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On July 26 2019 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2019 01:41 Jealous wrote: I only lurk in the thread and thus I probably pay more sparse and less intimate attention to the discourse, and also tune out shitfests to an extent, so the following may be inaccurate and if it is then I apologize in advance.
In the thread, GH made a post that was along the lines of "We need a revolution," but when probed about how this revolution would go or what it was meant to achieve, he made a post that was along the lines of "It's not up to me to explain and coordinate a revolution."
Did I understand this right? I can go back and pull the quotes if needed.
At that point, as a silent observer, I was done with reading what he has to say about revolution. It's just hot air. How are you going to take a position that has a future-facing objective but not provide any reasoning for how that objective could be achieved and why?
This doesn't work in any context. "We should throw a party," says GH. "Okay, how are we going to get supplies for the party? Who is going to buy the keg, whose house are we doing it at?" is the logical response. "Oh, it's not up to me to plan the party." Well, that was a load of wasted time discussing parties, wasn't it? "We should get a dog." "Who is going to walk it?" "Oh, it's not up to me to discuss the details of dog ownership - I just want you to disprove that we should get a dog."
Thus, I can see how it is infernally frustrating to deal with someone who (seemingly) zealously believes in something, but isn't interested in discussing why they believe in it. It's a waste of time to argue against a position that hasn't been adequately defended, and it is almost arrogant to expect others to overlook this and address the vague idea without specifics provided.
For example, if GH offered one cause-effect-resolution argument, people could actually explain why a revolution isn't necessary, or agree that it is necessary, regardless of the nature of said revolution. A possible example is
Cause: The wealth gap is growing and this has been proven to have a direct correlation to standards of healthcare, so poor people are receiving worse health care when they need it most. Effect: Poor people are incentivized to revolt against the status quo. Resolution: A revolution, once having toppled the standing government, can change regulations on income and wealth disparity through taxation, and systematically improve the distribution of good medical practitioners and organizations while allowing free healthcare to all.
In response, someone could argue that these things are achievable through other means. As JimmiC said above, education would be one of them, incentivizing the development of healthcare systems in underprivileged neighborhoods, voting for the direct attribution of tax funds into medical technology that would overcome the shortage of accessible healthcare in poor areas of the country, put limitations on health insurance minimums and increase minimum coverage standards legally, so on and so forth.
This is a possible discussion that at least I would be interested in having. However, missing the talking points, what is there to even talk about?
"We need a revolution." "I don't think so. How would a revolution achieve desirable changes?" "It's not up to me to plan the details of a revolution." "Oh, well it's not up to me to explain why we don't need a revolution that doesn't have a plan." Lot there but let me be brief. If I say "we should throw a party" and you look at me to do everything I'm gunna look at you like you're a dick. "I said we", if you're agreeing that's all of us and if you prefer your personal comfort at home or don't want to help, you aren't part of "we" and I'm probably not inviting you. Same thing if I say "we should get a dog" and you agree then expect me to do all of the work while you only want enjoyment and 0 responsibility. I'm 100% willing to discuss details, but "discuss" isn't "put my ideas up to be shit on by counterrevolutionaries who by and large lack a ( or haven't demonstrated) familiarity with the theoretical underpinnings and historical context resulting in questions and demands that are indicative not of inquiry but inquisition". The problem, as I have alluded to in the past, is that 'we' haven't decided to hold a party/revolution. You have, and if you want to convince us to hold a party/revolution with you, your going to have to convince us that its a good idea and not expect us to come up with everything.
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On July 26 2019 02:03 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2019 01:51 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 26 2019 01:41 Jealous wrote: I only lurk in the thread and thus I probably pay more sparse and less intimate attention to the discourse, and also tune out shitfests to an extent, so the following may be inaccurate and if it is then I apologize in advance.
In the thread, GH made a post that was along the lines of "We need a revolution," but when probed about how this revolution would go or what it was meant to achieve, he made a post that was along the lines of "It's not up to me to explain and coordinate a revolution."
Did I understand this right? I can go back and pull the quotes if needed.
At that point, as a silent observer, I was done with reading what he has to say about revolution. It's just hot air. How are you going to take a position that has a future-facing objective but not provide any reasoning for how that objective could be achieved and why?
