Hello

What happens if I choose not to participate in the economy? Do I get gulaged?

Isn't this a problem? How can you regulate human behavior without becoming authoritarian?

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Are you some kind of AnPrim?

How can you not participate in the economy?

like this

Homeless still participate in the economy to a very limited extent. That's what the cup is for, collecting money to participate in the economy so he doesn't die.

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Well, what happens in capitalism if you refuse to work? You starve.

So, in socialism, you refuse to work, you starve.

"He who does not work, neither shall he eat"

you get nothing

Not participating in the economy would mean you would starve since you wouldn't buy any food.
But that has nothing to do with socialism, it's the same under capitalism.

And who gets to determine whether what I do qualifies as work? How did he or she even obtain that position? What if I feel like waving my dick in traffic is entertaining and that I require compensation but my local commissar won't give me my ration? Do I have to get violent and start my own revolution?

UPHOLD THE MARXIST-NUDIST THOUGHT

Waving your dick in traffic might be entertaining but it is still not socially necessary labour. The idea of a professionalized class of entertainers and artists that is external to the rest is something socialism needs to do away with.

how do you determine what is necessary labor?

Well it's very simple. Do we need people to wave their dicks about? No, we could do just fine without ever encountering that. Do we need people to harvest food? Yes, otherwise we would starve to death.

If we're going to have a directly democratic society this is an absolute non-problem.

Fully agreed, brother.

That's not for you to determine. I can tell you that a world without music, literature, art, or any other form of entertainment would be absolutely horrible and thus those things are necessary for human existence. I would say internet access is necessary for communication, but some would disagree. I would say schooling is necessary to create functional human beings, but some would disagree. Would my cattle farm be considered unnecessary and therefore undeserving of compensation just because you could feed far more people with an equally laborious grain farm?

We could argue all day without accomplishing anything, which I guess is the heart of socialism.

how will socialism ever recover

this

Wtf I hate socialism now

Please remember that a change in western countries to socialism will be the result of mass automation and not this pointless board of pathetic revolutionaries.

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which is why it should be free of the profit motive strangling creativity and free expression
people are going to self-express through work and art more when strictly defined socially necessary labour is minimised and there is a marginal amount of forced labour compared to current capitalism
Agreement and compromise are literally impossible, which is why every society needs a Sovereign Autocrat who decides everything for us.

All variation of the entertainment form will be abolished under socialism, except for socrates style dialogues

Hello I'm Jake and I have been with this community for a while.. I recently came under a financial crisis that resulted in me losing my ability to work and now I'm in medical debt… I was wondering if anyone in the community can help me out..? I'm really desperate and well just need some advice/companionship. I do have my parents, they are big help. So in that aspect im greatful, but we are not wealthy by for means.. if you can help/donate in any way that be so appreciated and thank you so much god bless.

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On art, I agree. But here is the thing I was saying earlier, one thing socialism needs to do away with is the idea of a professionalized class of artists and entertainers. One of the goals of socialism is to minimize hours worked to what is only necessary, if we're only working a couple of hours a week anyway pursuing arts is not out of anyone's reach in their spare time. The influence on money on art is a BAD thing and I fully believe if you aren't willing to produce art for free it is not worth making anyway. On internet or school being unncessary, this is totally retarded. Anyone who thinks we could give up internet as a society must not realize that in the 21st century the internet is essential to our technological infrastructure, getting rid of it and going back to the 1980s would be even more work for everyone that continuing on the path we're on. Anyone who thinks we can do without education without society, well, absolutely imploding is simply retarded.

Well yes, that's because you're one of those people who comes on Holla Forums to say "oh what about this didn't think of that didja" regardless of how practical or desireable what you're arguing for actually is. You're only arguing for it to try and undermine socialism.

Like seriously, how likely would "Let's ban art, the internet and school" be to pass in a direct democracy. Would you vote for it? Would any significant amount of people?

Read Das Kapital, Marx gives some examples about what is this socially necessary labour, and how to determine what is it and what is ot

Thanks for reminding me that Anarcho-Transhumanists literally argue for a Borg collective

True but that's not what I was talking about.

So socialism isn't about utilizing our productive capacity to provide a basic level of subsistence (food, clothing, housing, etc) to free up our labor to be used in self fulfilling activity? It's just capitalism with red flags?

We have to come up with a fancy new word when you exchange your labor vouchers for means of consumption? Sounds like unnecessary formalism to me.
In every socialist country in the world, work hours have been massively reduced. However, you can't just make participation in the labor force voluntary. Nobody would work, society would collapse. You need to provide incentives.

Despite what daddy Stalin told you there has never been a country whose economy has reached socialism.
WEW

From my experience, when people have more time on their hands the only thing they do is drink, smoke, fight, and fuck. You seem to think that people would naturally spend their free time working hard, creating new technologies, and producing things to give away for free.

