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Coohoolin posted:One of our jam regulars came out as trans tonight by announcing it from the stage after playing a set and the whole bar responded with a round of applause and cheers. Great that your local scene is supportive enough for that! Coming out on stage seems terrifying. Also, Jam Regulars makes me think of a Corbyn paramilitary same
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Aug 1, 2019 09:32
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Noxville posted:Why do we need an emergency fund, I thought we’d be rolling in it after Brexit, no deal was better than a bad deal, etc etc No, no, we only get the extra after Brexit happens! the emergency here is not being out of the EU
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Aug 1, 2019 09:43
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namesake posted:LMAO we shall not see the likes of this spectacle again in our lifetime. It's maybe getting a little too theatrical, you know? Very much a carefully-managed spectacle.
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Aug 1, 2019 11:42
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namesake posted:Oh yes it's deliberately the greatest show on earth so I'm expecting absolute mania for the next three months. That just makes me wonder what they're going to try while everyone's looking at the show. Johnson's a good showman, and Cummings apparently likes confusion and misdirection. It's all a bit Hypernormalization. Maybe I'm overthinking things, and I just need to sit back, turn my brain off, and enjoy it all while buying lots of canned food. As an aside, an interesting article from Will Davies here about how Johnson's initial approach seems to be a fusion of nationalism and the social aspects of neoliberalism
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Aug 1, 2019 12:17
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thespaceinvader posted:Isn't neoliberalism plus nationalism pretty much straight-up fascism though? It's just saying the quiet parts of neoliberalism out loud. Depends on which definitions you're using. In the article, Davies uses some parts of the social aspect of neoliberalism, referring to a combination of forced optimism / positivity and risk-taking, where as an individual doesn't know what's going to happen (neoliberal approach to uncertainty and irrationality), they are expected to meet it with positivity and an open-minded "responsible risk-taking", and accept the result as part of a disciplining process. He seems to apply this to a state's politics to get a sort of state-as-neoliberal-subject idea, afaict. I'd say fascism relies more on the idea of past imagined glories, and returning to the supposedly known. Johnson's approach hasn't so far relied on that, or of treating the EU as an external enemy. That could change, of course. There are some similarities between neoliberal philosophy and fascism, but they don't really apply in this context. vvvv lmao CGI Stardust fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Aug 1, 2019 13:32
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ThomasPaine posted:Can someone give me the sparksnotes on how Living Marxism went from ridiculously crude third-worldist 'anti-imperialism' to the turbo-conservative Spiked? It's such a fascinating transition that I'm sure follows some coherent progression but I've yet to find an account that doesn't assume some knowledge of the minutiae of 90s fringe-left groups and figures. Very quick summary from what I remember: a part of their ideological core was that there was no proletariat in the first world, because it was being prevented from forming by excess regulation and restrictions on free speech etc. Workers would never develop the class consciousness required without removing those restrictions and regulations, so it was important to do so as fast as possible (accelerationist approach). Hence, easy shift into right-libertarianism, perhaps accelerated somewhat by their being bankrupted after claiming that the existence of the Trnopolje concentration camp was a lie, whoops CGI Stardust fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Aug 1, 2019 |
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Aug 1, 2019 13:58
