How does the World view America these days?

[zlemflolia]

5 hours ago, thefxbip said:

To my understanding, communism has too much a materialistic vision of everything. And is too concerned with the acquisition of power and the antagonism of class warfare. I don't buy this.

I feel communism doesn't face the most basic questions of all, the question of happiness and suffering, and what it means to be human with enough inquisitive energy. It stays on the superficial realm of political terms which only deal with issue of power and acquisition of power and doesn't deal with the most urgent existential questions which are truly, it seems to me, the basis of all personal and societal neurosis.

If you have no sense of inquiry into what truly brings happiness and what causes suffering how can you make any sense of how to deal with the world?

So i prefer to have the starting point being spiritual or philosophical instead of political. I think it both encompass yet transcend politics. For the simple reason that it looks at things from a point of view that goes deeper into basic existential questions.

I have spent some time with traditional Innu people and it shaped a lot of my views of the world. I am still far from being as patient and have equanimity as the people who were good enough to teach this white boy a few things about life but lets say i have learned with time that there is a sense of beautiful equality and compassion that can comes from a feeling of pantheism. And that truth is beyond any political division. The essence of what humanity is transcend it all. If you start having a feeling that every single living being possesses some kind of sacred essence it changes you deeply. Who ever you are there is a common ground to us all. That is all i will say about this as i don't feel getting esoteric on the internet is proper.

If i would describe myself in political terms it would be something like radical mystical anarchism or something i don't even know (or fatalist? depending on days hahaha)

I see, I don't agree overall, communism is very radical despite Marxism, a dominant ideology behind communism, being materialist.  something very concrete for the masses of people facing real material harm from capitalism rather than idealistic notions.  as Marx said:

>In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

4 hours ago, thefxbip said:

@ilqx hermolia xpli Also i just want to take this opportunity to say im sorry for the aggressive action in China thread, we may have massive disagreement on some things, its no excuse to lack basic respect.

Sorry to high school teachers too, high school was traumatic to me and it gets me emotional.

For what it's worth.

haha it is fine, I don't remember

[zlemflolia]

6 hours ago, thefxbip said:

Well i would simply say the problem is not who is in power, the problem is that there is someone in power.

It's what we see in democracy. ''those who are in charge are corrupted we need new people in charge''

Well good luck with that. You put people in charge they will get corrupted. Period. The only thing that varies is the degree of corruption. It's a constant through history.

There is no us or them.

You get power you become them. You might be the most well intentioned person in the world, the most well intentioned party in the world, you start looking for some big scale power it shapes you.

A single man has no power in itself. People give it to them. Vladimir Poutine has 0 power by himself. All his powers are built artificially on the concept of power being legitimate and having millions following this logic. If tomorrow every single russian person stop believing this is a legitimate way to organize society Poutine is just another man like any other.

Organisation can be achieved without big scale centralisation. Minor functional leadership can be achieved without race for total control. How do you deal with people on day to day basis? with your friend, family? do you give orders to everyone? Probably not. There is possibility for cooperation.

But this current human society has been built up to such a high degree of dependency to big power structures, hierarchy and bureaucracy it is mindblowing. How to untangle this whole mess? I do not know.

A starting point it seems to me, is to start questioning the legitimacy of the concept of power itself and a re-evaluation of what are the main values in society.

 

the power is right now a requirement for modern society to function.  in order to "deprecate" this requirement and move beyond it we need a society capable of maintaining itself without these power hierarchies.  this would be called communism once it is achieved.  it's very difficult to achieve and many people in history have had different ideas, from overthrowing the state all at once and starting from scratch (anarcho-communism), to taking control of the state and using that power temporarily to assist in the transformation to a society which doesn't need it anymore where the hierarchy then dissolves gradually as this process continues (Marxism-Leninism). but the state is not the only hierarchy.  communism can go much deeper than just this perspective

Edited December 16, 2021 by ilqx hermolia xpli

[ignatius]

portland. 

