Is Zero Books /ourguy/

Holy shit why I am just hearing about this now?

Yes, and for making Holla Forumsreddit-tier arguments against communism.

Yes. Doug is an exceptionally Based man.

He killed himself

youtube.com/watch?v=VVhpKHeh-TM

He's ok. He and varn should have a real project and not just a podcast. Its not enough at this point

He was killed by depression :(

Are you implying that people who kill themselves don't die? What are you saying?

I mean, he runs a publishing house and writes sci-fi novels, I agree that I'd love to see them do some more serious projects and maybe tackle some theory, but between Zero Books as pretty much the best Leftist publishing house besides Verso, and their podcast, which definitely fills a niche for necessary and easily accessible Leftist media, I'd say they're doing their part. I do wish Zero Books was more popular on this board though, maybe it'd get more anons into theory and we'd have some more theoryposters.

Also Comrade Joe Roagan is turning in this podcast.

An hour an 17 mins in
youtube.com/watch?v=0yp7a7f3VGw

...

I think there is a sense on leftypol that the primary Marxist sources are most important to read, but maybe also that the average person on leftypol still hasn't read them anyways and feels inadequate for further theory until they finish the elementary texts.

This is probably most exemplified in Muke, who everybody makes fun of for not being as widely read as the ideal Marxist, but who also restricts his reading list on the basis that he doesn't feel equipped to read certain texts yet. He says he won't read Capital till he reads Hegel, and he won't read Hegel until he reads Kant (I think?).

Zero Books represents contemporary, uncertain ideas that haven't been vetted for historical importance yet if you catch my drift. People may be afraid they are wasting their time on drivel, and they further may be afraid they won't be smart enough to discern whether or not what they are reading is drivel (whereas some of the patron saints of the Marxist tradition have already been intellectually legitimized). Not to pick on him, but this is something that again I see in Muke among others who share their identity on the left, who will frequently ask whether or not some book or thinker is a waste of time. And this is usually for bigger names, less so people who have published one book through Zero and work relatively undistinguished positions at various universities. Some other examples of following backlash which may make people afraid is Chapo seeming to endorse Kill All Normies, which then got derided by a lot of people as trash and now people seem to be more wary of Nagle. Also, Discourse Collective podcast talking to the writer of Geohell, which is now also mostly made fun of and even some of them (who will mention it at all) seem to join in on the derision for a book they seemed to take seriously on their podcast.

Kill All Normies is great though, the only reason Holla Forums shits on it is because they're too close to the material and can't read it objectively. Aside from that I agree, but it's less of an issue with the format of Doug's podcast, which is great, and more to do with the fact that any young person tackling theory for the first time is going to come with a lot of baggage and insecurities, which is then compounded by anonymous imageboards because you have a bunch of idiots all hiveminding and circlejerking about their insecurities and frustration, hence why anytime an user tries to start a theory thread you'll always get derailed by a bunch of substanceless one sentence posts like "anyone who reads this is retarded" and "how does reading this help the revolution", and other insipid and anti-intellectual shit someone can say to avoid reading while still feeling intelligent. The solution, of course, is to come at these things with humility, to open yourself to the idea that you should read as widely as possible, even if it isn't canonized Leftist texts, and to become comfortable with the idea that knowledge is something you have to spend your entire life building up, not something you can be born with like a talent.

I should also point out that I like Muke's channel specifically because he's very transparent about what he has read and what he hasn't read, and it's fun to see his opinions change as he reads new things.

Name the best books they've published.

Capitalist realism is fucking awesome

that's fucking ridiculous

I like the things Zero Books publishes, but the podcast is terrible. The Jordan Peterson one was particularly bad, where he cedes half the argument by refusing to criticize Solzhenitsyn, a literal anti-semite fascist, to pull the "real socialism hasn't been tried yet" bullshit.

I liked The Entropy of Capitalism and Continuity and Rupture: Philosophy in the Maoist Terrain

right? marx is pretty fucking easy to read all things considered

youtube.com/watch?v=8cAxmIdfwFo
Since this thread is already up I'll just post the new Zero Books video here
Should We Be Sociopaths?