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Going back a bit, the parallels between fascism and neoliberalism are fascinating. Cribbing from Eco's Ur-fascism strongly here. Both are explicitly hierarchical, but the source of hierarchy differs - fascists tend to rely on nature and myth (traditionalist, spiritual or similar), but neoliberals use success in the market; also, in neoliberalism it's technically possible to shift places in the hierarchy if your behaviour is rewarded by the market. There's a direct comparison with the Nazis here - Hitler was explicit about how the best people to manage the common wealth of the Volk would be those business owners who had proved themselves through market competition thus being the naturally best-suited. Both are also very, very happy to discard those considered weak. Both reject modernity - fascism through appeal to tradition and a mythical past, and neoliberalism through rejecting human rationality, replacing it with the market as both the most rational of actors and the best decision-maker / information aggregator. Neoliberalism is, like fascism, intrinsically undemocratic since, as people are irrational, the market is best-placed to make decisions - markets in a sense become democracy since they're aggregating the decisions of the population. The fascist cult of heroism, action, and death is kind of paralleled by the neoliberal entrepreneurial spirit and pursuit of risk as behavioural corrector. Also there's some similarity between the fascist love of struggle and the neoliberal love of market competition, both are determining fitness-to-exist. Final similarity I noticed - both are suspicious of new knowledge, in the neoliberal case specifically if it hasn't been obtained by market mechanisms. Some important differences though. It's worth distinguishing the instrumentalised racism in neoliberal societies from the racism of fascist societies - it is theoretically possible to have neoliberalism without racism (or other prejudice), but in practice it tends to utilise existing racism; compare this to fascism, which is dependent on some Other. There's also no fear of difference or disagreement in neoliberalism; the more ideas in the market, the better, since that's the way truth is determined. Appeal to a frustrated middle class is a foundation of fascism, but I'm not sure it applies so much to neoliberalism - might be some parallels with its implementation in the 1970s-80s? Taking a few definitions of fascism Griffon: The Palingenetic Core of Fascist Ideology posted:Fascism is a political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism. Paxton: Five Stages of Fascism posted:Fascism is a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline. Paxton: The Anatomy of Fascism posted:Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim- hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
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Aug 1, 2019 19:29
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ThomasPaine posted:So she understands why her snarky gotcha is full of poo poo but... still does it then draws attention to how dumb it is? I honestly do not know this woman's game. It's like she's just getting a kick out of being wilfully stupid and I do not understand. the stuplime strikes again
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Aug 1, 2019 22:10
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ThomasPaine posted:I hadn't heard this term so I googled it and came up with this pretty interesting article that does a good job of explaining the Weetman-esque types. Yeah, that's the one, sorry, should have linked it. It is such a good explanation of them. Weaponised stupidity designed to annoy and enervate with no chance of release.
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Aug 1, 2019 22:29
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Nice. Possible change - take Form Radical from food to crunchy food, and salmon en croute to Maltesers, which are the best crisps. Or maybe M&Ms.
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Aug 2, 2019 10:12
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Guavanaut posted:Good call, Maltesers are good crisps. Little packs of mini chocolate digestives, can't forget those
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Aug 2, 2019 10:35
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my sexless son is denying me the opportunity to bond with him by talking about which of his female friends we both want to gently caress
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Aug 2, 2019 11:18
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Venting, sorry. I really love it when my application for academic deferral gets hosed up. Asked for a doctor's note, GP forgets, I follow up, the surgery sends me a note written by a GP who I haven't seen in a decade and who isn't familiar with what's happening. He writes, basically, "a kind of bad thing happened a while ago so maybe take that into consideration  " with no actual details about my current MH issues or treatment, which the university (reasonably, I guess) decides isn't enough information. GP I saw originally has left the practice. Now waiting a week and a half to get a phone appointment with that same unfamiliar GP to try and persuade him to this time maybe put some loving details in the letter so the deferral goes through before September and I don't fail my MSc. And I have to pay £18 for each goddamn note too.Could really do without this, it's not helping my brain.
