Urist
@Urist@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 4 days ago:
The read a book part was probably overly dismissive, but was a pointer to marxist theory that is materialist and not idealist.
Im saying every society that i am aware of, no matter the title, had a ruling class leaching off the working class.
This is why workers need their own revolution. Capitalism and most western states, particularly the US, came to be through bourgeoise revolutions. Causality wise this followed due to technological advancements improving the productionar forces.
We as humans have yet to develop that classless society despite 100 years of people drooling and killing over communist theory.
No state has yet made it past the intermediary stage of this development. That does not mean they were not on the right track. The killing part is horrible, but follows from the armed resistance of capital. Violence is a part of every political system, it is just happening in ways not usually recognized.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 5 days ago:
What you refer to as true capitalism, I am arguing is an idealist view. Idealist in this sense means not part of nor representing material reality. Marxist will claim the ideal form to not only not be present right now, but impossible to achieve due to the mechanics of capitalism itself.
We look at the process of capital accumulation through extraction of surplus labour power as self reinforcing. That means also that the contradictions within the system will reinforce unil reaching a break point.
As an example one could look at how capital consolidation leads to monopolies, how workers are impoverished to the point of not being able to buy the product of their own labour, or how the development of productionary forces lead to the developers, i.e. labourers, manufacture their own replacements.
These are the internal byproducts of capitalist mode of production itself. I have not even touched on the external contradictions happening through imperialism.
To make an analogy: If anyone were to claim that a drug was not actually medicine because it had negative side effects, we might both agree they were wrong. In my view, in the case of your idealist and my materialist view of capitalism, we disagree on the cause and effect in a similar manner.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 6 days ago:
This is an idealist understanding of what capitalism ought to be, not what it is. This different view is the reason for the contention between us. Most leftists will see capitalism for what it is, not the pipe dream sold to the masses to justify the explotation of them.
In marxist terms, the lack of oversight and competition is an inherent trait, a contradiction, within capitalism. The solutions anyone can present are remedies that do not solve the underlying issue at play, which is the property relations with regard to labour.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 6 days ago:
But that’s because it’s intentionally hard to tell if it’s feudalism in a capitalist hat or capitalism in a feudalism hat. That’s what oligarchy is.
No, (modern) oligarchy is a term we may use for the political structure that is supported by capitalism, which is the mode of production. In feudal society, oligarchs were nobles with landed power. In capitalist society, they are just a small subset of the capitalists.
It is not feudalism because the economic surplus is not extracted (primarily) through land ownership and dividends, but through the property relations of wage labour.
Yes, we can see neo-feudal structures within a late stage capitalist economy.
No, that does not preclude capitalism as the mode of production enabling those structures.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 6 days ago:
I actually typed out the other comment before reading this, but it fits more than perfectly. Read it and use your little grey cells, as Poriot would say.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 6 days ago:
It is a classification of yhe mode of production. However, you are quite right in saying that property relations for the proletariat are not fundamentally different under capitalism than, say, feudal society.
One can as such absolutely draw a parallel between a serf and a wage labourer in this regard, but equivocating the two, like you do, is utter nonsense.
Similarly, using this parallel to conclude that we are not living under a predominantly capital mode of production is rubbish justifying the recommendation of reading.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 6 days ago:
(…) not capitalism. (…) the investment/ownership class (…) the wage slavery class. None of the world leader children actually work, yet all are millionaires. How is that capitalism?
How is it anything but capitalism? What do you call the production mode that allows one class to live of the surplus value og another?
Maybe read a book?
- Comment on Wages never caught up with costs 4 weeks ago:
Just one more social media post, bro. The next one will totally change the material base by revolutionizing the social superstructure, bro.
- Comment on Waiting and getting treated is better than waiting and going bankrupt 4 weeks ago:
They are educated in triage, which is the only sensible way to handle emergency responses. A man with a sore throat should never take priority over a kid with a broken arm.
People think they are paying for medical attention, but what they are really paying for is their minor problems being taken more seriously than major problems that poorer people have.
Private for-profit healthcare, even in conjunction with public healthcare, is a blight upon humanity contradicting everything modern medicine stands for.
- Comment on Haha that's really cool, funny number man 8 months ago:
Yea, totally agree. Was just messing around.
- Comment on Haha that's really cool, funny number man 8 months ago:
Differential geometry along with complex and real analysis could perhaps be considered advanced calculus?
- Comment on Euler's Meme 10 months ago:
I would rather take my mathematical memes with adequate proof of well defined functions and proof of uniqueness 🤢
- Comment on Is this a triangle? 2 years ago:
It is a triangle. The abstraction of great lines in hyperbolic geometry are geodesics and just like three lines form a triangle, so do the geodesics. If you walked along the earth’s surface from the equator to the north pole and back, taking 90 degrees angles every time, you will have felt that you made a triangle by walking straight in three directions.
The reason why the angle sum can be more than 180 degrees is that the sphere has a positve curvature. If you want one with negative curvature and less than 180 degrees angle sum, try to make one on the side of the hole on a torus (look up its curvature if my explanation was lacking).
- Comment on Is this a triangle? 2 years ago:
The answer is obvious. Depending on the curvature of the object the triangles have higher or lower than 180 degrees angle sums. Flat space just happens to have 0 curvature.
- Comment on Is it me or is everyone in hexbear insane? 2 years ago:
Did not know about this site. It was a nice read and their mission statement is cool. Thanks for sharing! :)
- Comment on Why I Haven't Seen Any Trump Supporters In Fediverse (Lemmy and Mastodon)? 2 years ago:
Yeah, this is not a nazi bar.
