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Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 6:48 am
by hwhatting
Raphael wrote: Thu Mar 16, 2023 3:38 am Generally, in recent years, being in government has usually hurt German parties, while being out of government has usually helped them.
I wouldn't totally agree with that - quite often, in state elections in the last couple of years, the party that provided the head of government (Prime Minister or Governing Mayor) was rewarded (except for Berlin recently, where the city government has been an unmitigated clusterfuck*) and anti-incumbent mood is high), while the smaller coalition parties were punished for the compromises they made. And looking at the federal polls, both SPD and Greens hold up reasonably, only the free-market FDP gets punished (which is why they now are throwing spanners in the works in order to show their base that they still are relevant)
*) Which is true for all Berlin city governments for at least the last 40 years; there's something about that city...

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2023 1:14 pm
by Raphael
Today's posts - two of them, but the second one is both pretty short and a slightly rewritten version of an excerpt of something I posted on the ZBB years ago:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... -bad-geek/

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... t-loyalty/

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2023 1:37 pm
by Raphael

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:09 pm
by rotting bones
Raphael wrote: Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:16 am To some extent, we simply don't. My point is that the truth exists (on matters of fact), not that we can ever completely figure it out. To the limited extent to which we can try to at least get somewhat closer to the truth, we deal with the factors you mention by trying to be as aware as possible of them.
Umberto Eco once did a bit where he said that he agrees with the postmodernists on the deceptiveness of appearances and with science on ontology, making him a "minimal realist". I think it was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZnwpW3OEZo
Raphael wrote: Wed Mar 15, 2023 9:30 am IMO the constant Marxist bashing of all things really or supposedly bourgeois is one of the least attractive features of the hard Left.
For serious Marxists these days, "bourgeois lifestyle" often means you work a boring 9-5 job, come home bone tired and drink yourself to sleep (substitute the dissipation of your choice) every night. In Marxism, the goal is to let everyone become a dilettante working freely in any field of their choosing every day, thereby allowing work to become a method you use to improve yourself. Against the prevailing intellectual consensus of our times, Marxism has nothing to do with turning the world into a dreary snow-covered plain where huddled masses stand in bread lines and work themselves to death.

For me, the least attractive part of Marxism is its metaphysics. Of course, Marxists don't call it that. According to Marxists, "mechanical science" is metaphysics, against which Marxism proposes the "science" of dialectics.

What is "dialectics"? Marxists don't agree on what it means, except insofar as it has something to do with natural dynamism as opposed to rigid "mechanism".

According to Leninists, "dialectics" means that all nature is causally connected as opposed to there being high level levers of power like gods. This reading was widely repudiated outside the Third International at the time. People have pointed out that this interpretation is closer to Buddhism's Dependent Origination than anything Marx said. But say goodbye to your neck if you disagree with Stalin.

If you closely read Marx himself, dialectics is a high level description of material processes. At the abstract level, dialectics is something like Hofstadter's strange loops: As you rise in a hierarchy, you circle back to the bottom. One difference is that Marxist dialectics applies strange loops to material processes. The most influential application of dialectics is Marx's value-free demonstration of how capital accumulation (increase in wealth) necessarily leads to economic depression (poverty), the form in which class struggle appears at the economic level. Marx thinks these instabilities in material processes necessarily lead to social progress in a punctuated equilibrium as modes of production advance.

(Note that for Marx, "progress" comes with no value judgment attached. It is very possible for "progress" to leave people worse off than before. This is what he believed the French Revolution had done.)

This theory has a lot going for it, but Marx's original interpretation was somewhat rigid. For example, Marx believed that when the Great Depression hits, capitalists will absolutely refuse to change their ways, and the workers will have to effectively eat them. Instead, we got a New Deal world where capitalism co-exists with government intervention. This is why Marxists with a philosophical bent think they can extend Marxist theory with inspiration from Freud. In Marx, new social systems completely transform (aufheben) the old. This was based on a model of psychology derived from Hegelian (post-)rationalism. Freud, OTOH, primarily deals with compromise formations like repression, disavowal and foreclosure. What would Marxist theory look like if social democracy was capitalism "repressing" socialism? What if the appropriate response to social democracy was not revolution but something analogous to a psychoanalytic intervention that helps the patient (society) come to terms with her real desires? Through these analogies, Marxist "science" slips into hardcore philosophy.

