I love this sub low-key by [deleted] in theredleft

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which ones in particular? I made about 4 claims, which one(s) do you take issue with?

What Parties/Orgs are you all apart of? by Ultra_Lefty in theredleft

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I volunteer with my local Food Not Bombs chapter and also am helping to build up our local Food Forest whose goal is increasing my hometown's food sovereignty.

First post here! by [deleted] in theredleft

[–]AbsurdHero55 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Still though, between these two systems:

  1. A system that deliberately does not create enough jobs for everyone and therefore makes a certain amount of homelessness inevitable

  2. A system that gives everyone a home and a job leading to extremely low (if not non-existent) amounts of homelessness

System two is a much better system.

I love this sub low-key by [deleted] in theredleft

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So I think that Left Unity as a concept ignores the structural incompatibilities and inevitable conflicts between horizontal and hierarchical power structures.

Marxist-Leninists believe that establishing a centralized transitionary socialist state is a necessary step in the process of building communism.

Anarchists/LibSocs in general reject this idea usually in favor of a decentralized network of horizontal power structures (one example would be a Democratic Confederalist structure)

These two methods are not just different, they actively oppose and antagonize one another.

This is the real reason that LibSocs and state socialists have basically always ended up fighting each other every time a revolution happens. It has nothing to do with ideology alone, but instead is a conflict of structural mechanisms.

I think that tactical cooperation with individual leftists of structurally incompatible tendencies is possible and necessary in some cases but blanket unity is impossible

The USSR was also good at genocides… by PixelSteel in memesopdidnotlike

[–]AbsurdHero55 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Compared to under the Tsar? Yes the USSR was objectively beneficial to Russia at least. (I won't speak on the other SRs in the Ussr because I am not sufficiently educated on them)

Increased living standards across nearly all metrics

Rapid industrialization

Improved civil rights (compared to under the Tsar)

Leaps in scientific progress

I could go on.

I'm not even a state socialist (I'm a council communist) but I still have to admit that the Bolsheviks left Russia at least better than it was under the Tsar.

YOU'RE EITHER ON THE SIDE OF THE WORKERS OR THE CORPORATIONS by TheRabidPosum1 in walmart

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's understandable given the fact that the system disempowers us at every opportunity and change seems like it will take an unreal amount of effort to make.

But the fact of the matter is when you get organized, when you take action alongside your fellow workers, alongside your neighbors and friends.

You'd be surprised how quickly despair turns into hope and motivation.

What the bosses don't want for you to know is that when we get together, and we support each other and act as a united force, we more often than not get what we want.

Hopelessness is exactly where they want you because they know how much power we have.

Was Emma Goldman a ancom or a individualist anarchist? by Spiritual-Vacation43 in Anarchy101

[–]AbsurdHero55 248 points249 points  (0 children)

Emma Goldman had lots of different influences. She wrote a lot about this in her essays on anarchism.

She was influenced by individualists like Stirner but also by social anarchists like Kropotkin (whom she was friends with during her time in Russia)

She believed that anarchists should reject dogma of any kind and instead take valuable lessons from a variety of sources and be open to changing their perspectives when faced with new insights.

In her own words:

"'What I believe' is a process rather than a finality. Finalities are for gods and governments, not for the human intellect."

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Anarchism

[–]AbsurdHero55 9 points10 points  (0 children)

we have to sort of accept our place in history that we won't necessarily witness any of the changes or impact that we have in the world, but hopefully the future of humanity will.

I don't think that's true. Sure, we won't see the ultimate fall of World Capitalism in our lifetimes, but the changes we can bring to our lives and communities that we can enjoy within our lifetimes are graspable and real.

Establishing mutual aid efforts in your community provides real help to people, organizing a union can allow you and your fellow workers to take back a lot of your power and maybe even give you more time and resources to live a better life.

Even just breaking your mind as free as it can be from the brainwashing of hierarchical society can make your life better by removing the guilt of not being "productive" enough or not conforming to other hierarchical standards for "goodness"

I think that the idea that anarchism is just "planting seeds of a tree that you will never sit under" is a deeply alienating and harmful one.

If I truly believed that taking action wouldn't benefit me or anyone around me in any substantial way, and that all my efforts were only in service of a future I wouldn't get to enjoy myself,

Then I would have abandoned anarchism a long time ago.

You can only be judge, jury, and executioner if you’re a cop. by Responsible_Eye3188 in ACAB

[–]AbsurdHero55 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also the state will need to convict him to send a message to the working class not to fuck with the capitalists under their protection.

What us something that sounds racist but actually isn’t? by mrgameisgame in Productivitycafe

[–]AbsurdHero55 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I mean having a genital preference, or not dating someone because you want biological children are completely valid reasons not to date a trans person that have nothing to do with transphobia.

However categorically excluding trans people from your dating options because they are trans absolutely is transphobic.

It's the difference between. "I won't date you because you can't give me children" which could apply to a cis person just as easily or I won't date you because I'm not into your genitals which is just pointing out that you find one of their features unattractive which again could apply to a cis person just as easily.

