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THS posted:i wish i were as smart as those women and saw the cynical bastard trying to take us for a ride back in 2008 utmost respect as always for marxist feminists
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Nov 19, 2020 17:06
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uncop posted:And back to the point: It follows that for a marxist, germs *are* nature in its material form, because they're the most practically effective scientific representation of the phenomena being studied. Is it the most practical though? Seems it's being used to implement consumption of more products (masks, vaccines/antivirals, hand sanitizers, barriers) and to press labor into even tighter conditions. Maybe tossing out germ theory isn't a winning strategy, but this Phil fellow seems in tune with how capital is wielding germ theory
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Nov 19, 2020 21:51
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Phil Greaves reminds me of a dude I think I posted about in this thread, who was a self-identified Maoist Third Worldist who went to Berkeley on his parent's dollar lol. He's the brother of that friend I mentioned with the gigantic marble house. Anyway his position on vaccines was that since corporations make them nothing about the practice can be trusted, scientifically or otherwise. Pointing out that most vaccines are sold at a huge loss and only manufactured because of government mandates across the world was met with the epic refutation that they're still a commercial product and therefor suspect. I think an important tool for a Marxist, and part of why I try to highlight the importance of Marxism's relation to the scientific method, is to always analyze your reactions to everything, even things you think aren't suspect. Does this rich kid dipshit fear vaccines because of legitimate problems with corporate pharmaceuticals, or is it just that his parents are the healing crystal anti-vaxxer type and that's his brain resolving the contradiction between himself being rich and believing that being rich is an evil? Who knows. Anyway even if promoting mask use, testing etc was just a threadbare excuse to get a little more money flowing in the economy, what exactly is the harm? It's not like there's magically not a pandemic.
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Nov 19, 2020 22:09
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Epitope posted:Is it the most practical though? Seems it's being used to implement consumption of more products (masks, vaccines/antivirals, hand sanitizers, barriers) and to press labor into even tighter conditions. Maybe tossing out germ theory isn't a winning strategy, but this Phil fellow seems in tune with how capital is wielding germ theory This same logic could be deployed against eating healthy food.
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Nov 19, 2020 22:16
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Epitope posted:Is it the most practical though? yes
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Nov 19, 2020 22:35
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yeah if we're going to reject ontological frameworks because they can and have been malapropriated by the ruling classes for their own ends we may as well just go on back to the stone age, technologically and conceptually it's healthy to regard any to have a curiousity and skepticism regarding any broad scientific consensus, doubly so where there is capital at state, but the thing about something like germ theory is that there is a very well-articulated body of evidence to support it, and even if you are going to be obstinately cynical of the mountains of archived data, the constituent hypotheses are well within the grasp of even laymen to try to play out in middle-school level scientific experimentation. somehow though I doubt terminally online weirdo Phil Greaves has much interest in acquiring agar solution and microscopes to support his claims that the germ theory of disease is at fault.
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Nov 19, 2020 22:36
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have any of you ever visited Cuba?
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Nov 19, 2020 22:48
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Mr. Lobe posted:yeah if we're going to reject ontological frameworks because they can and have been malapropriated by the ruling classes for their own ends we may as well just go on back to the stone age, technologically and conceptually Generally ya. Could it be some theories are be worth rejecting, a la nuclear disarmament?
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Nov 19, 2020 23:02
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Larry Parrish posted:Phil Greaves reminds me of a dude I think I posted about in this thread, who was a self-identified Maoist Third Worldist who went to Berkeley on his parent's dollar lol. He's the brother of that friend I mentioned with the gigantic marble house. Anyway his position on vaccines was that since corporations make them nothing about the practice can be trusted, scientifically or otherwise. Pointing out that most vaccines are sold at a huge loss and only manufactured because of government mandates across the world was met with the epic refutation that they're still a commercial product and therefor suspect. I was reading Tariq Ali's book on Lenin, and he mentions that Lenin understood that some things are outside the purview of Dialectical Materialism. A Tsarist Military officer can still offer you good military leadership, and let's be honest, even fascists can produce good science. I think alot of this thinking comes from most North American Marxists coming from a humanities background. Of course STEM students tend to be libertarian shitheads so I prefer the humanities people, but the left does need people with technical expertise. Edit: I even see that guy, Andray Domise, on twitter promoting poo poo like witchcraft and magic! That's one of the twitter leftist people that I tend to respect too.
