But the self can be shown to exist, unless you deny the existence of subjectivity. All of this leads to hard determinism, what you referred to as no free will.

The productive, creative process itself, the drive to learn and be curious, to investigate, all of this leads to the conclusion that 1. There is some kind of greater will guiding us or 2. Humans have the ability to make determinations based on their experiences, and choose certain actions based on those experiences.

I’ve seen the deterministic argument that free will is an illusion caused by a chain of circumstances, but I don’t buy it. I think that the view that free will is an illusion is itself a logical error: the result of a dependence of the tendency of dualism to try and turn everything into objects, rather than seeing each object within its relationships, coming together to form a totality. This tendency leads to vulgar empiricism and positivist views. These views always obscure social relationships, which are real, measurable and predictions can be made based on them.

The “I’m so deep I’m a nihilist” trope has got to go. Every TV show or movie where there is some supposedly hyper intelligent character, they always have the most vile, garbage philosophy.

The genocide in Gaza.

I think its most likely that these orgs have factions competing for power and personal advantage,some people are going to think Trump is going to further their interests, others not so much. Some real ghouls probably recognize that Trump only wants power for himself which is a threat to their power.

I’m not an expert though, I just had a very interesting conversation with a civilian Air Force consultant, who said that his org wasn’t very factional, but was very hierarchical. He was worried about very regressive figures coming to power because it affected the whole org, saying that the military had to stay cutting edge or we would face defeat, and hardcore conservative ideologues, or people like Trump who only care about their own wealth and status, tend to resist advancements and new methods.

Fuck Trump, Fuck Russia, Fuck the CIA.

Its wild how a very rational anger and fear and concern about a Trump presidency becomes a very irrational support for many corrupt and downright evil organizations responsible for millions of deaths in the name of imperialism and profit.

Except they mean you are better dead than red

What I wanna know is did he make the myum myum myum cookie monster voice when he did it? this could be the October surprise Republicans dream for if he didn’t say “myum myum cookies” while biting the babies

The Book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahnneman. Weird self help name, but its a book on biases, research which Kahnneman won the nobel prize. Once I started questioning my preconceptions it completely changed my whole perspective on the world. Its like that list of fallacies that you study in philo 101, but they’re not like dialogical fallacies they appear in our own thinking. And “experts” are more likely to get fooled in their own fields of research than laypeople when asked trick questions

Only if you look at things a certain way. There’s real danger to believing that you lack actual subjectivity, its like reverse solipsism, and is basically the worst version of doomerism.

If you look at things dialectically and Materialistically, subjectivity can’t be avoided

That would sound amazing

Well there’s some things i agree with strongly, although I believe I still disagree with your definition of the word “fascist.” But it’s not an important difference since you’ve taken it up to actually try and learn history and make sense of it all. Very “class conscious worker” of you.

Do you do any organizing outside of your studies? You seem energetic, and class conscious workers have to get together and (imo) do political organizing, like how you discussed. I agree its a lousy time for consciousness but it think its changing. Time will tell. Thanks for the history lesson, appreciate you making time

So What’cha Want by the Beastie Boys

*more than

Idk about that, but there’s def similarities. I think its dangerous to mischaracterize things that aren’t fascist as fascist, as popular movements which have done so seem to actually accelerate the spread of fascism. One a them dialectical historic contradictions.

But I don’t say this to take the wind out of anyone’s militancy against the all but unchecked rise of the anti-democratic authoritarian right. By the time something that is almost fascism becomes fully formed it is too late.

But it is worthwhile to use care when applying the term.

Right I was just joking. I’ve seen a lot of cases of this, not as pronounced as “husband loses his shit over wife’s vote” but def the situation where two young people fall in love, have kids, and then the guy becomes very conservative whereas the woman is like normal-conservative where maybe she doesn’t have all the right “takes” but she has a shred of common sense and maybe even decency to realize that women bleeding out in ERs due to complications from a miscarriage is not just cruel and pointless but unsustainable if certain theories of historical development are to be trusted.

