Ginny [they/she]

Pretty sure I just pointed out which one was less nazi. I think I was pretty clear about the fact that I definitely wouldn’t consider either one of them my friends.

I suppose you’re going to tell me that every allegation that Ukraine is ethnically cleansing Russians is true, and every allegation than Russia is ethnically cleansing Ukrainians (and Georgians, for that matter) is a lie?

I don’t doubt that the Ukrainian army is full nazis and fascists. I also don’t doubt that the Russian army is full of nazbols and fascists. Armies tend to attract those sorts.

I wouldn’t really know, but I would not imagine that Ukraine is a progressive country. Outside of the liberal enclaves of the bigger cities, I imagine it’s pretty bad actually. But here’s my surface level view.

Russia:

• has invaded a neighbouring sovereign country,
• puts people in prison for being openly gay,
• has banned legal and healthcare provision for trans people, and
• openly declares to the world stage that it is fighting a rearguard action against western degeneracy in favour of Christian family values. (Admittedly I do not speak Russian and I can’t speak to what is translated as degeneracy or satanism or what-have-you, but no one has credibly disputed that this is the essence of what Russian ministers are saying on camera.)

Ukraine:

• has not invaded any of its neighbours recently,
• has, on paper at least, legal protections for LGBT people, and
• is still signed up to the European Convention of Human Rights.

Regardless of the specific iconography that the less pleasant members of its citizenry choose to display their chuddery, one of the countries is prima facie more nazi than the other in its behaviour at this moment in time. And it’s going to take a lot more than “hurr durr imperialist propaganda” to convince me that it’s Ukraine, given those bare facts.

I dunno, mate. Maybe I’m an idiot, but when Putin goes on TV and says a bunch of overtly nazi shit like how LGBT rights is pure satanism, I just can’t help believe that maybe I shouldn’t be on their side.

Lots of people seem to think that losing weight is simply a matter of calories in and calories out, and if calories in exceeds your BMR then stop eating. But that’s like saying that gambling is a matter of winnings and losses, and if the losses exceed your budget then stop gambling. Simple enough for the average person, but obviously useless advice for someone who has a problem.

Again, word salad.

The contradiction is between the increasing interconnection of production and distribution, and the concentration of the profits of this system into fewer and fewer hands.

In what way is the interconnection of production and distribution increasing? Why is that contradictory with the concentration of profits into fewer and fewer hands? Our systems of production and distribution have been getting increasingly complex since the middle ages and yet the concentration of wealth has certainly ebbed and flowed in time. In what way are you suggesting one affects the other?

The old system of imperialism is dying away,

This is not a profound statement. It has literally always been the case since society has existed. The system of imperialism in the city states of antiquity died and gave way to the imperialism of the classical empires, which gave way to the imperialism of the feudal monarchies, and then the nation states, and the colonial empires, and so on to the capitalist economic imperialism of today.

while the interconnected, post-imperialist world is rising

Post-imperial? I doubt that and you have provided no evidence that that would be the case. It seems to me that the economic imperialism of the Western nation states is in transition to some kind of fascist corporate techno-feudalist imperialism.

And again, how does this relate to the distribution of wealth and systems of production of distribution? It’s not big and it’s not clever to say they are related because the fact that everything is related everything else is basically axiomatic of the system of analysis. You have to point out how.

On Contradiction isn’t word salad

That’s just, like, your opinion, man.

It doesn’t give answers, but it helps us find them.

Which answers, exactly? Because the answer always seems to be the downfall of capitalism and to be replaced by socialism and then communism. And when that continues to not happen, the response always seems to be “but it totes will, eventually.” That isn’t analysis, that’s a teleological belief.

I also don’t know what you mean by “dialectical materialism kool-aid”

It seems to me that dialectical materialism is a tool for post hoc analysis of society that is useful for constructing narratives and not much else. I can’t see that it is in any way useful for generating falsifiable predictions. Yet people call off-the-dome predictions “scientific” just because they have identified the two things that are in contradiction ™.

If you don’t use diamat, then the names won’t make much sense to you. E.g. I had to present a math paper where the person destructed a graph into “blocks”, and called that destructure a “blockade”.

Yes words have different meanings in different contexts. “Blockade” has a common meaning and a different meaning in graph theory. But if you used it in its graph theory meaning unbidden in an online discussion thread that wasn’t already about graph theory, and without introducing the context of graph theory into the conversation first, then I would say you are using the word incorrectly.

I am familiar with On Contradiction, and I think it is a load of word salad.

As best as I can tell, people who have drank the dialectical materialism kool-aid fetishise the word ‘contradiction’ and use it in place of any number of more correct words and terms.

Imperialists and their subjects have contrary interests. Definitionally opposed interests, even. Things being opposed doesn’t make them contradictory the way everyone uses the word.

You can legitimately say that US imperialism is the biggest problem in the world. You can’t say the US imperialism is the biggest contradiction in the world because that doesn’t make any god damned sense in English.

A contradiction to what? You can’t just say something is a contradiction unless it’s contradicting something else.

I joined the anarchist revolution to lead, not to read. Wait, hang on…

What do you call a christian who hates christ?

Evangelical, usually.

If Greta Thunberg is the antichrist and Peter Thiel a true Christian, then I am fully the fuck onboard with the devil’s machinations.

I studied poetry, painting, and music so that my sons could study mathematics and commerce, and their sons could work long hours on the assembly - without having ever studied anything - so that they can consume slop generated by AI that was pushed on everyone by people who studied commerce, created by people who studied mathematics, and trained on the works of those who studied poetry, painting, and music.

Lol, I guess I should have expected that response. 🤦‍♀️

I ask because I feel like your characterisation of The Shawshank Redemption could equally apply to The Godfather (if you replace good guy with protagonist) and I think they are equivalently great films. It’s just that one film is about how a normal (presumably innocent) man descends into evil and cruelty due to his circumstances and unfortunate events, the other is about a normal (textually innocent) man who maintains his inner light despite his circumstances and unfortunate events. While you may or may not find one more compelling than the other, I think they are both equally special in their way.

How do you feel about The Godfather, if I may ask?

The fact that you think both of these people and their viewpoints deserve equal defense and respect says a lot more about you than it does me.

Yes, that’s exactly the point I was making. Bless your heart, my twelve-year-old buddy.

Would you also consider Martin Luther King Jr. to be a whiny limp-dick centrist for believing in nonviolence?

That’s not full circle, that’s half a circle.

Um, why? As a general rule, the point of running a simulation is to find out what happens under some circumstances where you don’t know what happens. If you’re imposing conditions like that, then you aren’t so much running a simulation as you are running some kind of procedural generation.