There ARE people who think this way and you have to share a society with them. The only thing you can do about them as a socialist is dump them in a forced labor camp for reeducation, assuming that your viewpoint has the majority otherwise you yourself will be in a camp.

My point was not to ban those things, but that those things aren't deemed necessary enough for compensation. No one is going to build power lines for internet if they aren't getting paid for it. However in response to your question, it depends on the context of "art, internet, and school". Is it unreasonable to ban a school that is teaching false information, or is indoctrinating people in a cult like environment? The majority of people would be okay with banning canvases of smeared shit and period blood even though it is artistic expression.

Did the law of value determine production in the USSR? Was there private property? Was there production for profit or market exchange? Sounds pretty socialist to me. Marx didn't even sketch out a socialist society proper before he died, for a good reason, as it is impossible to predict the material conditions and predicaments a socialist revolution would face.
Marx himself advocates for incentives as he propagates labor vouchers. It is fucking utopian to think that people would just work when they have no reason to. The majority of jobs is fucking shit. Have fun finding somebody cleaning pipes for free. What you are advocating is equality of outcome, which is a bizarre notion of socialism that conservatives have. Go try to build one of these hippie communes that got rid of work incentives, they have all failed, even on a minimal communal level.

Lots of people probably would spend all their free time doing that, and that's okay because as class-cucks love to remind us people are different. Some people live for the sesh, some people really enjoy producing art, some people enjoy working at technology. Especially with art it is something that is fun, it's something that even in capitalism lots of people do without compensation because they enjoy it.

In the case of science and engineering I would consider it socially necessary labour but art is a different matter, it is something that should not be professionalized and instead be accessible to everyone who is interested.

Or we could just vote, make a decision and ignore them since they're such an overwhelming minority that we don't even need to bother engaging with them.

But they are, schools and internet absolutely are. Some people may disagree but those people aren't very numerous.

That's not banning school, that's regulating education which we all already agree with.

Why would you need to regulate other's behavior?

Stopped

We're not talking about a weekend off you dipshit. If you think people can or would just spend their entire lives doing those things to the exclusion of anything else then you're even more stupid than the people you parody.

Read a fucking book.

Yes.
Labor vouchers aren't an incentive. It's a method of managing scarcity.
There are more reasons to utilize your labor than simply avoiding starvation.
No. I'm not. I'm advocating that a socialist society provide essential necessities to every member of society. We currently produce enough food to ensure everyone gets a meal so this isn't some utopian post-scarcity daydream.
You seem to have me confused with yourself. You've actually absorbed and accepted anti-communist rhetoric into your world view and adjusted your view of how communism will operate accordingly. It's quite bizarre.

Alright I think I understand where these viewpoints come from. The only real world experience you guys seem to have is the inside of university classrooms, which would also explain why there is no consideration for practical application.

I'm a high-school dropout who went straight into the labourforce. I've never seen the inside of a university.

Not to mention that's not the argument anyway.

where the fuck do you think culture came from, how culture and science existed before capitalism?

What tha fuck?

Probably a bot, bitcoin reached an all time high recently.

The culture fairy, obvs

This is what I've gotten out of this thread.

Hunter gatherer societies spent all their time looking for food. All agricultural societies were built on forced labor or straight up slavery. After the bronze age collapse it took 400+ years for people to even pick up writing again.

Why do you think human progress has exponentially exploded in the past few centuries? Maybe it is because of the new idea that people own what they produce? Maybe?

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The feodal peasants owned what they produced, user. Often they had to either pay rent or work the lord's fields for an allotted time but they directly owned their produce.
What are you even trying to say with this? That culture didn't exist before capitalism? That capitalism is somehow a necessity for culture or science, or at least the best possible option even theoretically?
You should note that we aren't advocating for a return to feodalism: capitalism is superior to feudalism and has caused a massive increase in production and so on. It has merely run its course and should be superceded.

Do you own what you produce, user? Or do you perhaps get a wage by selling your labour? Do you understand that there is a difference between the two things? Do you know what (generalised) commodity production means?

get the fuck out retard

Nope. Some freemen did, where they basically paid rent to their lord but most were legally bonded to tend their lord's fields in exchange for a portion of their lord's harvest.

Your original post and picture seem to say that before capitalism everyone just sat around making music and art for fun while magically having enough resources to sustain themselves which is fucking ridiculous. The reality is the nearly all of human civilization is built upon forced labor which is why it took so long for culture and technology to develop. Compare that to a modern day capitalistic society where progress is lightning fast.

The gulag based economy you are advocating is on par with feudalism and human progress would slow to a crawl as a result. That is assuming your system even works at all which it clearly doesn't as we can see from the dozens of failed communist states in the 20th century.

