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The Oldest Man posted:This is a bad faith attack, in both venues. It's simply diverting attention from real ongoing harms that have solutions toward harms that exist currently and may well still exist in the future in either case. It's also a pretty good example of middle class and white perfectionism, on both issues. "I won't buy into your project that <prevents your family's being made homeless/prevents your incarceration for life for use as slave labor/prevents your children starving> because <insert issue unsolved in current system that I find more important to solve than your issues>." "Calling out bad faith attacks is the real bad faith attack" is some galaxy brain poo poo. Especially when the stakes here are nonexistent, no one is dying because you are made to look foolish or not on a message board. "Buying into a project" means nothing here, get over yourself. Insisting everyone who doesn't get on board with your half baked post and march arm-in-arm to a beautiful future on the next Maoist offshoot forum is a wrecker is lol, just lol The rest of your post has nothing to do with anything I said, I have no idea what strawman you're even yelling at. Cpt_Obvious posted:Fewer armed police, more therapists. Fewer prisons, more treatment centers. Cure the disease, not the symptom. Thank you, this is the correct (and obvious!) good faith response, and I completely agree with it. And just like that, the most basic criticism (the good faith or bad faith of which is indeterminable, and irrelevant) is easily addressed and disarmed. And so, this post remains pretty much true: enki42 posted:I think it's important to acknowledge the presence of bad actors, and most of the arguments made (at least ones made in some semblance of good faith) don't necessitate everyone to be a bad actor, but acknowledge that some people inevitably will be. After all, if a precondition of socialism is "everyone becomes magically altruistic and no longer cares about wealth", we can skip all the messy economic changes, since no one will even try to accumulate capital in the first place!
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Nov 5, 2020 23:04
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Just throwing this out there, what if a meaningful section of society is just, on a personal level, completely and totally bat-poo poo wrong about how their interests and actions are connected? Like what if an understanding of basic causality is not a safe assumption for a huge number of people? I understand this is another case of "well what if everyone's terrible?" thinking, but... seriously, what if they are??? How does any of this work out if enough people's primary action in service of their own interest is rubbing a lucky rabbit's foot or praying to Odin to save them? Is there like a threshold of rational people in society that we need to make rational plans for society to work? Or are we assuming those people could just be transitioned to worshipping Thor and tithing to a new box every week?
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Nov 5, 2020 23:06
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Most importantly, Socialism views crime and disorder as symptoms of material conditions. For example, gang violence can be explained by poverty and lack of resources. If you fix those problems, the issue of gang violence disappears.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:06
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Just throwing this out there, what if a meaningful section of society is just, on a personal level, completely and totally bat-poo poo wrong about how their interests and actions are connected? Like what if an understanding of basic causality is not a safe assumption for a huge number of people? Socialism assumes this to be true. In fact, it has explanations for religion and faith as "Opiates of the masses", which contextually means that they are ways to make ourselves feel better about our lovely material conditions. So, you're poor and are scared that you'll lose your home, so you put your faith in a lucky rabbit foot to feel better. If you make sure nobody is scared about losing their homes, then irrational behavior is reduced to an anomaly rather than the norm. At least, I think so. I haven't delved that deep into this whole thing, but I know Marx did a lot of work on religion and propaganda. Maybe someone else who knows a bit more can speak up?
