I see lots of references to John Denver, Country Roads, but I present:

“Bye, bye Miss Bologna Pie”

Is such a utopia possible?

Sure. Yeah its very hypothetical and silly. As if the Banks that manage national and international money supplies, since most of their managed assets are debt, haven’t thought of it? So no such button exists, whereas there might be a delete twitter button somewhere or one could be rigged up 👀

Attacking twitter would be more useful than deleting all debt? I mean go wild, take that shit ass site down but if you had a “delete twitter” button and a “delete all debt” button, mashing the second one would make you the greatest hero who ever lived.

Wait that isn’t what I meant at all, I was contrasting the “return to nature” view with the vegan view.

I tried editing for clarity

Yes those government movie studios

Where we came from is less important than where we are going. The problems with veganism are not that they don’t eat animals, in fact I don’t think the problem is with veganism at all but with moral imperatives in general that promote black and white, oppositional political positioning. But moral imperatives are one of the most popular and effective rhetorical methods to make a point (and split opposition) so we are just kind of raised in it. If you’re someone who has strong opinions you learn to express them in a certain way.

But veganism is good and primitivist “return to nature” types have a dubious track record aka they tend to be chuds or on their way to chuddening. “Retvrn to the past” is a conservative talking point, but what separates us from nature is capitalism, not veganism.

You had me till your last sentence which I think is reformist, but since you stated your position so well im sure we could (hypothetically) work together in coalition.

I think its clear that there is a great deal of consumerism that exists in excess of peoples needs, but without a means to replace it with anything, since the consumerism is an expression of people’s social alienation, then there’s no material incentive for people to make these changes. It seems like the thrust of your ideas would work well along side certain anarchist and social libertarian ideas of dual power, which I think is also worth of criticisms but also is a step closer theoretically to a correct formula for change.

Confusion about the government’s role in class oppression, unawareness of what money is and how it operates, these are big questions that took me a long time to find sufficient and satisfying answers for them. If your like to share your zines or writings I’d at least give them a look! I read and contribute political and economic articles to some zines too, and frankly I’m just a fan of the form. I’m a bit older and diy zines were the first polisci I ever encountered, and now I’m a smelly commie, on watchlists and everything

You wont weaken the government by not paying biills. We don’t want a weaker state we want to smash the state and create a new one for and by workers not billionaires. How does weakening the government weaken their power? Right now the government is weaker than its been in 70 years and the billionaires are more powerful than ever.

I agree that a united, militant workers movement will weaken various structures that the rich use to reinforce their rule, including parts of the government but I think you need to develop your view of the state under capitalism because you still subscribe yo many false illusions. Its like people saying Luigi is going to tip the balance in class relations for the workers. Its just a kind of reformism or false consciousness that hopes that there is a step before what is necessary that would be good enough.

Organized mass payment strikes, I think strategically, like in healthcare, a mass movement could shake some things up, but likely it would just result in increased violence against the movement. Individuals not paying bills will literally not do shit. Individual action is basically worthless. In order for it to reach a critical tipping point, where a quantity of individual action transforms into change in political or economic quality, will take a lot of organization. And more power to you! Organize it and I’ll likely join. I’ll throw you a bone, but you have to provide the meat. Personally it’s not what I think is going to lead to greater worker consciousness and emancipation, but I’m just some guy. Organize it and prove me wrong.

What would crippling the government do other than massively harm regular people? Fight the real enemy, the billionaire class

I’m all for an organized, mass bill payment “strike” and some businesses would be effected, though not really any very large companies, who would benefit the most from having their competitors go out of business (and forced to sell or merge their assets for a fraction of their value) than we would by saving $100-200 per month, which we would spend, corporations would raise prices, and all of that money just flows back to the banks anyway.

Now tenant organizing and rent strikes, that’s where you can actually fuck shit up and make demands many times. But like your gas company doesn’t give I shit, you just won’t have heat, fuck you.

It would be nice if this was true but it still based on the illusion of a free market

The last time my wife and I went through Amish country, I saw a sign stapled high on a telephone pole, written with marker on pink poster board that said like “Yoder’s website design” and the number to call to presumably ask Yoder to make you a website.

People may not be familiar with Amish country, but there are tons of like construction companies, cabinet shops, etc., because people out here really like Amish made carpentry, so there’s lots of little businesses set up. Yoder is an Amish/Mennonite name, so I can imagine some young Mennonite guy selling like basic HTML/ CSS or like WordPress sites to all these little businesses that probably want a website but don’t use the internet themselves.