Yes I do. If I write a program in my spare time it is legally mine to sell.

Hey I have a question not necessarily for the borg.

If art is "deprofessionalized" how do books get published? Who decides what movies get shown? Or who gets the budget to make them? Is there anyway that someone can dedicate all their time to art and not have to work? Like maybe if they've proven themselves somehow? I just don't want that really good book to be sitting out there underneath a pile of fantasy novels in some no name province because there's no mass publishing network to get lucky with.

Hmm maybe I should make a thread about this.

The state propaganda committee will decide what books you read and what movies you watch.

Where did it work mainly like that? In northern Europe people generally owned their smallholdings.

Maybe it is fucking ridiculous because it is a giant strawman you constructed so it would look ridiculous. The point made was that people do and will spend time on arts and sciences out of their free volition, not just if forced by profit motive. Self-application and self-actualisation are very strong motivators in humans.
youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

There are non-stalinist strains of socialism, and gulags weren't a feature of even the Soviet Union outside of the stalinist period. I think you are being either intentionally insufferable or just plain ignorant but I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here.

Quite. This would make you a petit-bourgeois. You still have to limit your creative and industrious output to the profit motive. Can't make that which is useful or beautiful if it doesn't sell for whatever reason.

Digitised art is infinitely replicable and trivial to spread. For larger projects, well, one of the reasons I lean marketsoc is that things that are subjective in nature such as the arts would be easier to regulate and prioritise using some market- or pseudo-market mechanisms.

I know you're shitposting but that's about as good as it is now. I'm hoping for something a little better.

Well now that we have the internet this is really a non-problem.
I assume the workers of movie theatres. Though again we have internet so that's not really a problem either.
I don't think full time. But I think it would be realistic if you could make it known that you wouldn't be available for socially necessary labour at a given time because you're doing something related to your art. Like if you're shooting a movie somewhere else, or if you play music and you're touring.

This is a more complicated question. In the USSR the government would fund movies so I suppose that's something but I suppose here is where being proven would be important. Like obviously the government couldn't fund every movie anyone wanted to make, so maybe it would be a matter of already having a portfolio of independent films to prove you're serious and know what you're doing.

Every single one
You have share in the ownership of cinema so you'll get to pick alongside others.

AFAIK Scandinavia never had true serfdom. Feudalism there was somewhat different to most of Europe.

that is actually true now that I think of it, low population density meant that the cost of labour stayed high and as such even farmers stayed relatively free.

Redpill me on marksoc.

And digital is just a little better than it sitting in a pile in some province somewhere. Self-published books on the internet, and I feel like a jerk saying this, are mostly just noise, complete garbage. More people having the means to create art, which we do have now to some extent thanks to modern technology, will just make the good stuff harder to find.

I mean it's great that more people would have time to creatively express themselves but the sad fact is that even in a group of people creating art only like 1/100 actually has any real talent or anything worth saying and those people should be promoted I feel like.

See I knew you guys would bring up digitised art so I should have addressed that in my original post maybe. Refer to the above response on that though.

And I know that me personally enjoying physical copies of books and music is probably just a waste of resources but I guess I'll ask anyways if that should be possible.

I'm aware of how movie making worked in the USSR. And I think it actually worked better over there than the west in some ways. As long as you could prove yourself with short films or participate in some kind of young film makers program that would work I guess.

And come on man. The nationally beloved genius artist in his 50s who spends all day creating doesn't have to bother shoveling shit for a few hours.

Socialism, as a radical departure from the current state of things, I think would inherently mean moving beyond some of the things we have now (even if we might enjoy them) for more efficient alternatives. And I think physical media would be one of those things, as much as some people like having physical collections of books or records or such I don't think they're an industry that's really justifiable in a socialist system. We already have the technology to replicate and share infinite amounts of art for free, physical mediums are just a waste when you have that. It would be like keeping cars around even if we had flawless and universally available teleportation.

I realize that right now self-published books are almost universally terrible but this is because actually good authors and poets tend to get scooped up by publishing companies so have no reason to stick to self-publishing when the alternative is vastly more economically lucrative. I don't think this is really true for music however, I think there's a thriving community of self-produced musicians on the internet that make great content for basically nothing. Of course it can be hard to find but once again I think this is down to it being a radical departure from traditional forms of publishing. It's a matter of things being different that takes some getting used to, finding quality art online is very much a matter of word of mouth and algorithms. After a while it's much like online news-broadcasting, eventually you construct your own insulted little bubble where anything you find is more likely than not going to be something you enjoy. Even though it is top-porky this is something I think youtube has down to a T.

Really in socialism I don't think anyone should have to work over the age of 50 but let's just pretend he's not in his 50s, he's in his 40s. Why doesn't he? As universally acclaimed as his art is he's still just a normal guy in society like you or me. We all have to work together to keep the lights on and ensure that this society we have where everyone has the time to pursue their own interests and can become great artists like that stays together.