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Nov 5, 2020 23:09
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Okay so are you saying ALL greed is the result of social conditioning? Or just that our cultural prevalence of it is? I can see the latter but not the former. Because again, squirrels horde food, and they forget where like 4/5 of their food caches are every year which seems like a pretty clear-cut example of desire outstripping actual material need. Unless your argument is that the squirrel is justified in hedging his bets against disaster, in which case why not argue the billionaire humans are doing the same thing? My general belief with this sort of "nature vs nurture" question is that the "null hypothesis" should always be that "nurture" is the cause of something, with there needing to be some sort of direct proof that "nature" was the cause.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:11
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Just throwing this out there, what if a meaningful section of society is just, on a personal level, completely and totally bat-poo poo wrong about how their interests and actions are connected? Like what if an understanding of basic causality is not a safe assumption for a huge number of people? I think this is true, but I also think it is probably a product of material conditions too. I don't think I am very smart but I think I am relatively capable of seeing what my interests are in a situation. Leftism clicked for me extremely quickly once I was introduced to it because it built on a lot of pre-existing feelings that I had about my situation and the world. So the question then becomes why do some people seem to have so much trouble with it? I think quite a few of them actually are materially doing well under capitalism, and I think a significant portion of the remainder are subject to a tremendous amout of propaganda and other things that limit their conceptual space. This is another good argument, I think, for the low level community organizing approach, because that sort of thing is basically a training mechanism for thinking about the world in left wing ways. It reaches people directly and it cuts through all the bullshit with mainstream politics (that a lot of people rightly hate) and that is why a lot of people think it is an important basis for wider left wing politics. Cpt_Obvious posted:Socialism assumes this to be true. In fact, it has explanations for religion and faith as "Opiates of the masses", which contextually means that they are ways to make ourselves feel better about our lovely material conditions. So, you're poor and are scared that you'll lose your home, so you put your faith in a lucky rabbit foot to feel better. If you make sure nobody is scared about losing their homes, then irrational behavior is reduced to an anomaly rather than the norm. Sort of, I think that there is a pretty significant issue where depending on how you meet people's needs, you can actually just make them very reactionary. It is actually a pretty good criticism of some aspects of the welfare state, which is that a lot of people who have benefitted from it seem to view the concept of it with contempt because they don't realise that they have, they think they did everything on their own. So it is important for people to understand how their welfare is maintained and to feel they have common cause with others in that regard. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 23:12
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Ytlaya posted:My general belief with this sort of "nature vs nurture" question is that the "null hypothesis" should always be that "nurture" is the cause of something, with there needing to be some sort of direct proof that "nature" was the cause. Does this apply to sharing too? 
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Nov 5, 2020 23:17
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Slanderer posted:Does this apply to sharing too? I don't understand what this is supposed to prove.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:18
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One of the major things to question whenever you come up with something like, for example, "What about doctors and janitors," is to turn that back on the current system that we are living under. Right now, people who have enough privilege and security can decide to become doctors. Becoming a doctor gives you a well-compensated, well-regarded position. People who do not have the privilege and security to become doctors can become janitors. Becoming a janitor gives you a poorly-compensated, poorly-regarded position that is still better than not having a job, which, under capitalism rules as written, should be a death sentence. Doctors often become doctors not because they genuinely want to help people, but because the job is available to them and grants them financial security; janitors often become janitors not because they genuinely want to clean buildings, but because the alternative is starving to death in the street, or going to jail. Because, let's be clear here- capitalism is perfectly fine with people dying because there is not enough work for them, and it benefits the class of bosses to deliberately make sure there is not enough work for them. That means that they can offer the poorest less money to do more work, and because the alternative is death, people will take that deal. The more desperate the non-boss class gets, the more cruel the boss class can get away with. https://www.thegamer.com/gamestop-cancel-tiktok-contest-extra-labor-hours-backlash/ This is GameStop deciding that the backlash against giving away ten labour hours as a prize in a TikTok competition was too much and dropping it. Giving away, not ten hours of compensation, but ten hours of work, given away as a prize for free advertising labour from their workers. Work for us on your own time, and we might reward you with more ability to work for us on our time. The current system leads to this, because it is entirely rational for bosses to extract as much labour as possible from their workers, using whatever means are available, and the only thing that slows it down is the public recoiling in disgust.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:19
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I don't understand what this is supposed to prove. It's not "proving" anything, other than pointing out that some aspects of altruism are largely believed to be learned behaviors.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:23
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Somfin posted:One of the major things to question whenever you come up with something like, for example, "What about doctors and janitors," is to turn that back on the current system that we are living under. Right now, people who have enough privilege and security can decide to become doctors. Becoming a doctor gives you a well-compensated, well-regarded position. People who do not have the privilege and security to become doctors can become janitors. Becoming a janitor gives you a poorly-compensated, poorly-regarded position that is still better than not having a job, which, under capitalism rules as written, should be a death sentence. Doctors often become doctors not because they genuinely want to help people, but because the job is available to them and grants them financial security; janitors often become janitors not because they genuinely want to clean buildings, but because the alternative is starving to death in the street, or going to jail. So, what you're saying is that without the coercive nature of capitalism - the threat of homelessness and starvation - people would only be willing to do the necessary job of "janitor" for fair compensation? Slanderer posted:It's not "proving" anything, other than pointing out that some aspects of altruism are largely believed to be learned behaviors. Yes, that's kind of the point. You can socialize a child to do anything. Even if you tried to prove it with clickbait. :P
