elistodragonwings:

I recently saw someone say that the political situation in Texas over abortion and LGBT+ rights isn’t the fault of Texans themselves but “the government,” because the majority don’t actually support what’s happening.

To me, this is a worrying distinction to try to make. The government is a tool that segment of the population have welded to impose their regressive values. Those people are still Texans and the government can also potentially be used to protect progressive values and human rights.

To blame this country’s social problems on “the government” as a singular entity, as if it isn’t being driven by people from our own communities, means fighting the wrong battle.

Please don’t just hand ownership of the power of the government to those who use it to abuse. Challenge their belief that social and political power is synonymous only with authoritarian social hierarchy. We can’t fix our social problems by trying to claim that that those who damage it aren’t also part of it.

At the very least, the distinction I want to make is to consider whether it is more effective, at the point we’re at currently, to fight the government or fight for control of the government.

We often point to gerrymandering and propaganda as causes of minority rule, which is true. But we forget that there are still real people voting and supporting these politicians. As well as much as we say all of these politicians being grifters with only complete selfishness in mind, it isn’t all of them, there are true believers mixed in.

It’s easy to think you’re a logical sane person and there are all these crazies who don’t have a real grasp on reality that we need to take control away from. But they’re real people with real thoughts, real experiences, and real opinions that all counter your worldview. It’s generally not productive to completely discount what you consider the wrong opinions.

Basically, I agree with OP. The government is not an other from the people. Which both means there are people who support the worst of what some of these “leaders” do and often think they haven’t gone far enough, as well as the politicians are also people living in this world just like the rest of us.

It’s dangerous to relinquish control to a lifeless entity. It’s dangerous to ignore the dark sides of your community. Humans are capable of great evil, that’s been proven many times over. If you really want to see that evil under control (eliminating it is impossible), then you need to be aware of it in all its forms.

We are all human, there is no other.

communistkenobi:

communistkenobi:

reading Adorno and Horkheimer’s essay on the culture industry. they were speaking of the culture of the 1940s in north america but it reads like commentary on the culture of today lol

I’ve encountered Adorno’s conception of mass culture in his other work, and his basic formulation of it is that industrial production under capitalist society - the production of things on the assembly line which are standardised and mass produced - produce themselves a kind of mass uniform culture that we are all subjected to. In this essay, Adorno and Horkheimer (referred to henceforth as A&H) make this more explicit by explaining that culture industries (film and radio are their primary examples, but I’m sure you can apply this to other forms of entertainment) are beholden to the industries of oil and electricity, steel and chemicals, ie, the “stuff” that constitutes the building blocks of the modern world: “The dependence of the most powerful broadcasting company on the electricity industry, or of the motion picture industry on the banks, is characteristic of the whole sphere, whose individual branches are themselves economically interwoven.” (p 123, Dialectic of Enlightenment). These dependencies produce a similar output to that of the assembly line; standardised products whose goal is to accumulate capital upwards: “That the difference between the Chrysler range and General Motors products is basically illusory strikes every child with a keen interest in varieties. What connoisseurs discuss as good or bad points serve only to perpetuate the semblance of competition and range of choice. The same applies to the Warner Brothers and Metro Goldwyn Mayer productions.” (p. 123). Because of this, film and radio companies’ primary concern is appeasing the companies who enclose and sell the infrastructure and equipment necessary to produce and distribute these mass entertainment products.

This, in turn, produces the standardised unit of the audience - the consumer, who is represented in statistical form as gross sales. the extent to which this consumer may exercise free will (which is presented as democratic participation in culture, best exemplified by the phrase “vote with your wallet” or “vote with your dollar”) is by choosing which movie they will go see, or which broadcast they will tune into. A&H make the argument that cliches and tropes in entertainment products are standardised in the same way that parts of a motor vehicle are, assembled in various ways to consumers and presented as “a diverse range of choices” that are nonetheless only ever constituted by a very limited set of options, all of which reflect the values of bourgeois society: “Not only are the hit songs, stars, and soap operas cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable types, but the specific content of the entertainment itself is derived from them and only appears to change. The details are interchangeable. The short interval sequence which was effective in a hit song, the hero’s momentary fall from grace (which he accepts as good sport), the rough treatment which the beloved gets from the male star, the latter’s rugged defiance of the spoilt heiress, are, like all other details, ready-made clichés to be slotted in anywhere; they never do anything more than fulfill the purpose allotted to them in the overall plan. Their whole raison d’être is to confirm it by being its constituent parts. As soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished, or forgotten.” (p 125).

