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TESTEMONAIL:  Right and Discordianism allows room for personal interpretation. You have your theories and I have mine. Unlike Christianity, Discordia allows room for ideas and opinions, and mine is well-informed and based on ancient philosophy and theology, so, my neo-Discordian friends, open your minds to my interpretation and I will open my mind to yours. That's fair enough, right? Just claiming to be discordian should mean that your mind is open and willing to learn and share ideas. You guys are fucking bashing me and your laughing at my theologies and my friends know what's up and are laughing at you and honestly this is my last shot at putting a label on my belief structure and your making me lose all hope of ever finding a ideological group I can relate to because you don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about and everything I have said is based on the founding principals of real Discordianism. Expand your mind.

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UNLIMITED 2020 THREAD

Started by Doktor Howl, March 01, 2019, 08:53:02 PM

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tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 10, 2020, 04:29:47 PM
Quote from: Pergamos on April 10, 2020, 08:32:12 AM
Accelerationism is making things worse so that they can get better faster. 

This has never worked.

Depends on your perspective. WW2 made things pretty awful, but then Germany stopped being a Nazi trashfire. The American Revolution didn't make things better for most people but whoever it was that was mad about taxes on tea were probably ok with it.

There's a weird tendency to believe that living standards in the USA begin and end with federal policy, like the official state of our government is an unbreakable physical law within the context of which everything exists. Like a Supreme Court full of jackals is as immutable as gravity or something. I don't buy it. "The Government" is just a thing people do in cooperation with each other to achieve some result they want. There's no reason only one of those types of things can exist at a time.

Saying "welp, that's the best we can do, and insisting on anything better is tantamount to betrayal of the disadvantaged" is just an admission that America is fundamentally a racist, sexist pile of garbage full of irredeemable garbage people, so the best we can hope for is Corporatism over (outright) Fascism. I don't support blowing my vote (and again, I am voting for Biden) and leaving it at that. I support acting outside the bounds of this clearly broken system, developing direct support networks that do what our governments refuse to do, and making the whole political charade obsolete.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Cramulus

#421
I think I'm an accelerationist in the sense that I believe accelerationism describes what's happening right now -- as the roller coaster picks up speed, nuts and bolts begin to fall off. Systemic failures are visible when those systems are pushed to their limit.

With exceptions, I don't see it as desirable. Incremental change usually results in less suffering, although it does meander, and prolongs bad conditions. So not always.



I'm trying to imagine living in the US during the 1850s... obviously the civil war was a terrible thing, but so was slavery. If you were editing a newspaper in that period, and your ultimate goal is to minimize human suffering throughout the union, would the "right" thing be to agitate, or dissipate the cultural tension? In the short term, dissipation may have been better, but in the long view, agitation was more helpful.

But we are not beings who exist in the long-term... we can't see if breaking the system actually leads to fixes. So we have to take care of each other right now.

The thing about accelerationist arguments is that bringing the shit to the surface has to be useful. If no mechanism exists to correct the problem once it's crested above the water, then all you've done is make things worse.

For example, a friend remarked to me that Trump's reelection is the only way for a progressive candidate to be president this decade..  because 4 years of Biden will basically hand the next election to a republican, who might get 2 terms, so the opportunity for a real reform president may not manifest until 2028 or 2032.... But yo, where the fuck is this mystery progressive candidate coming from? We haven't been able to generate an effective one in the last 4 years, why should we bank on one descending from socialist nirvana in 2024?



A more present example is the healthcare system... in a world of pandemics, linking health insurance to employment is patently a bad idea. "Good accelerationists" wouldn't cheer for the healthcare system to break, would not hope for economic devastation -- but would capitalize on its current insufficiency and seize the opportunity to make a case for something else.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Cramulus on April 10, 2020, 05:01:44 PM
I think I'm an accelerationist in the sense that I believe accelerationism describes what's happening right now -- as the roller coaster picks up speed, nuts and bolts begin to fall off. Systems fail when pushed to their limit.

With exceptions, I don't see it as desirable. Incremental change usually results in less suffering, although it does meander, and prolongs bad conditions. So not always.
The problem with incremental change in this case is the direction it's headed is definitely the wrong one. We are incrementally marching directly into full-blown fascism, not toward anything resembling sanity and openness. People say "vote blue because we need to take baby steps" but the only thing that accomplishes is increasingly slightly applying the brakes to this slide. We take baby steps toward something better during Democratic administrations, and then we take great big leaps in the other direction when the GOP takes over. The net result isn't progress, at all. The "incremental change" argument is moot af.