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Aug 2, 2019 19:57
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oscarthewilde posted:Few pages back, but just I was busy helping someone move today so a bit of a late response, but I can't say I agree. Especially when it comes to your characterisation of rationality in neo-liberal politics. Neo-liberalism does in fact rely in great part on a rational modernity and a very particular conception of rationality. As you, quite rightly, say neo-liberalism does in fact rely on a totally rational market as the foundation of their politics, but within this market and within their politics people are completely and totally rational. Their entire conception of man is one of a Homo Economicus, the rational actor in a market situation who would always do what is rational in a particular situation. This gives them the ability to claim that the market does not allow for any kind of discrimination. There would be no need for top-down measures to alleviate in-equality, both in opportunity and outcome, because no market (which is perfectly rational by definition) would allow for this kind of irrational behaviour. Very much agreed that neoliberalism isn't as heinous as fascism, I just found the parallels kind of interesting, that's all! The disagreement here is down to definitions of neoliberalism, I think. For neoclassical economics, yes, the individual actor is taken to be rational. I'm running with the Philip Mirowski historical / textual analysis of neoliberalism as a project of political philosophy; it's a view based on what the founding members of the Neoliberal Thought Collective wrote and spread, not always founded in neoclassical econ, and a large part of the foundation being Hayek. One of the things in Hayek (from my second-hand understanding) is the assumption that individuals are not Homo Economicus (there's a quote where he calls people "naturally socialistic", or words to that effect; basically, people don't work like free markets want). Another is that markets are the best possible way to process information; humans cannot process information to the same capacity as a market, because there is too much unknown, too much hidden, which markets reveal and consolidate through the process of transactions (this forms part of a natural neoliberal defence against socialism - rational planning cannot exist, because it's not market-based, so misses stuff, hence cannot be rational as a market can). So as a political project, for the best, most rational, social outcomes, neoliberal societies must force people to become market actors so the markets work properly - it tries to constantly shape the individual into Homo Economicus using societal structures of discipline or control (and frequently fails); it's an ongoing process as opposed to an upfront assumption. (This is also where the anti-democratic aspect comes from, iirc - markets become better at democracy than actual democracy, because they reveal more about people's preferences through exchange than human "rationality" can understand and express through voting.) I saw a pretty good summary of the difference between liberalism and neoliberalism as something like: liberalism - descriptive, assumes the nature of humans is trade and barter (i.e. economic), so they must be left alone as far as possible; neoliberalism - constructive, assumes the nature of humans is not economic, so they must be made economic using whatever means necessary, frequently via the state (e.g. JobCentre as a shaping disciplinary process). If anyone's interested in this view on neoliberalism, there are free papers by Mirowski The Political Movement That Dared Not Speak Its Own Name Hell Is Truth Seen Too Late (he's done HITSTL as a lecture too, I'd really recommend it) and his book Never Let A Serious Crisis Go To Waste, which is great reading and where most of this analysis comes from. ed: he's better at explaining it, with sources and all
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Aug 3, 2019 17:49
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Sanford posted:Good to see my neighbourhood getting the priorities right when it comes to a local noise nuisance. The scourge of foreign music, introducing our children to such un-British concepts as liveliness, dancing, enjoyment! Instead, how about a patriotic, endlessly-repeating loop of Dambusters March and Pomp & Circumstance No. 1? Guavanaut posted:Neighbours: oh gently caress yes
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Aug 4, 2019 16:54
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Neighbours blasting Debussy and Wagner at all hours turned my son gay, filthy foreign muck
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Aug 4, 2019 17:02
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It's a sad but true fact that the English are naturally drawn to music with emphasis on the 1 and 3 beats, as it matches the rhythm of marching off to war.
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Aug 4, 2019 18:29
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When will my premium go up? After I shoot a bunch of people, you say?
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Aug 4, 2019 19:51
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Regarde Aduck posted:Non-white person: Hello there gun merchant, I would like to purchase a weapon on account of the 20 white people who surround my house in a circle and stand there until the morning, every night. Lately they've been chanting 'we're going to loving kill you' and 'hitler was right' I see you once posted the tweet, "white people". That was a hate crime, request denied.
