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Socialism by way of Hobbes

Started by Chelagoras The Boulder, November 06, 2020, 05:10:50 AM

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Chelagoras The Boulder

so long story short, I got this crazy idea to try and sell socialist goals and objectives in a political pamphlet without referencing a single socialist as a means of sneaking it past America's OMG BUT HELPING PEOPLE IS SOCIALISM reflex  and here's what I have so far:

So have you ever thought about why we're doing all of this? With the flags and pledges and the taxes and borders and so on? Countries, I mean? Like does it ever seem like at one point we were in some sort of tribe or something and then we started making cities and before we knew it we had gigantic superpower nations the size of continents with enough nukes to flash fry the earth if we really wanted to? We have never wielded more power as a species on this planet yet we've never seemed more unhappy. So why do we do it? Whats the point of it all? Well i'm no philosopher, but it seems to me the only reason for all this is to get a better version of what we had in the tribes, right? Why waste all this time and energy building anything more, if it was gonna be worse?

And make no mistake it IS worse. Look around you. The world hasn't felt normal for a while now, and certain presidents I could name are just the newest symptoms. Just surviving from month to month is a chore, the sick die without care or are billed to death after the fact, and homeless people and minorities can be beaten or killed on a whim without repercussion. This is a very Strange Time in the history of humanity, and there's no reason why it should stay this way. So how do we change it?

Well, like i said I'm no philosopher, but Hobbes was, and he said that the legitimacy of a government flowed from the fact that life under said government was better than living in a state of absolute nature, without even a tribe to help you out.He described life in the state of nature as "nasty, brutish, and short" and postulated that this is where the authority of all governments rightly flows: from helping people survive better than they could alone in the wild. Now granted in his time this was an argument for maintaining the monarchy but the same principles apply to any form of government at all: tribal, democratic, aristocratic, capitalist, or socialist. Every society promises a better life than the hermit life, and the degree to which they deliver on that promise is the measure of how well that society worked, all other things being equal*

*Meaning, assuming it wasn't sabotaged by the CIA

I guess what i'm getting here is, what else are you looking to get out of society if not a life that isn't nasty brutish or short? I mean that's what it's felt like lately, hasn't it? The people around you seem nasty, for nasty reasons, our policies towards our own people seem brutish and hostile, and life seems subject to end without notice, by disease or by violence. Everyone is working hard just to survive, but dont we deserve to thrive? We work so hard, yet still we struggle unnecessarily, just to afford that which should be basic: food shelter, even clean water, if you live in Flint. Why do we put up with having to live life on Hard Mode?

Well obviously because we've been trained to it. You don't get compliance like this without a bit of preparation. Little by little we were trained that to be a person meant to exhaust you body everyday doing things you don't wanna do, in order to go on living a life filled with yet more things you don't wanna do. And its not natural to do this either. From birth to death we are told that we have to fit the system, the same system which was created to benefit US,so that we are contributing enough to the system. Tell me THAT makes sense.

But the final question remains. What do we do about it? Well the first step is to realize what we want out of this whole social contract business and the next step is to start working towards it. How? I dunno. I can't tell when you're reading this, or in what context. Maybe its time for a revolution? Maybe change can come peacefully without firing a shot? It's on you to look around and determine that, dear reader.

Hold a protest, start a political movement, found a cult based on Punxsutawney Phil, pick a direction and starting moving grasshopper, cuz you've been wandering blind for too long already. Whatever you see as the next step towards making this life a little less harsh brutish and short, do it. The less specific I am here, the less The Powers that Be know about whatever it is, You, the reader, are about to do, and thus,the more likely you are to pull it off. So good luck, you weaponized ape, you.
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

Pergamos

I feel like being a little more specific might help.  This sort of reads as "life is fucked up, do something about it" which is the message of everyone from the Proud Boys to the DSA.

Chelagoras The Boulder

Quote from: Pergamos on November 15, 2020, 01:13:24 AM
I feel like being a little more specific might help.  This sort of reads as "life is fucked up, do something about it" which is the message of everyone from the Proud Boys to the DSA.
i could see that. i tried to evoke the more open ended nature of some of the Newer Discordian writings, but i think it comes off like I just don't know where to go from here. One call to action I had in mind was that we really need a viable 3rd  party in the US. Maybe this could advocate for a proper US labor Party.
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."

The Johnny


I've read your text like 8 times over the course of 10 days, and the significance in the first 80% its a call to anarchy with a type of accelerationist agenda.

Yes, you try to fix and redirect the meaning in the last two paragraphs, but people are too fucktarded for such nuisances of rhetoric, and the text just has so much inertia in the other direction i pointed out.

If that's your intention, whatever.
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Q. G. Pennyworth

I had an intense tl;dr reaction to this post, which isn't an attack but an important critique when you're talking about public facing pamphlets.

Some advice from your friendly neighborhood Queen Bitch of Flyering

You have less than a second to catch your audience's attention. Bold titles that tell your audience exactly what you have to offer are key. Question titles were in fashion for a long time, but are now less effective.

Have something to offer. No, I'm not talking about a cheese sandwich, I mean something actually useful to deliver. If they have no buy in, they will not read your shit.

BREAK
UP
YOUR IDEAS

Bite sized chunks only. You are here to get people to read what you're saying, not to improve their overall reading skills. Condense whatever you can, and break up the stuff you can't into manageable pieces. Format more to visually break up longer paragraphs. Reader fatigue is not your friend.

The Johnny


To add to what QG is saying: think of it as a two or three PowerPoint presentation slides.... youre probably thinking of making two paragraphs of solid text, but between them and after them a small list of bullet points. Maybe one good quotation at the start and one at the end.
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Chelagoras The Boulder

I mean I'm not sure I see the call to anarchy in there, but yeah I can chop it down into something punchier. Thanks for the notes, you guys
"It isn't who you know, it's who you know, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do."