[Beren]

But dare I cut off my mother's hair?

See, @QatzelOk? Haircuts are quite common today, people wouldn't even understand what he was talking about. You could only sell to them what they understand, but even if they understood it, would they buy it? Would they want to be indigenous peoples? Hard to believe they would.

[ckaihatsu]

See, @QatzelOk? Haircuts are quite common today, people wouldn't even understand what he was talking about. You could only sell to them what they understand, but even if they understood it, would they buy it? Would they want to be indigenous peoples? Hard to believe they would.

I have to agree with Beren here, Qatzel -- you're primarily being a cultural lifestylist here, rather than *political*.

[QatzelOk]

If I may, I'd like to suggest that what you're describing is actually *bourgeois*

The Soviets poisoned entire lakes and ecosystems with technological development.

The Soviets affected the independence and morality of their citizens in ways that hadn't in any way been predicted.

By trying too hard to be "Super-Marxist" you are trying to squeeze every modern argument into the same box, when it's obvious from recent history, that Marxism is in no way a protection against the suicidal behavior of modernism and the worshipping of technological power.

More is required. You will have to think outside of the box, and this includes the Marxist box.

See, @QatzelOk? Haircuts are quite common today, people wouldn't even understand what he was talking about.

Well, you certainly didn't understand his words.

What he was saying was that Europeans will exploit the shit out of anything they can get their hands on, in order to buy gold and diamonds. They will cut off their mother's hair while she's sleeping in order to sell it to a wig-maker to buy jewelery.

This is the reason that Hatuay brought diamonds and jewels to Cuba: to show the local Tiano "the REAL GOD" of these unholy genociders. It's why the Quebec Cree pretended to know a secret place full of gold: they knew they could distract Euros with stories of shiny metals in order to keep them around and "borrow their technology."

Look at yourself in the mirror. Your entire civilization is just robbing and pillaging for shiny objects. How ignorant.

Is this really the best way to go extinct?

[Beren]

Well, you certainly didn't understand his words.

Well, then who'd you expect to do so? Your own precious kind and that's it? Do you mean to convince yourself?

I understand that cutting your own mother's hair was supposed to be an utter disgrace in his culture while doing your mother a haircut is a show of love and kindness in ours, which would be the opposite with bestiality I guess.

[QatzelOk]

I understand that cutting your own mother's hair was supposed to be an utter disgrace in his culture while doing your mother a haircut is a show of love and kindness in ours, which would be the opposite with bestiality I guess.

Cutting off your mother's hair while she's sleeping, in order to sell it to buy treats, is worse behavior than any other animal.

Pretending not to understant this principle because you find beastiality funny, is European as a strategy?

I guess "idea-blocking technology" is necessary because of the life diminishing effects of previous technologies.

[Beren]

Cutting off your mother's hair while she's sleeping, in order to sell it to buy treats, is worse behavior than any other animal.

Pretending not to understant this principle because you find beastiality funny, is European as a strategy?

I guess "idea-blocking technology" is necessary because of the life diminishing effects of previous technologies.

Well, maybe you just shouldn't ask people to turn themselves inside out and become something they couldn't be while using some mysterious figurative language to convince them if you really mean them to avoid extinction.

[QatzelOk]

Well, maybe you just shouldn't ask people to turn themselves inside out and become something they couldn't be if you really mean them to avoid extinction.

We have already been turned inside-out by technological "solutions" to other technological "problems."

A rather unfunny example below:
...

PROBLEM: Universal Education brings Enlightenment values to the lower classes, making them arrogant.


SOLUTION: Chlorine Gas and trenches


Or course, the wise super-elite (the Jeffrey Epsteins and other brainiacs) are nowhere near the trenches while this is going on, most of them having moved to North America just a few years prior.

[Beren]

Sure, @QatzelOk, keep up the good work, although you wouldn't need to bring down civilisation to have your own farm.

[QatzelOk]

...you wouldn't need to bring down civilisation to have your own farm.

You are limited to "farming" as a traditional lifestyle, aren't you.

These kinds of limitations on human imaginations are the result of techno-worhipping.

The tech propaganda keeps the tech poison flowing.
It's like when the guy who hides a ball under one of his shells can't stop talking while he spins.
The distraction is a big part of how he wins because it makes it harder to see the shells moving.

[Beren]

You are limited to "farming" as a traditional lifestyle, aren't you.

No, I'd be a nomad rather than a farmer, but farming would be a realistic option to you. However, you're just too urban for that and don't have the knowledge and the means necessary to start farming anyway. It's easier for you to bike and express your views on the evils of civilisation on online forums in vain instead, isn't it? Good luck with your next tour to Cuba and strictly temporary disengagement from your Canadian French Western urban lifestyle in Montreal.

[QatzelOk]

No, I'd be a nomad rather than a farmer, but farming would be a realistic option to you. However, you're just too urban for that and don't have the knowledge and the means necessary to start farming anyway. It's easier for you to bike and express your views on the evils of civilisation on online forums in vain instead, isn't it? Good luck with your next tour to Cuba and strictly temporary disengagement from your Canadian French Western urban lifestyle in Montreal.

In all of your personal chit-chat, I think you may have forgotten to comment on the fact that most new technology is just a "cure" for a previous technological innovation.

Or was "argumentation technology" lost in your culture somewhere along the way?

[Beren]

In all of your personal chit-chat, I think you may have forgotten to comment on the fact that most new technology is just a "cure" for a previous technological innovation.

Or was "argumentation technology" lost in your culture somewhere along the way?

I simply meant to discuss your failed technology of convincing people besides trying to figure out whether what's behind it actually. I understand we're in a spiral of technology we should quit and return to whatever primitive lifestyle in order to survive and avoid extinction. That's what we've been hearing from you ad nauseam ever since, however, it just won't happen anyway.

[ckaihatsu]

The Soviets poisoned entire lakes and ecosystems with technological development.

The Soviets affected the independence and morality of their citizens in ways that hadn't in any way been predicted.

No argument. (By 'The Soviets' you mean the Stalinist bureaucratic *elites* of the USSR, correct?)

By trying too hard to be "Super-Marxist" you are trying to squeeze every modern argument into the same box, when it's obvious from recent history, that Marxism is in no way a protection against the suicidal behavior of modernism and the worshipping of technological power.

More is required. You will have to think outside of the box, and this includes the Marxist box.

I know that politically you're a hypocritical anti-technologist, so I'm adding that filter to what you say.

Yes, Marxism / socialism / communism would *depend* on technology, as in pushing through to a collective *full automation* so that ultimately, *no one* has to work because machinery would do everything *for* us.

This is *already* very much the case today, under capitalism, which is a *good* thing.

If you think that technology is so fatalistically *deleterious* to the human condition, then you're *biased*, because there have been *plenty* of technological developments under capitalism that have been *beneficial* for the average person. I'll reiterate that when it comes to *technology* your line throws out the baby with the bathwater -- you're *too dismissive*, and you're a hypocrite because you laud your own usage of the Internet, which happens to be *technology*.

Well, you certainly didn't understand his words.

What he was saying was that Europeans will exploit the shit out of anything they can get their hands on, in order to buy gold and diamonds. They will cut off their mother's hair while she's sleeping in order to sell it to a wig-maker to buy jewelery.

This is the reason that Hatuay brought diamonds and jewels to Cuba: to show the local Tiano "the REAL GOD" of these unholy genociders. It's why the Quebec Cree pretended to know a secret place full of gold: they knew they could distract Euros with stories of shiny metals in order to keep them around and "borrow their technology."

Look at yourself in the mirror. Your entire civilization is just robbing and pillaging for shiny objects. How ignorant.

Is this really the best way to go extinct?

You're talking specifically about the historical period of *colonialism*, which I *do not* defend. I already noted the European colonists' *genocide*, which I've previously *said* was inexcusable.

You're pointing to the 'primitive accumulation of capital' mode, which, I argue, *continues* in the mechanism / dynamic of capitalism *today*, mechanically, even though capitalism has *already* developed enough 'symbolic value', meaning gold / silver / currency / whatever.

So you're a real *mixed bag* Qatzel -- your critique of past-centuries Western European colonialism is valuable, but on all other issues you come up *short*, unfortunately, and your "line" on technology is hypocritical and lacking / dismissive.

[Beren]

More is required. You will have to think outside of the box, and this includes the Marxist box.

That's a good one, I haven't noticed that. Sure, we should get out of the Marxist box and jump into yours because we go extinct by definition if we don't.

However, the Marxist box has a great advantage to the Qatzian box, namely that people could be convinced to jump into it easier because it doesn't ask them the impossible or unimaginable at least. It's a Western box for Western people (which I know you consider a bad thing), which makes it a lot more realistic and practically useful box. Because the point right now is whether how people could be convinced to get out of the current box and get in another one in which they can make decisions for themselves at least, not that bestiality should be made accepted and normal or even desirable in your lifetime (in order to avoid extinction, of course).

[QatzelOk]

You're talking specifically about the historical period of *colonialism*, which I *do not* defend. I already noted the European colonists' *genocide*, which I've previously *said* was inexcusable.

I am talking about all the Abrahamic "traditions" that came out of Europe. All gold-worshipping amorals.

Your "hope" that future super-communists will have machine-made lattes in their hands seconds after they wake up, is a taste of that "gold" only "acquired through intrusive technologies" instead of via slavery.

Really, you and Christopher Columbus are a lot alike. He just saw the future of golds-and-diamonds via slavery, whereas you dream of it via gadgets. Many capitalists dream of a future of gadgets as well.

This is not communism. It's dreaming of machines - which is much sicker than beastiality.

[Beren]

As a matter of fact, and I'm repeating myself here, jumping into the Marxist box is a prerequisite for Qatzism, as Qatzism is also a kind of commune-ist idea itself, and there's no direct transition from capitalism to Qatzism.

[QatzelOk]

As a matter of fact, and I'm repeating myself here, jumping into the Marxist box is a prerequisite for Qatzism, as Qatzism is also a kind of commune-ist idea itself, and there's no direct transition from capitalism to Qatzism.

How could there be.

We have so many poisonous industries on the planet now, and many of them would be a whole lot more poisonous if they were just abandoned. Some of them might even trigger an apocalypse.

And we built our world one technology at a time up to where our survival is now: as fragile as a papier maché tiger in a hurricane during an earthquake in a crumbling high rise tower built on quicksand.

[ckaihatsu]

That's a good one, I haven't noticed that. Sure, we should get out of the Marxist box and jump into yours because we go extinct by definition if we don't.

However, the Marxist box has a great advantage to the Qatzian box, namely that people could be convinced to jump into it easier because it doesn't ask them the impossible or unimaginable at least. It's a Western box for Western people (which I know you consider a bad thing), which makes it a lot more realistic and practically useful box. Because the point right now is whether how people could be convinced to get out of the current box and get in another one in which they can make decisions for themselves at least, not that bestiality should be made accepted and normal or even desirable in your lifetime (in order to avoid extinction, of course).

To clarify, I would say that the Marxist approach is a 'Western box', for *all* people -- just because Marxism comes out of the Western Enlightenment tradition doesn't mean that it's *beholden* to any kind of conceivable traditionalism there. Marxism addresses the concerns of *humanity*, to *benefit* humanity by annihilating *private* material interests ('class'), once and for all.

I am talking about all the Abrahamic "traditions" that came out of Europe. All gold-worshipping amorals.

You're talking to the right guy, then -- I'm an atheist. 'Belief' is *bullshit*, and most likely indicates a ruling-class ideological justification for a privileged, hegemonic social position in today's society. Or it's the 'opiate of the masses', as Marx said.

Your "hope" that future super-communists

That *reminds* me -- we gotta get those costumes finished, with the capes and everything.... (grin)

will have machine-made lattes in their hands seconds after they wake up, is a taste of that "gold" only "acquired through intrusive technologies" instead of via slavery.

Well, your habitual moralism aside, this is just a critique of privileged, unthinking *consumerism*, which is a valid critique, especially within the context of capitalism's available excess, but I don't think it holds up in a *post-capitalism* context because that society would be *post-scarcity*, by definition. If I could spend 10 years taking balloon rides and flying supersonic jets without harming anyone or anything, no one could really say that I was doing a 'bad' thing. Oh, yeah, and lattes. (grin)

Really, you and Christopher Columbus are a lot alike.

We share the same first name, but that's about it, really.

He just saw the future of golds-and-diamonds via slavery, whereas you dream of it via gadgets. Many capitalists dream of a future of gadgets as well.

Really? You're going to compare *human slavery* to gadget-usage?

No, sorry, but your *stereotyping* doesn't fly here -- personally I'm not some gadget freak, and even if someone *was*, it's not your place to go around indicting people for their *lifestyles*, especially if they're not harmful to *others*.

You're all-too-willing to ditch the soapbox for the pulpit. You're as moralist and lifestylist as the European types that you rag on, over lifestyles.

This is not communism. It's dreaming of machines - which is much sicker than beastiality.

See -- you really don't understand the *point* of Marxist politics. It's about *lessening the load*. Wouldn't you rather have *machines* do the shitwork for society rather than forcing *slaves* or *wage slaves* to do those tasks? (And, in the end, it's *all* shitwork if people aren't able to live the kind of lives they *want* to live.)

[Beren]

To clarify, I would say that the Marxist approach is a 'Western box', for *all* people -- just because Marxism comes out of the Western Enlightenment tradition doesn't mean that it's *beholden* to any kind of conceivable traditionalism there. Marxism addresses the concerns of *humanity*, to *benefit* humanity by annihilating *private* material interests ('class'), once and for all.

However, Marx and Engels were Western guys agitating Western people and arguing that the West should go Communist first, whereas their ideas were misinterpreted and misused, or even abused, outside the West (for a reason).

[QatzelOk]

Really? You're going to compare *human slavery* to gadget-usage?

Yes I am, because one technology leads to another.

First, human slavery was a way for a small number of elite humans to become grape monkeys. But this lead to misery from the other cucumber monkeys.

So, it was agreed that it would be better to become grape monkeys via technology. That way, a critical mass of the current generation will eat grapes, while all future generations (who we don't have to deal with in the present) will be lucky to get rotten cucumbers.

It's perfectly rational to kill the future in this way, whatever your commitment to "equality in the present" is.

It's just the latest scam. The latest technology.