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Aug 4, 2019 20:13
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in brighter news, wot if Alexa was yer dad https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1158116134937419777
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Aug 4, 2019 22:03
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Pilchenstein posted:I think he gave up on Wipe because he knew he'd get loving crucified for doing centrist takes. Remember 2016 wipe when he pined for the days when people would say "meh" instead of being angry about politics? tbf by staying out of politics and the public eye, by and large he's avoided doing the standard old comedian thing of turning into a vocal anti-Labour transphobe. Unless he is, of course, and I missed it. Going to give him some personal credit though, he did get Nick Davies (of Flat Earth News) and Adam Curtis on Wipe, and that was my first introduction to any non-mainstream political thought. Sad, really
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Aug 4, 2019 23:16
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Pilchenstein posted:^^^ 2014 predates the Media Meltdown Singularity though There's something to be said for the reading of S1E2 of Black Mirror (15 Million Merits) as a resignation note; he's been recuperated by the system he was known for criticizing, so any further angry satire he makes would be fundamentally toothless, a performance of anger. Which does actually suggest some self-awareness, unlike the others. ed: just found a PC Zone scan archive, ah the memories; X-COM Alliance preview 
CGI Stardust fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 4, 2019 |
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Aug 4, 2019 23:44
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StarkingBarfish posted:Turns out Noel Gallagher is not a fan of centrist takes: or Corbyn quote:“I saw him walk onstage to ‘Oooh, Jeremy Corbyn’ and thought: ‘Really? For a start, your name’s Jeremy.’ I don’t trust him. I think that the bare requirement for a politician, particularly a leader, is to be forward-looking. When I watch the news, I just think that, for these people, the big picture is communism, right? And that’s not British.”
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Aug 5, 2019 08:53
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Guavanaut posted:Known fans of nations, the communists. When was everything nationalised? 1970s. When does Corbyn want us to return to? 1970s. But that means... communism's British after all???
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Aug 5, 2019 08:59
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welsh accent is top-tier imo, along with scouse
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Aug 5, 2019 09:41
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Ah yes, they were absolutely going to start attacking the Tories this summer, absolutely, that's when they were going to start attacking the Tories, yes indeed. If only, if only, they'd had a chance to start doing that earlier, but alas! Might have thought a little introspection was in order about precisely why a left-leaning membership didn't like them and why they hadn't engaged with their CLP earlier, if they're that worried. Also, isn't Thangam Debbonaire quite popular locally or am I misremembering?
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Aug 5, 2019 10:30
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Guavanaut posted:1) Village Faires and Fêtes Building a strong digital infrastructure by nailing ZigBees to our cows
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Aug 5, 2019 12:18
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Yeah, we got HTTP here Hogshead Touching The Penis ed: worst snipe. I don't have a cat to post, but I do currently have caterpillars, please accept those instead 
CGI Stardust fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Aug 5, 2019 |
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Aug 5, 2019 12:35
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Sanford posted:Nice cadderppliers - painted ladies? And whhhyyyy? Yep! There's a site that sells them along with food and a net-cage thing to put the cocoons in so they can develop safely. It's like a very low-maintenance aquarium, they're very relaxing to watch just doing their thing, and I find it interesting to see the butterflies close up at that stage in their development; not likely to see butterflies emerging in the wild, after all. I'm in a semi-rural area so there's lots of food for them after release. Also, they're fuzzy, both as caterpillars and butterflies 
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Aug 5, 2019 13:32
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Ratjaculation posted:Last I heard the majority of staff were also on secondment to projects planning for brexit. So glad the ecological and climate catastrophes were willing to let us hold off for a few years truly great that we're spending valuable time ignoring an existential threat in favour of a feel-good nostalgia project for people who won't be alive in 15 years
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Aug 5, 2019 16:10
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Jose posted:Lmao at thinking the leaks are going to stop and journalists will turn them over Lmao if you think the leaks are coming from anyone other than Cummings himself
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Aug 5, 2019 19:20
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Apraxin posted:The physical change he’s undergone in the last three years is incredible. Had to look this up, and hoooly poo poo it is actually him. Thought this was a joke.
