external influence? No. In the US, the avocado industry created the Avocado Commission in the 70s and the farmers devoted a percentage of their revenue to advertising it and on giving it a good public image. This allowed them to create advertisements to create the desire in people to consume something new, and fund studies that made people feel good about consuming more avocados. People read about it in the Sunset Magazine, saw ads on TV, and believed the scientists and their doctors who say the fruit has the "good kind of fat", creating a situation in which there was increasing demand for the fruit and good feelings surrounding them.

So... because it is made available to them, and it is enjoyed and praised, people buy them. They don't know about possible industry manipulation of studies and those complex relationships and the suffering that it causes. It's not written like on a pack of cigarettes. And why should they be informed about this? People don't study every single thing they buy, nor should they be expected to. It's too time intensive. And even if they did, there are no incentives to give up something that they like, especially if it's actually good for them (or so they were led to think) in a consumer capitalist society.[/quote]

I also watched the advocado mini-documentary on Netflix, , now you are informed about it and you will probably skip that advocado toast as many thousands who saw it, the craze will fade away, people will learn theres no such thingas superfood with time and things will go back to normal with advocados, of course damage will be done but as I said, its an imperfect system, but with all these flaws its pretty good.

When we shop, we sense that we are alone, that we are not part of a greater whole, and that the things in front of us exist in abundance to gratify us. Most people will keep purchasing something they know is morally problematic because it has become a habit and because, "we are just one person" -- and we aren't wrong about that. We evolved making decisions in tight-knit groups, peer pressure and mutuality were necessary for our immediate survival. They no longer are.

THIS!!!! exactly thats how shoping is, and that is what I think we should change, people vote despise their individual vote being meaningless, we culturally think thats where our power reside, we need to shift that belief to where our collective power really is, then we will see people making sacrifices and being more informed

We did not evolve to be "informed ethical consumers" so it's no wonder that we are not. Such a thing would require omniscience, a normalized morality and perfect control over impulses. We didn't even evolve as barter animals, unlike it is assumed by your economic religion. You assume that we are barter animals and markets spontaneously emerged as a result, but that is mythological; it's not based in reality. No economist was ever able to provide a shred of evidence for it. The history of human economies, as it was studied by anthropologists, was one of gift and credit; this is what we are naturally adapted to be able to live sustainably under with minimal violence, while markets were founded and usually maintained by systematic state violence. This is partly why we are failing as a species under capitalism, and why "capitalist reform" and empty moralizing about consumer responsibility is a doomed project that is disconnected from reality.

A leftist making an evolutionary psychology argument? thats weird.

All apes evolved to climb the hierarchy ladder, I advocate for minor changes of overcoming our ugly nature yet you want to drastically change it and say my minor changes cannot be done? wtf.

Also one of the main discrepancies of how we see the world is that you think we are failing as a species, I think we are living in the best time in history and that progress we've made in the last 100 years eclipses the progress made in centuries before, there is still a long way to climb out of the shit though.

by design an elitist system doesn't allow the majority of people who are exploited/producing for that system to ever accomplish themselves (i.e. be creative, ethical, etc).

weird examples, creative and ethical?

On January 12 2020 04:42 RiKD wrote: I'm just going to finish this guacamole because I already purchased it.... Fuck! I got 2 more avocados sitting on the table for avocado toast. I really have to learn how to start my own organic garden. Now, if only I could save some money to go to Thailand to learn.... Oh yeah, capitalism has me mega crunched. If it feels like there is no way out the masters are pleased. Get to work slave! Produce so my kid can go to Yale. Produce so I can donate to Yale so my kid can go to Yale. You know how there is a site seafoodwatch.org that does research and finds what fish are green, yellow, and red based on x,y,z. I wonder if there is a website dedicated more broadly towards foods or just products in general. There might not be anything ethically viable to buy at this point.

advocado toast... stop ruining advocado you gringos.

On January 13 2020 21:40 hiems wrote: LOL. BRO you dont need to blog about your fuckin life 20000 posts this IS YOUR LIFE. lol.