Other problems with dialectics include:

1. Marxists traditionally universalized dialectics, applying it to all material processes without discrimination. This effectively regresses to a vitalist universe that denies the fact of inertia.
2. There is one exception to this universalization of dialectics. According to one common interpretation of Marxism, dialectics comes to an end in Communism. So, what, the revolution will turn all matter into spirit or something?
1. This is called consequentialism. Deontologists don't have preferred outcomes. According to them, they always behave in the only way they can rationally justify everyone always behaving. So for example, if an axe murderer came to their door and asked for the whereabouts of their children, they wouldn't lie because they can't rationally justify the sentence, "Everyone ought to lie all the time."

Personally, I think this is dubious because it doesn't acknowledge relativities in the concepts of sameness and difference. Is the sentence, "Everyone ought to lie to axe murderers asking for your children's whereabouts all the time." a "different" sentence, or a less "general" version of the same one? People have suggested that a deontologist ought to slam the door in the axe murderer's face instead of lying. But how? Can deontologists rationally justify the sentence, "Everyone ought to slam doors in people's faces all the time?"

2. You're assuming that arbitrary parts of a moral outcome is still moral. Courtesy of King Solomon, if it's moral to have your kidnapped baby returned to you, is it also moral to have half of your kidnapped baby returned to you?

3. Putting yourself in a stance of compromise makes it less likely that your opponent will give you what you want. Compromise also puts you in Prisoner's Dilemma traps, etc.
1. It's not so much that I think people are not compassionate. I think people overrate how useful compassion is to the less fortunate. It doesn't matter what people think when the structure of the state incentivizes bad behavior in certain contexts.

2. Religious people are religious, but they don't seem to notice that religion doesn't actually teach anything. Religious source material is a bunch of suggestive-sounding ideas with potentially infinite exceptions that invite followers to draw vague, analogical conclusions.

3. The feminist argument is that women shouldn't have to settle for a relationship to make them happy.

4. It is a fact that a lot of conservative activists are deliberately lying for pay.
You could argue that loyalty is just the expectation that someone you help will be your friend.
As the local cult leader, it is my solemn duty to provide ad hoc advice that makes just enough sense to attract the easily impressed. Start from the first prerequisite you don't understand and plot everything in FMSLogo using for, pu, pd, setxy, power, etc: https://fmslogo.sourceforge.io/ Tutorial: https://fmslogo.sourceforge.io/workshop/ The commands are explained in Index under Help.

Trivial example:

Let's say you come across the equation:

x^2 + y^2 = 10000

Write y as a function of x:

y = +/- sqrt(10000 - x^2)

Write a Logo function by clicking Edall. There's no need to write efficient code: (Note: IIRC variables have " before them when they're written as strings, : when they're used, and nothing when just named like in the for loop conditions.)

Code: Select all

to p1
for [x -100 100] [
    make "y sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
    
    make "y -sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
]
end
Click Save and Exit. Then in the instruction box, enter:

Code: Select all

p1
This should create a solid black circle. CS clears the screen. Here's code for an empty circle:

Code: Select all

to p2
pu
setxy -100 0
pd

for [x -100 100] [
    make "y sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
]

for [x 100 -100] [
    make "y -sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
]
end
If this is still too advanced for you, it's time to break out my pet theory that mathematical ability is improved by training the memory to remember abstract permutations. A mathematical expression is basically a sequence of steps represented as function composition. For example, b(a(x)) sends x as input to mapping a, whose output is sent as input to mapping b. In an inperative language, this would be:

Code: Select all

make "temporary_output a :x
make "final_output b :temporary_output
"Understanding" comes from playing around with the memory of which steps come in what order.

After expressions, an equation is a proposition that selects a set of points from a space. For example, a(x)=0 selects, from the space of all outputs a can have, the points where, if you send x as input to a, the output is 0.

Assuming this makes sense, the way to train the memory on abstract permutations is to play the right genre of puzzle games:

1. Play the Android game called Wordscapes.
2. When you get past level 500, play the Android game called Code Breakers on Easy/Beginner/whatever mode.
3. Once you finish 100 of those, try FMSLogo again. If you get addicted to puzzles, play the paid game Baba Is You until you get sick of them.

Something is missing... right, it's not a complete cult leader recommendation until I "fix" your diet. I guess try ingredients that are associated with adult neurogenesis like the spice turmeric?