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Aug 5, 2019 20:11
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Bardeh posted:https://twitter.com/willquince/status/1158308632288800768 The Minimum Income Floor is where you have to sleep after they repossess your mattress to pay student loans
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Aug 5, 2019 21:48
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GordonTheDeadFish posted:Feeling quite poo poo about life at the moment, folks. Recently lost my little brother to a motorbike accident, and even at this bleak time my wretched family can't shut the gently caress up about their awful politics. My mum's partner is peak gammon and has a petulant need to immediately use any lovely slurs he's been asked not to. Even at the wake, my grandad decided to hold forth about how Island Britain has survived before, so no-deal Brexit is fine, really. Condolences, losing family is tough. If you're having trouble, there should be an NHS bereavement support service you can go to, and your GP might be worth seeing if you get mental health issues. I hope you pull through alright. It's not great being in a heavily-blue county from the point of view of finding people with shared values, it can really get exhausting after a while, whether you're arguing or just pretending not to have opinions. Especially if those hostile people are your family and never shut up about politics. It doesn't look like there's much on politically outside Labour, maybe the local foodbanks are accepting volunteers for something suitable? There's one I found here, another here, it looks like Shelter has a couple of vacancies in roles, and I'm guessing the people in these won't be on the hard right. It might still be worth looking at Labour in Bournemouth East; Aaron Bastani was going on about it a while back iirc, how it was seeing an increase in local turnout and activity in the CLP, and I remember the local election result being a shock shift away from Tory-controlled. The candidate looks very much pro-Corbyn. Also, post! It's normally a friendly thread and poo poo probably won't kick off too badly until parliament's back
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Aug 5, 2019 23:59
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Profits from fossil fuels < the cost of the externalities of fossil fuels Isn't this true for almost all industries? I vaguely remember a paper being released sometime last year to that effect - that once environmental externalities are included, all but one industry is unprofitable. Can't find it now, though, and can't remember which industry was the ok one.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:22
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A Buttery Pastry posted:That might be the case, but the externalities of oil seem both more dangerous, persistent, and harder to get around technologically than for most types of industries. Like, a lot of industries would work perfectly fine with renewable energy*, but oil needs the extra step of actual sequestering CO2 to get around its long-term externalities. And not only sequestration, but cheap sequestration, if you expect anyone to ever force oil companies to pay for it. Thinking about it, if it was cheap enough and technologically possible, they'd probably just use the tech to make essentially free oil and just pretend to pump it back, while in actuality selling it all. Have to keep CO2 levels high to make money sequestering CO2! The big two I seem to remember as the worst offenders (hugely anti-profitable) were oil and agriculture, by some distance. Oil makes sense for the reasons you've given, and agriculture because of the damage caused by intensive farming. Wish I could dig up the paper.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:39
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Coohoolin posted:lol she sings like the tween popstars who overdo everything because they think "adult" and "proper" singing means sounding like mariah carey Azza Bamboo posted:She sings like she has hiccups that only emerge at the end of each line. Someone's twanging her vocal cords and sliding up them. I guess it's not digitally altered in any way, but I have no idea how she does that. It's powerful stuff, I can't stop laughing, help.
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Aug 7, 2019 23:01
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Coohoolin posted:It's all standard singing techniques, like glissando and voice breaking, but she's doing it literally everywhere she can, which, again, is what tweens trying to sound grown up do. They're best used sparingly to emphasise crescendos and dynamic inflections. Got it, cheers. I just hadn't ever heard it used so much before, to the point where it was obvious to a non-singer.
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Aug 7, 2019 23:35
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afternoon all, here's some caterpillars again, they're getting pretty big now Day 1:  Day 2:  Day 3:   Day 4:   
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Aug 8, 2019 16:50
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Tarnop posted:They're cute! What's the brown stuff in the jar/bowl? Food. Also the little brown individual lumps are caterpillar poop. It's the kind of thing that must happen, but you never think about. Sloth Life posted:Why are you growing more horrible creatures, there's plenty out there already  butterflies and moths are the gentle angels of the insect world, except clothes moths, which are dogshit and awfulRatjaculation posted:They are high in protein, CGI Stardust is a confirmed Brexit Prepper I'm a humble entrepreneur, responding to future needs. Who needs fresh fruit and veg when you have juicy, juicy larvae?
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Aug 8, 2019 17:18
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