Quote
I'm trying to imagine living in the US during the 1850s... obviously the civil war was a terrible thing, but so was slavery. If you were editing a newspaper in that period, and your ultimate goal is to minimize human suffering throughout the union, would the "right" thing be to agitate, or dissipate the cultural tension? In the short term, dissipation may have been better, but in the long view, agitation was more helpful.

But we are not beings who exist in the long-term... we can't see if breaking the system actually leads to fixes. So we have to take care of each other right now.
Yes, we need to take care of each other. Like, directly, not via the convenient proxy of the state (which demonstrably does not take care of people, even under the most beneficent administrations).

Quote
The thing about accelerationist arguments is that bringing the shit to the surface has to be useful. If no mechanism exists to correct the problem once it's crested above the water, then all you've done is make things worse.

For example, a friend remarked to me that Trump's reelection is the only way for a progressive candidate to be president this decade..  because 4 years of Biden will basically hand the next election to a republican, who might get 2 terms, so the opportunity for a real reform president may not manifest until 2028 or 2032.... But yo, where the fuck is this mystery progressive candidate coming from? We haven't been able to generate an effective one in the last 4 years, what makes anybody think one will descend from socialist nirvana in 2024?

A more present example is the healthcare system... in a world of pandemics, linking health insurance to employment is patently a bad idea. "Good accelerationists" wouldn't cheer for the healthcare system to break, would not hope for economic devastation -- but would capitalize on its current insufficiency and seize the opportunity to make a case for something else.

On healthcare, the current system is already about as bad as it can get from the perspective of half or more of Americans. Obamacare definitely helped people (myself included, my daughter specifically), but a lot of what it accomplished was on paper only. Millions of people still left out, tens of millions of people "covered" in theory but still unable to afford care when it comes to actually getting care. The current state of affairs already requires specific expansions of coverage via Medicare/Medicaid because the system we have just doesn't cut it. Effectively this is no different from having no system at all. Biden specifically is still very much in favor of continuing to link healthcare to employment because he knows that's one of the biggest things forcing workers to accept substandard employment conditions, which he also supports.

As for whether or not reelecting Trump will or won't allow a real progressive candidate, again I think it's silly to ever hope for a genuinely progressive candidate in any year, in any scenario. Our system simply will not allow it. Sanders was hardly progressive by objective standards and he never really had a chance. That's why my "accelerationism" focuses on extracurricular action. We cannot afford to invest our energy in a system that has proven itself to be steadfastly against any actual progress.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Cramulus

let me try a linguistic cleave:


-Bad accelerationism is making potholes so that the city (which typically ignores potholes) will finally notice & send out a team to fill em in.

-Good accelerationism is intensifying the existing potholes by spraypainting dicks around them.


https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-potholes-gets-fixed-after-protestor-spray-paints-penises-around-them-20190427

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Cramulus on April 10, 2020, 05:20:58 PM
let me try a linguistic cleave:


-Bad accelerationism is making potholes so that the city (which typically ignores potholes) will finally notice & send out a team to fill em in.

-Good accelerationism is intensifying the existing potholes by spraypainting dicks around them.


https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-potholes-gets-fixed-after-protestor-spray-paints-penises-around-them-20190427

okay but why this underlying assumption that only the city is capable of filling potholes?
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

The Wizard Joseph

From discussion yesterday, "Accelerationism without accelerationists" cropped up in my head.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Cramulus

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 10, 2020, 05:31:31 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on April 10, 2020, 05:20:58 PM
let me try a linguistic cleave:


-Bad accelerationism is making potholes so that the city (which typically ignores potholes) will finally notice & send out a team to fill em in.

-Good accelerationism is intensifying the existing potholes by spraypainting dicks around them.


https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-potholes-gets-fixed-after-protestor-spray-paints-penises-around-them-20190427

okay but why this underlying assumption that only the city is capable of filling potholes?

if we pay taxes so that the city takes care of the roads,
but people begin filling potholes themselves,
what is the systemic outcome?


tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Cramulus on April 10, 2020, 05:50:22 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 10, 2020, 05:31:31 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on April 10, 2020, 05:20:58 PM
let me try a linguistic cleave:


-Bad accelerationism is making potholes so that the city (which typically ignores potholes) will finally notice & send out a team to fill em in.