Kind of ironic since Hitler based Germany’s immigration laws on USA’s.

Oh is this a thing that academics predicted? Welcome to the 1840s, Guardian

Also blaming the billionaires for destabilizing the economy is only partially true. The system is unstable, but billionaires profit from “instability”, so sure they cause it as much as the system causes billionaires and millionaires.

The problem isn’t who owns gigantic companies like Walmart and amazon and google and apple, the problem is that they can be privately owned. The instability isn’t a bug so much as a feature. Its not the individuals, it’s the system. Individuals can make adjustments, sometimes very critical ones but the system doesn’t pick winners based on who does the best at adhering to externalized ideals, it picks winners based on who can create the most profit for owners, profit made of the immense amount of collected time and energy siphoned off of workers.

you get into these things when you’re younger.

What, chauvanistic conservativism?

Anarchist socialist antifa liberal democrats have infiltrated MAGA, die mad about it

Are you a capitalist or a communist? You’re certainly not a communist, I believe what you are hinting at is “socialized” vs “individual” labor, and it is a historically progressive development of capitalism. How a software developer fits into the means of production is they aid in the exchange of money from the sale of commodities, and make the transactions possible. But at the end of the day some product is being sold to some end user and you help to make that possible. Without the transaction there is no sale, which means no exchange of commodities for more money than they cost to produce and bring to market (profit or surplus value) which is the basis for the whole system, it is the point where the exploitation occurs.

Everyone is always “exploited” by the system, its part of what drives competition. But to be more specific, everyone is alienated from the system of production. we are all very individuated in our thinking, which bears out in our alienated experience. In more advanced or more advantaged countries, with a higher outlay of financial or investment capital, the class character of any individual is more specific and hard to suss out. In developing or economically repressed nations, where the factories of 1870s Germany still exist, alongside the factories of 1840s England, if not in capital than in conditions, the class character of any individual might be more clear and concise. Our “class character” is determined by our relationship to production, and it is not altogether straightforward. I’ve seen many fights like “are cops workers” and even “are baristas workers” that have sent me.

All that to say, capitalism promotes cooperation through competition, it socializes production, so that the product of your labor is just one part of a very complex whole. Even the painter has to pay for insurance on his van, probably has a couple loans for his business. The fact that your labor is socialized doesn’t make you a communist. Communism is the struggle for a classless, moneyless society. It too will presumably also have socialized production, but also socialized ownership of the means of production whereas under capitalism the MoP is privatized. This is the fundamental contradiction within capitalism and it is right that you found yourself wondering about it.

The “means of production” is a very abstract and fundamental concept. I think its right for you to question it, and how it relates directly to you. Its a very general concept, and everything you are asking of of applies to is very specific. The means of production has been well defined it seems elsewhere in the discussion, but its basically “everything that is used in human production” which is the driving force of history from a Marxist/sorta Hegelian perspective. So it is a big deal.

But what is also relevant, is how production is defined, and namely who owns its products. You work in IT (so do I) so in that example you own your work laptop? That laptop is MoP, same as the painter tools, and you sell your product to the company, who uses it to run how ever millions of transactions. Or making those transactions possible for that company, integrating some new feature. So more specifically, those tools are Capital, which is an essential mean of production under capitalism. But a ton of the infrastructure for those transactions was publicly funded, paid for with taxes. But now most if not all of that infrastructure is privately owned.

So in that way you are like the painter, in that you sell directly the product of your labor to the capitalist. Both you and the painter are workers in the same way, but youre an intellectual worker vs he is a physical laborer. but the paint and personal items in your personally owned house is for your personal use, whereas the software you sell to a company is for commercial use, in effect the software is capital, whereas the paint on your walls is not. But if the painter painted the walls at your company’s office, that would be capital. The painter “bought the paint with his own money”? But you are paying him, so you are buying the paint.