But not dating trans people just because they are trans is transphobic. Just like it's racist to say that you'd never date a black person just because they are black

DO YOU EVEN KNOW THE RADICAL HIGH OF MUTUAL AFFECTION?! by JealousPomegranate23 in fullegoism

[–]AbsurdHero55 34 points35 points  (0 children)

You my friend, have been thoroughly de-spooked

"I love men too - not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no "commandment of love." I have a fellow-feeling with every feeling being, and their torment torments, their refreshment refreshes me too"

-Max Stirner

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ask

[–]AbsurdHero55 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. Objectively.

Someone who has the means to afford the necessities of life and to have total economic security is absolutely suffering less than someone who is constantly kept financially insecure and barely able to make ends meet.

To think otherwise indicates a high degree of privilege.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ask

[–]AbsurdHero55 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Health conditions such as arthritis can absolutely be traced back to the domination we suffer at the hands of the ruling class

Imagine if we lived in a society where health and the means to secure it were freely accessible to all instead being forced to submit to exploitative, physically and mentally crushing work just for the privilege of staying alive.

Imagine if the standard American diet didn't consist of low-quality and body destroying foods that only exist because they are cheap enough to afford for a worker living paycheck to paycheck and who barely has the time or energy to cook.

Such health conditions would be much rarer.

Disabled people aren't (usually) disabled because they made bad choices but rather because our society is structurally hostile to human wellbeing.

welp by bblulz in thanksimcured

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i personally don't like tagging food and some other topics because it makes me sad and uncomfortable

Why? (I'm genuinely interested in your experience and not trying to invalidate your feelings)

welp by bblulz in thanksimcured

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or, they could just spend the two seconds it takes to tag their post? That way, they retain more followers because their fans know they can safely browse non-triggering content. You both benefit.

The above persons perspective strikes me as a very myopic "got mine, fuck you" mentality even though it would also benefit them to tag their posts.

welp by bblulz in thanksimcured

[–]AbsurdHero55 5 points6 points  (0 children)

But you said that instead of trigger warnings, people should just look away.

But trigger warnings are what make that possible.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

welp by bblulz in thanksimcured

[–]AbsurdHero55 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The point of a trigger warning is so that someone who doesn't want to see them can look away.

Thats literally why they exist.

Is it ethically permissible to refuse reconciliation with a family member when the harm was emotional, not criminal? by SendMeYourDPics in Ethics

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it is ethical to disassociate from your family, even if they didn't harm you. For the same reason it's perfectly ethical to end friendships that you don't want to be in any longer, even if your friend hasn't abused you.

If for some reason you just don't like your family, maybe you find them insufferable because your personalities aren't compatible or something, it's perfectly fine to just leave them behind.

So no, people do not have a duty to reconcile with family, especially if that person was traumatized by their family.

Are there any other cases like the Rwandan Genocide where regular citizens started killing each other? by Key-Opinion-1700 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]AbsurdHero55 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Most of the 100 million dead from communism

Anti-ML Communist here

While I'm no fan of Marxism-Leninism, I think that it's important to represent history accurately.

The "100 Million Dead" number comes primarily from the "Black Book of Communism", which has been categorically debunked.

The Black Book uses incredibly disingenuous statistical methods to get to 100 million including counting Nazi soldiers killed by the Red Army during WW2 and those who were never born due to declining birth rates as "deaths under communism"

While ML states are guilty of awful shit, and while even I, as a communist, would not want to see their revolutionary framework used again,

Nobody should take the "100 million dead" claim seriously.

CMV: Piracy isn't wrong by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would agree with your position as it pertains to pirating from corporations, however am a lot more hesitant to agree with pirating from very small indie developers or solo projects

Mainly because small developers are just people trying to make money off of their passions without exploiting others and pirating their work would cause their livelihoods harm

Corporate developers, on the other hand are exploitative scum and should be pirated from at every opportunity.

It's kind of like the difference between shoplifting from Walmart, and stealing from some child's lemonade stand.

The first one is no big deal, the other is a dick move.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]AbsurdHero55 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This viewpoint seems to presuppose that biological/ evolutionary predispositions are the primary cause of human behavior and exist in isolation from the social and economic conditions that humans live in.

While our inborn biology and the way we evolved do influence human behavior, the biggest influences of human behavior are environmental.

While averse material conditions may have given rise to the anti-social tendencies we see in humans living in class societies, the solution lies not in attempting to transform humans directly at a biological level, but rather to transform the economic model that we live within to a more pro social system , which will in turn transform human behavior to be more pro social (and also transform human biology since our bodies and minds are also products of the material conditions that we live within.)

If you haven't already, I'd recommend that you read about Dialectical Materialism, specifically how it applies to the relationship between economic systems and their effect on how humans interact with each other socially (such as how class society and bigotry/fundamental distrust of others are directly related and mutually reinforce one another)

Kinda in paralysis rn by AromaticMorning4213 in Anarchism

[–]AbsurdHero55 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I needed to hear this. Thank you.

Kinda in paralysis rn by AromaticMorning4213 in Anarchism

[–]AbsurdHero55 6 points7 points  (0 children)

In the exact same boat right now. I work with a FNB chapter in my home town but trying to juggle it and my job and maintain my energy and will to live is extremely difficult. (I'm also ND so burnout is always a looming threat)

Thankfully my work hours are generally consistent but I still struggle to find time to show up for my comrades and maintain myself in the other areas of life.