For a starter, read Cockshott's Towards A New Socialism, it's about planned economies but utilises some market mechanisms. I'm not well-read on theory to really formulate a system yet, but the basis of my reasoning is that if socialist and capitalist states or statelike entities are to coexist, the capitalist states are likely to hold some resource the socialist states cannot produce, say a rare earth, or simply that some thing is way easier to produce in a certain location for example. Thus one would have to have something to trade the capitalists with, and commodity production would have to go on.
Also there are qualitative and quantitative goods/produces, and the more quantitative something is the easier it is to generalise for everyone. For example, electricity simply is, there is no good/bad electricity. Arts on the other hand seem to be quite subjective and matters of personal taste. More subjective goods would be under market mechanisms while objective goods would be planned. For mixed cases such as clothes, there would be a guaranteed quota of basic, general product as well as support and incentives for either asking someone to make or design personal clothes or even better, have people make or customise their own clothes, should people want to maximise their self-expression.

More space for separate and disparate tastes to form. Do you think people wouldn't talk about the arts they find interesting or worthy to oneother and on a societal level? Reviews and the like would hardly simply disappear.

Maybe some kind of an online marketplace where people put their arts for people to enjoy, and should enough people wish to subsidise someone's art they could do it full-time. Or rather, make the time they spend making art into socially necessary. I'm not sure if this is good, however, as it might lead to a new round of commodification.

Probably. Most leftists are so caught up in ideology that they don't realize how much they needlessly fetishize workers and capital. Communism ought to be an actually new mode of production free from capitalism's problems (i.e. ecological destruction and the hell of the factory), not just proletarian management of existing infrastructure. Read Camatte.

How do you think things already work?

If you don't contribute to the economy you don't withdraw from the economy.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"

The only people who do not participate in the economy are isolated tribes in the Amazonas, and they should be allowed to continue just as before.

kek

nothing follow your design

Not sure if I should bother responding three hours later…

While your answers are reasonable they're also about what I expected. I don't know, it's hard to imagine a society where people can get by on 2-10 hours of labor a week. So maybe it really will be completely reasonable to expect anybody, no matter how talented and accomplished and beloved, to keep on working and never accept their creative work as socially necessary in itself. (who could even decide that?)
I'm still not really satisfied though. I feel like there at least needs to be some kind of institute where you can go and concentrate 100% of your time on the arts, philosophy, science, research whatever. But there still needs to be some kind of hierarchy in place. Like maybe the primary schooling that everyone participates in will have a way to gauge who would be a proper fit. This hierarchy would serve to justify someone being allowed to dedicate all their time to a creative pursuit I feel.
There could also be a duel power of academic critics and regular peoples opinions on the arts helping to decide what rises above the noise in the end.

In the case of philosophy, science and research that's basically what university is. Even if for-profit art would be done away with I don't imagine universities would be.

I think when you're grooming people from childhood for leadership in a certain industry and creating a professionalized elite of that field from those children in later life you're moving away from socialism and more into technocracy territory.

If it's such a big deal maybe it would be a better idea to have syndicates of artists which have a number of positions not unlike tenure where they can democratically vote on how they feel are the best for them. So if all the other directors for instance feel that some specific director is particularly influential, or innovative, or accomplished they could divide the labour time normally committed by those directors between themselves and let them work on their art full time.

I had a similar thought about movie theatres, art galleries and the like. Maybe everyone with an interest in those things could sign on to work there some of the time and get a vote on what they would show.

Well as long as you can still take voluntary classes or participate in programs later in life and study on your own so that there can still later be a way to change your position in society or what your focus is then I really don't have a problem with a schooling system, while not really being competitive, at least having some kind a scientifically backed way of figuring out what people are best fit for. I'm thinking about this in terms of people's personalities and what will make them feel most satisfied with their lives as well as what their natural ability and progression through education will lend them towards.

I also want to emphasise that their should be a place, if there are still higher level students who participate only in learning and research, for art as well. I've heard varying stories of art schools being just as bad as they look in Clowes' Art School Confidential as well as art schools where it was the complete opposite case. I recall David Lynch telling a story about experiencing both cases. The latter of which he attributed a lot of personal growth too.
And of course I'm not saying such institutes should be the only avenues either.

I like the general idea of this but my god I can't even imagine how you could organize such a thing. "Oh yes come join we all collect our work order tokens and take volunteers to take care of certain peoples work obligation so they can concentrate on their art that we all respect and enjoy" my god I can't imagine it not being a bureaucratic nightmare. You'd need some kind of computer network that connects everyone involved keeps track of theur quotas as well as advanced ai and administrators that can make sure they are not just abusing the system in some way. I think I'm getting dizzy thinking about it.