On January 14 2020 06:55 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On January 11 2020 17:07 LemOn[5thF] wrote: FYI Baal that's why I think straight up lies like planet will end in 20 years are necessary. If you get moral people try to push sustainability they will get fuckall actually done. Because they are against billions of dollars of quants psychologists and scientists that work to manipulate people's habits and perceptions, very successfully I might add. You need manipulative psychopaths on your side, and you need to use the means the opposition does, that's just how the world works I am dogmaticaly against lying almost no matter when. I remember disagreeing with Drone, he said he would lie/deny race IQ differences to not give ammuniton to racists and his intention is good and the results might be immediatly better, clearly the race-IQ thing hasn't given any useful fruits in terms of science but it fuels a lot of the ugliests forms of racists, yet I chose truth, the same in regards of climate change. The cost of truth is palpable and immediate, the costs of lies is hard to see, delayed and diluted but it has a greater cost, thats a bit of the theme of the Chernobyl HBO's series. I may sound like a cynic pragmatist at times but in reality I'm a dogmatic idealist like Loco, willing to walk into extinction in the pursuit of principles

I think I called out that misrepresentation of what I wrote once before actually. When you say Loco claims that we are going extinct in 20 years or whatever, it's a similar misrepresentation.

IQ is possibly the worst factor to evaluate anyone about anything other their ability to think abstract, which again doesn't mean much in the general sense of things.

Nassim Taleb published a long-ass academic paper on the topic half of which I don't even understand, but I do understand enough of it to agree.

Anyway back to the topic, my point is - sticking to the truth doesn't mean much if the general 'truth' is false, in fact it might cause much more damage especially in cases like the example you've given @ Baal

On January 14 2020 07:30 Baalim wrote: Very important to point out that I dont expect perfectly informed consumers, just better informed than we are today mainly by realizing that our collective power is in our wallets, what we trade our work/hours for, not stupid ballots. Its not naive its simply how you see things, you can say "we don't want or need diamonds, yet we buy them because marketers implaned that into us" which is true, but its also true that we our ego desires to show our superiority, our wealth and diamonds are a way to do it, so we do desire these things.

Your initial claim was that "capitalism simply fulfills demand". I have to reiterate that this is not the case because it matters enormously to acknowledge that it is a creator of new wants and needs, with endless potentialities, in a world that is finite. Capitalism creates a product for the consumer, but also necessarily creates a consumer for the product. You seem to be only half-way conceding to this point. The main point is that this is specifically what makes it capitalism, rather than another system, which would also necessarily produce goods and have consumers. An alternative system wouldn't have the imperative to focus on creating wants and prioritize it over fulfilling needs, as capitalism does due to its inflexible grow-or-die logic. I argue that this creation of a consumer for the product is the result of an unalterable dynamic of capitalism. There is no overcoming it, as you suggest it. Social and ideological engineering is a must or it wouldn't be capitalism. Without alienating people from their labor and isolating them socially and bombarding them with a value system that supports and incentivizes wasteful consumerism, you wouldn't have the growth that the system depends upon, and you wouldn't have a docile population that gives up their political power, and one that believes in the American Dream, which are the main reasons this elitist, short-termist wasteful system can maintain and reproduce itself.

Obviously there has to be a human vulnerability to exploit in order for this advertising to have an effect, and it's true that it's related to the human ego in some cases, but not all cases. (A lot of purchases are made out of a feeling of boredom and emptiness, not to signal superiority). I also believe that signaling status and being highly competitive is highly conditional and it is entirely dependent on actual or perceived scarcity. But the point is that there is never going to be a capitalism that is free of these power dynamics -- they are baked into the system. The system itself is pathological, but it hasn't emerged from some intrinsic natural pathology within individual human beings, instead it has been forcefully imposed upon people through colonial and systemic violence by an elite few.

Now, this violence is normalized. Most people don't even question it, it fits into the progress narrative, where the progress of some is the result of the injustices that have been committed against others and "that's just life". This current form of capitalism is an inverted totalitarianism where control and domination is exerted in ways that the population is largely unaware of, or unable to resist just by virtue of surviving and having to "make a living" in a developed country. I don't get to choose whether or not I affect the lives of people in the Global South negatively a lot of the time, just because I pay taxes and buy certain things that I need.

