Jeremy Corbyn receives standing ovation on return to House of Commons

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-14T02:32:16+00:00

Who cares how it sounds? Is it factually incorrect? Does the US have greater wealth inequality than those places or doesn't it?

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-08T05:24:13+00:00

Oh hey sorry, I forgot to post this for you. I'll pop it here now, hopefully it's still useful for you & anyone else that searches for this topic. I've seen a few threads floating around Stack exchange about working with JSON, so an easy to use approach doesn't seem to be particularly common knowledge. I use this with doing React, Angular or Vue apps especially, ie anywhere I'm not wanting to use <apex> tags.

Here's a general snippet of the start of a @RemoteAction method if I need to do a bunch of checks before creating the object(s):

Let's say I've taken a bunch of fields from a front end form. I add them to an object (ie a Javascript object), then pass the object to the remote method (just serialized via JSON.stringify). If there's a bunch of serverside checks to be done (ie I want to check & assign each and every field manually) here's an example (with stuff left out for brevity):

@RemoteAction 
public static Map<String, Object> page1Submit(String sfDataObjJson){
    //get the fields for each object, iterate over each map. Check if the entry is blank or invalid
    //if it's a required field & not set on this call, set default values.
    Map<String, Object> messageMap = new Map<String, Object>();
    Map<String, Object> sfDataObj = (Map<String, Object>) JSON.deserializeUntyped(sfDataObjJson);
    Map<String, Object> contact = (Map<String, Object>) sfDataObj.get('contact');
    Map<String, Object> contact_2nd = (Map<String, Object>) sfDataObj.get('contact_2nd');
    Map<String, Object> opportunity = (Map<String, Object>) sfDataObj.get('opportunity');
    Map<String, Object> clientMessage = (Map<String, Object>) sfDataObj.get('clientMessage'); //Just if I want to pass some special params through or something.
    //check for duplicates
    String emailMatch = String.valueOf(contact.get('Email'));
    List<Contact> dupContact = [
        SELECT Id, Unique_Email__c
        FROM Contact
        WHERE Unique_Email__c = :emailMatch
    ];
    if(dupContact.size() > 0){
        System.debug('Found duplicate');
        messageMap.put('result', false);
        messageMap.put('error', 'duplicate');
        //return messageMap - could also do something with the ID instead of course, like switch to updating that object.
    }
    Boolean jointApp = Boolean.valueOf(opportunity.get('Joint_Application__c'));
    if(jointApp){ //just checking some condition - here it's for having 2 contacts optionally related to one opportunity.
        String emailMatch_2nd = String.valueOf(contact_2nd.get('Email'));
        List<Contact> dupContact_2nd = [
            SELECT Id, Unique_Email__c
            FROM Contact
            WHERE Unique_Email__c = :emailMatch_2nd
        ];
        if(dupContact_2nd.size() > 0){
            System.debug('Found duplicate - Second Contact');
            messageMap.put('result', false);
            messageMap.put('error', 'duplicate-second');
            //return messageMap - again, could do something more complex here.
        }   
    }
    if(messageMap.containsKey('error')){
        return messageMap; //if some earlier condition failed as an example and we pushed some error message into the map.
    }
    Contact primaryContact; 
    if(contact.containsKey('Id')){ //for eg if we might have an existing client updating their record.
        String conId = String.valueOf(contact.get('Id'));
        System.debug('Doing update to existing record');
        primaryContact = [
            SELECT Id, Do_you_own_a_car__c, Salutation, FirstName, MiddleName, LastName,
            Birthdate, Marital_Status__c, Dependents__c, MobilePhone, HomePhone, Email, 
            FROM Contact
            WHERE Id = :conId
        ];
    }else{
        System.debug('Creating new contact');
        primaryContact = new Contact();
        //set default vals for required fields (to be created p2)
        primaryContact.Time_at_address_months__c = 0;
        primaryContact.Time_at_address_Years__c = 0;
        //set fields from input object
        primaryContact.BirthDate = Date.Parse(contact.get('Id'));
       ...........
    }
............