PS. Slightly more advanced programming in Logo: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Logo_Programming

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm
by Raphael
Wow, thank you for responding at such length!

rotting bones wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:09 pm
Raphael wrote: Tue Mar 14, 2023 2:16 am To some extent, we simply don't. My point is that the truth exists (on matters of fact), not that we can ever completely figure it out. To the limited extent to which we can try to at least get somewhat closer to the truth, we deal with the factors you mention by trying to be as aware as possible of them.
Umberto Eco once did a bit where he said that he agrees with the postmodernists on the deceptiveness of appearances and with science on ontology, making him a "minimal realist".
Sounds like a reasonable position to me.

For serious Marxists these days, "bourgeois lifestyle" often means you work a boring 9-5 job, come home bone tired and drink yourself to sleep (substitute the dissipation of your choice) every night. In Marxism, the goal is to let everyone become a dilettante working freely in any field of their choosing every day, thereby allowing work to become a method you use to improve yourself.
Hm, how much of that goes back to Marx's own ideas, and how much of it is later people deciding to use "bourgeois" to mean whatever they themselves hate most?

Besides, isn't "working a boring job, coming home bone tired, and drinking oneself to sleep" how a lot of industrial and service sector workers live their lives? Are they somehow "more bourgeois" than wealthier people of leisure who can afford to spend their lives without working such jobs?

And how do we handle the fact that, at least for now, a lot of boring and frustrating jobs need to get done in order to provide us with food, clothes, housing, health care, and so on?

For me, the least attractive part of Marxism is its metaphysics. Of course, Marxists don't call it that. According to Marxists, "mechanical science" is metaphysics, against which Marxism proposes the "science" of dialectics.

What is "dialectics"? Marxists don't agree on what it means, except insofar as it has something to do with natural dynamism as opposed to rigid "mechanism".

According to Leninists, "dialectics" means that all nature is causally connected as opposed to there being high level levers of power like gods. This reading was widely repudiated outside the Third International at the time. People have pointed out that this interpretation is closer to Buddhism's Dependent Origination than anything Marx said. But say goodbye to your neck if you disagree with Stalin.

If you closely read Marx himself, dialectics is a high level description of material processes. At the abstract level, dialectics is something like Hofstadter's strange loops: As you rise in a hierarchy, you circle back to the bottom. One difference is that Marxist dialectics applies strange loops to material processes. The most influential application of dialectics is Marx's value-free demonstration of how capital accumulation (increase in wealth) necessarily leads to economic depression (poverty), the form in which class struggle appears at the economic level. Marx thinks these instabilities in material processes necessarily lead to social progress in a punctuated equilibrium as modes of production advance.

(Note that for Marx, "progress" comes with no value judgment attached. It is very possible for "progress" to leave people worse off than before. This is what he believed the French Revolution had done.)

This theory has a lot going for it, but Marx's original interpretation was somewhat rigid. For example, Marx believed that when the Great Depression hits, capitalists will absolutely refuse to change their ways, and the workers will have to effectively eat them. Instead, we got a New Deal world where capitalism co-exists with government intervention.
I don't particularly like dialectics myself; the idea that all of human history can be explained by a model of 6 phases, with the first 4 of those phases taken from European history up to the time of Marx, doesn't make sense to me. And, as zompist once put it, it can even lead to fatalism - "if the universe is on your side, who needs to act?"


1. This is called consequentialism. Deontologists don't have preferred outcomes. According to them, they always behave in the only way they can rationally justify everyone always behaving. So for example, if an axe murderer came to their door and asked for the whereabouts of their children, they wouldn't lie because they can't rationally justify the sentence, "Everyone ought to lie all the time."

Personally, I think this is dubious because it doesn't acknowledge relativities in the concepts of sameness and difference. Is the sentence, "Everyone ought to lie to axe murderers asking for your children's whereabouts all the time." a "different" sentence, or a less "general" version of the same one? People have suggested that a deontologist ought to slam the door in the axe murderer's face instead of lying. But how? Can deontologists rationally justify the sentence, "Everyone ought to slam doors in people's faces all the time?"
Well yes - good explanation of why I'm closer to consequentialism.

2. You're assuming that arbitrary parts of a moral outcome is still moral. Courtesy of King Solomon, if it's moral to have your kidnapped baby returned to you, is it also moral to have half of your kidnapped baby returned to you?

