Objection
@Objection@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Finally, we have the blueprints! 2 days ago:
ATTN: the Outdoor Burlesque and Stripper and Drag and Broadway Musical and Sex Stage HAS TABLES for you to EAT AT! Alternatively, you can take your meals off dishes on the floor in the Petplay Room, like a good little puppy or kitten. Eating in the BDSM Dungeon is discouraged because people keep stepping on the food which can be either unsanitary or wasteful. Also, PLEASE DO NOT EAT ON THE POLYCULE BED. You know who you are.
- Comment on The worldwide political spectrum according to some Lemmings 6 days ago:
The world according to other Lemmings:
- Comment on Major L 2 weeks ago:
Good call.
I tracked it down: [37] is from a book called “The Lady Tasting Tea” by retired statistician David Salsburg, pages 147-149. While I’m sure he’s knowledgeable about statistics, he doesn’t seem to have any special qualifications regarding history.
:::spoiler I also went to the trouble of tracking down a pdf:
:::
The claims about the government of the USSR seeing statistics as “an insult” seem to be partially his own speculation and partially the speculation of a statistics journal from the 50’s, rather than being drawn from any kind of official statements. The only claims that seem to have something to do with material reality are:
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The parts about the Vestnik Statistiki, which was not shut down (as the text seems to imply) but rather was adopted as an official publication of the Central Statistical Administration (TsSU), an organizations whose existence seems to fly in the face of this “the Soviets hated statistics” narrative.
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A couple researchers leaving the field of statistics, which could have happened for any number of reasons.
I see absolutely nothing that suggests the study of statistics was banned or sidelined in any way.
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- Comment on Major L 2 weeks ago:
Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it
- Comment on What’s the difference between communism and socialism? 2 weeks ago:
The liberal revolutions of the centuries before that were all about taking power away from the (monarchical/aristocratic) government in order to establish a society in which the government was elected by, and served, the people, and there were no longer any formally defined classes and all inequalities that remained were about income and property, which were (at least ideally) possible to overcome through one’s own achievements… why did communists ever think that the next step after that might be to once again establish a powerful government that serves as the only (or only major) employer, that’s a movement precisely in the other direction, not the natural next step…
Because the liberal system leads to concentration of wealth and allows for outsized political influence by the rich (which leads to wealth becoming even more concentrated). The rich also have significant influence over people’s lives as employers, outside of the political sphere, and they are accountable to no one. The fact that “ideally,” on an individual level, anyone could hit it big does nothing to address those systemic problems.
The state, as an employer, is more accountable to the people than a private individual or company is, because it has to answer to the voters. Naturally, that also depends on taking measures to prevent the bourgeoisie from exerting their outsized control on said state.
There are advantages to having private companies and competition, but those advantages tend to disappear as the economy becomes more developed and saturated, and the tendency of the rate of profit to decline kicks in. Once companies can’t increase profits by expanding in productive ways, all they do is enshittify their products and look for new and innovative ways to fleece their customers. In such cases, the profit motive causes more harm than good, and the industry would be better off run by the state.
- Comment on What’s the difference between communism and socialism? 2 weeks ago:
Communism is an eventual end goal, a classless, stateless society. Socialism is a system that aims to progress towards that goal.
These terms have become muddled due to social democrats dropping the pretense that they had any aims at establishing communism (early social democrats like Eduard Bernstein argued for using reformism to establish communism), while still holding on to the “socialist” label. So there are some people who would use “socialist” to describe social democracy and reformism while reserving “communism” for Marxist-Leninists. This is quite strange considering that it was called the USSR and not the USCR, but what are you gonna do?
- Comment on Why is the US so into Israel? 2 weeks ago:
So you believe that the Jesuits are secretly coordinating with the Church of England, which is the true political power in Britain?
- Comment on Why is the US so into Israel? 2 weeks ago:
Not really. There are plenty of cases in history where conquest results in establishing a tributary or proxy state. Japan conquered Manchuria in WWII, the fact that they set up a puppet government does not change that fact at all.
The word you’re looking for is annexation. I’m not “redefining” anything.
- Comment on Why is the US so into Israel? 2 weeks ago:
I call the US being able to dictate what happens to the oil as “conquest.” Of course they aren’t going to do formal annexation, there’s no reason to.