[auxien]

some slightly-maybe-possibly-could-be-perhaps good news from America for once: https://www.reuters.com/business/judge-tosses-deal-shielding-purdues-sackler-family-opioid-claims-2021-12-17/

Quote

A federal judge overturned a roughly $4.5 billion settlement that legally shielded members of the Sackler family who stand accused of helping fuel the opioid epidemic in the United States, a decision that threatened to upend the bankruptcy reorganization of their company, OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in a written opinion late on Thursday said the New York bankruptcy court that approved the settlement did not have authority to grant the Sacklers the legal protection that formed the linchpin of Purdue’s reorganization.

 

[chenGOD]

9 hours ago, ignatius said:

portland. 

First and third bullet points, good. Then they had to go and fuck it all up. 

[cichlisuite]

What is crossing a picket line?

[Rubin Farr]

2 hours ago, cichlisuite said:

What is crossing a picket line?

It means your union (or guild) is striking, but you choose to work anyway. There are also Scabs, which are non-union workers brought into fill positions while the union workers are outside picketing.

[ignatius]

Edited December 18, 2021 by ignatius

[Squee]

Just saw that a US capitol rioter idiot, Robert Scott Palmer, got 5 years in prison after throwing a fire extinguisher at the police.

Let's play a game. Imagine if that guy was black. He would have been shot, choked, and then shot again - and then thrown in jail for life.

[ignatius]

[auxien]

Manchin pulled out of his promised vote for BBB that i believe was supposed to happen this week (or soon...it just passed in the House). as recently as last week he promised Biden that he was in for it. i think we need to know who Manchin's talked to since then that made him go back on his word. that's the people who are actually in power of this country right now.

[thefxbip]

On 12/16/2021 at 2:21 PM, ilqx hermolia xpli said:

the power is right now a requirement for modern society to function.  in order to "deprecate" this requirement and move beyond it we need a society capable of maintaining itself without these power hierarchies.  this would be called communism once it is achieved.  it's very difficult to achieve and many people in history have had different ideas, from overthrowing the state all at once and starting from scratch (anarcho-communism), to taking control of the state and using that power temporarily to assist in the transformation to a society which doesn't need it anymore where the hierarchy then dissolves gradually as this process continues (Marxism-Leninism). but the state is not the only hierarchy.  communism can go much deeper than just this perspective

And this is exactly why i think communism is not radical enough for me, existentially and politically.

It does not question the concept of power itself. It still goes along everything that is rotten in politics. It does not go deep enough. It's a superficial philosophy that is not willing to go into the real depth of the preconceptions and assumptions we may have about the world, ourselves and human relationships.

It is in some way very conventional and weak in it's critical analysis of what power is and the extent of its necessity.

It's still just a basic political manifesto not looking at the full picture of the human experience. It does not include psychology, philosophy at a deeper level, secret instincts and subconscious motivations of human beings, will to power and egoism.

It just falls short for me sorry.

You can all the good intentions of the world, when power hits you, the egoistic traits of human nature are underlined. Every.Single.Time.

Communism might look ok on paper but in practice its a superficial sham and a disconnected ideology not taking in consideration the human nature that corrupts in contact with power, the tendency to seek destruction of the other when you enter antagonistic views.

''we'll take power and then abolish power''

It's absurd. It's like saying we'll cure the poison with more poison.

Abolish power straight away.

Edited December 19, 2021 by thefxbip

[usagi]

On 12/19/2021 at 7:02 AM, Squee said:

Just saw that a US capitol rioter idiot, Robert Scott Palmer, got 5 years in prison after throwing a fire extinguisher at the police.

Let's play a game. Imagine if that guy was black. He would have been shot, choked, and then shot again - and then thrown in jail for life.

  fun game. some people - dickheads, to use the precise term - get very angry when you play it.

8 hours ago, thefxbip said:

Abolish power

not possible, by the rules of existence. trying to create a fantasy land where you pretend there is no such thing as power and everyone is magically equal usually leads to even freer abuse of power (cf. everything from 20th century cummunist states to western hippie communes etc). best you can do is to acknowledge it as a fact of life and aim to wield it carefully for the common good, while realising it will inevitably corrupt some people and therefore be a constant moral battle.