3. Putting yourself in a stance of compromise makes it less likely that your opponent will give you what you want. Compromise also puts you in Prisoner's Dilemma traps, etc.
Those are good reasons to think carefully about what kind of compromises you agree to, but not, IMO, reasons to reject compromise in general.


1. It's not so much that I think people are not compassionate. I think people overrate how useful compassion is to the less fortunate. It doesn't matter what people think when the structure of the state incentivizes bad behavior in certain contexts.

2. Religious people are religious, but they don't seem to notice that religion doesn't actually teach anything. Religious source material is a bunch of suggestive-sounding ideas with potentially infinite exceptions that invite followers to draw vague, analogical conclusions.

3. The feminist argument is that women shouldn't have to settle for a relationship to make them happy.

4. It is a fact that a lot of conservative activists are deliberately lying for pay.
No disagreements on 1, 3, and 4. I'm less sure about 2.

You could argue that loyalty is just the expectation that someone you help will be your friend.
You could, but I'm not sure I'd agree. A lot of people seem to think they're entitled even to the loyalty of some people whom they never really helped in any way.

As the local cult leader, it is my solemn duty to provide ad hoc advice that makes just enough sense to attract the easily impressed. Start from the first prerequisite you don't understand and plot everything in FMSLogo using for, pu, pd, setxy, power, etc: https://fmslogo.sourceforge.io/ Tutorial: https://fmslogo.sourceforge.io/workshop/ The commands are explained in Index under Help.

Trivial example:

Let's say you come across the equation:

x^2 + y^2 = 10000

Write y as a function of x:

y = +/- sqrt(10000 - x^2)

Write a Logo function by clicking Edall. There's no need to write efficient code: (Note: IIRC variables have " before them when they're written as strings, : when they're used, and nothing when just named like in the for loop conditions.)

Code: Select all

to p1
for [x -100 100] [
    make "y sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
    
    make "y -sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
]
end
Click Save and Exit. Then in the instruction box, enter:

Code: Select all

p1
This should create a solid black circle. CS clears the screen. Here's code for an empty circle:

Code: Select all

to p2
pu
setxy -100 0
pd

for [x -100 100] [
    make "y sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
]

for [x 100 -100] [
    make "y -sqrt(10000-:x*:x)
    setxy :x :y
]
end
If this is still too advanced for you, it's time to break out my pet theory that mathematical ability is improved by training the memory to remember abstract permutations. A mathematical expression is basically a sequence of steps represented as function composition. For example, b(a(x)) sends x as input to mapping a, whose output is sent as input to mapping b. In an inperative language, this would be:

Code: Select all

make "temporary_output a :x
make "final_output b :temporary_output
"Understanding" comes from playing around with the memory of which steps come in what order.

After expressions, an equation is a proposition that selects a set of points from a space. For example, a(x)=0 selects, from the space of all outputs a can have, the ones where, if you send x as input to a, the output is 0.

Assuming this makes sense, the way to train the memory on abstract permutations is to play the right genre of puzzle games:

1. Play the Android game called Wordscapes.
2. When you get past level 500, play the Android game called Code Breakers on Easy/Beginner/whatever mode.
3. Once you finish 100 of those, try FMSLogo again. If you get addicted to puzzles, play the paid game Baba Is You until you get sick of them.

Something is missing... right, it's not a complete cult leader recommendation until I "fix" your diet. I guess try ingredients that are associated with adult neurogenesis like the spice turmeric?