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Nov 19, 2020 23:37
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Epitope posted:Generally ya. Could it be some theories are be worth rejecting, a la nuclear disarmament? nuclear disarmament doesn’t require rejecting relativity
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Nov 19, 2020 23:56
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https://twitter.com/good_guy69/status/1329172300080484352?s=21
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Nov 20, 2020 01:14
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monetize ur death threats bing bong so simple
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Nov 20, 2020 01:16
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does Jacobin have a paywall now (saw it in the reply thread, not going to the website to confirm)
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Nov 20, 2020 01:20
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I think some articles
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Nov 20, 2020 01:32
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They always had that.
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Nov 20, 2020 01:39
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Basically every worthwhile publication ever has had some form of paid subscription or paywall, I love making fun of jacobin but I don’t see that as a problem. Especially now when everyone who really wants an article can get it whether they pay or not lol
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Nov 20, 2020 01:45
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I think Jacobin requires a subscription to see most articles that are actually in their magazine. Monthly Review has a similar restriction, with magazine articles only getting published on the site after a few months. Print magazines need to have some incentive to get people to buy the magazine.
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Nov 20, 2020 02:19
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indigi posted:have any of you ever visited Cuba? Yes, a few years ago before Trump shut things down again. What would you like to know?
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Nov 20, 2020 02:28
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PERPETUAL IDIOT posted:Yes, a few years ago before Trump shut things down again. What would you like to know? as much as you'd like to share about everything, tbh. if I had to narrow it down though how hard would it be navigating as an English speaker (with a year or so of Duolingo Spanish)? did you do any cool communist stuff? would it be a good place to visit solo or should I try to get someone to go with me? e: would this be better to ask in the Latin America thread indigi fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 03:21
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indigi posted:as much as you'd like to share about everything, tbh. if I had to narrow it down though how hard would it be navigating as an English speaker (with a year or so of Duolingo Spanish)? did you do any cool communist stuff? would it be a good place to visit solo or should I try to get someone to go with me? I grew up in Miami and took a few years of Spanish in college many years ago, so I personally was able to do basic stuff like getting around, asking for things and paying for them, reading signs and such, without any real trouble. I think if you're mostly interested in doing touristy things then extremely basic Spanish will be enough for getting by. But many people even in touristy parts of Havana / other touristy places will speak only pretty rudimentary English, so you probably will only be able to have complex conversations with certain people - tour guide types, basically. Personally, I'm from the US, so it would have probably been illegal to do any communist stuff in the sense of anything dealing with the government. I didn't get the sense that this was very well regulated so unless we had really put it out there we probably wouldn't have been in trouble, though. We drove by the plaza of the revolution at night when they had Che and Cienfuegos lit up, which was cool. Apparently there was a huge crowd in downtown Havana the first day I was there, which I didn't see, but rather than any political action it was that Will Smith was supposedly visiting the island. In terms of explicitly communist-focused things, should we be able to go again I'd like to do a hiking trail that goes from the landing site of the Granma to the initial revolutionary base set up by Fidel and company in the early days of the revolution. I think this is about a week or so, but it's far from Havana. There's also a museum for the revolution in the touristy part of downtown Havana that I didn't make it to. We went to a fantastic art museum instead. I did feel like I got a decent chance to talk with people in the tourist industry about their lives and how things function there. I had the impression that a lot of people saw things as only just recovering from the Special Period following the fall of the USSR in the 90s. When I asked about health care, everyone without fail was very proud about the state of Cuban health care and laughed about the situation in the US. Everyone I spoke with appreciated that most everyone's basic needs were met, but that even this required quite a bit of work and hustling. One guy was complaining about Fidel and other party higher-ups eating steak while telling the people that e.g. rice and beans or yuca was good enough, which I thought was funny. I told him that Trump famously had a solid gold toilet, so those