[ignatius]

31 minutes ago, usagi said:

  fun game. some people - dickheads, to use the precise term - get very angry when you play it.

not possible, by the rules of existence. trying to create a fantasy land where you pretend there is no such thing as power and everyone is magically equal usually leads to even freer abuse of power (cf. everything from 20th century cummunist states to western hippie communes etc). best you can do is to acknowledge it as a fact of life and aim to wield it carefully for the common good, while realising it will inevitably corrupt some people and therefore be a constant moral battle.

i've heard people describe it as a lack of hierarchy. i guess there are examples in history in spain and somewhere else but i'm not familiar and tend to think that at this point it's a pipe dream for theoretical thinkers who imagine a world based on mutual aid.  it'd be nice and i wouldn't argue against it if it happened but deconstructing the entire world isn't going to happen... certainly not for free.. meaning the cost would be way too high in lives etc. 

but maybe some kind of thing like that will eventually emerge after most of the world drowns/starves/burns etc from eco-collapse. 

in the meantime here's some bleeps and bloops.

[usagi]

1 hour ago, ignatius said:

i've heard people describe it as a lack of hierarchy. i guess there are examples in history in spain and somewhere else but i'm not familiar and tend to think that at this point it's a pipe dream for theoretical thinkers who imagine a world based on mutual aid.  it'd be nice and i wouldn't argue against it if it happened but deconstructing the entire world isn't going to happen... certainly not for free.. meaning the cost would be way too high in lives etc. 

but maybe some kind of thing like that will eventually emerge after most of the world drowns/starves/burns etc from eco-collapse. 

in the meantime here's some bleeps and bloops.

lack of hierarchy is something a little more specific. I would think that even with that, it's impossible in a practical sense to stop a pecking order from naturally emerging after you have decided on paper that you should not have one. which makes the whole idea a lie, basically. you can aim to have a flatter or fairer hierarchy maybe but you can't escape some type of one in the end, if you aim to have a functioning collective.

"power" as general thing is not possible to remove from the facts of life. someone will always have power over you, whether it's in a personal sense or a social/economic/political sense, and you in turn will have power over others in the course of your life. people who have power over you and try to convince you that that's not the case are usually putting their hands around your neck while you're not paying attention because you're enamoured with what they're telling you.

anyway, it's not necessary to fight to abolish power itself to create a better world. it is the ethical application of power by people who possess it which is needed to move things in order to create a better world. nobody can change anything if everyone is equally helpless.

thank you, my book Solving the World's Problems on an IDM Forum is available in bookshops now for 0.000438 BTC.

[thefxbip]

3 hours ago, usagi said:

  fun game. some people - dickheads, to use the precise term - get very angry when you play it.

not possible, by the rules of existence. trying to create a fantasy land where you pretend there is no such thing as power and everyone is magically equal usually leads to even freer abuse of power (cf. everything from 20th century cummunist states to western hippie communes etc). best you can do is to acknowledge it as a fact of life and aim to wield it carefully for the common good, while realising it will inevitably corrupt some people and therefore be a constant moral battle.

I may lack nuance i must confess. This whole debate got me thinking about debate itself and let's say i give up assertions, and ask questions instead and keep things a bit more open and communicate my concerns with these things?

We could aim for a minimal use of power in general? and aim for a better emotional awareness of the pitfall of power in relationships and structures? try to minimize it? aim education toward this? more respect and less domination? aim for humans to have self discipline or awareness instead of being controlled mainly by external agents and laws? aim toward a sense of responsability?

some other question are: is power psychologically safe for human beings? are we questioning this enough? do we go into politics a bit too much without reflection just thinking thats how things are and thats it? can you trust a person, even with the best intentions in the world, the most idealist person, once in power to stay cold headed and not completely get over powered by power?

isnt there any way to proceed and organize ourselves that is more balanced in terms of equity?

Would that sound more reasonable?