If this were to change and we entertained the (frankly ludicrous) thought that the masses can somehow spontaneously and suddenly "wake up", and yet capitalist social relations didn't change, you would instead have those in power move the society toward a classical form of totalitarianism, because the importance in an elitist hierarchical system is the same, whether it is under the name of socialism or the free market: that those in power maintain their power and influence over the rest of society. Whether that is a centralized state or corporations, it makes very little difference. There are the ones who have the control over the means of production -- over life's necessities -- and they can bend others to their will as a result of it, through a number of mechanisms.

I also watched the advocado mini-documentary on Netflix, , now you are informed about it and you will probably skip that advocado toast as many thousands who saw it, the craze will fade away, people will learn theres no such thingas superfood with time and things will go back to normal with advocados, of course damage will be done but as I said, its an imperfect system, but with all these flaws its pretty good.

If I had faith that others would, then I'd take the idea seriously. But a collective, by definition, involves relationships between people. It involves a form of organization, which makes it more than the sum of its parts. In neoliberal consumer society, the reality is that there is no collective, we are truly isolated consumers, and the relationships that reproduce themselves through capitalist relationships and the corruption and subvertion of democracy work to make sure that this is how things remain. We are not consumers that are part of communities, in which we can put pressure on ourselves. We are not consumers with political power, in which we can change oppressive institutions and dismantle corporate gigantism. Purchasing power doesn't grant "us" any sort of bargaining power, because there is no "us". As it is I have no real reason to give them up, other than out of principle. I'm only one person, and I already give up so many things, so I could just as easily justify not giving them up if they're a source of comfort for me. I'm sure you know something of this logic since you don't personally attempt to maximize making ethical food choices either.

THIS!!!! exactly thats how shoping is, and that is what I think we should change, people vote despise their individual vote being meaningless, we culturally think thats where our power reside, we need to shift that belief to where our collective power really is, then we will see people making sacrifices and being more informed

There is no "our" power without an organizing principle. The free market doesn't provide it. Electoral politics does, but it is corrupted and subverted by the ultra wealthy. So we are left to imagine and fight for new forms of social organization (or bring back much older ones) where there is an actual "us", or we will suffer the consequences along with the rest of the biosphere.

A leftist making an evolutionary psychology argument? thats weird. All apes evolved to climb the hierarchy ladder, I advocate for minor changes of overcoming our ugly nature yet you want to drastically change it and say my minor changes cannot be done? wtf.

Different apes differ in how rigid and hierarchical their societies are. Bonobos have matriarchal societies and are said to be exceptionally peaceful. The same is true of human beings: matriarchal societies are much more peaceful and less focused on rank an domination, and hunter gatherer cultures were (and are still) known to be relatively egalitarian and living in ecologically sustainable ways. When you look at this you realize it isn't about human nature, it only drastically changes once private property sets in and you have the capacity to accumulate things and exchange value takes the place of use value. These are social dynamics that can be changed, whereas "human nature" cannot.



You're falling for the same trap as virtually everyone else does, including most leftists. You are only reacting to capitalism as it currently exists, to what you see as "crony" capitalism. If people are merely reacting to the existing social order and to the problems it creates, then it means that the current system orchestrates the behaviors of its opponents, which prevents any meaningful change from happening. Think about it: in a fight, if you can control how someone responds to your every move because they are only ever reacting to your moves, i.e. they are fighting defensively, then they'll never surprise you and they'll never beat you.

People have to start imagining a completely different society, based on different potentialities that are only afforded to us at this unique place in time in our history, and it should also be historically/anthropologically informed. If you are working off of the base assumption that we are barter animals, as Adam Smith and every other economist you follow did, and that currency and markets emerged spontaneously, it's natural to believe our power resides through market relationships. But you are working from false premises, so everything that will come after that will be erroneous. Did you know that currency was mostly created so kings had a way to pay armies? Did you know that gift economies have worked on a global scale? The Trobriand Island tribes would often sail the most dangerous seas just to give artifacts of significance to other tribes without promise of return. Primitive communism is what human societies have been about for 99% of human history. Even today, "everyday communism" still rules, because it has such a deep evolutionary history in our species. As Graeber says in "Debt":

"If someone fixing a broken water pipe says, 'Hand me the wrench,' his co-worker will not, generally speaking, say, 'And what do I get for it?' ... The reason is simple efficiency... : if you really care about getting something done, the most efficient way to go about it is obviously to allocate tasks by ability and give people whatever they need to do them.