This doesn't work in any context. "We should throw a party," says GH. "Okay, how are we going to get supplies for the party? Who is going to buy the keg, whose house are we doing it at?" is the logical response. "Oh, it's not up to me to plan the party." Well, that was a load of wasted time discussing parties, wasn't it? "We should get a dog." "Who is going to walk it?" "Oh, it's not up to me to discuss the details of dog ownership - I just want you to disprove that we should get a dog."
Thus, I can see how it is infernally frustrating to deal with someone who (seemingly) zealously believes in something, but isn't interested in discussing why they believe in it. It's a waste of time to argue against a position that hasn't been adequately defended, and it is almost arrogant to expect others to overlook this and address the vague idea without specifics provided.
For example, if GH offered one cause-effect-resolution argument, people could actually explain why a revolution isn't necessary, or agree that it is necessary, regardless of the nature of said revolution. A possible example is
Cause: The wealth gap is growing and this has been proven to have a direct correlation to standards of healthcare, so poor people are receiving worse health care when they need it most. Effect: Poor people are incentivized to revolt against the status quo. Resolution: A revolution, once having toppled the standing government, can change regulations on income and wealth disparity through taxation, and systematically improve the distribution of good medical practitioners and organizations while allowing free healthcare to all.
In response, someone could argue that these things are achievable through other means. As JimmiC said above, education would be one of them, incentivizing the development of healthcare systems in underprivileged neighborhoods, voting for the direct attribution of tax funds into medical technology that would overcome the shortage of accessible healthcare in poor areas of the country, put limitations on health insurance minimums and increase minimum coverage standards legally, so on and so forth.
This is a possible discussion that at least I would be interested in having. However, missing the talking points, what is there to even talk about?
"We need a revolution." "I don't think so. How would a revolution achieve desirable changes?" "It's not up to me to plan the details of a revolution." "Oh, well it's not up to me to explain why we don't need a revolution that doesn't have a plan." Lot there but let me be brief. If I say "we should throw a party" and you look at me to do everything I'm gunna look at you like you're a dick. "I said we", if you're agreeing that's all of us and if you prefer your personal comfort at home or don't want to help, you aren't part of "we" and I'm probably not inviting you. Same thing if I say "we should get a dog" and you agree then expect me to do all of the work while you only want enjoyment and 0 responsibility. I'm 100% willing to discuss details, but "discuss" isn't "put my ideas up to be shit on by counterrevolutionaries who by and large lack a ( or haven't demonstrated) familiarity with the theoretical underpinnings and historical context resulting in questions and demands that are indicative not of inquiry but inquisition". The problem, as I have eluded to in the past, is that 'we' haven't decided to hold a party/revolution. You have, and if you want to convince us to hold a party/revolution with you, your going to have to convince us that its a good idea and not expect us to come up with everything. Sorry to be a pedant but since this was recently relevant a few pages ago, "eluded" is when you hide/run away from something, "alluded" is when you make an allusion or reference.
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GH is mostly arguing the point of "why we need a revolution" at the moment and not the point of "how will a revolution work practically". GH has made numerous lengthy posts fleshing out his position on "why we need a revolution", so saying he's just throwing an idea out there with no support is simply not true.
At the same time, my interpretation of this is that as long as nobody is on board with "why we need a revolution", GH thinks there's no sense in starting discussing step 2 on this forum. Also, it looks like GH has done a lot of research into previous revolutions and all the stuff written about them.
Again, you say he hasn't fleshed out his position on this but he has referred at many points to the authors he has researched, so that feels incorrect as well. I don't think you can reasonably expect GH to summarize thousands of pages about revolutions into three paragraphs to people who have little interest in them anyway.
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On July 26 2019 02:10 Fildun wrote: GH is mostly arguing the point of "why we need a revolution" at the moment and not the point of "how will a revolution work practically". GH has made numerous lengthy posts fleshing out his position on "why we need a revolution", so saying he's just throwing an idea out there with no support is simply not true.
At the same time, my interpretation of this is that as long as nobody is on board with "why we need a revolution", GH thinks there's no sense in starting discussing step 2 on this forum. Also, it looks like GH has done a lot of research into previous revolutions and all the stuff written about them.
Again, you say he hasn't fleshed out his position on this but he has referred at many points to the authors he has researched, so that feels incorrect as well. I don't think you can reasonably expect GH to summarize thousands of pages about revolutions into three paragraphs to people who have little interest in them anyway.
I'm afraid if I agree with this summary that DMCD is going to pop up and accuse me of simply adopting this position rather than somehow failing to articulate it in a way that effectively communicated it to those that don't think I've already made this argument.