I think in the state of affairs right now it is indeed utopian to think that all power structures can be instantly abolished, i agree. The same way that you cant abolish oil and polluting technology instantly, too many of our structures are based around it.

But there is always a way to tone things down progressively and do better maybe?

This is just an IDM forum, but eh, for what it is worth humanity is gonna face some real challenges and we will have to ask ourselves some big questions probably very soon, like in the next 50-100 years with the climate change situation, so i guess we can try and practice a bit on an harmless IDM forum hahaha

Edited December 20, 2021 by thefxbip

[thefxbip]

I have experienced many times in my life projects or events with leadership that is not based on power but around cooperation, or at least function with a very minimal amount of true power involved, i think it is something that is possible.

At least i guess what is in the realm of the possible, is to implement such things in group that have a small scale, and in basic relationships day to day with everyone else in your life, as much as possible. I think this is not of the realm of the utopia.

But the thing is that you cannot hope for it to work by over imposed structures alone, and by systematic transformation alone, it needs to come from a deeper point of view, a certain awareness of the dangers of power.

And thus is it not that easy. Every individual involved needs to have a certain emotional self awareness about this. Add to the equation 8 billions people and...well yeah, quite difficult hahaha

So maybe that total world peace is impossible? BUT that peace in an individual, or more focused, small scale environment and structure is more possible? and what we can hope for is pockets of peaceful environments? and the more small scale peaceful environments that can be created, the better the average of the whole will be?

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by thefxbip

[zero]

^ the gears are definitely turning, and I respect that. but may I remind you that dudes have been talking about things of this nature for some 10,000+ years, and still haven't been able to figure it out. all we can do is debate and question the way we live, and ultimately don't end up making much of a change at all. even if there is some earth shattering mass casualty event, and the survivors scramble up through the rubble, they will still probably end up with something similar to what we have now. striving for utopian ideals fills humans with thoughts of "hope," yet reality always shows up to crash the party.

my take on this is if we all live together and rely on others for things like food and survival necessities, then someone needs to be able to tell another someone what to do. can't do this without some power structure in place to make things move from point A to point B. there's also the whole animal kingdom thing in play - animals living in packs, pack leader, nature > nurture, etc. 

I don't think the concept of power over others, dominance is always a bad thing that needs to be done away with, as has been alluded to above. here's an example of good power. every morning when I wake up, I let the dog out to take a leak. this morning, it is cold and drizzly, and when I open the door, he doesn't want to go. I pick him up and put him in front of the open door, still nothing. I push slightly on his shoulders to force him out, he pushes back and doesn't budge. I am trying to do something that is helpful, not harmful, as I know he needs to get some relief. I am then forced to push on his rear end until he gets out of the house, and sure enough he runs out and pisses on the grass. when he comes back in he still gives me the evil eye, even though having power over him was helpful here.

yeah I know this is not a human vs. human dominance example. but since it seems things are being discussed conceptually, wanted to throw this into the mix.

 

[Blir]

I think before you can get people to wrap their head arounds the machinations of power you need to start them off with baby steps. But to be honest we can't get most people to sit in a cinema without chatting or twiddling about on their phone for two hours so what hope is there really.

Give up hope I think.

[usagi]

10 hours ago, zero said:

here's an example of good power.

here's another:

 

[zero]

1 hour ago, usagi said:

here's another:

 

that shit screams German.

speaking of which, where TF is ding? that dude was a master of German humor.

[usagi]

2 hours ago, zero said:

that shit screams German.

Romanian I think, but @perunamuusi knows best.

[perunamuusi]

4 hours ago, usagi said:

Romanian I think, but @perunamuusi knows best.

You are correct Sir 

[cichlisuite]

We therefore conclude that perunamuusi knows best.

This session is now adjourned. All comments are henceforth invalid.

Thank you for your contributions, gentlemen.

[ambermonk]

Looks like our dipshit mayor is getting national attention: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/20/2070233/-Anchorage-s-anti-vaxxer-mayor-lies-about-turning-off-city-s-fluoridation-system-for-several-hours?detail=emaildkre

Perhaps this is...Watergate?