Now you can take this reading of the cultural landscape and do conspiratorial things with it, to argue that this is the result of intentional orchestration by some powerful group or another (whether that be in the form of antisemitic conspiracies or the current right-wing hysteria of “woke culture gone mad”), but that is a fundamentally incorrect takeaway. This doesn’t require mass collusion or intentional planning; the assembly line, whether speaking of vehicles or movies, is simply the most “efficient” way of guaranteeing profit, in which the most variables are accounted for, the materials and labour required to produce it are standardised and easily calculable, and the statistical probability of positive consumer response (ie, how many people will buy this thing) can be most easily predicted. Of course there are upsets and surprises, but if an executive or company or wealthy person wants to sink a bunch of money into a product, this is the most reliable way of guaranteeing they’ll make money from it - by using prefabricated parts that are already market-tested to assemble the whole. This doesn’t require long term planning; return on investment and growth in the next fiscal quarter are the relevant factors here. 

And if you want to use this for inconsequential arguments online about media, I think this is a useful template in explaining why, for example, a book or a show being pitched as a series of tropes/representations feels so distasteful, because it so closely resembles an inventory checklist of an entertainment product’s components - this checklist process makes the interior machinery visible. The people doing this are simply being honest (perhaps unintentionally) about their view of art-as-consumer-product, and their sales pitch is nothing more than a itemised checklist of components assembled on a factory floor. This is a deeply alienating way to interact with art, and I’m likewise uninterested with this checklist approach, but it is also the mode under which mass art is produced, and so when talking about mass entertainment products this is the most “efficient” way of describing it - you adopt the logic of efficiency whole-hog and just list off its component parts, much the same way a car salesman would.

Likewise, this helps to explain the dominance of the superhero blockbuster, or the endless stream of reboots and remakes, or why glorified toy commercials like Transformers or Barbie are so successful. Liking these things isn’t a moral sin and I’m not claiming otherwise, but it is the ideal subject-position of the consumer - someone who pays to watch a commercial and believes that they have instead bore witness to an important development in feminism

It seems the only thing that has changed in the modern era is who the art is capitulating to. What seems to be missing then as well as now is, it’s not directly to those industries, but to the elites with the most power. At the time it was certainly oil, electricity, and steel who you had to rely on to move and show the physical movie to the consumers. But they were still appealing to other giants like Macy’s, Coca-Cola, Ford, and their respective industries. Not because of the strict reliance of having the movie played, but because movies were still ads then, and that’s where the capital was to make these big pictures happen.

There has been some shifting in who those elites are. Musk made his way in via the auto industry, Amazon has replaced Macy’s, electricity has become more of a utility than a commodity, social media and other internet and computer companies have come into the scene, as well as the military industrial complex deciding to get in on the action. But most importantly in recent years is the capitulation to China and other foreign markets. Basically, those with power get to decide what the checklist includes. That and the general desire to attract the lowest common denominator and have the widest audience possible.

There are 2 points I would like to emphasize as well. First is this is it’s not limited to movies. The same thing is very present in the music industry and possibly even more so in the art world. Movies are being used here as an easy example, but it’s really all the arts being used to try to influence culture in favor of those elites. Second emphasis goes to who is making it happen. It is studio execs making the deals and building those checklists the directors, musicians, and other artists need to follow in order for their work to be funded. The majority of the blame goes to, the out dated reference this book apparently uses, MGM and not the writers and performers or even producers for the most part who are trying to create art. Studios and of course capitalism in general.

I’ve been thinking a good bit about free will lately. How to define it, how is it useful, and how it relates to chaos. Here’s some of those thoughts.

I think I believe we do have free will.

