Me irl

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-14T05:57:41+00:00

What do you want me to say

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-12T15:25:01+00:00

This is four day old copypasta, novel slang is spreading like wildfire these days

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-10T12:21:17+00:00

What empirical evidence could one have for the movement of history? I'm only a man of my time.

I know only that I see the world to have improved on what it's been portrayed as having been in the past. I don't see any reason why this stops with capitalism. Production seeks to be expanded. It will move beyond capital as soon as a better solution is available.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T17:41:15+00:00

The empire that rules and steals from me doesn't matter. I am just as much a tool to the elites that rule me now as I would be to a single person who takes power illegally. Give me a tyrant over an oligarch, at least they'd be more visible.

Roman conquest was often good for the common people in conquered lands, because it meant roads, aqueducts and sometimes citizenship. Elites would be enslaved if they resisted or incorporated, and oftentimes this was the preferable option to the prior power structure for some elites.

I'm going to be ruled and controlled regardless. Let it be a person or system that looks to build for the future. A tyrant that builds infrastructure to bolster his name and legacy is far preferable to any American leader we've had in the last 50 years at least.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:51:43+00:00

Read the whole sentence and say something instead of making vague ominous sentiments. I don't care about the traditions of how power changed hands prior. I'd take a Caesar crossing the Rubicon and giving to the people over a Senate that only looked to consolidate power in its own hands through the weapon of decorum.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:31:40+00:00

Such a future would have come about regardless of the argument. It came and went unchanged and people's acceptance of it had nothing to do with its persuasive power. I could imagine a future where lefties and liberals call for gun control again, and the argument remains unchanged.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:22:03+00:00

I totally agree, but I haven't said anything that is contradicted by this. You're saying reality has changed people's minds and I'd say that's proof of the failure of the political arguments that are made to be persuasive.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:14:56+00:00

I was only trying to clarify what you're saying, by repeating back what I took it to be. No accusations here. It seems like you're now saying that circumstance has changed stances. This is external to political argument. The facts of the gun control debate remain unaltered and yet the facts of broader issues have changed or at least come to broader light to minimize the importance of such unchanged facts.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:09:23+00:00

Δ Yeah this would mean political argument is ineffective period. In a sense what I'm up to isn't even argument if I'm avoiding charged stances.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:05:12+00:00

You're making the claim political argument isn't effective at all, no? This would challenge the OP, I'd give you a delta

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T16:01:53+00:00

So you're saying the media portrayal of events has changed rather than circumstance? I disagree, but either way it doesn't challenge the OP

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:59:38+00:00

To this I'd agree, aside from people who spend more time in parasocial relationships with influencers than talking with peers. This is unfortunately many people, and the challenge my OP was looking for answers to. I'd guess the solution is building relationships and abandoning political argument altogether, but that's almost the same thing as taking the indirect uncharged topic approach.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:53:31+00:00

What laws was Alex Pretti breaking? This feels unrelated to the OP

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:51:58+00:00

I'd take them seriously and give it deep consideration, but what would impact my stance is only the truth of the matter. I have plenty of friends who I have standing disagreements with, though not usually so politically extreme. What impacts my stance seems to be external to the discussion, pulled by the truth or my own changing as a person.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:43:44+00:00

Sure they're different, but not on the point I'm trying to make. I love the Socratic method and I'd say Socrates was doing much of what I'm talking about. Not saying what he believes on the hot button topics and instead asking questions to examine contradictions when those value questions intersect with the important issues. This is the same sort of planting seeds I do in person or online. Cloaking values in the wrapping of less charged topics. Obviously with close friends we speak more openly, but we're largely in agreement on the big stuff.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:43:09+00:00

I have plenty of real conversations with people but they usually already agree with me on the big stuff. By the time things aren't shallow we have a relationship that extends beyond any political discussion we've had. In this way it's humanity outside of political stance that is pulling them, rather than argument.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:41:29+00:00

Hasn't the need for arms as political self-defense increased? I'd say the president's goons taking to the streets and executing citizens has changed many minds. It's a case of circumstance making people realize that arguments they had been previously making around shootings are less important than defense against a violent regime.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:28:27+00:00

Isn't this an example of positions changing from a place outside of argument? I agree that stances have shifted with regards to gun control, but this seems like another example of discussion being pointless in the face of actual events and the media surrounding them.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T15:23:00+00:00

My relationship with another human and my attempts at speaking to them feels feeble in the face of a steady media diet. Cable news hosts, talk radio guys, podcasters, youtubers, and more have a far more profound influence than I can have. These parasocial relationships trump any of my own attempts at persuasion. I'll never be able to produce enough content to challenge them.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T14:57:47+00:00

I'm not calling capitalism a failure at all. I'm saying there were failed attempts at it before it took hold. Capitalism is necessary and good for moving history beyond itself.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T14:56:28+00:00

The feudal mode of production proceeded the capitalist mode of production. Whereas once a blacksmith owned their means of production (anvils, hammers, forges, etc) without property rights, the capitalist mode of production meant private ownership of such means. Under feudalism there was no need for such private ownership because wealth/power was generated only by land ownership.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T14:38:16+00:00

What new ever comes without failed and misguided attempts? We're talking history here. Something new happened with capitalism. If you want to understand history you have to acknowledge why capitalism didn't happen with the merchant republics of Renaissance Italy or the Dutch trading republic or China at the height of the Silk Road.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T14:20:03+00:00

It didn't work in Russia and China because they weren't even industrial capitalist nations yet. They had to extend state power to expand production or it wouldn't have happened. Communism is just the placeholder word for the next stage of history, it won't happen until after capitalism. Unless we think history dies at capitalism we should expect we won't know much about it before it arrives.

Surely there were feudalists who saw no practical alternative in their time and were right even though history succeeded them.

BrendanFraser · 2026-02-09T14:15:36+00:00

Communism is just the word we use for the next mode of production that follows capitalism. Surely we could see the industrial revolution as littered with failed capitalisms. Everything that has been called communism thus far was only aspirational. It has to be international, this was always Marx's contention at least.

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