kinds of excesses were worse in the US, which he found pretty funny. One thing that a number of people weren't afraid to tell me they didn't like about the focus on tourism was that luxury foods like good cuts of steak, seafood, and such are primarily sold to tourists in upscale restaurants rather than distributed to Cubans. There's also the very common situation of tipped workers, or people who deal with tourists in general, making a lot of money compared to e.g. engineers or scientists. We went on a day hike with a guide who had a PhD, and he said that he earned much more as a tour guide than he could at the university in the industrial town nearby. As a solo traveler I think you could have a great time in Cuba if you're comfortable solo traveling in general. I felt very safe there, at least in the touristy places I visited, even wandering around late at night. I'm not sure what the bank situation is for people with non-US banks, but for us, we did have to bring in all the money we needed in cash and carry it around with us, which is a bit of a worry. The island is a lot bigger than you'd think, in terms of travel time, but the intercity bus system is pretty comprehensive for bigger towns and touristy spots. Because you wouldn't rent a car, but instead get from city to city by group taxi or by bus, you'll for sure meet up with other travelers to hang out and do stuff with, get tips about places to check out, etc. I'm not sure what the hostel scene is like (if there is a hostel scene) for solo travel, but the casa particular system does seem pretty friendly to solo travel too. I think most places would let you rent by the room.
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Nov 20, 2020 04:16
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the venceremos brigade is also still around. they're a north american group that organizes annual group trips and was a vehicle for left-wing students to do it back in the 60s. they'll actually put you to work in a sugar cane fieldPERPETUAL IDIOT posted:Personally, I'm from the US, so it would have probably been illegal to do any communist stuff in the sense of anything dealing with the government. I didn't get the sense that this was very well regulated so unless we had really put it out there we probably wouldn't have been in trouble, though. We drove by the plaza of the revolution at night when they had Che and Cienfuegos lit up, which was cool. Apparently there was a huge crowd in downtown Havana the first day I was there, which I didn't see, but rather than any political action it was that Will Smith was supposedly visiting the island. In terms of explicitly communist-focused things, should we be able to go again I'd like to do a hiking trail that goes from the landing site of the Granma to the initial revolutionary base set up by Fidel and company in the early days of the revolution. I think this is about a week or so, but it's far from Havana. There's also a museum for the revolution in the touristy part of downtown Havana that I didn't make it to. We went to a fantastic art museum instead. also it seems to get pretty fun when marc anthony shows up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMp55KH_3wo&t=31s BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 05:15
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this is all great info, thanks!
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Nov 20, 2020 05:21
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    BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 05:30
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:a friend of mine visited and liked it. he went to santa clara and got to see the train that che blew up. said people have basic stuff provided for and people are also proud of their history. but there was one time where he was passing through a nicer area and was like "woah, where are we?" to his tour guide. and the guide responded in a sarcastic, smart-rear end way "we're in the most cuban part of cuba." this was an area where more privileged people lived, like nomenklatura types. Yes, any amount of travel around Cuba will show you that there are definitely nicer areas than others, and it wouldn't surprise me if internal politics is a good way to get a place there. Even walking around Havana it's very clear - some of the buildings are in very bad shape but still lived in, while in another part of town you can see old stand-alone, huge places with yards in front. I did one of those Airbnb experience things, learn how to cook a traditional Cuban meal, and the lady's house we went to was a good way from the touristy downtown, and while not huge, was quite nice. Her father had actually been a diplomat stationed in a developed country through a lot of her childhood, so I imagine she was well-connected. This isn't even getting into the difference between a place in Havana and a place out in the countryside. One funny thing along those lines that I didn't get to ask too much about, though. We rode about 30-40 minutes east of Havana to hit up the beach one day, and there was a huge hotel right by the beach, but out that way there were tons of new construction, single-family homes we passed by, most of them within walking distance of very nice beaches. Only, a lot of them seemed empty. No furniture out front, no car in the driveway, nobody visible inside, nobody walking around the suburban neighborhoods, no cars or horses passing by. We asked a few people about it later and their speculation was that it was too far to easily get into Havana daily for work, so unless you were working at one of the hotels, stores or restaurants nearby at a beach town, living there would be tough.
