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On April 30 2019 23:09 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On April 30 2019 22:26 Plansix wrote:
I am now aware of accelerationists and I can now believe that character would have bought into Thanos’s really dumb plan. Because that shit was dumb, but it isn’t quite as stupid as causing global economic collapse and assuming progress will follow. Wasn't this GH's argument during the 2016 elections after Bernie lost the primary? Let Trump win so America gets bad enough that a revolution might happen?
GH didn't vote for Trump so that's already a no. Even someone who more directly supported that position, like Jimmy Dore, can't be described as an accelerationist, as he is otherwise a supporter of Bernie and a fierce critic of neoliberalism.
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GH told us numerous times that he didn't vote for Trump or Hillary.
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I know GH said he didn't vote Trump, I perhaps should have been more clear.
There was a period in time, after Bernie lost the primaries where GH advocated for voting Trump to accelerate the, in his eyes, inevitable collapse of the US system.
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Yeah, economic collapse is bad and has a really good chance of empowering a far worse government than you currently have. Sure, sometimes you get FDR and the New Deal. Sometimes you get the other side of the global conflict that followed. That plan is staggeringly high levels of stupid and discounts all the human suffering required to attain progress through failure on a national scale. It’s like reading the Grapes of Wrath and saying “And after that we won WW2 and lived happily ever after.”
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GH can clarify what his argument was but if he's an accelerationist he's terrible at it. Sanders is the opposite of what you want in that ideology. This is a weird claim.
For the record I don't think accelerationism is that dumb. It's reductive to say that they just think you get progress once liberalism falls; once liberalism falls, there's a fight between the socialists and the reactionaries, and you either die or you win. Rationally it mostly works, my only issue is that we don't need to do this shit, capitalism already looks bad; we have the best hand already and we're trying to cheat, in a way that is dangerous and painful, to gain a small edge; there's a disconnect there. Other than that every argument I have against accelerationism is a moral one, they basically sound like psychopaths.
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On May 01 2019 00:01 Gorsameth wrote:
I know GH said he didn't vote Trump, I perhaps should have been more clear.
There was a period in time, after Bernie lost the primaries where GH advocated for voting Trump to accelerate the, in his eyes, inevitable collapse of the US system.
No. Hillary advocated making Trump a "pied piper" I pointed out how Trump was a better candidate (in the sense of running to win) and made a joke that I've clarified like 20 times now as Velr has noted.
I don't mind people reflexively disagreeing with me or jumping to errant conclusions without context or regret (like the Trump clip) but we do need to be able to eventually get past assigning me positions I don't hold.
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To be clear, I never thought you were an accelerationist. I just found their political theory today and wanted to express just how stupid it is. Like anti-vaxer levels of stupid.
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On May 01 2019 01:03 Plansix wrote:
To be clear, I never thought you were an accelerationist. I just found their political theory today and wanted to express just how stupid it is. Like anti-vaxer levels of stupid.
You've certainly improved on this imo other than the random poll thing recently.
I know folks think that there's a victory in demonstrating the futility of revolution but my larger point is that it's revolution or certain doom according to the science so we better figure out how to make revolution work.
I appreciate Kwark at least owning the alternative position which is "get mine so as to not be the among the first to suffer the consequences"
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Revolution is fine, but we don’t need complete economic collapse to get there. And the accelerationist plan seems to be "make bad stuff happen so there will be a revolt" without any discussion of what that would look like or any articulation of what the revolution should be pushing for. It is Underpant gnome levels of planning. People who want to build a new, better world are fine. But they better be able to tell me what that world looks like.
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On May 01 2019 01:30 Plansix wrote:
Revolution is fine, but we don’t need complete economic collapse to get there. And the accelerationist plan seems to be "make bad stuff happen so there will be a revolt" without any discussion of what that would look like or any articulation of what the revolution should be pushing for. It is Underpant gnome levels of planning. People who want to build a new, better world are fine. But they better be able to tell me what that world looks like.
Accelerationism was only brought up to smear me ( I guess Yang randomly triggered it the allegation was just what drove the rest of the conversation), no one here actually holds that opinion to my knowledge.
Are you suggesting that marxist-socialists are comparable to accelerationists? Or are you just talking about accelerationism's problems because you discovered what they were today after it came up for yang/I was falsely accused of being one?
On May 01 2019 01:39 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2019 01:00 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 01 2019 00:01 Gorsameth wrote:
I know GH said he didn't vote Trump, I perhaps should have been more clear.