- Comment on Why is the US so into Israel? 2 weeks ago:
since a retired Jesuit Superior General (False Prophet to the Pope) went the Jerusalem in Occupied Palestine to control the upcoming wars
Lmao is the crux of all this that a retired Jesuit visited Jerusalem?
I’m sure no one else visited Jerusalem during this time and I can’t think of any other possible reason a member of a Christian religious order would visit Jerusalem.
I’m guessing the fact that Israel was created by Britain, which hasn’t been Catholic since 1558, in no way presents an obstacle to your conspiracy theory. The idea of Jesuit priests infiltrating British parliament and controlling things behind the scenes is immensely funny to me. They wish, lol.
The real reasons both for Israel’s creation and the US’s support are material. The Middle East is full of oil. The US (and UK) want oil. It’s literally that simple.
- Comment on Why is the US so into Israel? 2 weeks ago:
Hey here’s an idea what if we don’t bond with any of them and give up this incredibly expensive and wasteful project of taking over the Middle East and instead spend that money on things like healthcare and green energy?
- Comment on Why is the US so into Israel? 2 weeks ago:
Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East. The Middle East is full of oil and independent countries that the US would rather control as puppets.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon - every country that doesn’t bend the knee gets bombed. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, Israel - those countries that do bend the knee get limitless military support, regardless of how oppressive they are.
The US is intent in conquering the entire Middle East by force. Israel is not unique, it’s just the most firmly controlled US proxy.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
I said it’s not liberation but gradually better for sure.
That was not at all clear from your comment.
I have the impression that you read alot into my short comment.
You read in that I treat Marx as a religious text just from me citing him in one comment.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Just because a country doesn’t bomb others doesn’t make it not bad.
This meme doesn’t call China bad, it calls it “imperialist.”
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Again, do you get that people are less likely to engage with you when you start the convention by insulting them?
Forgive me if I don’t have a lot of patience for opposing Palestinian statehood without a very good reason.
One basic argument is that structures of power will reproduce themselves.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. You’re not engaging with the arguments and you’re not looking at the material conditions, it’s purely this knee-jerk ideological opposition to states in general, with zero analysis beyond that.
Palestinians do not need to be the forefront of some anarchist experiment that they have no desire to be a part of. If they were brought to a similar system to what virtually everyone lives under, it would be a massive improvement in their lives.
Furthermore, while a culture is suffering under the boot of colonialism, it is very hard for it to progress or change internally because there is such a powerful external threat, and any proposed changes will be seen as being imposed from the outside. There have been plenty of states where decolinization has produced real material improvements in people’s lives, in spite of your knee-jerk opposition to states. Can you really look at modern Ireland and say that it’s no different than when the English were starving them?
Imagine if someone’s chained up in your basement begging to be released into the world and you’re like, “You don’t wanna go out there, you’d have to get a job and jobs suck, you’d have a boss which would essentially recreate the structures of power that are constraining you right now. Let’s focus on creating an anarchist system first.” They’re not gonna give a shit about that, they’re only going to be thinking of how to get out. It’s the same way with colonized people, the first priority should be ending colonialism and engaging with them on equal footing before considering these demands about how their system has to be ideologically pure.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Sure.
If you have criticisms of Marx’s arguments and analysis regarding the national question, then let’s hear them. But if it’s just gonna be, “it’s bad because states are bad,” I could get that from a damn an-cap.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Why am I not surprised that that’s the only thing you take away from my comment?
Sorry, what else did you say that you want me to respond to?
You use “theory” synonymous with “Marx”
No I fucking don’t. I cited Marx because Marx is one theorist.
I’m so fucking sick of you libs acting like this. Like citing a source makes me some kind of religious fanatic. You don’t see me accusing you of worshipping David Graber or saying that you “treat him as synonymous with theory.”
But more than that I’m sick of you lot taking pride in your ignorance and anti-intellectualism. No different than a MAGA chud. You’re not hostile to me because I only read Marx, because I don’t only read Marx and even if I did, there’s not a single thing I’ve said that would indicate that. You’re hostile me for reading Marx at all. You act like it’s some kind of heretical text that corrupts the minds of all that read it. Or at least, you pretend to, because by lobbing accusations like that, you can avoid any sort of informed, intellectual discussion, and conceal the fact that you don’t know shit about ass.
So congrats, you’ve sufficiently derailed the conversation to cover your ignorance, like y’all always do. Tankies are the only people on earth who do the fucking homework.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Literally can’t cite any leftist author on anything ever without people jumping down my throat with this “holy scripture” crap.