PS. Slightly more advanced programming in Logo: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Logo_Programming
Hm, OK, thank you, I'll try to think about this.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:07 pm
by Travis B.
rotting bones wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:09 pm
Raphael wrote: Wed Mar 15, 2023 9:30 am IMO the constant Marxist bashing of all things really or supposedly bourgeois is one of the least attractive features of the hard Left.
For serious Marxists these days, "bourgeois lifestyle" often means you work a boring 9-5 job, come home bone tired and drink yourself to sleep (substitute the dissipation of your choice) every night. In Marxism, the goal is to let everyone become a dilettante working freely in any field of their choosing every day, thereby allowing work to become a method you use to improve yourself. Against the prevailing intellectual consensus of our times, Marxism has nothing to do with turning the world into a dreary snow-covered plain where huddled masses stand in bread lines and work themselves to death.
That sounds more like how anarcho-communists think than what I've seen from Marxist types, where a "bourgeois lifestyle" often seems to mean not having proper working-class class consciousness and living like a proper working-class person like one ought.
rotting bones wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:09 pm For me, the least attractive part of Marxism is its metaphysics. Of course, Marxists don't call it that. According to Marxists, "mechanical science" is metaphysics, against which Marxism proposes the "science" of dialectics.
One big thing I dislike about Marxism is how it proposes a fixed natural progression in how the world will develop, which is contrary to reality as i see it. There is no reason that the revolution will come as the natural development of capitalism, e.g.
rotting bones wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:09 pm
As the local cult leader, it is my solemn duty to provide ad hoc advice that makes just enough sense to attract the easily impressed. Start from the first prerequisite you don't understand and plot everything in FMSLogo using for, pu, pd, setxy, power, etc: https://fmslogo.sourceforge.io/ Tutorial: https://fmslogo.sourceforge.io/workshop/ The commands are explained in Index under Help.
I remember first using Logo in like first or second grade in elementary school, before I actually learned how to program. The kids would draw pictures of things like stars or squares by giving Logo commands, but were not really taught about things like functions, variables, or loops. My first actual introduction to programming was in third grade, when I asked the teacher who ran the school's computer club (which was only open to students in third grade or later) how to program their Apple //e machines, and she gave me a boot disk and lent me a manual to Applesoft BASIC. The rest is history.