The most exacting definition would be something like, the ability to act in a way that disregards any stimuli. Of course neurons firing in the brain does count as stimuli to react to, which makes the idea of free will seem impossible. Especially when disregarding what your brain says, means there is a you separate from your brain. And the most compelling argument I’ve heard against is, you don’t decide what you value. And every decision you make is really just weighing what values most to you. In this way I would have to agree that free will does not exist.

What implications does that bring? Our world, mostly dominated by Christianity but also most other major religions, operates under the assumption that free will does exist. Some even argue that that’s how we can do evil, because we can choose wrong. It makes it very easy to punish those who use their free will in that way. But if we don’t have free will, what then are we to do with things that go against our values? Is it fair to punish someone for the wrong neurons firing in their brain? On the other hand, you don’t choose your values. So if someone is deemed to have bad values, why shouldn’t you lock them up for life? Or is it more about shaping the person by getting different neurons to fire?

Obviously our current justice system is not very just. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that we are generally capable of changing for the better. It’s clear that we need to focus the system on rehabilitation rather than punishment, but that’s not what this post is about. I also don’t think that that truth necessarily says anything about whether or not free will exists. Anyway, speaking of being chaotic.

As far as scientists can tell, there is an inherently chaotic nature to the universe. All the clean patterns and formulas break down at the quantum level. As Schrodinger postulated, those particles are in a super position of multiple states until they are directly observed. So assuming that’s true, that exists within us as well yes? So with each decision there is a super position of all the possible choices being realized. And again, there are times when the decision is made by a weighing of values which we don’t choose. But I know I’ve experienced times when I truly didn’t know what my values favored. In these times, can we not use randomness to make the decision? Even further, when we make things happen that don’t have previous expectancy. Have a new thought and execute on it. Can we be said to be adding chaos to the universe? Also, what about decisions we make that we disagree with? A decision that goes against our values at the time of making in. It seems like if free will didn’t exist, then we wouldn’t able to make such decisions. We appear to be able to use chaos in order to make choices that are counter to what we believe in or even our survival.

I anticipate the argument that randomness is not the same as free will, so here’s that rebuttal. The first obvious counter is to point at the word “free”. Second is looking at the definition I provided and state that randomness does in fact disregard stimuli in order to be random. Beyond those, we use our will to pluck our choices and ideas out of the randomness. We pick the realized position out of the super position.

So that’s where I’m at with it right now. I welcome any debate, my argument is certainly not fully comprehensive. Just don’t expect me to respond quickly or consistently. Also here’s a motivational quote inspired by this idea.

You are the chaos inherent to the universe.

queerism1969:

There are 10x more empty houses than there are homeless people.

So I want to talk about the senate hearing today. I only just watched some highlights, but here’s my thoughts anyway.

Actually, I just looked up who the people are who testified and that does temper some of my excitement. Still!

So this was an interview with some whistle blowers who supposedly have first hand knowledge of much of what’s been going on in the background. Which really means, these are just some guys making claims. But apparently they’re credible enough to get an 8 hour televised senate committee hearing, so I’m going to continue talking about this as though everything they said is true.

I think the most important piece of this is the timeline. Apparently government officials have had knowledge of non-human intelligence since the 30’s. There has also been communication with these other lifeforms, not sure if that had a stated start date. Which follows that for at least the past almost 100 years, these lifeforms have been here but staying quiet and hidden. Most likely as some sort of agreement with the officials they’ve been in contact with.

One thing I thought was interesting was the reluctance to say “extra terrestrial”. You could easily chock it up to a scientist not wanting to say without significant evidence, but maybe he has reason to suspect they are in fact terrestrial. With that idea, my mind goes to squids. Super intelligent deep sea squids who have been outpacing humans in technological development.

The other most likely scenario would be if they were from somewhere else in our solar system. The best candidate for that is Europa, the ice moon of Jupiter. Which, if they do have life, is most likely aquatic in nature which kind of still says squids.

The least likely scenario that still has some precedent behind it is that the beings are from Planet X. A “planet” which is as of yet unconfirmed to exist. This being true would lend a lot of credibility to the emerald tablets.

The final possibility is of course outside our solar system. That being true would completely change our understanding of the universe. It also is near impossible to say anything of merit about possible motives.

