I genuinely forgot about that quote, but the irony of it is very interesting. A garden is a small curation of usually visually appealing plants that wouldn’t survive without external conscious input, and are usually not able to contribute much beyond artisnal sustinance for 1-4 people. Meanwhile the jungle is a place with extreme amounts of biodiversity and exoticism, and many garden plants can originate from said jungles. They are also exploited for their wood and other resources. Idk, someone better at analogies can probably expand on this.

That’s an issue I have too. Algorithms don’t just spawn out of nowhere. It’s takes both education and, yknow, labor to actually design and code these Algorithms. That’s also not mentioning the IT infrastructure that is maintained, which itself needs resources usually mined by the global south.

And Algorithms also exist outside of computers, at least what we call Algorithms do. Sure there’s not computer code, but there’s psychological and social Algorithms. For example, how Casinos and box stores are constructed to make people lose track of time. How slot machines and such have this and that odds of paying out to entice people while still making a profit. Sure it’s maybe more prominent nowadays but it’s not mystical

I will say Varoufakis is at least listenable. I cannot listen to Zizek for more than a minute because he’s really self important, and the guy really needs a tissue to blow his nose with.

My personal favorite is Chomsky though. Not politically, just that I like listening to him. I know he’s slow foe a lot of people but idk I’m fine with it

He designed what?

“So, just as the Soviet Union generated one kind of feudalism in the name of socialism and human emancipation, today, Silicon Valley is generating another kind of feudalism — technofeudalism, I have called it — in the name of capitalism and free markets.”

Alright this logic has clearly gone off the deepend.

I think is issue is a market first analysis of society. And some if this stuff is critique of the Gotha Programme level stuff. I.e, he describes Amazon as a feudal fief because they control the market place through which other Bourgeois producers sell their products. This really bugs me because in his book he has this really long and winding explanation to why he calls technofeudalism feudalism and not capitalism. He goes on and on about “oh well if you would have looked at society in the 1800s then you would’ve called it “market feudalism” instead if capitalism.” But he’s literally the one doing that. I mean, from Marx himself, “In England, the capitalist class is usually not even the owner of the land on which his factory stands.” I get it’s not a 1-1 example but I feel like it’s apt. What’s even more apt is a quick explanation of how marxist economic analysis actually works by an economist with more than two braincells, Cheng Enfu.

“these ownership forms, under the definite and distinct conditions of Chinese society, are not necessarily the same as their formally identical equivalents in Western society, in exactly the same way that land ownership in 18th-century England, though formally the same as that prevailing in the French ancien régime of the same date, had already assumed capitalist characteristics far removed from those swept away in the revolution of 1789.” [Edit: -Cheng Enfu, the creation of value by living labor]

So I really don’t understand how Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. Have “technofeudal” characteristics, outside of just focusing on rent. Which was already a big part of society. I mean, why not call banks a “money rent.” If I can extend it, banks don’t provide a service or good, they simply rent out money for a fee. Considering that basically every big company has needed to get loans and pay a money rent, presumably we have been living in Banker-feudalism forever.

I’m 2/3rds of the way through the book rn. Maybe he answers more questions, and I’ll make a post if he becomes more coherent, but I think it’s telling that he has talked more about Adam Smith’s vision rather than Marx’s.

Mmm, I don’t know.

The general definition of the word I’m attempting to use is just “thing everyone accepts as true despite it not being proved in the setting” or “thing accepted as true without analysis.”

For example, a left-com channel I had the unfortunate experience watching [redrose media] did this too. He took a very long time essentially drowning you in quotes from Lenin and Marx and such, but then at the end denounced AES states and “stalinism.” But in a very handwavy fashion. “Vietnam has Mcdonalds,” “China is focussed on getting rich,” or whatever. The video never stopped to explain anything, just that its, apparently, so obviously true that it didn’t need explaining, despite the fact that there verily is an explanation needed.

I wasn’t saying it had to be, just that it’s not as strong as major powers like China and [to my knowledge] not as all encompassing or experienced as the KPA or Russian armed forces

The thing is that Venezuala has a functional and modern military. It’s not the best fighting force in the world, but it’s not Iraq or Syria. Plus the recent activation of people’s militias and it’s certainly not going to go well. Along with the ammunition shortage from supplying Israel and Ukraine

I guess they’ll just try to occupy the coast and go from there? Or maybe they thought they’d just intimidate Maduro into doing something and now they’re essentially playing a game of chicken against a wall. Idk

Honestly i live for the day an American aircraft carrier gets sunk. I’ve been dreaming of it ever since the millennium challenge wargames of 2002 indicated it as a possibility.

Right right, I know. The title is just a joke.

Idk, the post doesn’t have much of a point. I was just reading it the other day and I couldn’t contain my emotions about it.

Maybe, but it could also be a feedback loop from the studio ghibli generations. Those are quite yellow so I think that’s started to seep into the training data [I think…? At least that’s what I’ve heard]

It’s approaching the right direction.

The key difference in my experience is adaptation vs revision.

For example, saying “revolution can be led by a vanguard party leading the working class” isn’t revisionism, because it still holds the fundamental truths of class conflict

But “Socialism can be formed by a small group of conspirators taking control of the state and imposinh socialism” is revisionism, as that is, essentially, a form of utopianism or ideologism [I know Blanqui wasn’t a marxist obviously, but you get the point. I’m also debating whether to include economism as a form of revisionism or not]

Edit: This didn’t really answer that adaptation part.

A better example would be that if someone said "Socialism could have been reformed into via universal suffrage in early 1800s Britain that [presumably, since that’s what Marx believed] isn’t revisionism [not just because it was what marx believed. I think there’s a section on this in "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific].

But if someone said “socialism can be reformed into via universal suffrage in modern britain” that would be revisionism. It’s one lense seeing two different things and coming to two different conclusions.

That’s kinda the problem. It’s not just they specifically are communists in name only, but that they also spread their incorrect ideas. And they, like Carrillo, don’t often say “we’re revising marxism away from marxism,” they often don’t even say they are revising marxism. So revisionism [like moralism] is something that has to be abscribed. I.e, peaceful reform is revisionism not because the revisionist say it’s revisionism but because we prove that it is

To put it simply it is claiming to be a communist while revising core principles. I.e, a social democrat [modern] is not a revisionist because they don’t claim to be marxist in the first place. But social democrats of the 1900s were revisionist because they claimed to follow marxism while promoting “peaceful reform” and such

I like how this is technically almost correct [the German word Burgher being similar to the French Bourgeoisie]

I was already going to do that, but thanks for letting me know you’re interested

It’s not done yet, but when it is ill send it to you

Not quite where I thought that was going, but I definitely get it. I’ve finally decided to write something on Yanis Varoufakis’s so called “technofeudalism” because I’m so tired of seeing it, and being told about it by white guys with short beards who run youtube channels. Capitalism isn’t dead, it’s just more capitalism that you don’t like

I agree on most things, but I do think legalization is important. You might not call the cops on them, but its criminalization is a hanging sword of damocles that the state can use to increase surveillance/policing, keep people impoverished via criminal records, etc.

And while it probably couldn’t be a “union” per se, and definitely shouldn’t result in it being a permanent ficture of society, some form of support group that protects prostitutes from further abuse should be made. I always think back to when I read about a prostitute not being taken seriously by the cops after she was nearly killed by a serial killer.

I mean there are…some who are on the better side [see: Mike Prysner], but yeah. I think it gets most annoying when the concept of not celebrating it doesn’t even cross their mind. I don’t even know where to start with that mindset