You should study Marx regardless of your own beliefs and ideology if for no other reason than how much his ideas have shaped history. You can disagree with him all you like, contrary to what you instantly jump to whenever anyone quotes him on anything, Marx is not “holy scripture” and I’m more than happy to listen to critiques, and make them myself. But you should have a basic familiarity with what he believed and the basic outlines of arguments regarding the National Question before dropping uninformed takes and declaring everyone else as wrong. Otherwise, you’re doing the political equivalent of someone who never studied physics declaring that they’ve invented a perpetual motion machine and that all of physics is wrong.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
I’m begging liberals to either read theory, study actual material conditions, or just use basic common sense instead of relying exclusively on libertarian brainworms and propaganda.
It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence.
An international movement of the proletariat is possible only among independent nations.
So long as Poland is partitioned and subjugated, therefore, neither a strong socialist party can develop in the country itself, nor can there arise real international intercourse between the proletarian parties in Germany, etc, with other than émigré Poles. Every Polish peasant or worker who wakes up from the general gloom and participates in the common interest, encounters first the fact of national subjugation. This fact is in his way everywhere as the first barrier. To remove it is the basic condition of every healthy and free development. Polish socialists who do not place the liberation of their country at the head of their programme, appear to me as would German socialists who do not demand first and foremost repeal of the socialist law, freedom of the press, association and assembly. In order to be able to fight one needs first a soil to stand on, air, light and space. Otherwise all is idle chatter.
- Karl Marx
- Comment on Post title lol 3 weeks ago:
lol STOP lmao STOP
- Comment on Finally paid off my Costco hotdog in 4 easy installments! 3 weeks ago:
It’s also how they get you to start using it. Accept the 0% interest loan, now the app is on your phone, now you’re seeing options for lower monthly payments, now you’re thinking about what you could afford with the app as opposed to what you have right now.
I bought an escooter through one of those apps and paid 0% interest, so it worked out for me, but you have to be careful about it.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Par for the course.
I grew up in the South hearing all about the evil big government yankees destroying our culture (“an entire civilization, Gone With the Wind”) and way of life, trying to force everybody to obey the central authority in Washington - nevermind how the states treated people, that’s their business, we don’t need big government coming in and meddling in our affairs.
Take all those arguments, go to the other side of the world, and couch them in leftist terminology like “imperialism” and “colonialism,” and you’ve got liberals with Tibet. Can’t talk sense into them anymore than you can talk sense into a redneck. Keep people in chains and call anyone who tries to break those chains an authoritarian, it’s literally the exact same playbook.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
May you someday get over the loss of your favorite slavers.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Moving the goalposts. What you said was:
Right a power drawing a line on a map claiming land and then enforcing that claim via violence totally isn’t colonialism.
“Switzerland” is just some lines drawn on a map enforced via violence. So is “France.” So is literally every country.
Why would the line have to include territory that was part of another country? That’s not what you said, nor is it what China did.
As I said, Tibet had already been a part of China for 200 years. It broke away much like the Confederacy broke away from the US, and like the US, China reasserted control and freed the people from slavery.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Oh right the old everyone kills their neighbors defense so all genocide is a-ok.
Not even remotely close to what I said.
Feels like you are finally admitting to the imperialism at least
Not even remotely close to what I said.
“States existing” is neither imperialism nor colonialism lmao.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Right a power drawing a line on a map claiming land and then enforcing that claim via violence totally isn’t colonialism.
That’s every state that has ever existed or could theoretically exist, lol.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
They didn’t “annex” Tibet because Tibet had already been a part of China for the past 200 years. That’s like calling the Civil War “colonialism” because the Union “annexed” the Confederacy.
This shit about Native Americans is pure projection. Native languages are in danger, in a way the Tibetan language is not and never has been. All you’re doing is taking something the West did and saying, “Well China must have done this too” with nothing to back it up.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
100% of the people in a country
Citation really fucking needed lmao.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
“”“a country”“” here meaning about 5% of the people in a country.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
Lol none of those things are remotely true. Tibetans are free to practice Buddhism and the vast majority speak their own language, as they were taught in schools.
Maybe we strive to support counties that don’t turn people into bone piles or slaves?
That’s a good thought, you should try it sometime. Which makes me wonder, again, why you’re so upset that a slaver theocracy was ended.