Edit: we did learn about loops, how that I remember, but only ones in which a fixed set of operations were repeated a fixed number of times.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:19 pm
by rotting bones
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:07 pm That sounds more like how anarcho-communists think than what I've seen from Marxist types, where a "bourgeois lifestyle" often seems to mean not having proper working-class class consciousness and living like a proper working-class person like one ought.
Originally, Marxists were complaining about excessive dissipation. Kids these days don't understand the One True Marxism. If you look at what Marx actually says, he describes communism to be exactly what I said.
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:07 pm One big thing I dislike about Marxism is how it proposes a fixed natural progression in how the world will develop, which is contrary to reality as i see it. There is no reason that the revolution will come as the natural development of capitalism, e.g.
True, that is how Marx originally formulated it. On the other hand, Marx explicitly sets up "communism" as similar to "primitive communism" (like the Mohawks, etc.) plus science, technology and its labor saving devices.
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:07 pm I remember first using Logo in like first or second grade in elementary school, before I actually learned how to program. The kids would draw pictures of things like stars or squares by giving Logo commands, but were not really taught about things like functions, variables, or loops. My first actual introduction to programming was in third grade, when I asked the teacher who ran the school's computer club (which was only open to students in third grade or later) how to program their Apple //e machines, and she gave me a boot disk and lent me a manual to Applesoft BASIC. The rest is history.
There is a name for this. "Tragedy of Logo"? Logo can do anything you want. It has lists from Lisp, you can write functions with op, etc. Logo supports the functional paradigm. It has been used in AI research. But it's slow, and always saddled with a turtle.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:27 pm
by Travis B.
rotting bones wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:19 pm
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:07 pm That sounds more like how anarcho-communists think than what I've seen from Marxist types, where a "bourgeois lifestyle" often seems to mean not having proper working-class class consciousness and living like a proper working-class person like one ought.
Originally, Marxists were complaining about excessive dissipation. Kids these days don't understand the One True Marxism. If you look at what Marx actually says, he describes communism to be exactly what I said.
I have often seen "bourgeois" used to refer to just about anything a particular Marxist sees as being insufficiently devoted to The Cause...
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:07 pm I remember first using Logo in like first or second grade in elementary school, before I actually learned how to program. The kids would draw pictures of things like stars or squares by giving Logo commands, but were not really taught about things like functions, variables, or loops. My first actual introduction to programming was in third grade, when I asked the teacher who ran the school's computer club (which was only open to students in third grade or later) how to program their Apple //e machines, and she gave me a boot disk and lent me a manual to Applesoft BASIC. The rest is history.
There is a name for this. "Tragedy of Logo"? Logo can do anything you want. It has lists from Lisp, you can write functions with op, etc. Logo supports the functional paradigm. It has been used in AI research. But it's slow, and always saddled with a turtle.
[/quote]
As I got a wee bit older I realized that Logo was much more powerful than BASIC, so when I went to a "college for kids" computer summer thing at a local university, I convinced the person running it to give me a disk with Logo on it to bring home. However, I did not have much actual documentation on it, which limited what I could do with it greatly.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:35 pm
by rotting bones
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:27 pm I have often seen "bourgeois" used to refer to just about anything a particular Marxist sees as being insufficiently devoted to The Cause...
Then maybe they were talking about class consciousness instead of ways of life? Class consciousness is another one of those ambiguous Marxist concepts. It has some aspects of self-improvement, but also aspects that are annoyingly similar to "race consciousness". Many people try to redo Marxism. Unfortunately, Marx is just too famous, and conservatives like it that way.
Travis B. wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:27 pm As I got a wee bit older I realized that Logo was much more powerful than BASIC, so when I went to a "college for kids" computer summer thing at a local university, I convinced the person running it to give me a disk with Logo on it to bring home. However, I did not have much actual documentation on it, which limited what I could do with it greatly.
Some of the examples that come with FMSLogo are freaking amazing.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 2:03 pm
by rotting bones
I completely missed your post the first time around.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm Hm, how much of that goes back to Marx's own ideas, and how much of it is later people deciding to use "bourgeois" to mean whatever they themselves hate most?
Marx explicitly talks about the "changing your job on a whim" thing in his description of communism.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm Besides, isn't "working a boring job, coming home bone tired, and drinking oneself to sleep" how a lot of industrial and service sector workers live their lives?
Yes, the revolution will free them from their shackles, but first, you have to work even harder to build the infrastructure for post-scarcity. The transition goes: Capitalism-Socialism-Communism. As for "communism", it's similar to "primitive communism" (the northeast Native Americans Europeans were familiar with) plus science, technology and its labor saving devices.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm Are they somehow "more bourgeois" than wealthier people of leisure who can afford to spend their lives without working such jobs?
In Marx's time, the "bourgeoisie" were serious, ultra-Protestant businessmen. Art and culture were associated with the feudal nobility.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm And how do we handle the fact that, at least for now, a lot of boring and frustrating jobs need to get done in order to provide us with food, clothes, housing, health care, and so on?
Marx assumed that labor-saving devices will lead to post-scarcity.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm I don't particularly like dialectics myself; the idea that all of human history can be explained by a model of 6 phases, with the first 4 of those phases taken from European history up to the time of Marx, doesn't make sense to me. And, as zompist once put it, it can even lead to fatalism - "if the universe is on your side, who needs to act?"
OTOH, Marx was right about there ultimately being a Great Depression.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm Well yes - good explanation of why I'm closer to consequentialism.
Maybe with enough granularity, deontology will reach an account of universal ethics? The is, only the most specific sentences can be universally applicable.
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm Those are good reasons to think carefully about what kind of compromises you agree to, but not, IMO, reasons to reject compromise in general.
Is there anyone (alive) who rejects all compromise?
Raphael wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 1:06 pm You could, but I'm not sure I'd agree. A lot of people seem to think they're entitled even to the loyalty of some people whom they never really helped in any way.
This is the ambiguity in social contract theory. How can the subjects of a monarch be in a contract they never agreed to?

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2023 2:46 pm
by Raphael
Another post - this one might strike some people here as saying things that are too obvious to be really worth saying, but I think they are all too often forgotten:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... nd-income/

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2023 10:27 am
by Raphael

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:13 pm
by Raphael

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Sun Mar 26, 2023 12:42 pm
by rotting bones
Given the free-floating hostility Marxism faces nowadays, I should make it clear that even under socialism, Marx was explicitly in favor of regulated working hours, education for the working class, workplace safety, etc. In contrast to what the brightest luminaries of 21st century human intellect seem to think, he did not want the whole population to become ignorant brick layers. Anyone who has read Capital Vol I would know this.
I don't know if I'd describe humans as a hierarchical animal. I only submit to hierarchy out of a fear of violence, and for no other reason.
This post seems to imply that labor/capital relations have been more cordial than the historical record indicates. See the new book Capital Order by Mattei. (I found it on Democracy at Work.)

Marxists are optimists who find it hard to admit that humanity (with the exception of some indigenous peoples of Northeastern North America) is an evil animal that only lays down its life for unjust causes like monarchism, Bonapartism, Stalinism, Nazism, idpol, traditionalism and libertarianism.