-Good accelerationism is intensifying the existing potholes by spraypainting dicks around them.


https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-potholes-gets-fixed-after-protestor-spray-paints-penises-around-them-20190427

okay but why this underlying assumption that only the city is capable of filling potholes?

if we pay taxes so that the city takes care of the roads,
but people begin filling potholes themselves,
what is the systemic outcome?


well, in the short term, the potholes get fixed. in the long term i guess one or the other becomes redundant, or the tax money that was supposed to go for potholes goes for smartbombs instead. but that's already happening anyway.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 10, 2020, 05:31:31 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on April 10, 2020, 05:20:58 PM
let me try a linguistic cleave:


-Bad accelerationism is making potholes so that the city (which typically ignores potholes) will finally notice & send out a team to fill em in.

-Good accelerationism is intensifying the existing potholes by spraypainting dicks around them.


https://www.ladbible.com/news/uk-potholes-gets-fixed-after-protestor-spray-paints-penises-around-them-20190427

okay but why this underlying assumption that only the city is capable of filling potholes?

Because the union will have your nuts on the hibachi if you do it yourself.
Molon Lube

Black Death

Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 10, 2020, 03:03:25 PM
Quote from: Black Death on April 10, 2020, 09:55:33 AM
Quote from: altered on April 10, 2020, 06:20:33 AM
I think that in my vodka fueled state I am realizing I may have moderated my words too much.

Sanders was a compromise candidate for the teeny tiny (but growing) far left of the USA. Consider: I have grown to consider myself a part of the far left.

The far left is full of morons who haven't thought through "if it's gotten this bad in four years, how bad could it be with four more years and the paving of the way?"

The result is that the far left, or at least that segment of it that doesn't consider the fucking BAD consequences, is functionally made up of sociopathic eugenicists who think that the most vulnerable people dying off is worth proving a fucking point.

For all that I respect you and appreciate you, Vex, I do not respect this change and think you need to remove your head from your ass.

Because yeah, sure, focusing local works in relatively left leaning areas. What if you live somewhere full of old xenophobic white guys? The rural South, or the rust belt, or anywhere like that. You'll never get a better shot. You need to stop things from collapsing long enough to make it out alive.

There is a young boy in Texas whose family I lived with for a couple months. They already get rocks through windows and screaming racist bastards and death threats. What about them? What are they supposed to do when blind eyes are turned and no one gives a shit?

Consider the people who your fucking utopian idealistic fantasy universe leaves to die miserable and hated in the fucking boonies, and reconsider your accelerationist bullshit. I implore you.

Silly rabbit! The dems job isn't to win elections, it is to maintain the two party monopoly on powah.

The dems rightly fear and can not afford to let Sanders hijack their party the way that Trump hijacked the GOP because if he did the system could no longer be controlled by the MIC/neocons/corporate elite/deep state.

Trump has been sufficiently coopted by the powahs that matter. Everybody is now A OK with him serving termy two.

Oh, hey.

Either we have a full out berner or we're about to see honk memes.

Or C

Black Death

Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on April 10, 2020, 01:22:52 PM
Quote from: Black Death on April 10, 2020, 01:11:41 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on April 10, 2020, 12:50:43 PM
:noob:

that's what I said. Are you hard of hearing?

Actually I'm blind and interact with the forum through psychometry and a well trained monkey typist that used to hack for Shakespeare. You however are indisputably lame, not to harp on your disability. I try not to be ableist. It's difficult sometimes.

OK, so you are hard of typing, thanks for the clarification.

Black Death

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 10, 2020, 04:56:10 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 10, 2020, 04:29:47 PM
Quote from: Pergamos on April 10, 2020, 08:32:12 AM
Accelerationism is making things worse so that they can get better faster. 

This has never worked.

Depends on your perspective. WW2 made things pretty awful, but then Germany stopped being a Nazi trashfire. The American Revolution didn't make things better for most people but whoever it was that was mad about taxes on tea were probably ok with it.

There's a weird tendency to believe that living standards in the USA begin and end with federal policy, like the official state of our government is an unbreakable physical law within the context of which everything exists. Like a Supreme Court full of jackals is as immutable as gravity or something. I don't buy it. "The Government" is just a thing people do in cooperation with each other to achieve some result they want. There's no reason only one of those types of things can exist at a time.

Saying "welp, that's the best we can do, and insisting on anything better is tantamount to betrayal of the disadvantaged" is just an admission that America is fundamentally a racist, sexist pile of garbage full of irredeemable garbage people, so the best we can hope for is Corporatism over (outright) Fascism. I don't support blowing my vote (and again, I am voting for Biden) and leaving it at that. I support acting outside the bounds of this clearly broken system, developing direct support networks that do what our governments refuse to do, and making the whole political charade obsolete.

A lotta blather about nothing. Even the DNC doesn't believe or even hope that Biden is elected.