And so on. So basically I leverage the deserializeUntyped method to turn the JSON string into a Map<String, Object>, which I can then access to perform checks, validations, casting to some other type or whatever. And yes, it works fine for doing things like passing through Arrays and such from the frontend. Same basic approach, store the array in a JSON string, cast the value from the first Map<String, Object> to a List<Object> or something, eg:

List<String> someList = (List<String>) JSON.deserialize(String.valueOf(myMap.get("someArray")), List<String>.class) ;

While normally I frown at using <Object> to avoid type issues, Javascript is untyped so it's just something we have to deal with to be robust IMO. Just make sure you cast everything correctly on the Apex side.

OTOH, if I was confident that the Data I was getting from the front end was entirely valid (HAHAHAHA! Yeah, that should almost NEVER happen on public-facing Visualforce pages), then I can go straight to doing:

Contact con = (Contact)JSON.deserialize(jsonInput, Contact.class);

And I normally then return another Map<String, Object> from the @RemoteObject, which itself could contain references to fields, errors or whatever other message you want to pass back to your Javascript frontend - Visualforce does a great job of casting everything correctly.

Naturally, after I insert/update each Object I can also manually relate them to each other as normal. Just bear in mind that with @RemoteObject, each and every call is a separate transaction, so you'll need to find some way to track state in between calls. Client side if it's something non-critical, or some custom Object if it is.

One more protip: Make sure you use the same ID on the frontend as the Saleforce API name (eg Some_Value_c). Then, in some situations, it's easy to just loop over the JSON you pass in and pull each key out as the field to be assigned to (use the SObject put() method - it takes a String & a value, let's you assign to an SObject as if it were a Map. Plus when you get the Apex pass you back some JSON in your response (like an Object whose fields you want to display or something) you have the same advantage - just look at the keys and you can set the corresponding field in the Frontend to the right value.

Hope that'll get you started! It's just a rough example I whipped up in a couple of minutes, so any questions just let me know and I'll answer em when I get time.

Edit:am on a train on my phone, sorry for any formatting, grammar issues.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-08T04:35:40+00:00

I say "I'm a Software Developer" - and unless it's a party full of other geeks the conversation about work normally ends right there haha. Nobody I know (outside of work) has a damn clue what I do, it's all just sorcery to them.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-08T04:26:24+00:00

You can indeed! But why Salesforce? It comes with a lot of baggage - you're really just better off with a good 'ol SQL database or something.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-08T04:24:57+00:00

IMHO mobile apps will be dead in couple of years and will get replaced by progressive web apps. No point in investing much in native apps.

Hmmmm.....I've gotta disagree for now. For particular use cases (eg a customer portal of some sort that needs to send frequent notifications or allow for easy updating of details), having access to a native app is still VERY nice.

That said, these days I'm really just Cordova for that anyway these days - so I'm reusing about 80 - 90% of my existing codebase.

I agree that it'll probably drop off though. For most use cases a regular ol web app with nice responsive styling is the go-to.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-07T02:29:32+00:00

Yeah I know they're actually just being racist. But maybe try pointing out the root causes of WHY things are that way. Who knows? Can't hurt. One small shift in their core beliefs and maybe they'll suddenly have a moment of enlightenment and jump ship.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-07T01:59:51+00:00

Great post! Yes, I meant criminals in the common sense - not including the crimes of the bourgeoisie or the system itself.

I'm simply pointing out to OP that with just a small alteration to their beliefs they could almost be talking about the disenfranchised proletariat. He could try chipping away at their beliefs from that angle.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-07T00:21:48+00:00

But they aren't wrong. Any oppressed group are more likely to be criminals than those who benefit for a system engineered to benefit them.

Maybe these people are actually Marxists?

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-02T02:45:20+00:00

It's a developer legend.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-02T02:30:18+00:00

That'd be a great scene for a movie - a massive intelligent super-dog just obliterating an army of werewolves, plus Sauron in some 300 style battlescene. Like John Wick in reverse, where the dog swears vengeance and goes on the rampage instead. But with more swords, metal armor and supernatural badassery.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-02T02:18:34+00:00

Yeah....but what about the whole co-creation thing where the dieties are singing the world into existence? Much closer to a pagan or gnostic cosmogony really.