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On July 26 2019 02:17 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2019 02:10 Fildun wrote: GH is mostly arguing the point of "why we need a revolution" at the moment and not the point of "how will a revolution work practically". GH has made numerous lengthy posts fleshing out his position on "why we need a revolution", so saying he's just throwing an idea out there with no support is simply not true.
At the same time, my interpretation of this is that as long as nobody is on board with "why we need a revolution", GH thinks there's no sense in starting discussing step 2 on this forum. Also, it looks like GH has done a lot of research into previous revolutions and all the stuff written about them.
Again, you say he hasn't fleshed out his position on this but he has referred at many points to the authors he has researched, so that feels incorrect as well. I don't think you can reasonably expect GH to summarize thousands of pages about revolutions into three paragraphs to people who have little interest in them anyway. I'm afraid if I agree with this summary that DMCD is going to pop up and accuse me of simply adopting this position rather than somehow failing to articulate it in a way that effectively communicated it to those that don't think I've already made this argument. And here is the victim play. Okay, I see what everyone is talking about more clearly now.
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wait isn’t it only a play if it isn’t true?
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If that's victim play I got a whole theatre to sell you.
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On July 26 2019 02:18 Jealous wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2019 02:17 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 26 2019 02:10 Fildun wrote: GH is mostly arguing the point of "why we need a revolution" at the moment and not the point of "how will a revolution work practically". GH has made numerous lengthy posts fleshing out his position on "why we need a revolution", so saying he's just throwing an idea out there with no support is simply not true.
At the same time, my interpretation of this is that as long as nobody is on board with "why we need a revolution", GH thinks there's no sense in starting discussing step 2 on this forum. Also, it looks like GH has done a lot of research into previous revolutions and all the stuff written about them.
Again, you say he hasn't fleshed out his position on this but he has referred at many points to the authors he has researched, so that feels incorrect as well. I don't think you can reasonably expect GH to summarize thousands of pages about revolutions into three paragraphs to people who have little interest in them anyway. I'm afraid if I agree with this summary that DMCD is going to pop up and accuse me of simply adopting this position rather than somehow failing to articulate it in a way that effectively communicated it to those that don't think I've already made this argument. And here is the victim play. Okay, I see what everyone is talking about more clearly now.
Not a "victim play" it's preemptively (post? depending on your perspective I guess) addressing dmcd's argument he literally made 2 pages ago.
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Norway28558 Posts
In my opinion the 'how' of the revolution is only really relevant once people accept the 'why' of the revolution. If people reject the why of the revolution then there's no real point in them attacking the lack of a how - they'd be opposed either way.
And it is a very common theme that the people most vocally decrying the lack of a how are people who think a revolution is not necessary to fix the problems threatening our societies. I am not attacking this position, I honestly don't know what I believe in this regard myself. But if you think incremental gradual improvement is sufficient to handle the biggest issues we face then that's where your disagreement with GH lies, not in 'how do we undertake the revolution'.
Going further, you might argue that whether you support the revolution hinges on its execution, because you might share the following two sentiments at the same time :that a revolution is probably necessary to achieve the rapid societal change required to handle climate change, and that most revolutions throughout history have caused such immediate societal damage that it is difficult to estimate at what point, if any, they ended up as a net positive (and perhaps even that this point very rarely happened to be 'during my life expectancy').
However, while on the face of things I feel that to be an entirely rational point of view to take, it ends up somewhat missing a crucial element: The socialist revolution is both for and by the people. If you agree with GH that there is a need for a revolution, you should not ask him 'tell me how to go about achieving this', you should go 'I agree with your fight, let us convince more people', because that is the central element: the agreement of a significant majority of the population that the situation is sufficiently dire for more drastic measures. (Historically in violent uprising, ideally through voting for a revolutionary candidate - however then GH feels confident that a revolutionary candidate winning a vote would be unlikely to actually get to rule (which again is an opinion with significant historical foundation. ) In a way it's not up to GH to explain how to undertake the revolution, once you agree on its necessity, it's up to you to discuss how to do it with GH.
(Arguing for incremental improvement rather than revolution is of course an entirely valid course of discussion, but it's a separate one from how do we undertake the revolution.)
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Gonna speak for GH again but it's something that I've already said and he has already said something similar.
The biggest thing we lose in the "How will your revolution work" is that I don't want it to be my revolution. I'm just some guy, I have some opinions and I'm moderately informed but I could do more research and I probably should. Please don't make me the leader of your revolution, I would suck at it.