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Nov 5, 2020 23:24
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I don't understand what this is supposed to prove. I think they're offering this as an example of a priori selfishness, in response to this: Ytlaya posted:My general belief with this sort of "nature vs nurture" question is that the "null hypothesis" should always be that "nurture" is the cause of something, with there needing to be some sort of direct proof that "nature" was the cause. Which seem to be a full-throated rejection of a priori knowledge in general? But I could be misreading it. Edit- yeah I think we're on the same page here.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:24
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Just throwing this out there, what if a meaningful section of society is just, on a personal level, completely and totally bat-poo poo wrong about how their interests and actions are connected? Like what if an understanding of basic causality is not a safe assumption for a huge number of people? This is why engagement with revolutionary theory is part of most left movements as well as direct aid. Workers under capitalism exist in a state of constant deprivation by way of their labor value being siphoned off, but the ability to mass-message belongs to capital as well (through advertising, schooling, newsmedia, etc.) So they can and do just make up other reasons why deprivation exists: laziness and moral failings (as a way to blame individuals for their own deprivation) and often domestic or foreign enemies as well, and use the mass media apparatus to make those the consensus explanations for social ills. People in a state of deprivation have little ability (time or means) to dedicate to developing contrary opinions. So any group with revolutionary aims on the economic order must both a) provide direct aid to help remedy these harms, demonstrate that better things are possible, and to give people the material ability (through not being starved or freezing to death, frequently) to contemplate a larger program for their own betterment and b) provide a theoretical grounding for the larger changes they propose as part of that larger program. That's why it's a cliche that every mutual aid group is full of anarchists and/or communists and/or anarcho-communists.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:25
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Cpt_Obvious posted:Yes, that's kind of the point. You can socialize a child to do anything. Even if you tried to prove it with clickbait. :P And that was the point of me posting that. I'm not sure what the disagreement is here
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Nov 5, 2020 23:26
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i dont think anyone is suggesting that socialism could be sustainable in a society predominantly populated by toddlers so the relevance that has is a little unclear It would be weird to point out to a feudal peasant that toddlers need to be taught not to talk to strangers to convince them that its not a good move to do away with feudalism
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Nov 5, 2020 23:27
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Ruzihm posted:i dont think anyone is suggesting that socialism could be self sustainable in a society predominantly populated by toddlers so the relevance that has is a little unclear Oh great, another wrecker...
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Nov 5, 2020 23:27
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Ruzihm posted:i dont think anyone is suggesting that socialism could be self sustainable in a society predominantly populated by toddlers so the relevance that has is a little unclear I dunno, "society predominantly populated by toddlers" is a pretty good description of the last few days in the US at least.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:28
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Cpt_Obvious posted:So, what you're saying is that without the coercive nature of capitalism - the threat of homelessness and starvation - people would only be willing to do the necessary job of "janitor" for fair compensation? It's entirely possible that the hard, dirty, continuous, risky and unsatisfying work of janitorial cleaning would have to be better compensated if the people doing it were able to choose not to do it and not die for making that choice, yes. Slanderer posted:It's not "proving" anything, other than pointing out that some aspects of altruism are largely believed to be learned behaviors. With a clipped, unsourced headline apparently from noted academic journal Today's Parent. E: Which actually sources something from Betsy Mann, an actual expert, which directly, explicitly contradicts your point: "Sharing is learned as children’s social, emotional and cognitive development increases." Somfin fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Nov 5, 2020 |
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Nov 5, 2020 23:28
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Perhaps if janitorial work were better paid it would be less hard, continuous, and unsatisfying, as there would be more incentive to make it easier, people could afford to do it less and still survive, and that might create a greater sense of satisfaction.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:30
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mitch mcconnell is the smartest politician in america
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Nov 5, 2020 23:32
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Somfin posted:With a clipped, unsourced headline apparently from noted academic journal Today's Parent. Wait, are you contending that teaching children to share (and play nice with each other, and to wear clothes, and not to scream in restaurants) is not a completely normal thing that everyone is familiar with? Are you serious lmao? It's a topic so ubitous that there are countless parenting articles about it. And the key word in the quote you somehow missed there is learned Finally, in case you really have never had to care for young children, here's an actual article on the subject https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3578097/
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Nov 5, 2020 23:36
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Is someone arguing that nobody would be around to teach their toddlers how to share under socialism? I don't really understand the purpose of Slanderer's posting here.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:38
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Ruzihm posted:Is someone arguing that nobody would be around to teach their toddlers how to share under socialism? I don't really understand the purpose of Slanderer's posting here. You nailed it buddy, good job
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Nov 5, 2020 23:41
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Slanderer posted:You nailed it buddy, good job Why don't you say what you do mean, then? I think you're trying to say that greed is human nature, because altruism is learned? I don't see how that follows - they can both be learned behaviours. Socialize someone to be greedy, and they'll be greedy, socialize them to be altruistic, and they'll be altrusitic. I do think this has limits - I think it's a tall order to expect people to be altruistic to strangers, particularly when it means they'll lose something, but that doesn't mean there's some natural level of greed that we all have to overcome to override our animal nature or whatever.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:44
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So we're down to "is selfishness the absence of altruism, or is altruism the absence of selfishness?" I always love the moment when words start breaking down in a complex argument...