Ehhh I've heard that said before…idk man. I don't think I want cultural artifacts being handled by random people who just happen to be interested. You need really special care with some of these things I think. Should work out fine for newer stuff though.
Of course I guess some socialists would want to burn away all classical culture maybe? That would be sad.

Having some kind of tracked schooling system where a personality test determines your course of study sounds absolutely horrid.

Tru, even though you're predisposed to be good at something doesn't mean you'll like doing it. Still it'd be nice to have a society that pushes people into areas that they'll excel in.

As long as it's still open to personal preference then I don't see why it's so bad. Also everyone will have the same educatuon up to a point. Everyone should have a basis in math/history/philosophy etc.

we should also do this with relationships but that's a different conversation.

The labour itself would also be very different in socialism, much more self-coordinated and generally less soul-destroying.

The society, through either democratic descision making or a pseudo-market mechanism for example.

This sort of thing very easliy leads to stultification, hegemonism and stagnation. But perhaps there is a way to maintain dynamism as well as a regulating body.

oh my god how can we ever create a computer network that connects multiple people for real time communication

people tracking their abstract resource token currency via electronics in real time how futuristic

Well at that point I think we need to consider what a socialist society's actual goals and values are. In my mind it's more freedom and equality for everyone. I think grooming people for careers from childhood and trying to "scientifically" allocate positions and even form hierarchies is totally contrary to this. People should just be left to figure out their own lives as they're going to be better equipped to do it than any education network. Your livelihood is something personal and intimate that really no one else can decide for you, and grooming people during their formative years is ultimately obstructing their pursuit of this.

Well that's basically what I'm suggesting with the syndicates thing since obviously art professors and accomplished artists are different things. But I'll address your point on that now.

Really I think it's massively less bureaucratic than the present day publishing and production industry is. Really you just need a closed website for people in the syndicate, then the first thing to be voted on is how many hours per week they're willing to give up. Then from that a very simple formula could calculate how many positions of full time artists are available based on that vote compared to the present membership. Then it's a matter of just submitting your preferred candidate with the positions being allocated first to the most popular, then the second most popular and so forth according to how many available positions have been calculated to be available.

Cybersecurity would obviously be the biggest problem but that's something I think could be handled by one government institution that would already need to exist anyway for the maintenance of a cybernetic socialist system.

I don't mean literally handling ancient artifacts, I meant more like mopping floors, cleaning toilets and handing out popcorn. Though obviously more specialized work is required maybe it would be a good idea to integrate museums, galleries and so forth into universities so that actual archaeologists and art historians could make sure everything is running as it should.

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did you even read his post? It's the commune that determines

Hey bro I wasn't talking to a marksuc with that second post. Obviously the entire conversation is different if we have currency and market forces.

I'm pretty aware of all the downfalls if it was completely soulless and purely buaracratic. I think education should be encouraging freedom and exploration. I just also think that it could be benificial if it encouraged people to lean towards their strengths and talents rather than being completely hands off. I mean if someone would make a really great engineer but just wants to shovel shit and read comic books all day then it's probably societies fault for not motivating them enough.

Yeah I can't imagine this either. That makes me pretty sad.

But what if no one wants to shovel shit? I'm not shitposting I swear

I guess that's objectively true but it still sounds pretty complicated. I have no idea how you can keep track of all the labor each person is obligated to so and still make sure it gets done even if that person doesn't do it. I'm probably just misunderstanding something here though.
I'm not sure I like the idea of everything being democratic at every level. What if people just form cliques and only vote for their friends or they only vote for people who are good at selling themselves to everyone and not the actual merits of the work itself? There needs to be some kind of quality control I think. Even if it works in tandem with the democratic aspect.

Well then we totally agree on that point.

Yeah why not? Again I just mean as a general guideline. You obviously shouldn't be forced into a house with someone you hate.

Unskilled, tedious, and possibly gross work like this is something I think should be rotationally assigned to everyone as a form of community service rather than a full time career. Not unlike jury duty. I feel the same way about law-enforcement in a socialist society, not because no one would want to do it but because I think it would be good for having a healthy, transparent and functioning justice system.

Well once again it's cybernetic, we all already would be working the same socially-necessary labour hours every week and we'd clock in and clock out at the computer. In the case of things like artist syndicates the system would be fed this information and so update your hours to reflect the syndicate decision on your extra time. We already had a system somewhat like this at my last job where the computers would snitch to your manager if you weren't in on time, or logged out too early, or were taking longer or extra breaks.

I think in any kind of democracy this is a necessary evil that we're going to have to live with, all we can really do is be conscious of it and try to resist it in our own decisions. But in the case of cliques I think it would very unfeasible for someone to have such a large network of friends since I imagine the syndicates would be nationwide or regional so they would include very many thousands of people. Maybe even over a million in some parts of the world, actually given that we're expecting socialism to make the arts more accessible to people possibly even millions of people. I'm pretty sure voting for your friends would just be a total waste of a vote.