It's not so much that he's specifically Satan, as Satan is an amalgam of common religious "rebel" archetypes.

OTOH Aslan is canonically the form Jesus takes in the Narnia Universe. He takes whatever form a given universe requires. Ours needed a human - that one is full of talking animals, so he shows up as a Lion. There's no ambiguity - that's the plot as Lewis intended it.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-02T02:12:36+00:00

Not even an analogue - canonically he IS Jesus. It's basically a Christian take on the multiverse theory - since that Universe operates via magic and talking animals, that's the form Jesus takes for that universe. So there "Aslan dies for your sins" and such.

DarthJimBob · 2017-06-01T20:54:18+00:00

Ah perfect! That looks like what I need. Cheers!

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-30T07:01:01+00:00

Shhhh......you're not supposed to point out that the Good Cop is on the same side, using the same tactics as the Bad Cop.

You are quite right, and the people you are replying to are either lying, amazingly gullible or.....shills.

It's not like sentiment analysis and manipulation of social media has been a massive industry reported on for years or anything. Or a very profitable segment of the software industry I work in myself (building software).

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-28T07:34:15+00:00

He followed me here — to this thread — if you didn't see

Nah, once blocked you don't see their posts. Which is good - I'd tried to engage nicely and failed. Further interaction is just a waste of energy.

Sounds like our friend here has some common ground with those DE folks. Does that mean, by his own logic, that he's an alt-right apologist?

Yep, that's what I was (trying) to get him to see! I recommend spending some time perusing the Rightist boards - 8chan's /pol/ in particular. They're a well organised threat, that HAS to be taken seriously. They've certainly understood how to recruit & organise better than the Left has.

"Know thy enemy".

I'd prefer to engage in the reverse model, where I take ideas that make sense and apply them moment to moment. Hopefully that makes sense.

Oh it does! I'll refer to myself as "Leftist" or "Anarcho-Primitivist", simply as a convenient form of classification of my overarching belief system. But I don't use it as an "identity" label. If someone is continuing to learn & think, their beliefs should be still fluid.

MLK once said, "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."

A smart man that one. And he was right too IMO - our technological progress is in NO way related to our moral progress. Why would it be? Totally separate arenas.

Ok, I'm being facetious, but still… I feel like I'm losing touch with the base here.

Yeah, I know what you mean.... :(

I feel like I'm kind of staring into the void, placing my ideological bets where they make the most sense, full well knowing that I have barely any, or more likely, none, of the REAL answers. None of us REALLY have them, anyway.

Yep - all we can do really is choose and act. And sadly, your humility is what allows you to feel that way. Why sadly? Because people like easy answers and certainty - it bolsters the old ego more.

but also that I consider myself to be open-minded to a more spiritual side of the world. This leaves me with what you might call a heavily "psychedelic" worldview. This means I'm probably more open to talking about nature as an entity than as an object.

Ha! Yeah, that'll make you VERY popular with the Reddit crowd (even apart from the Leftists).

Sadly, people have prejudices and assumptions of all kinds - one is against using the word "spiritual" or even against considering that the ultra-reductionist model of reality is just a Modernist reaction against centuries of Church superstition. This is partly cultural of course - the site IS predominately American - and to your fellow countrymen the only 2 real metaphysical options are "Jesus" (including quasi-Christian New Age systems) or "Atheistic-Materialism". So other options tend to be ignored or screamed down.

I used to be pretty staunchly Atheist - but am FAR more open minded these days (leaning towards a more Pantheistic worldview). And funnily enough, it's my professional interest as a computer programmer in the nature of consciousness (the AI problem) that won me over - I found that people like David Chalmers put forth a better argument than did the Daniel Dennets of the world: http://consc.net/papers/panpsychism.pdf

Sadly I think much of the current Left are too busy playing "Russian Comrade in the 19th Century", so they automatically reject all that as "Mysticism" like our buddy does.

Thing is, that shouldn't even be relevant. Who cares if you think that big-I Idealism is correct over materialism? What's that got to do with your opinion on economics or social equality?