Here’s what I think about those possibilities. I’m going to try to explain why they’re here and hanging around as well as why they’ve agreed to keep quiet for so long. As far as why the human officials want to keep them hidden, the two obvious reasons are preventing public hysteria and getting special access to some limited resource. But really, humans are inherently irrational creatures and do stupid things pretty much constantly. Me included. Anyway.

First, Earth Squids. This is actually the easiest to explain. They also want to explore the universe. The crafts we are finding is them doing tests and trying to create a ship that can traverse outer space, and they’re much closer than we are. They would rather not work with humans because we would slow them down and we’re fighting all the time. That and our extremely different anatomies make it difficult to develop a craft we could share. That or they don’t want to be nuked.

Next up I’ll bring up the Anunnaki. Because, again, if that’s real, then The Emerald Tablets are very likely to have a good amount of truth to them. They would probably be here with their tail between their legs a bit given the massive failures depicted. Scoping things out and trying to make things better all this time later. They wouldn’t want to get too involved for fear of re-fucking things up. It would also make sense with the timeline because they apparently live 100s of Earth years.

The Europan Space Squids are probably the most difficult to theorize on. It would make sense to want to explore the only other place in the solar system with life on it. There are many little reasons to keep quiet, nothing big enough to be obvious enough to state here, at least for what I can think of. Though, if they are actually squids, that changes things significantly. They could not care about humans and being putting their efforts into connecting and possibly rescuing their brethren in the oceans. Or maybe Earth squids are actually from Europa and have been here doing research. It also brings up a less accurate version of the emerald tablets with all that entails.

Those possibilities all have some degree of not fully being extra terrestrial. If they are truly foreign to our planet, the only explanation that really fits is that they’re researching. That could mean in a Star Trek scientific way of just wanting to gather knowledge. Or it could be in a opposition way to determine the most efficient method of eradication. This also applies if the Europans are not squids.

Those are my ideas based on what I heard said today. Purely conjecture from a layman. I don’t even know how much I believe in any of this, but it’s great fun to think about. This is still the most official thing we’ve seen regarding the existence of non-human intelligent life. I’d love to see it, and now I see a possibility of it in my lifetime. I won’t respond quickly but please let me know what you think. Especially if you’re not human.

themediocrehuman:

catsoverloaded:

A black dragón floating above the clouds

So others need not squint to read

“On March 11, 889 CE, 17 year-old Emperor Uda wrote: 

‘On the 6th day of the 2nd Month of the First Year of the Kampo era. Taking a moment of my free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat. It arrived by boat as a gift to the late Emperor, received from the hands of Minamoto no Kuwasahi. 

The color of its fur is peerless. None could find the words to describe it, although one said it was reminiscent of the deepest ink. It has an air about it, similar to Kanno. Its length is 5 sun, and its height is 6 sun. I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long.

In rebellion, it narrows its eyes and extends its needles. It shows its back.

When it lies down, it curls in a circle like a coin. you cannot see its feet. It’s as if it were a circular Bi disk. When it stands, its cry expresses profound loneliness, like a black dragon floating above the clouds.

By nature, it stalks birds. It lowers its head and works its tail. It can extend its spine to raise its height by at least 2 sun. Its color allows it to disappear at night. I am convinced it is superior to all other cats.’”

(via ruusverd)

magnetothemagnificent:

Not to be a doomer, it’s fun clowning on Trump………but also you really should be more worried about Ron DeSantis. It’s unlikely Trump will be re-elected with his being arrested business and more and more Republicans basing their identity around “never Trump”. But Ron DeSantis is a real danger. Unlike Trump, he’s entering the race with previous political experience. He knows how to and has passed horrifically transphobic, homophobic, racist, and misogynist bills in Florida. His political experience is also more likely to convince “centrists” to support him, because “oh well at least he knows politics he’s sensible, unlike Trump who is just a celebrity”. Nobody took Trump seriously at first when he first announced his bid five years ago, “oh he’s too extreme no one will vote for him,” everyone said, and lo and behold, he won the presidency. Now Trump is old news. But you have to take Ron DeSantis seriously, because he has more of a chance of winning and more of a chance of causing the most harm.