Moreover, we tend to ask and give without thinking for things like asking directions, or small courtesies like asking for a light, or even for a cigarette. It seems more legitimate to ask a stranger for a cigarette than for an equivalent amount of cash, or even food; in fact, if one has been identified as a fellow smoker, it's rather difficult to refuse such a request. In such cases—a match, a piece of information, holding the elevator—one might say the "from each according to their abilities" element is so minimal that most of us comply without even thinking about it. Conversely, the same is true if another person's need—even a stranger's—is particularly spectacular or extreme: if he is drowning, for example. If a child has fallen onto the subway tracks, we assume that anyone who is capable of helping her up will do so."

[quote]Also one of the main discrepancies of how we see the world is that you think we are failing as a species, I think we are living in the best time in history and that progress we've made in the last 100 years eclipses the progress made in centuries before, there is still a long way to climb out of the shit though.

Here you are thinking like a Marxist, as if there is some unfolding historical dialectic, and progress is linear, while every stage is "necessary for progress". It's all so simplistic and blind to the tragic realities of our current world. Things didn't improve uniformly. Some people were robbed so that others would have more. Some things have improved while in some other ways we have regressed. Who is to say that on the whole it constitutes progress? We are more imperiled now as a species than we have ever been and there are no solutions in sight being applied. How the fuck is that progress? Creating more and more problems for us in the future and especially future generations cannot possibly be defined as progress by a rational person.

"We are living in the best time in history", A significant percentage of the world's population who cannot meet their basic needs or live in extremely unstable political climates don't really care what your thoughts are on the matter. They only know that they are being relentlessly expoited or attacked in a world where there is enough going around for everyone if it wasn't for the ultra greed of a few, and a system that rewards it.

Even those that are materially comfortable are under constant psychological attack, more than ever people feel that their lives are meaningless, more than ever they are extremely worried about their future and the future of their offspring. Many people have nothing left and no future at all due to their local environments having been decimated either through war or environmental degradation (which has been highly accelerated and helped by those who tout your status-quo defending party line). And you don't really mind; you still tout the greatness of NAFTA despite the enormous amounts of suffering it has brought about.

Also, let's say that I grant that this is the best time to be alive in the history of humanity, this doesn't mean that it is so because of capitalism, i.e. because of capitalists. It could very well be that everything that is good that has come out of this period has been done in spite of capitalists, not because of them. The owning class--the capitalists-- have opposed at every turn any kind of human progress, from basic human rights, to work benefits and a livable wage, to environmental protections and animal welfare laws (to not even bring up rights, which are still not granted today because animals are purely commodities under the law, despite our scientific knowledge of their complex cognitive capacities and emotional complexity). They had to be fought against for progress to occur, and you want to celebrate them instead of the fighters.

weird examples, creative and ethical?

There's nothing weird about it, creativity and ethical responsibility are must haves in a society devoted to progress.

A leftist making an evolutionary psychology argument? thats weird.

I'm painting a picture in which you are the radical who is trying to reinvent the wheel. It should be very clear that our species thrived living communally while it is failing spectacularly living under the individualist consumer model. The solution cannot lie in normalizing more of this elitist nonsense that is made possible through highly competitive market relationships and a gaming logic which inhibits social consciousness/cohesion and de-incentivizes reciprocity and solidarity. It's undeniable that the kind of mass mobilization that will be needed to avert climate catastrophe will never be fostered by the system that you advocate for. I'm also willing to bite the bullet and say that anarchism might not be the answer either because of the degree of social cohesion that it would require, and how little time there is left to get there.

On January 14 2020 05:23 blackjacki2 wrote: If you're going to call out people on a website for having no life and too much free time you probably shouldn't blog on the same website about being depressed, having no friends, and living with your parents.

im not calling anybody out. i was debating socialism and (correctly) making a very relevant point. i dont really know anything about you so im not sure if I want to debate with you about my personal life.