- Comment on Why 🤷♂️ do users 👨💻 dislike 👎 the use ✅ of emojis 😀 on Lemmy 🐭? 2 years ago:
Loved out of life 👻
- Comment on Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker not? 2 years ago:
Yeah, living in a parliamentary democracy means I have to make an effort to wrap my head around how the US “democratic” institution works. The internal structure of the Democratic Party has more in common with our democratic structure than the structure of their “competing” parties. As a result there is more room for difference within the Democratic Party than within a political party in our system, but the political difference between parties in our system is greater than those within the democratic party.
Whilst it economically is to the right, many of its social policies it endorses are leftist.
My analysis has long been that there is no political will to implement leftist economical policies in the US, i.e. those that really matter in the grand scheme of things, even though there exists a semi-conscious wish for them within the populace. Please do not misunderstand, increasing equity between people of different backgrounds is important, but important single issues such as gay marriage are insufficient if they do not come along with, or better yet, as a product of equity of material conditions. It was all the same with the feminist movement where social advancements were conceded in lieu of increasing their economical statuses, with the division in measurable quantities, such as income or capital ownership still going strong (note I do not advocate changing the ruling elite from one subset of people to another subset of different characteristics, but instead saying that capital ownership should be transferred from the subset to the whole).
Strengthening the political power of the marginalized by increasing the material conditions of their strata is the best way to make social progress, which the ruling elite of the US is painfully aware and which is why they sometimes are willing to skip the first step and reach the inevitable second immediately. The discrepancy between the people’s wants and needs for leftist policies, again conscious or not, and the actual politics of the US, is deeply connected to the Democratic Party’s willingness to concede these social changes without losing the backing of the capital interests that fund them.
- Comment on Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker not? 2 years ago:
Because MSNBC is an American organization and their coverage is American-focused, their bias relative to American politics is what’s relevant here.
I understand what you are trying to say, but I disagree. They are making claims about a lot of news outlets in other countries, which means they cannot present an American skewed perspective as the truth (unless what they really want is to export political views and exert influence domestically and abroad, now we might be talking here).
It doesn’t matter what their beliefs or policy positions are relative to any particular standard, what matters is whether or not their work presents the news accurately or in a way intended to mislead or influence their viewers in favor of one side or the other, which they clearly do.
All reporting should be held to the highest standard. Anyone seriously attempting to critique and comment on others reporting at a meta level, should hold themselves to the same, or even a higher standard, for the same reason. What I am essentially arguing is that the MediaBiasFactCheck falls in line with pretty much all of US news as mass propaganda machines in the interest of capital. If you disagree, why do you think they operate at all?
- Comment on Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker not? 2 years ago:
I am not from the US so why should I base my definition of left-wing on the Democratic party (and subsequently arrive upon the wrong conclusion that the Democratic party is leftist). More importantly, why would you?
If you want to talk relatively, use relative terms. That being said, left of the farthest right is not very useful, which is precisely why I care about the distinction.
- Comment on Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker not? 2 years ago:
We seem to have a different opinion of what is left-wing and what is not. I do not think the Democratic party is left-wing at all. It is centre-right to right (with the Republican party being far-right).
I know of none American left-wing news outlets and the only left-wing bias I know of is truth.
- Comment on If everyone is fired by AI, who's going to buy the products and services made by the companies if no one has money anymore? 2 years ago:
Neoliberalism is killing the good parts of Norway (and there were bad ones to begin with).
- Comment on If everyone is fired by AI, who's going to buy the products and services made by the companies if no one has money anymore? 2 years ago:
Nah, everyone loves their meaningful anf fulfilling work.
- Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist? 2 years ago:
I am using socialist interchangeably with communist here.
- Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist? 2 years ago:
That is understandable if you think only within the paradigm of some select countries dominating the rest, but that is perhaps the biggest obstacle to our gay space communist Star Trek future.
- Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist? 2 years ago:
Caveat that I have not played the games, but taking the series at face value they are highly US-centric like most Hollywood productions. It makes no sense arguing on the basis of the series alone what they are going with in this regard, since all the action takes place in the US it is pretty much the scope of the universe, just like in many Americans minds. I tried to make a disjoint point, that was based on how I would interpret it with complete disregard to whatever is canon to the story as a whole, taking what is presented in the first season of the series at face value.
To put this into context with Star Trek, I also find it really boring and non-immersive whenever they hold 21st century America in special consideration. It is just such an obvious way to make a comparison to current state of affairs in one particular country, placating preferences of current pop culture, which is redundant anyway since all science fiction is a universal critique of the current state of affairs anywhere simply by showing a future alternative. A hypothetical sudden end to US hegemony is actually a valid way to make the current US affairs leading up to it special with respect to the future development of mankind.
- Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist? 2 years ago:
Saw this episode for the first time two days ago and loved everything about it. Especially the inqusition of anti-union Ferengi, that is the FCA, captured the violence of capitalist oppression , both direct and threat thereof, beautifully.
I also liked the subtle points being made, like Odo being against the strike on basis of upholding law and order, even though this should contradict his moral compass in my opinion.
- Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist? 2 years ago:
More like the dissolvement of US hegemony.
- Comment on US supreme court sides with Starbucks in union case over fired employees 2 years ago:
Must be difficult for you to be such a loser.
- Comment on US supreme court sides with Starbucks in union case over fired employees 2 years ago:
Yeah, we get it. You are really cool. What I am actually saying is that in capitalist society there are people who have no other viable options than to sell their labor for survival. This skews the power dynamics so that the employers may dictate the terms of their agreement. If all the other jobs available to these people fall under the same category, they are fucked.
I wouldn’t expect such a cool person^TM^ as yourself to understand this though, much less sympathize with the plight of those in question. Keep on being an ass 😎