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Nov 5, 2020 23:47
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Slanderer posted:You nailed it buddy, good job Do you mind elaborating, I'm not sure I follow your argument.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:50
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Slanderer posted:Wait, are you contending that teaching children to share (and play nice with each other, and to wear clothes, and not to scream in restaurants) is not a completely normal thing that everyone is familiar with? Are you serious lmao? It's a topic so ubitous that there are countless parenting articles about it. Okay but what does this have to do with socialism?
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Nov 5, 2020 23:51
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enki42 posted:Why don't you say what you do mean, then? I think you're trying to say that greed is human nature, because altruism is learned? I don't see how that follows - they can both be learned behaviours. Socialize someone to be greedy, and they'll be greedy, socialize them to be altruistic, and they'll be altrusitic. What, no lol. I'm rejecting the notion that humans are inherenty predisposed towards altruism and away from greed, because (a) it's extremely hard to distinguish learned from innate behaviors in people (and in observational studies of primates in the wild) and (b) greed is entirely subjective, more so than altruism in general is, so trying to pin it down as a thing you can specifically learn seems like a fool's errand. That's also not to say that humans are predispoed towards greed and away from altruism, because (a) greed is subjective again and (b) i dont really buy it. But mostly that it doesn't matter what behaviors are learned or innate with regard to socialism, because socialism can't (and doesn't) rely on everyone acting perfectly.
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Nov 5, 2020 23:53
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If we wanted to include some newbie reading material on the first page somewhere, I'd like to recommend this for an easily digestible, modern summary of Capital: https://redemmas.org/titles/18656-marx-s-capital--an-illustrated-introduction v But, these children were not raised in a frictionless spherical environment. Checkmate, communists. Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 00:12
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This article does not support your argument. It basically refutes it. I'm real fuckin' sick of people in D&D googling the first article on a subject, not reading it, and posting it as though it's evidence in favour of your argument: In this case, that "toddlers don't share, therefore, altruism is a taught behaviour." This study just shows that between the ages of 18 months and 24 months, people become drastically more pro-social. the study posted:Thus, although “mine!” is a favorite refrain of toddlers, by age two they readily share their toys when supplies are abundant, and even 18-month-olds share when their companions’ needs are made clear.
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Nov 6, 2020 00:12
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Slanderer posted:What, no lol. I'm rejecting the notion that humans are inherenty predisposed towards altruism and away from greed, because (a) it's extremely hard to distinguish learned from innate behaviors in people (and in observational studies of primates in the wild) and (b) greed is entirely subjective, more so than altruism in general is, so trying to pin it down as a thing you can specifically learn seems like a fool's errand. That's also not to say that humans are predispoed towards greed and away from altruism, because (a) greed is subjective again and (b) i dont really buy it. But mostly that it doesn't matter what behaviors are learned or innate with regard to socialism, because socialism can't (and doesn't) rely on everyone acting perfectly. Again, who or what are you arguing against? As far as I can tell no one has argued that socialism requires a population of fully altruistic do-gooders. I, personally, have argued that communism (as opposed to socialism) develops a society where the material basis for greed (or if it makes a difference to you, wealth-hoarding at the expense of others) is absent. BoldFrankensteinMir had said greed was "the natural state of man", which is something I roundly reject. I was trying to point out that - if anything - humans are predisposed to altruism and cooperation, rather than "greed". I think this is important because if humans some have innate drive towards greed (again, as defined as wealth-hoarding at the expense of others), I think communism is impossible in the long term because humans will inevitably reproduce societies where they can satisfy the need to express greed, in the same way that humans will inevitably reproduce societies with clothing and indoor living spaces so they can satisfy the need to protect themselves from the elements. Somfin posted:This study just shows that between the ages of 18 months and 24 months, people become drastically more pro-social. Yeah -- actual, honest-to-god brain structure keeps developing over the first few years of life. You don't pop out with a fully-formed adult brain, blank and awaiting input. It doesn't take a newborn six weeks to "figure out" how to discern their parents from other people, the parts of the brain that help with that process are under construction until the ability is there. Learning while we're very young is nearly as much a biological process as it is a cognitive process.
