[mikema63]

Are there any on pofo?

I was curious because it seems like such an off the wall type ideology, and that's coming from someone with an off the wall ideology.

[Paradigm]

Probably the closest you'll find is Qatz, but he's basically just trolling. I have a little anarcho-primitivist book I've been meaning to read called Rewild or Die(I was too cheap and uninterested to buy a Derrick Jensen book). I definitely don't agree with their broader goals, but I find some of their critiques of civilization rather insightful. I do think that in some respects, we could benefit by living simpler lives. On the other hand, I think there is definitely a place for technology in alleviating toil and giving us more leisure time, while seeking to avoid the socially alienating effects that a high-tech society can tend to produce.

That's why rather than high technology or low technology, I prefer E.F. Schumacher's idea of appropriate technology, which recognizes the value of technology without taking the "bigger is better" approach that tends to be taken for granted in industrial capitalism. I'm rather interested in the interrelationship between society and technology, and how each shapes the other. I often think about the kinds of technology an anarchist society would produce, and by the same token, what kinds of technology would be conducive toward building an anarchist society.

[Daktoria]

On the other hand, I think there is definitely a place for technology in alleviating toil and giving us more leisure time, while seeking to avoid the socially alienating effects that a high-tech society can tend to produce.

Do you think this happens because people use technology they don't understand, or because people use technology just to be efficient?

I never really understood Marx's argument about use value compared to concrete labor. He doesn't seem to grasp that relationships require abstract knowledge.

[Paradigm]

Do you think this happens because people use technology they don't understand, or because people use technology just to be efficient?

To some extent I think it's kind of a secondary product of the alienating effects of capitalism. Capitalism first alienates the worker from their labor, and then sells us products that alienate us from each other. That people don't understand the full implications of the technology they use is kind of a given, no matter what the mode of production. But I think such technology tends to both reflect and reinforce the social relations that produce it.

[Daktoria]

To some extent I think it's kind of a secondary product of the alienating effects of capitalism. Capitalism first alienates the worker from their labor, and then sells us products that alienate us from each other.

I'm not really sure how commodity fetishism is possible when people think abstractly.

When people only feel concretely, they become obsessed with doing whatever it takes to remain empowered. This means a willingness to hypercompete in the labor market to retain wages.

When people think abstractly though, that means they're able to communicate and slow down, asking each other, "Why are we working harder than we need to have enjoyable experiences?"

That people don't understand the full implications of the technology they use is kind of a given, no matter what the mode of production. But I think such technology tends to both reflect and reinforce the social relations that produce it.

Do you really believe Marx believed in what he was saying about the social relations of production when it comes to inventing technology?:

A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst of architects from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.

[Paradigm]

Why do you keep bringing Marx into this? I never mentioned him.

[Sungazer]

'Appropriate Technology' sounds like a beautiful concept. Honestly. I do like it very much.

Well, I'm more primitivist than anarcho, but count me in. I don't particularily care how people organise their socieities politically, whether they can manage to go without rulership, restrict it to key issues, or need a strong hand to keep them in check. It depends on who, where and when, I suppose, and no single approach will be suited to all situations.

But primitive, oh boy yes, I'll have some of that please. Reduce the human population, cut the economy down to lokal autarky, scrap any technology that requires non-renewable resources and allow people to get back in tune with nature (while also making an effort to mantain local and global ecological stability). There's no need to revert back to swinging from the trees and picking lice out off each other's fur; but a certain minimalist approach to society (and economy) and a more spartanic culture will probably do humanity and the world good in the long run.

I'd ramble on some more, but g2g. Laters.

[Daktoria]

Why do you keep bringing Marx into this? I never mentioned him.

The concept of social alienation from commodity fetishism is quintessential Marxism.

Do you have an alternative source for those ideas?

[JGeiger]

I've been reading up on it and have become quite interested in setting up a more of a Libertarian-Primitive camp than anarcho-primitive. I don't feel that all of mankind should have to live like this but I would like to as an example.