I think having some form of quality control would be a potentially bigger problem than charismatic artists being favoured over accomplished artists. As that would just create new vulnerabilities to potential favouritism or even corruption as a significantly smaller group of people have a disproportionately large say compared to the regular electorate.

Well for much the same reasons I was saying people should decide their own livelihood. Your significant other is another deeply personal and intimate matter that you yourself can only really decide. As much as I dislike being single I find the idea of being assigned a partner by an algorithm really unnerving.

Maybe as an optional service but I'm really creeped out by the concept of the government applying this to everyone.

That actually makes sense. Were you serious about two hour work weeks though? Or did you mean a day? I'm not sure if you can call somethign you only do for 2-10 hours a week a career.

I really like this idea. I'm also reservedly ok with mandatory military service though (with the argument that it would reduce war in a democratic country (though Israel makes me question this logic)).

Do you mean we'd have chips in our body or something? You're a weird kind of anarchist.
Yeah then I understand it I guess. Pretty neat. Not sure who's inventing all this advanced bureaucratic scifi tech though.

Eh you have a point. I just realized I was arguing for something not unlike the electoral college in american politics which makes me feel kind of dirty now. And I surely don't want a government force deciding what is "ok art" and what is "not ok art". So I'm probably just used to the idea of their being some kind of middle ground.
I guess I don't really care then. If all culture becomes youtube videos I'll be happy as long as theirs older stuff freely available.

Yeah it would definitely be something you opt into. Of course then you'd only get assigned with the kind of person who would sign up for such a service/program. But if it ends up having really great results then naturally you'd have more single people wanting to join in. Of course this will be for monogamous relationships. Polys can fuck off and make their own I think.

See I'm speaking from my own experiences on this. I was single and miserable for a long time. I also had a few relationships that were almost equally as miserable.
But when I met my bf we had such an immediate connection it almost felt like destiny, like we were made for each other, like our personalities and preferences just happened to complement each other really well. Yet we ended up talking completely by chance and were on opposite sides of the country. I just happened to have a nest egg saved up that could move him over to me Before this I just thought relationships were supposed to be kind of shitty.
So I don't know. Maybe a nation wide match making service could have gotten us together earlier. Maybe it really is about matching the right people together and letting sparks fly. Maybe your aversion is just spooks.
Maybe we were only ready for each other specifically because we had already had years of being miserable so that we knew exactly what we wanted so I'm completely full of shit. I just feel sorry for all the lonely anons really. The idea that there really is someone perfect out there for you and you'll never meet them is really sad I think.

Did I say that?

I think in a socialist society the actual standing army should actually very small and limited to skilled fields of expertise while every able bodied person between the ages of 16 and 50 is armed and trained to act as the actual infantry in the event of invasion or for whatever reason a different kind of war. In the case of non-defensive wars it would also make sense for these people do directly vote on whether we go to war or not since they're the ones who are going to be fighting and dying in it, with the ones that voted yes having a priority for being deployed.

I'm not an anarchist. We just don't have a regular transhumanist flag. And while I do think we should eventually have cybernetic augmentations that's not what I meant, I meant economic management cybernetics. Like CyberSyn or Cockshott.

Well that's okay then I guess, kind of like a really advanced futuristic dating site.

You're not wrong.

You participate in the economy by merely existing.
You are a consumer, this makes you a participant. You consume food, you also pay for electricity and the internet.

Good luck with that, I doubt contemporary people have the ability to read and understand multiple coherent sentences in succession.

Can only get better from what we have today. People unironically think, Zack Snyder is a genius.

I can't remember it's been hours dude. How many hours should people work? 40 feels like too much.

Yeah we're on the same page here. Wouldn't a non-hierarchical society get completely stomped by a strict hierarchical one in the the realm of war though? I base this on nothing but my own retardation but it sure sounds like it makes sense.

Oh yeah I remember we had a huge thread on this that i never clicked on. That's two anons telling me to read Cockshott. I guess I'll read Cockshott next time I see the pdf floating around.

Yeah. Not sure what sexuality and relationships would be like far into socialism though so I'm really just thinking about how to solve the lonely user problem from now's perspective.

They better have good taste in music at least.

use the technocrat flag fam

Democracy is the most terminal form of cancer tbh

Wha. I was just asking his general opinion.

I know, but the idea that someone is going to decide for me how many hours I am allowed to work is such an affront to my humanity, I'm shocked Marxism hasn't fizzled yet

20 is very realistic with a four hour workday and a four day work week. Maybe even less given how long it's been since work hours were reduced despite how insanely high productivity has gotten.