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Nov 20, 2020 05:44
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Please forgive the continued intrusion if I'm the only one interested in grappling with thissplifyphus posted:this does point to a genuine problem with self-conscious materialist ontologies and empirical work - the temptation to make the results fit the ontology, or to just use the ontology itself to dismiss theories whole-clothe It's clear that science is not done from a neutral place. Even if you're interested in "knowledge for knowledge's sake" (which of course you still have your own bias), you're only going to get funding if it's gonna help build a bomb, or cure an affliction of rich people, or that sort of thing. Like splifyphus says, neutrality is pretend. It's a lie we tell ourselves, so we can act like we're not just in service to the Empire. Not that the solution is just to bin all science done under capitalism (though might we bin all studies from a mining company about the environmental impact of their mine?), but accounting for bias seems important. Is "most practically effective representation" going to help account for bias? I also wonder how this can avoid relativism. Found this: https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/jmoral10.htm quote:In other words, it can be said (and this is no doubt the most exact formulation) that Marxist morality is an eschatological morality. It will only be fully itself in the final state of human development, and it is in relation to that final state that the progress of morality of which Engels spoke is meaningful. In this way Marxist ethics thinks it can at the same time banish all "eternal verity" and disclaim ethical relativism Epitope fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Nov 20, 2020 |
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Nov 20, 2020 20:26
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tbqf Marx and Engels proposing historical materialism would solve history is pretty fashionably victorian, because every intellectual at the time was like "we are about to solve everything and understand everything" so yeah, that's the part of theory that is quite eh
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Nov 20, 2020 22:47
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Nov 21, 2020 04:14
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Nov 21, 2020 04:17
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Nov 21, 2020 04:27
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Nov 21, 2020 04:33
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Nov 21, 2020 04:40
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if sexuality was chosen the world would be 95% lesbians because men are trash
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Nov 21, 2020 08:40
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T-man posted:if sexuality was chosen the world would be 95% lesbians because men are trash 
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Nov 21, 2020 09:23
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Nov 21, 2020 10:11
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T-man posted:if sexuality was chosen the world would be 95% lesbians because men are trash so are women, and that is why i will no longer share my cum but with my bros
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Nov 21, 2020 10:24
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Kurnugia posted:so are women, and that is why i will no longer share my cum but with my bros i have no objection to this, enjoy
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Nov 21, 2020 10:37
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watching the marc-anthony-does-cuba video again, it reminds me that the stereotypes of socialist countries being drab is an impression, again, formed from the soviet union and particularly post-soviet period when everything went to hell. like sour-faced people wandering around, but i think russians might just seem like that to yankees. and then they're constructing human pyramids and doing coordinated dancing in their mass games, like cogs in a terrible machine! but it's like no, dude, it's not about that the mass performances are going to synchronize with a country's culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJM5arPMzE my idea for the united states. it's gonna be great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Ov5jzm3j8&t=211s
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Nov 21, 2020 12:57
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:watching the marc-anthony-does-cuba video again, it reminds me that the stereotypes of socialist countries being drab is an impression, again, formed from the soviet union and particularly post-soviet period when everything went to hell. like sour-faced people wandering around, but i think russians might just seem like that to yankees. and then they're constructing human pyramids and doing coordinated dancing in their mass games, like cogs in a terrible machine! but it's like no, dude, it's not about that from the new animaniacs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joezO-5LIRk
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Nov 21, 2020 14:33
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i say swears online posted:from the new animaniacs ah yes, putin's russia, well known for being communist,
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Nov 21, 2020 15:16
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i say swears online posted:from the new animaniacs
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Nov 21, 2020 15:33
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