[Someone5]

are their any on pofo?

i was curious because it seems like such an off the wall type ideology, and thats coming from someone with an off the wall ideology.

I'm rather firmly opposed to primitivism of any variety. There is no particular reason to deny technology or technological progress. Anything that expands potential solution sets for problems--or simply makes existing solutions easier to implement--is a good thing in my book. Denying those benefits seems crazy to me.

[SolarCross]

Live and let live. I think in an anarchistic society there is room for all sorts. The primies can go and take over the national parks and as long as they don't go around smashing up factories then they should left alone to do their own thing.

[Decky]

Live and let live. I think in an anarchistic society there is room for all sorts. The primies can go and take over the national parks and as long as they don't go around smashing up factories then they should left alone to do their own thing.

What about when their kids start dying through a lack of medicine (real medicine I mean before anyone jumps in with herbal crap). Surly those kids have the right to be bough up somewhere civilised?

[SolarCross]

What about when their kids start dying through a lack of medicine (real medicine I mean before anyone jumps in with herbal crap). Surly those kids have the right to be bough up somewhere civilised?

Oh well I suppose if you, with fantastic objectivity, believe you are more clever than them then you have the right to round them up at gun point and forcefully relocate them to a shanty town in between a landfill site and a petroleum refinery. Hey why stop there? just abduct their children too and put them in some ghastly battery farm style national care home complex, you know for their own good .

[mikema63]

Herbal medicine crap you say?

[Decky]

Oh well I suppose if you, with fantastic objectivity, believe you are more clever than them

Anarcho-primitavists?

God yes, who isn't?

then you have the right to round them up at gun point and forcefully relocate them to a shanty town in between a landfill site and a petroleum refinery. Hey why stop there? just abduct their children too and put them in some ghastly battery farm style national care home complex, you know for their own good
.

Good stuff, no one allowed to let their kids die of preventable illnesses to satisfy the bourgeois notion of family rights.

[SolarCross]

Preventable illnesses like obesity, asthma and diabetes? Yeah the greens are fresh out of solutions for them

[Decky]

Obesity is the only one out of those three that is totally environmental. Good try though. 1/3 is respectable.

The other need to be treated with medicine, not getting naked and dancing round a tree before smoking some ganja.

[SolarCross]

Obesity is the only one out of those three that is totally environmental. Good try though. 1/3 is respectable.

The other need to be treated with medicine, not getting naked and dancing round a tree before smoking some ganja.

Doctors don't know the cause of either asthma or diabetes but they do know they are aggravated by (if not caused by) - air pollution in the former case and artificially high sugar content in food in the latter. So I still claim 3/3.

What really disturbs me is that when I said..

then you have the right to round them up at gun point and forcefully relocate them to a shanty town in between a landfill site and a petroleum refinery. Hey why stop there? just abduct their children too and put them in some ghastly battery farm style national care home complex, you know for their own good

you didn't cry 'strawman, i never said that blah blah (insert other plausible denial)' you said 'good stuff'.. which to me means KlassWar was right about one thing - we do need to crack down on the statists - and I mean proper crackdown.. gulags, firing squads, the works, none of us will be safe until those psycho-freaks are purged.

[Decky]

KlassWar was right about one thing - we do need to crack down on the statists - and I mean proper crackdown.. gulags, firing squads, the works, none of us will be safe until those psycho-freaks are purged.

We are the same after all. As Trotsky said to you at Kronstat "give up or you will be shot like partridges."

[SolarCross]

Funny I thought he said 'give up and you will be shot like partridges'.. Anyway 21st anarchists won't make the same mistakes the Makhnovists and Catalonians made and trust the backstabbing Marxist pigs with our backs. Red or blue all statists are slavers and murderers. 'Do unto others as they will do to you' should be our policy for your lot.