As for fatalism, leftist philosophers have argued that fatalism is a better incentive to act than freedom with infinite responsibilities: https://www.pdfdrive.com/abolishing-fre ... 40143.html
It depends on what point is being made. A citation does strengthen an argument.
The purpose of a polemic is to gather supporters to your cause. Serious academic work isn't attractive to humans.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Mon Mar 27, 2023 6:47 am
by Raphael
rotting bones wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 12:42 pm Given the free-floating hostility Marxism faces nowadays, I should make it clear that even under socialism, Marx was explicitly in favor of regulated working hours, education for the working class, workplace safety, etc. In contrast to what the brightest luminaries of 21st century human intellect seem to think, he did not want the whole population to become ignorant brick layers. Anyone who has read Capital Vol I would know this.
Oh, I have my issues with Marx, but I'd never deny that he supported those things.

I don't know if I'd describe humans as a hierarchical animal. I only submit to hierarchy out of a fear of violence, and for no other reason.
That might be the case with you or me, but I'm less sure about many other people.


This post seems to imply that labor/capital relations have been more cordial than the historical record indicates.
Oh, those relations were often full of conflicts, but class-conscious, internationally-minded proletarians, who saw themselves first and foremost as proletarians, and not really as anything else, still seem to have been pretty rare.

It depends on what point is being made. A citation does strengthen an argument.
Of course it does. I still don't have the time to read thousands of books that all try to prove me wrong on one point or another, though.

The purpose of a polemic is to gather supporters to your cause. Serious academic work isn't attractive to humans.
It might work well at convincing other people, but it usually leaves me cold. I think something can be somewhere between serious academic work and a polemic, too.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:46 am
by Raphael
Today's post:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... nsibility/

(This is another post that might strike left-of-center readers as simply stating the obvious, but IMO it needs to be said.)

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:22 pm
by rotting bones
Raphael wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:46 am Today's post:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... nsibility/

(This is another post that might strike left-of-center readers as simply stating the obvious, but IMO it needs to be said.)
Yes, it does. Thank you.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 2:37 am
by Ares Land
Raphael wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:46 am Today's post:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... nsibility/

(This is another post that might strike left-of-center readers as simply stating the obvious, but IMO it needs to be said.)
As for me, I strongly believe in personal responsibility, and I think we should have more of it. I'm aware this puts me firmly in the 'eccentric' category :)

Arguing from it, for a change, for a very leftist perspective... a guy died lately in a demonstration. It was a combination of police violence and delayed medical response. Now, some policeman shot a flash ball at him; someone is responsible for not sending an ambulance. Legally, of course, they carry no responsibility.
As long as the police is shielded from personal responsibility, you'll have police violence.

My own issue with responsibility, as a right-wing rhetorical device is not with the idea of personal responsibility itself, but with the fact that privileged categories are exempt from it.


Not that responsibility is incompatible with rules, or social convention. We are responsible for damage caused while driving but we still need to agree on which is the right side of the road and who has the right of way.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 5:06 am
by Raphael
Ares Land wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 2:37 am
As for me, I strongly believe in personal responsibility, and I think we should have more of it. I'm aware this puts me firmly in the 'eccentric' category :)

Arguing from it, for a change, for a very leftist perspective... a guy died lately in a demonstration. It was a combination of police violence and delayed medical response. Now, some policeman shot a flash ball at him; someone is responsible for not sending an ambulance. Legally, of course, they carry no responsibility.
As long as the police is shielded from personal responsibility, you'll have police violence.
Hard to argue with that. Yes, people should face negative consequences when they choose to do harmful things. That said...
My own issue with responsibility, as a right-wing rhetorical device is not with the idea of personal responsibility itself, but with the fact that privileged categories are exempt from it.
Given that, aside from you personally, almost everyone who believes in the former also supports the latter, it seems to me that it's very difficult to get the former without the latter.

Re: The "Raphael posts links to his latest blog posts"-thread

Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 6:51 am
by Ares Land
Raphael wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 5:06 am
Given that, aside from you personally, almost everyone who believes in the former also supports the latter, it seems to me that it's very difficult to get the former without the latter.
Tell me about it :)
I think there are plenty of people who share my views on this (for instance, holding police accountable for police violence), but they won't use the r-word specifically.
Right-wingers have a knack for stealing vocabulary. See 'freedom' or 'liberty'. (I'm entirely in favor of freedom, just like everybody else, but when I hear it in a political context my thoughts run to 'oh dear lord what is it again')