Or who knows maybe their web design is as good as their carpentry?

Signal or no signal, quitting meta is virtuous.

Look at mister “Sometimes I write programs that have more than a single niche function” over here

This is a post about growing disappointment with Python

Thank you for the considerate response.

You might be more well equipped for Marx than you think. The Tao the Ching, and the I Ching are both works of dialectical philosophy. Marxism, when applied correctly, is a fusion of empirical materialism and dialectics. Whenever people new to Marxism struggle with his method, I always recommend the Tao te Ching. People raised with western rational model, like us, struggle with contradiction in our reasoning. Except when it affects our lives directly, our minds reject it. The Tao teaches us to stay with the contradictions, which is what is needed to perform a dialectical analysis, since dialectics is the logic of change, progression, and synthesis, relation and contradiction.

This along with the mention of Marcus Aurelius reminds me of when I first started trying to educate myself, and came across the work of Nick Taleb. Its a bit pitched to the right for my taste these days (although his sterling advice, “don’t be a sucker” is as good advice as you’ll ever get,) but at the time it is what got me into studying philosophy, Meditations was the second philosophy book I ever read. I don’t consider myself a stoic, but I loved that book at one time, as well as the Enchirideon by Epictetus.

Your claim of an imbalance in power between the workers and owners is at least an acknowledgement of Marx’s theories. Maybe you like that balance, lots of people have a fetish for “balance of powers” and maybe there’s something to that. Except the balance can’t be achieved, it always prefers the owners and requires historical amounts of civil unrest to make any reluctant progressive change at all.

I don’t appreciate being told that I’m in a cult, a cult that never existed, and certainly Marx never started one. Its dishonest, but I guess you picked it up somewhere. I def didn’t know what Marx was about before I studied him. Buy now if I don’t know an author, I don’t have to pretend I’m smart or know something I don’t, I just say I don’t know and if I am interested then I study them. Very simple and honest.

Here’s the thing they won’t tell you about Marx: when you’re a worker and you learn to read him, because he’s difficult, you realize that he confirms your experience as a worker and goes deeper. He proves what we suspect but that everyone tells us isn’t true. He removes doubt and provides a way forward –

– and then you study the history of the USSR and other 20th century socialist experiments and the doubt comes back. But Marx was, hands down, the greatest intellectual of the 19th century and should be read and studied by all. Not to indoctrinate into a cult, but to actually open peoples minds to what is possible, and how class rule, throughout history, has worked tirelessly to alienate us from our selves and each other. Capitalism is just the latest and greatest form of class rule.

But a better world is possible!

Clearly you’ve never read Marx in any meaningful way, which is unfortunate. If you think Marx is a “reductionist model” then you are cleanly, plainly, completely mistaken. Das Capital isn’t a pamphlet, its 4 unfinished volumes.

Your anti intellectualism is a sad affair, but propaganda is a hell of a drug. I love being told by people who haven’t studied Marx what he is all about. Do you also have strong opinions on Augustine, Hegel, Kant or Descartes? Have you ever read them?

Balance of power

What power? The power of workers? You might have more Marxist ideas than you think.

Its not a flaw, its working as planned. But yeah, our “market solutions”, basically any problem created by capitalism just gets exploited for profit. Even when the economy crashes its actually a good thing for the very rich, as it " disciplines" labor, moves people down and out of the middle class which lowers wages systematically, takes out a few competitors, etc.,

Things you hate? How can it be explained as capitalism if you won’t say what it is.

You act like there was never a guy named Karl Marx who proved this stuff, and debunked many myths about the economy, like 150+ years ago. It isn’t just a random thing like a superstition. In fact believing capitalism isnt responsible is almost a superstition.

Wages are flat while production has skyrocketed the last 50 years, a little longer than I’ve been alive. The system produces a few rich people at one end and a bunch of poor people at the other, that’s what it is meant to do, it’s what it does. It isn’t just an economic system, its the state and media as well.

People aren’t just blaming all their problems on capitalism like some petulant child. There are causes that are very clear and some more hidden, but its no secret and hasn’t been for a pretty long time.

Your great great grandmother cheated on your great great grandfather with this joke. So fucking old

Funnier because its a beamer