If the revolution is planned according to what I think, that makes me the leader of the revolution, which I don't want. It's also more likely to fail and to suck, because it's an obvious point that the quality of the solutions I can come up with is worse than the quality of the solutions that we could come up with together once we agree that removing capitalism is a good thing and/or a necessary thing.
So this line of questioning is not only bad for me rhetorically, because then I'm playing defense for a specific thing instead of offense against a specific thing, but it's also bad for my political idea in itself, as it directly limits its scope in a way that I don't need to, nor want to.
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That's all well and good drone and neb. But stop answering for him. He is more than capable of doing it on his own, as he has shown. When you come to his rescue again and again, he doesn't feel the need to explaib himself as he knows someone will explain for him.
The onus is on him to articulate well enough his why and how. While I agree the why is important, (and people have agreed to a large part of it) the how is found wanting. Partly because he doesn't want his ideas rejected. And partly because he doesn't have a how. All we know is he is angry and wants stuff to change. Welcome to the fucking world.
How will you do it? What methods will be used? I tried but all I got out of my effort was that he wanted me to say he was being a good boy and pet his head. Never went further. Why? We agreed on one, attempted to move forward, but I didn't coddle him enough.
As with xD there is one poster who many have an issue with.
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sorry Zero I'd like Jimmi to be the only one making the arguments, I don't want you answering for him, he is capable of doing it on his own.
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You, nebuchad literally wrote "Gonna speak for GH again" and Zero is speaks purely for himself.
Everyone can make their own arguments. Just because you acknowledge that you happily make arguments on GH's behalf, does not mean anybody else makees arguments for anybody else's behalf, just because they are not speaking for GH. Zero does not appear to be claiming to or speak for me, and I do not speak nor claim to be speaking for JimmiC.
On July 26 2019 00:50 brian wrote: what the hell happened to P6 anyway? what a bummer that he has stopped posting with us. although i do admire his restraint in doing so, considering it seems he still visits the forums. i had tried to walk away from the politics thread a few times and clearly have failed. It's only been a month. I myself have wandered off from the thread a few fair times, for longer. Though no-one would miss me very much I would suspect.
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and similarly i can take issue with your characterization of his posts on my own behalf. thinking three posters continually harassing one for their own misunderstandings is my prerogative, as it routinely shits up the thread and we clearly disagree on why.
i do agree everyone can make their own arguments, and we have recently (not the ‘you and i’ sort of we) gone down the path of who gets to decide who posts what. i think we agreed that none of us have that power.
i would miss you on semi frequent occasion. i’d certainly at least ask about you in your absence
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Yeah, you can, but you cannot characterise Zero's post as answering for JimmiC. How exactly is he doing so? What purpose is there in doing so? I do admittedly mirror other poster's posts in parody, but when I do so, it makes sense to do so. In this case it does not. In Nebuchad's case he wrote that his first sentence of his post is "Gonna speak for GH again", and he does so. In Zero's case, he does not answer for JimmiC in any way, and there is nothing to answer for so, to claim so by Nebuchad is quite spurious.
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On July 26 2019 06:08 Dangermousecatdog wrote: You, nebuchad literally wrote "Gonna speak for GH again" and Zero is speaks purely for himself.
Everyone can make their own arguments. Just because you acknowledge that you happily make arguments on GH's behalf, does not mean anybody else makees arguments for anybody else's behalf, just because they are not speaking for GH. Zero does not appear to be claiming to or speak for me, and I do not speak nor claim to be speaking for JimmiC.
To complete the picture I'd probably have to also have Jimmi tell me five times what his problem is with GH's posting and then insist every time that the problem is that he can't tell me what his problem is with GH's posting, but that would probably be a little petty.
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On July 26 2019 06:18 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On July 26 2019 06:08 Dangermousecatdog wrote: You, nebuchad literally wrote "Gonna speak for GH again" and Zero is speaks purely for himself.
Everyone can make their own arguments. Just because you acknowledge that you happily make arguments on GH's behalf, does not mean anybody else makees arguments for anybody else's behalf, just because they are not speaking for GH. Zero does not appear to be claiming to or speak for me, and I do not speak nor claim to be speaking for JimmiC.
To complete the picture I'd probably have to also have Jimmi tell me five times what his problem is with GH's posting and then insist every time that the problem is that he can't tell me what his problem is with GH's posting, but that would probably be a little petty. ???
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