There was a period in time, after Bernie lost the primaries where GH advocated for voting Trump to accelerate the, in his eyes, inevitable collapse of the US system. No. Hillary advocated making Trump a "pied piper" I pointed out how Trump was a better candidate (in the sense of running to win) and made a joke that I've clarified like 20 times now as Velr has noted. I don't mind people reflexively disagreeing with me or jumping to errant conclusions without context or regret (like the Trump clip) but we do need to be able to eventually get past assigning me positions I don't hold. I should have double checked before posting and I tried looking but finding specific posts from almost 3 years ago is a pain in the ass so I'll say I'm sorry I shouldn't have brought it up.
I appreciate that.
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On May 01 2019 01:00 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2019 00:01 Gorsameth wrote:
I know GH said he didn't vote Trump, I perhaps should have been more clear.
There was a period in time, after Bernie lost the primaries where GH advocated for voting Trump to accelerate the, in his eyes, inevitable collapse of the US system. No. Hillary advocated making Trump a "pied piper" I pointed out how Trump was a better candidate (in the sense of running to win) and made a joke that I've clarified like 20 times now as Velr has noted. I don't mind people reflexively disagreeing with me or jumping to errant conclusions without context or regret (like the Trump clip) but we do need to be able to eventually get past assigning me positions I don't hold. I should have double checked before posting and I tried looking but finding specific posts from almost 3 years ago is a pain in the ass so I'll say I'm sorry I shouldn't have brought it up.
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On May 01 2019 01:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2019 01:30 Plansix wrote:
Revolution is fine, but we don’t need complete economic collapse to get there. And the accelerationist plan seems to be "make bad stuff happen so there will be a revolt" without any discussion of what that would look like or any articulation of what the revolution should be pushing for. It is Underpant gnome levels of planning. People who want to build a new, better world are fine. But they better be able to tell me what that world looks like. Accelerationism was only brought up to smear me ( I guess Yang randomly triggered it the allegation was just what drove the rest of the conversation), no one here actually holds that opinion to my knowledge. Are you suggesting that marxist-socialists are comparable to accelerationists? Or are you just talking about accelerationism's problems because you discovered what they were today after I was falsely accused of being one?
I brought up accelerationists actually. I kind of regret that now cause I find the rest of my post more interesting and now we're talking about this^^
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On May 01 2019 01:40 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2019 01:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 01 2019 01:30 Plansix wrote:
Revolution is fine, but we don’t need complete economic collapse to get there. And the accelerationist plan seems to be "make bad stuff happen so there will be a revolt" without any discussion of what that would look like or any articulation of what the revolution should be pushing for. It is Underpant gnome levels of planning. People who want to build a new, better world are fine. But they better be able to tell me what that world looks like. Accelerationism was only brought up to smear me ( I guess Yang randomly triggered it the allegation was just what drove the rest of the conversation), no one here actually holds that opinion to my knowledge. Are you suggesting that marxist-socialists are comparable to accelerationists? Or are you just talking about accelerationism's problems because you discovered what they were today after I was falsely accused of being one? I brought up accelerationists actually. I kind of regret that now cause I find the rest of my post more interesting and now we're talking about this^^
Fair enough, I just noticed people arguing over whether I was an accelerationist or voted for Trump and I'm really tired of having to repeat myself over very simple things like this.
On April 30 2019 23:19 farvacola wrote:Here’s another really nice summary of why the federal student loan system figures more as a tax on future earnings than an actual loan. I gotta plug Credit Slips again, lots of really great posts lately on student loan issues. The Student Loan Tax
Warren's policies have been a little meh but broaching the idea of just scrapping $50k of student debt makes her my favorite (among those running) for VP/a Cabinet position.
How just erasing billions in student debt works is an interesting discussion. It seems that it's sort of the opposite of the inflation discussion where it was argued theoretically it helped impoverished people vs the reality of where that help was useless.
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Interestingly, the DOJ Inspector General has been conducting some sort of review of the Carter Page FISA. An "investigation of the investigators." Twitter Rumor, for what it's worth, says that the forthcoming report will be "devastating." AG Barr has said the report will coming in the several months:
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's investigation into possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the Justice Department and FBI should be complete in the next couple months, Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday.
www.washingtonexaminer.com
This is what the NYT said about the investigation back in 2018:
[Inspector General] Horowitz has begun a review of aspects of the Russia investigation. His findings could land in 2020 amid the presidential race.
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[Horowitz] has faced criticism over his most highly charged reports, including on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal. In it, he offered harsh assessments about one official, but critics expressed concern that the report inflated the official’s role in the episode.
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“Congress understands that I.G.’s are often their main source of desperately needed information on routine and significant threats to the agencies,” said Paul C. Light, a New York University professor who studies the offices.