They just raised him up the pole because their job isn't to win elections but to maintain the two party monopoly on power. And they damned sure weren't gonna allow Bernie Sanders to hijack their party the way Trump hijacked the GOP. That would leave the MIC/neocons/corporate elite/deep state with no party to represent their essential interests.

I mean what good is a democracy if the queen of warmongers can't spin her party's platform on a dime from the party opposed to war to the party OF the wars in service to the folks who really run the show and own your dna?

But hey, feel free to blather incessantly about decelerationism and liberalism and progressivism and even commyism until somebody cares.

Or Kill Me.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Black Death on April 10, 2020, 09:49:53 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 10, 2020, 04:56:10 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 10, 2020, 04:29:47 PM
Quote from: Pergamos on April 10, 2020, 08:32:12 AM
Accelerationism is making things worse so that they can get better faster. 

This has never worked.

Depends on your perspective. WW2 made things pretty awful, but then Germany stopped being a Nazi trashfire. The American Revolution didn't make things better for most people but whoever it was that was mad about taxes on tea were probably ok with it.

There's a weird tendency to believe that living standards in the USA begin and end with federal policy, like the official state of our government is an unbreakable physical law within the context of which everything exists. Like a Supreme Court full of jackals is as immutable as gravity or something. I don't buy it. "The Government" is just a thing people do in cooperation with each other to achieve some result they want. There's no reason only one of those types of things can exist at a time.

Saying "welp, that's the best we can do, and insisting on anything better is tantamount to betrayal of the disadvantaged" is just an admission that America is fundamentally a racist, sexist pile of garbage full of irredeemable garbage people, so the best we can hope for is Corporatism over (outright) Fascism. I don't support blowing my vote (and again, I am voting for Biden) and leaving it at that. I support acting outside the bounds of this clearly broken system, developing direct support networks that do what our governments refuse to do, and making the whole political charade obsolete.

A lotta blather about nothing. Even the DNC doesn't believe or even hope that Biden is elected.

They just raised him up the pole because their job isn't to win elections but to maintain the two party monopoly on power. And they damned sure weren't gonna allow Bernie Sanders to hijack their party the way Trump hijacked the GOP. That would leave the MIC/neocons/corporate elite/deep state with no party to represent their essential interests.

I mean what good is a democracy if the queen of warmongers can't spin her party's platform on a dime from the party opposed to war to the party OF the wars in service to the folks who really run the show and own your dna?

But hey, feel free to blather incessantly about decelerationism and liberalism and progressivism and even commyism until somebody cares.

Or Kill Me.

:rush:
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Molon Lube

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Black Death on April 10, 2020, 09:49:53 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 10, 2020, 04:56:10 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on April 10, 2020, 04:29:47 PM
Quote from: Pergamos on April 10, 2020, 08:32:12 AM
Accelerationism is making things worse so that they can get better faster. 

This has never worked.

Depends on your perspective. WW2 made things pretty awful, but then Germany stopped being a Nazi trashfire. The American Revolution didn't make things better for most people but whoever it was that was mad about taxes on tea were probably ok with it.

There's a weird tendency to believe that living standards in the USA begin and end with federal policy, like the official state of our government is an unbreakable physical law within the context of which everything exists. Like a Supreme Court full of jackals is as immutable as gravity or something. I don't buy it. "The Government" is just a thing people do in cooperation with each other to achieve some result they want. There's no reason only one of those types of things can exist at a time.

Saying "welp, that's the best we can do, and insisting on anything better is tantamount to betrayal of the disadvantaged" is just an admission that America is fundamentally a racist, sexist pile of garbage full of irredeemable garbage people, so the best we can hope for is Corporatism over (outright) Fascism. I don't support blowing my vote (and again, I am voting for Biden) and leaving it at that. I support acting outside the bounds of this clearly broken system, developing direct support networks that do what our governments refuse to do, and making the whole political charade obsolete.

A lotta blather about nothing. Even the DNC doesn't believe or even hope that Biden is elected.

They just raised him up the pole because their job isn't to win elections but to maintain the two party monopoly on power. And they damned sure weren't gonna allow Bernie Sanders to hijack their party the way Trump hijacked the GOP. That would leave the MIC/neocons/corporate elite/deep state with no party to represent their essential interests.

I mean what good is a democracy if the queen of warmongers can't spin her party's platform on a dime from the party opposed to war to the party OF the wars in service to the folks who really run the show and own your dna?

But hey, feel free to blather incessantly about decelerationism and liberalism and progressivism and even commyism until somebody cares.

Or Kill Me.

:boring: I'm almost certain that this is RP returned after 4 years' butthurt to get his "revenge" or some shit.
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl