Tell me one good reason why I should read all these leftist books when I'm not interested in becoming a political activist at all but a tech worker. Explain me why should I waste my time reading about theory when I could be learning about skills relevant to my profession in that time.
Bonus points if you can reply to me without yelling at me :3
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It's all very interesting
Almost every one of those books makes the assumption that I know a bunch of marxist jargon already. If I knew a bunch of marxist jargon already, don't you think that at this point one should stop reading and just go and organize IRL, what's the use in reading even more when you don't intend to apply this knowledge?
Reading those books may change your perspective on work, politics, society or even the world itself. After reading you might reconsider or reaffirm t: Bordiga your original stance of non-activism.
Just read "wage labor and capital/value price and profit", and "Communism for kids". Together, it's like 200 pages and more than enough.
Theory that is mostly impenetrable is obscurantist and useless. You should know that.
I stand with op. I have nothing to gain from these boring ass tomes. That doesn't mean I can't be a socialist. I still very much am a socialist.
But I don't have time to be a activist and I don't see a mass movement, so it's pointless
Because it makes you smarter
Please don't. We don't want people like you in the intelligentsia
Based on what I've seen well-read people post on Holla Forums, it really doesn't. It gives you the ability to regurgitate other people's ideas, but not the ability to come up with your own or critically analyze the ideas you already have.
There is actual value in reading, but it's only going to make you more knowledgeable - not more intelligent.
What about reading because you enjoy it? You don't need to read those books.
It's about enjoying the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of.
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you should do whatever you want. reading is about personal growth and maturity.
if you don't enjoy reading, it can become an acquired taste too, you just need to force it a bit. Like beer.
you also shouldn't limit yourself to book selections, knowing how the enemy thinks can prove very useful.
There's a difference though. Between knowledge that broadens your perspective, and knowledge that also helps you make sense of (previously inaccessible) abstract concepts.
yea but this nigga be like "oh reading won't even make me more intelligent, might as well not read!"
shit m8
Reading (and understanding) all these leftist books may make you interested in becoming a political activist.
Surprisingly civil thread. Thanks for the replies. I still consider myself a socialist fellow traveller, just on the fence about reading part.
Valid point.
Ironically, this idea is itself regurgitation of other people's ideas. I've seen dozens of other people write exactly the same thing.
Theory gives you tools (weapons?) to better understand the world and act accordingly. Not just leftist, all philosophy should be read more like military manuals and less like academic textbooks.
If you are content with your place in the world, there's no reason to read. However, if you long for more or already said 'no' to the existent, they are useful aids in your struggle.
It's simple:
Knowledge is anti-capitalist.
If you find it hard to read books and don't have much time, buy yourself the ABC of communism by mikail bukharin, It's short, simple and it was a tool to get simple proles like you on our side.
thanks for the recommendation, if brainlet like me is gonna read at all, then will start with the babby's first socialism kind of books
Why would you want to live in ignorance? I read commie lit sure, but I also read the literature of other political inclinations, general philosophy, history, fiction, and other stuff that suits my fancy. I'm also an engineering student so that's hardly an excuse for not reading.
Reading a large variety of books is good as it gives you a broader perspective to work with. Reading commie literature is good because they are the only ones that truly challenge the cause of the horror show that is late stage capitalism. All you are doing is trying to find an excuse for remaining a fucking philistine.
Because it expands your horizon and understanding of the world. If you really were a techworker, you would be curious and would want to understand how the world functions, not learn a very narrow range of calculation techniques and heat coefficients like a fucking simpleton. Are you really so retarded that you need all of your time to learn a few new tech skills? Be a better person, learn all there is to learn, learn chemistry, programming, engineering, languages, philosophy, economy, drawing, painting, music.
Oh, forgot:
.t IT worker
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We need a gorilla flag
I just like reading fiction and watching movies and junk. Reading Dostoevsky right now. Technical/philosophical/theoretical stuff is so boring tbh. I much prefer to learn from experiences.
If I already think socialism is good isn't that enough to make me a leftist? Don't even know how you guys can read these tombs if you could be doing almost anything else instead.
You read theory because, as a socialist, you are interested in your movement and want to learn more about it. It shouldn't be like in high school where you HAD to read a book, it should be something do because you want to. But you don't have to, I guess.
Something like this?
The read a book flag is for brainlets, though.
No idea how this going to turn out
Its amusing to read books from people who have never held down a job in their lives but think they know about the workplace.
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You should only read them because you are interested in the contents, if you want to be a political activist or not is irrelevant. Nobody has to convince you to read, it should come from yourself, otherwise it is a waste of time.
is that a trabi?
brain is just like your muscles, if you do not practice it withers away. continue making memes, make your tumors grow even further, be my guest.
I thought it was just me who sleeps in a petri dish.
I hate to break it to you user, but all of your ideas are other people's ideas.
To be honest, I've learned a lot by just lurking here and indulging in my meme addiction and that's why I think Rafiq is misguided.
When you start browsing a board for the first time, you start to immerse in a particular culture, and gain knowledge from that, and it happened for me here.
For example, I discovered Haskell and Lisp by lurking on /g/ after acquiring basic programming skills, and while I'm still not a productive programmer at all, experimenting recursion, higher-order functions, type inference, etc, was quite interesting.
Of course, a meme understanding of anything is no substitute for a serious or even superficial study of a subject matter, and I believe you should still read short texts like "Wage Labour and Capital", blog posts or Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries, or shit like this during a Sunday afternoon or something. At least that is what I'm trying to do when I have free time and not totally binging on internet bullshit.
You need it to btfo normies
> not reading /prog/ despite interest in LISP
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real talk though
what language are we going to use after the revolution? C? scheme?
Stop wasting your time on internet BS. All this time deprives you of fullfillment and betterment.
not that guy but we shall use solidity to achieve cybernetic economics using a blockchain.
This post right here shows the huge difference between a technician and an intellectual.
Haskell.
Communism is classless and stateless.
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You can actually have 20x20, but the BO never adds flags.
See flag for proofs.
Slightly smaller one
That's 15x16, fam.
I support this flag
Huh, could have sworn I loaded it into paint once and the Y axis was 20. A shame too because if BO got their shit together and uploaded flags I made a nice KGB shield flag.
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It's a lada.
If you don't want to know how our capitalist world turns, that's you choice I suppose.
But don't think being a tech worker will save you from its ravages. Your head is just as much on the chopping block of (S/V)/(1+C/V) as anyone else's.
looks like a yugo to me
It's a lada…
Just remember it's about the abolition of the economic value and you should okay.
I want you guys to imagine that OP is wearing a small, v-neck hoodie style shirt with a design similar to that of a sweater vest. He has thick framed glasses and wears Velcro sandals or something brown and simple yet sophisticated. He wears thin khakis that vaguely resemble the texture of Polos and reaches, if not just to his ankles or above, then to the ground. He wears bleached socks with his sandals, and may even run in them at times when he feels a little energetic. He can play Hey There Delilah and maybe a few 80's hair band metal songs on acoustic guitar, maybe a few folk songs here and there on electric or keyboard.
OP never goes, or posts, anywhere without his Otter-cased iPhone, up-to-date with all the latest trending apps and has tethered his phone to his computer and Xbox but doesn't have enough close friends to even bother playing so he tries to be social by going out in public and getting involved in both the art and science communities, when he isn't trying to kick start his blog, online business, and/or website. He may even have the talent to make a small little indie video game here or there with some Wikihow tutorials teaching him step-by-step how to work every single little program there is - and that's a looooong stretch maybe. Knows how to put pictures into HTML.
OP pays for digital music and only the highest quality Streams, Patreons, and videos in both digital and DVD platforms, and tries his best to donate to artists on Bandcamp, of whose albums he's only heard one of and has immediately fallen in love with. In fact, one of his posts on JewTube has even made it to the highest Thumbs-Upped comment on one of those recommended album videos to some band you've never fucking heard of, except for all the others who are paid by those artists to comment and spread Pitchfork reviews for a band that makes music by remixing tiny little sounds the guy with ADHD was making with his shaking leg all night when they finally got a break from Starbucks tohang out and start recording their long awaited album.
That's what OP is. A fucking, beta, nu-male who blindly voted for Hillary when Bernie dropped out, is likely and only here to gather material for his blog, and probably still believes in the religion his parents made him grow up with, who saves silly and sexy pictures he finds from other chans but never anything too controversial because he loves to let other people play on his phone while he savors his black coffee and $5 slice of bread, and probably greases his hair when he goes out alone and all his friends are out getting wasted and having sex, then makes gay posts like this on Holla Forums just because he wants to saound witty and bait a bunch of faggots into thinking he's one of us and is capable of complex thought and theory but just can't find the time to read a fucking book and trying to promote the argument for digital books because he probably also listens to audiobooks because he broke his arms jacking himself off the one time he had any privacy at his house filled with immigrant adoptees.
You can parrot the lingo and some phrases and pretend to be educated and smart and impress liberals. The less anyone understands anything you say the more mysterious and deep you appear.
Also serves well as a distraction from lack of substance and logic. Just act smug when they question you.
Skip straight to advanced books. No one is impressed by basics. After a few pieces you can skip reading alltogether and just direct to titles and authors in the sticky list as replies and roll your eyes when people disagree with what you believe. No one actually has read Stirner.
well if you know computer science…
Did you come up with this right now, or is it old pasta?
Yeah, I know, and I should stop drinking everyday, stop smoking, get a job, find a gf, have a family, buy a house, and spare some money for my retirement and funeral too.
Do you any other hollow advice like this that I may have forgotten ?
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Finding a gf and becoming a wageslave is not the same as conciously choosing not to fall for the skinnerbox of modern media and freeing yourself to improve yourself for yourself, to find fullfillment.
But keep wasting your time watching youtube videos, watching tv, endlessly refreshing Holla Forums. Im sure the feeling of dread and emptiness will go away some day. Keep looking at people like Rachel and thinking "I wish I could draw" and then never doing anything about it. Keep saying to yourself "some day I will read this or that book and understand the world better". Keep telling yourself that you don't have any talents, that you are just naturally lazy, instead of facing the fact that the capitalist media purposefully keeps you docile and addicted to the heroin that is modern media.
Adding:
I mean honestly mate. Are you seriously going to voluntarily surrender the tiny bit of free time you have left in your life, the last tiny bit of agency you have, free from your masters, to voluntary consume propaganda and media designed to keep you sitting still, to keep you on their site, watching their show, rewarding you with fake points and a false sense of worth, so they can keep pushing even more capitalist advertisements down your throat? Are you really giving up this easily and just mindlessly consume the tools of keeping you complacent and inert? Are you just going to lie down like a little bitch and claim that
Can you not see that to reject capitalisms media, to cut out products perfectly tailored to sell you more shit and retain your attention and time, that rejecting that is the single best thing you can do? Can you not see that freeing yourself from this mind numbing psychological trickery is the first step to taking control of your life?