I do think we should have a hierarchical army with a proper chain of command, commanders would be one of those skilled professions I was talking about. But otherwise I think the advantage of hierarchical armies over more horizontally organized ones is greatly exaggerated though, I mean the Kurds have done pretty great against ISIS.

I think the kind of socialist army I'm describing which potentially includes every able bodied person as well as a socialist meritocratic selection of officers would absolutely crush modern armies. From what I've heard officer selection is classist as fuck and rife with dynastic politics and really not that many people are in the armed forces. Following the French revolution France was able to solo every other country in Europe at once thanks to their meritocratic commanders and new policy of conscription while the rest of Europe was still using lords as commanders and had relatively small armies.

But I'm not a technocrat either. Technocracy is rule by the skilled rather than a socialist system supplemented by advanced technology.

Yeah, how horrible. Thank god we have don't have that in capitalism. Yup, my boss lets me pick my own hours.

…yes. which is why i hate capitalism and, likewise, consider it to be an affront to people's humanity

Okay, so what's your suggestion for a system that isn't capitalist, Marxist or democratic where you get to pick your own work hours?

Tankies have a real fucking stick up their ass about the definition of work that would leave a lot of artists and writers and journalists with nowhere to go but end their career.

Yeah you probably said 20. I guess I could work 20 hours. As long as it's socially necessary.

I think that's probably true. How would Kurds last if america decided they were enemy number one though?

It really is infuriating how just a simple idea like meritocracy is absolutely impossible in capitalist societies. There's such a fucking imbalance with how many people are successful because of actual hardwork/skill and how many people are successful because of daddy. I could never be a technocrat though even though I probably sound like I want that.

They would get absolutely destroyed. But that has less to do with their mode of organization and more to do with the fact that that the USA has infinitely more soldiers and advanced weapons than they do. I mean if the USA decided they really, really wanted to conquer somewhere by any means necessary there's very few armies that could resist them hierarchical or not.

Though as said I don't believe horizontal armies are a goal worth pursuing.

I used to be a MarkSucc and tbh the reason I stopped was because capital accumulation in any form is going to eventually erode meritocracy to nothing. It's the same with capitalism, no matter how meritocratic your system starts off if people are allowed to accumulate wealth it's an inevitability that it will concentrate at the top and create a new aristocracy. What we're seeing right now is the product of meritocratic ideas + 200 years of capital accumulation. Having an entrenched elite will eventually poison every field.

For similar reasons I have massive misgivings about a socialist society tolerating families but that's another matter.

Anarchism.

...

Who knows though. If the draft came back maybe that would be the one thing to wake up americans.
Though my grandmas always told me that our right wing destroyed education because having an actually educated electorate is what resulted in the massive resentment over Vietnam, a war that no one with a brain could really see a reason to be involved in. So idk. Just kill me I guess.

That was pretty much what I always assumed the big problem with marcsucs was. I think the yugo poster had a point that it might incentivize cap countries from wrecking you maybe. Again though I'm american. I'd take left-anything at this point.

Do you just mean traditional families vs extended families?

Democracy is just majoritarianism and majoritarianism requires physical coercion for uniform compliance of the minority. In what way is 55% of people forcing 45% of people to do something against their will an anarchist principle?

It wouldn't surprise me if the US's insane pay barrier to quality education and healthcare was a recruiting tool for the military. I mean if you're too poor for either but the military will give you both for free as long as you agree to kill brown people why wouldn't you?

Really though America is fucked and the sooner they start putting their right to bare arms to good use the better.

It would but you could also completely avoid getting wrecked by imperialists if you never went for anything-socialism. It's not really a good reason to subscribe to a less-sustainable system for that reason.

Do you just mean traditional families vs extended families?
No I mean any kind of family. Ideally I would have babies taken from their parents at birth and raised communally by the government without ever knowing who their real parents are. Of course you could never implement that in any kind of free and democratic society and it opens up new problems about indoctrination and childhood emotional development so families are probably just a necessary evil we're going to have to accept.

Right, how is this anarchism that's neither democratic no capitalist going to work?

...

Yeah, what is post-left anarchy?

Looking it up rn and it sounds like utopian bullshit.

It certainly is. Military is always an option for anyone poor and alienated.
I was mainly talking about how the right wing has raped the hell out of public education though. Religion plays a BIG part in this in america. And our "left" just smiles and lets it all happen.
Oh and obviously anybody with money can send their kids to a nice private school away from all the horrible minorities.

I wish. We're the final boss a capitalism. Every capitalist trick to keep the working class from gaining class consciousness was mastered here I swear. The same people who would normally be developing any kind of class frustrations are the same people who believe Obama is a communist terrorist spy. (this is not an exaggeration, people here really believe that)

Well I meant as something transitional. I mean america is gonna come stomp you no matter what eventually anyways.