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Nov 6, 2020 00:25
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But what if I leave my children to be raised by wolves? Checkmate No-cialists.
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Nov 6, 2020 00:28
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And even if we accept was that the presence of teaching advice proves that something is not natural, there's advice out there about teaching your child to walk and speak. Does this mean that humans are not actually bipeds or vocalisers, and that therefore a society built on the idea that they are is not in line with human nature?
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Nov 6, 2020 00:32
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Somfin posted:And even if we accept was that the presence of teaching advice proves that something is not natural, there's advice out there about teaching your child to walk and speak. Setting aside the idea that 'is greed human nature' is basically an incoherent question, society already significantly mediates 'human nature' to the extent that even if 'greed is human nature' it would not meaningfully tell us wether or not socialism was ultimately sustainable.
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Nov 6, 2020 00:35
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Crumbskull posted:Setting aside the idea that 'is greed human nature' is basically an incoherent question, society already significantly mediates 'human nature' to the extent that even if 'greed is human nature' it would not meaningfully tell us wether or not socialism was ultimately sustainable. Yeah I'll agree with this. I do believe that a socialist society could be sustainable. The difference, I think at least, is that I think such a thing would be accomplished despite our instincts, not as some kind of return to them. If anything I have more faith in humans saying we can overcome our base nature, vs having to lean on some idea of us being naturally good or kind, which in a way takes the accomplishment away from people who strive for altruism.
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Nov 6, 2020 00:41
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Slanderer posted:What, no lol. I'm rejecting the notion that humans are inherenty predisposed towards altruism and away from greed, because (a) it's extremely hard to distinguish learned from innate behaviors in people (and in observational studies of primates in the wild) and (b) greed is entirely subjective, more so than altruism in general is, so trying to pin it down as a thing you can specifically learn seems like a fool's errand. That's also not to say that humans are predispoed towards greed and away from altruism, because (a) greed is subjective again and (b) i dont really buy it. But mostly that it doesn't matter what behaviors are learned or innate with regard to socialism, because socialism can't (and doesn't) rely on everyone acting perfectly. So this is a claim of tabula rasa? The idea that all humans are born as blank slates? How do you explain the natural love of a parent for their child? This exists naturally to most mammals and does not need to be taught. Parental love is definitely a form of altruism. Cpt_Obvious fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 00:52
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BoldFrankensteinMir posted:Yeah I'll agree with this. I do believe that a socialist society could be sustainable. The difference, I think at least, is that I think such a thing would be accomplished despite our instincts, not as some kind of return to them. If anything I have more faith in humans saying we can overcome our base nature, vs having to lean on some idea of us being naturally good or kind, which in a way takes the accomplishment away from people who strive for altruism. im just gonna let Mao Zedong speak for me on this. it's not an exact match to what you're talking about but it fits nonetheless. Mao Zedong, 1937 posted:People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well--they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work. that is to say, the principles of Marxist socialism are not contrary or in spite of normal human behavior; they are in spite of your behavior. as a poor american it's almost distastefully self-centered to consider yourself before others, at least in my family. when you can help others, it is your duty. to me, socialism is about extending that duty to help to everyone. capitalist liberal society encouraging self-first is against not only my principles, but my basic instincts Larry Parrish fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 00:57
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Cpt_Obvious posted:So this is a claim of tabula rasa? The idea that all humans are born as blank slates? I'm saying: who care. Do socialism.
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Nov 6, 2020 01:32
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Pentecoastal Elites posted:I think this is important because if humans some have innate drive towards greed (again, as defined as wealth-hoarding at the expense of others), I think communism is impossible in the long term because humans will inevitably reproduce societies where they can satisfy the need to express greed, in the same way that humans will inevitably reproduce societies with clothing and indoor living spaces so they can satisfy the need to protect themselves from the elements. Or maybe you could just, I dunno, try out communism. Just a little. Maybe give it a shot?
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Nov 6, 2020 01:38
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OK, I added Falstaff's essay in the first infamous "reserved" slot beneath the OP. Hopefully that space can become a conglomeration of posts by fellows users. Falstaff's essay explains the difference between socialism, communism, and the dictatorship of the proletariat and is lifted (with permission) from the 2020 GE thread. Check it out! Edit: Also, that second "reserved" post is to put together a glossary of terms that everyone can contribute to. If you feel that there's a word that needs explaining, pop down an explanation and I'll steal it for that slot (with your permission). Cpt_Obvious fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Nov 6, 2020 |
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Nov 6, 2020 01:45
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