Now, Mr. Trump poses a unique threat to Mr. Horowitz and his credibility as a neutral judge.
Responding to Justice Department officials and Congress, Mr. Horowitz initiated in March a review of the F.B.I.’s surveillance of Carter Page, the former Trump campaign official. But Mr. Trump’s proclamations that the bureau had abused its power contributed to a perception that the Justice Department was conceding to his wishes, rather than acting independently.
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Mr. Horowitz has already issued a short but scathing report that found Mr. McCabe had lacked candor about his dealings with a journalist. Mr. Trump crowed about the findings as he had when Mr. McCabe was fired hours before he was eligible for retirement. “He LIED! LIED! LIED!,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter, adding, “McCabe is Comey!!”
"No one, not even an independent inspector general, is fully immune from the type of political pressure that has been applied in Mr. McCabe’s case,” Michael R. Bromwich, a former inspector general who represents both Mr. McCabe and Mr. Weinstein, wrote in a statement.
www.nytimes.com
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Yeah, there was a better discussion going on before I decided to dunk on accelerationist and we should go back to that.
On April 30 2019 17:32 Acrofales wrote:
...That said, I fully agree on how the comparison obviously breaks down fast. In fascism, war crimes are justified as means to an end. The far left cannot unify war crimes with their ideology (regardless of ideology, crimes against humanity are irreconcilable with any -ism on the left). So that doesn't jive. Then there's the fact that the far right is essentially hero worshipping Putin and Assad, strong men doing what's right for their nation, whereas the far left is calling for pulling out of Syria, because it's "not our war and we only make it worse" as well as pointing out the hipocrisy in what kind of awful murderous assholes we are actually supporting there. So yes, they both want out of Syria, but for different reasons entirely...
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On the topic that was only lightly touched on above, I had a discussion recently with one of my more left leaning buddies about how the discussion(based on a podcast we like) around Syria should hopefully develop into a discussion on how to prevent military intervention from being so appealing. On both the capitalistic, market based front and to the public. That military intervention appeals is appealing to the business because it opens "new markets" that lack will lack the governmental infrastructure to resist US imperial interest. And in a sort of parasitic relationship, it appeals to the public because we are shown bad things happening and are then sold the idea that the US could "do something". Appealing directly to the moral ideology that doing something to prevent a bad thing is better than doing nothing. The discussion is devoid of the other side of that ideology that by becoming involved, we can make things worse.
Among the wild solutions that were proposed during the discussion was imposing taxes and restrictions on companies that join the military intervention to prevent them from profiting. Lower the incentive of participating to purely one of national interest and remove profit from the equation. Although it wouldn't completely solve the problem, it would likely limit the political push to become involved in conflicts based on the markets that would be opened up for US business and hopefully move the focus to the potential long term outcomes. Which means we would do it far less.
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On April 30 2019 23:19 farvacola wrote:Here’s another really nice summary of why the federal student loan system figures more as a tax on future earnings than an actual loan. I gotta plug Credit Slips again, lots of really great posts lately on student loan issues. The Student Loan Tax
Yeah, that's how I treat it. I call it "career tax".
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On May 01 2019 01:02 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2019 00:48 Nebuchad wrote:
GH can clarify what his argument was but if he's an accelerationist he's terrible at it. Sanders is the opposite of what you want in that ideology. This is a weird claim.
For the record I don't think accelerationism is that dumb. It's reductive to say that they just think you get progress once liberalism falls; once liberalism falls, there's a fight between the socialists and the reactionaries, and you either die or you win. Rationally it mostly works, my only issue is that we don't need to do this shit, capitalism already looks bad; we have the best hand already and we're trying to cheat, in a way that is dangerous and painful, to gain a small edge; there's a disconnect there. Other than that every argument I have against accelerationism is a moral one, they basically sound like psychopaths. I agree with you. What country currently has the system you would like to see in place? The reason I ask is the ones I most like have an aspect of capitalism, just lots of regulation and some aspects of socialism but they most definitely are democracy's. Any attempt at full socialism seems to lead too authoritarianism, which leads to all sorts of corruption. Many people blame the corruption on the socialism I blame it on the authoritarianism.
Keeping in mind that I don't think the system I want really matters cause I want to work with you all to figure out what works best, my main idea right now looks something like this:
- Workers own the means of production (no capitalist class and not the state, the workers).
- There is a state.
- Because centralized states are more vulnerable to authoritarianism, a lot of federalism.
- A lot more direct democracy.
- No second class citizens (including migrants).
- Very little interventionism.
- Might add more stuff here when I think of it
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EPT