There is already a massive campaign working on getting him elected as well. I was seeing campaign ads for him before he even did his idiotic Twitter launch party. And he is (smartly) going after Trump voters in his ads. There’s a moment where a DeSantis sticker covers a Trump sticker on the bumper of a truck. And now that I’m not seeing that commercial, I’m getting a bunch of ads saying how we can’t nominate Trump because he’d lose to Biden. And even though it says it’s not associated with any candidate, I would bet good money that it’s tied to DeSantis.

The machine supporting him is large and willing to put a lot of weight behind him. If i had to guess, I’d say the prosperity gospel folks are backing him with their ill gotten fortunes. The campaigning is already strong (and unfortunately well made) this early on, which you might hope means it’s going to lose steam by actual election season, but that’d be underestimating not only how deep their pockets are, but the ability to extort money from people trying to get a “godly” man in office. That and getting the Trump treatment of constant news coverage AKA free publicity.

The wealthy and powerful and self-righteous assholes are putting their weight behind DeSantis, and that should scare the shit out of you. Whenever the opportunity arises, tell a potential supporter how much of an idiot he is. Tell them how no one can afford to live in Florida. Tell them how he’s losing a fight against Disney. Show them a picture of him in gogo boots. Whatever that person needs to know to vote for someone else.

And obviously, most importantly, vote. As bad as Trump was, he was just a pawn and a buffoon who was only looking out for himself. DeSantis has enough knowledge to be really dangerous. Don’t let apathy elect him. As milquetoast as Biden is, he is at least a stabilizing force. I would rather have someone who would help the country grow, but I definitely don’t want someone who would dive straight into dystopia. So please, vote.

short-wooloo:

If I see anyone blaming Biden for student loan forgiveness being struck down I’m gonna lose my shit

Because if you think this is Biden’s fault, you’re a vapid fucking dumbass

The republicans have fought against loan forgiveness from the start

The republicans filed lawsuits against it

The republicans took it to scotus

And the republican controlled scotus is the one that struck it down

Biden did not have the power to just snap his fingers and make student debt go away, the office of the president is not a king

And don’t you fucking dare say anything about “bIdEn CoUlD hAvE eXpAnDeD tHe CoUrT”

NO, HE FUCKING COULDN’T

THAT’S NOT HOW IT FUCKING WORKS

60 votes, the Democrats have 51

Biden and the Democrats are not to Blame here, it’s the republicans, it’s fucking always the republicans

Vote blue in 24, vote blue no matter what, every election

Please vote in the primary and get facts on who is running. There are conservatives running as dems to get elected. There are people like Sinema who act progressive then dump every ideal in favor of money. This is going to be a long and difficult fight for the future of this country. There are no easy ways out.

memenewsdotcom:

Supreme Court ends Biden student loan forgiveness

View On WordPress

Good luck with that

I’ll pay that debt when scotus makes politicians back ppp loans. If they want the student loans paid, they can pay them.

qsycomplainsalot:

anarchistfrogposting:

anarchistfrogposting:

I think part of the reason that hierarchy seems so inevitable is that it’s a lot easier to recognise and remember individual leaders than it is to remember the cities worth of people they sent to die, or build our glittering skyscrapers, or discover new inventions.

I think if we held the workers, soldiers, and scientists they organised in greater esteem, we would see how unjust those hierarchies are, and how much they hold us back. How much we lose to power’s insatiable lust for endless proliferation. I think to be an anarchist is truly to fight to hold the worker up to the limelight.

That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about. It might be the reason liberals and further right do so well, and why shifts to the right have been happening worldwide. They’re excellent at picking a leader for everyone else to follow.

It’s been ingrained in us to see individuals as most important thing for humanity, even when that’s never the case. We’re made to remember all these people in history, because we’re taught that’s how history happens. It wasn’t British settlers who founded America, it was Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and the rest of the Founding Fathers. And yes, giving them a collective name like Founding Fathers is a way to keep them elite and not some common people. Even when we learn about communism and the revolutions that happen, it’s never about the discourse or the people rising up. It’s Marx’s ideas and Che Guevara leading his people.