Holy shit I'm sorry I asked lmao

It's largely a rejection of Social Ecology and the authoritarian tendencies of leftism. It's a pivot away from "the good of the whole" to the "good of the individual" and a shift towards work as something done for subsistence and pleasure, rather than propping up a larger socio-poltical distribution organization. It rubs dangerously up against anarcho-primitivism, i will grant that.
All anarchy is, but post-left anarchy is the most desirable utopian fantasy

Isn't the lack of "class consciousness" in America due to the continuous and broad nature of American SES? It seems incredibly difficult to tell someone living a very comfortable and enjoyable upper-middle class life that they need to risk their life for revolutionary change that makes sure everyone is equal. You don't need tricks for that, people naturally don't want change if they're comfortable.

wtf? How do they spin that one?

iktf
Here in the UK we have tabloid newspapers that are something like what I understand talk radio is in the USA. And the pure bullshit they come out with a shocking amount of people believe in is insane. It's not near USA tier but capitalism has gotten very good at turning proles against their own interests.

Maybe but I think capital accumulation should probably be one of your first priorities as things to do away with as a fledgling socialist society. If you let it happen before long you're going to have a class of kulaks that are going to be a constant thorn in the side of any moves towards more comprehensive socialism. It's better than nothing though but I feel like it would be putting the gains of a revolution at stake.

Don't bully, I realize it sounds nuts which is why I don't suggest it as a serious policy.

I don't think there's as many comfortable upper-middle class as you think in america. And generally they're walled off in their own communities going to their own schools and hiring only eachother. Yes I agree that you can't really rely on these people to go any further left than Hillary.
This class is getting smaller every day though. Keep in mind america has entire states that are practically third-world countries. Also keep in mind no one is more ignorant than americans, this ignorance has nothing to do with class btw, it is pervasive no matter what your background. I'm trying not to go on and on here. America's is an infinitely convoluted maze of stupidity that never has a satisfying answer and I could talk about it forever and ever.

Easy. Public schools are trying to teach your kids to be atheist gay commie muslims. The state will literally take funds from public schools and pay you to homeschool your child or seek "alternative methods". Think charter schools. Pushing those is basically the DeVos mission.

You stupid bong. I just realized we probably got the idea from you guys! I see those kinds of magazines at EVERY SINGLE GROCERY STORE CHECKOUT COUNTER. And they were full on the Trump train of course.

Eh that's tough I guess.

Well as long as you realize. I'm a real sucker for the idea of an extended family myself. Just seems like old people were meant to retire to hanging around the house and helping out with kids and shit.
I'm gay though so I guess I really don't give a shit when push comes to shove, I just feel sorry for the old people I guess

Well that sucks. A friend of mine was home-schooled by fundamentalist protestants and he says any actual education was non-existent. Opposing education for kids is literally 19th century politics.

I seriously can't believe this nonsense would actually catch on anywhere else. It's literally just sports, tits and insane sensationalist news. Actually scratch that, I'd be surprised if it didn't catch on.

The extended family is probably the best, most realistic option we have but at the same time I think a problem it might pose that a lot of people don't consider is tribalism. Here travellers live like that and have weird little dynasties among themselves and I understand it's somewhat similar in countries that still have it as the norm.

These covers are pretty hilarious though. Our's are just hateful and scary for the most part. It's interesting knowing what a huge chunk of america is thinking though.

Um it's not opposing education for kids?? We love kids?? Sorry if we just know that the free market can handle your child's education a whole lot better than those terribly underfunded public schools. (this is the alternative to the paranoid religious pearl clutching argument)

Well again I'm thinking relative to what would be better now in my capitalist hellscape. It would certainly be an improvement here where families are just stranded with no support all over the country.
I'm actually not entirely sure what you mean by this. Travelers?

Make no mistake, tabloid headlines are comedy gold. Probably why they're such good propaganda.

Realistically it's hard for anything not to be an improvement. Weird atomized, rapidly disintegrating nuclear families where kids are raised by YouTube because both parents have to work full time are definitely among the worst possible family situations.

Travellers are Irish gypsies. They're basically a third-world country within a first-world country. Imagine Appalachian trailer-park rednecks+nomadic lifestyles+hundreds of years of insular cultural evolution.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers

What I mean is they organize themselves into extended families rather than nuclear families and the result is something resembling patriarchal medieval dynasties. Lots of weird violent clannish feuding, bizarre traditions and hardcore repression.

I Just. Want. ANYTHING. to get better. God damn.

What the fuck. I've literally never heard of this. It even says some of them are in america.

Well that is indeed the weirdest shit ever. I'm not sure I'd base my opinion on families around these people but you actually do have a point I think. Only because I've just recalled tropes in old tv shows about feuding redneck families. Still though. I'm desperate for any improvements like I said.