The elite part is the key to the whole thing. It can’t be possible for average citizens to make real changes, it’s great minds that lead the sheep into the future. If you teach that, you don’t even have to mention the hierarchy for people to start ranking themselves and others. If there are great minds then there must be lesser minds and if I don’t want to be seen as a lesser mind I have to put myself above my peers. If they didn’t teach that stuff, we might stop competing and start cooperating.

Since that’s the way it currently stands, you need a champion to lead a movement in order for it to be successful. We don’t actually vote for ideas, we vote for leaders. This makes no sense for a movement about dismantling hierarchies. When you acquiesce to the system as is and elect a leader for your movement, you instantly distort and corrupt it to it no longer being sustainable.

The right can easily move from one leader to the next and make that individual into the great mind of tomorrow who, by the intrinsic nature of their role, has all the right answers and knows exactly where to go next. Leftists can only send forth a representative of their ideas who, again by intrinsic nature, can’t know all the answers and must find a consensus on what path to take. This is currently seen as weakness, and no one wants to be weak.

So all in all, I personally think individualism and all the celebrity culture is at the root of many of the problems we face today. I find it dangerous to give singular people and groups sole credit for the advancement of society. I think ideas and achievements are way more important than the individuals who were there at their inception. I think we’ll be able to live a happier life when we’re able to stop fighting for our place and instead are sharing in our progress.

nilly002:

Probably nobody that wants to hear this but I am so fucking pissed about reddit killing itself.

Reddit was my favourite place on the entire web. Unlike all the other social media it wasn’t about putting individual users on a stage and everyone following them it was simply a shared stage with the users collectively deciding what get’s to be in the spotlight.

Yes it was a shithole but it was our shithole. We decided what we got. The algorithm on reddit was utter dogshit and everyone just disabled it, the real algorithm was the hive mind filtering the best content to the top. All the while actual conversation and debate was actually possible because the comments were not arbitrarily limited in length or ordered by what can only be described as little Timmy’s first attempt at a Bogosort algorithm.

We had a fucking contract: users bring the content and watch ads, moderators keep the site usable and the amount of effort reddit has to put in to not get sued down to a minimum, all reddit had to do was provide the servers, ban a subreddit once in a blue moon and be content with having a decently profitable site with the factually most worthless users of big social media

Reddit users are the least valuable of any social network

At its latest valuation of $3 billion, Reddit's 330 million monthly active users are valued much lower than those on other social networks.

CNBC

But NOOOOO “We NeEd To InCrEaSe PrOfItS! ThOsE pEsKy ThIrD pArTy ApPs ArE sTeAlInG oUr MoNeY” No you idiot they just provided a better service than you did. Why shut them down when you could just copy what they have and make them unnecessary? And then in the process they try to softban nsfw as well because “ItS bAd FoR aDvErTiSmEnT!” god how I fucking hate capitalism.

There’s this beautiful thing that people have created in collaboration which brings joy, news, entertainment, education, support and community to so many people and it was ALREADY PROFITABLE but no we need to ruin it to squeeze out as much cash as possible.

Fuck all those people who helped build the website and make it what it is today, fuck all the users who contributed it and spent sleepless nights to make some dumb pixel art bringing your shitty ass website into the news all across the globe fuck all the moderators who spent countless hours doing unpaid labour to keep a community they loved alive and saving you billions in moderation costs, fuck everyone that loves this website

BECAUSE WE WANT MORE MONEY!

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell and for reddit the diagnosis is terminal.

ruusverd:

paganinpurple:

latenightcinephile:

largishcat:

good-4-her:

simply dont monday

simply don’t tuesday

simply don’t wednesday

Simply don’t thursday

Simply don’t friday

I too dislike this capitalist dystopia

queerbrownvegan:

If society’s going to solve the climate crisis, it will be because we’ve put an end to harmful systems.

If we’ve put an end to harmful systems, it will be because we’ve transformed what it means to be human.

-qbv

queerism1969:

Individualism is rubbish. The individual is an entirely powerless unit; it could not give birth to itself, cannot raise itself, educate itself, or change the world itself. It is entirely a product of the people and environment around it. To emphasize the individual is an error.

It’s a hard pill to swallow for Westerners brought up in an individualistic mindset, but the reality is that you have never really done anything by yourself. Your actions and very nature are defined by your relations with outside people, the land, and material things.