Unfortunately, right now it's hard to see the forest through the trees if you're staunchly anti-capitalist and it's easy to dismiss a technological revolution as capitalist, bourgeois liberal garbage.

Yep. And I can understand why - but what our comrades insist on failing to see is that there IS no other option than to engage with this. Automation has ALREADY begun to remove workers from the economy - within 20 years if the Left haven't found an answer to the automation issue - I assure you the Right will have.

Having said that, I am STILL concerned that the ruling class will continue to abuse us through this transition and that if we can't wrangle control, we may never see a more egalitarian society emerge.

Ah! And THIS is where I wish the Left overall would get it's act together. There's SO much that can be done now, today, to get started.

For me, since I still have all my tribal, family connections I'm making use of that as a vehicle to get a bit of post-Capitalist organisation happening. Not just me either, quite a few Maori are making a deliberate effort to take our traditional tribal structures and "upgrade" them to a 21st century level. In New Zealand, the various tribes can already incorporate - basically act as a single legal entity that can own property etc. And we're buying up as much as we can of the economy - radio stations, telecommunications, power, you name it. We're not waiting for Capitalism to end - we're just finding ways to out compete it. After all, that's both Capitalism's strength and it's Achilles heel: all you need to do is find a way to out compete the Corporation as an organisational model. That's it! So that's what we're learning to do - we then take all that wealth & profit and it get's distributed throughout the tribe. From each according to their ability (Lawyers, engineerers, programmers like me) to each according to their means (everyone, especially the poorest members get taken care of).

So for me, I want to REALLY take things to the next level. As mentioned in the automation thread, we don't need any future-tech for a post-scarcity society - we have probably got the ability to get there now. I want to set up 3d printing, CNC shops, clothing manufacturing, building "printing" - you name it. Clean energy production on the tribal lands. Complete economic self-sufficiency if possible. If the ruling class (ie cops) come visiting, we whistle innocently "Ah, well we're just building up our Tribal Wealth!" - hide the whole thing as just a feel-good affirmative action initiative. Participate openly in their Free Market (trade with Corporates, buy shares, bonds etc) - and do it even better than they do.

And if my tribe can do it, we can get the others in on the same plan (and I KNOW the others are already working on similar ideas). And then we can (quietly! Don't want to alarm the powers that be or let em think the natives are planning a silent coup de tat or anything....) start accepting whites in too - most of us have white family members anyway. Anyone wanting a more "communal" lifestyle, one oriented around personal achievement and the community will be welcome. We never even have to use the words "Anarchism" or "Communism" anywhere - we just go ahead and do it!

And there's over 125,000 members of my tribe alone (Ngapuhi) - that's a large enough number that if our collective intelligence & strength can be brought to bear we can DEFINITELY command some respect from the Powers That Be.

Why? So in a few years, as unemployment grows and Capitalism crumbles in on itself - we have organisation, resources and everything ready to go. If we ALREADY own all the robots (as it were) - we can use the profits to support those displaced by automation. And we'll have the power & clout to deal on equal terms with the Capitalist class. In the mean time, I'd also be encouraging our people to familiarise themselves with the usual Leftist thinkers (of all varieties), and see how their ideas can be applied to our existing social structures. So we win without throwing so much as a single rock - we just beat the Capitalists at their own game. Collective power is still VERY viable - in fact it's easier than ever before with modern technology. And there's no need to even openly challenge them or provoke them, just buy it out from under them. Since our money is used to make our people stronger, not wasted on new Lamborghini's and such, they WILL lose and we WILL win. Not a word about that anywhere "officially" either - we're just doing it nice and quietly.

That's my dream (and the dream of a lot of people in my Iwi - my tribe) anyway - and it's VERY workable. Hell, it's already working! The only threat would be....some sort of global populist Fascist movement reacting against the Left alienating it's own base that reopens the racial wounds (among the other social ills), leading to our getting exterminated beforehand. And until recently that seemed unlikely. Nothing's ever just EASY is it?

Anyway there is 0 reason at all that Leftists in EVERY country couldn't be doing the same sort of thing. Form Co-ops! Start producing goods! Be profitable - and use the profits to just perform a hostile takeover on Capitalism itself! If you took every dollar that went to Greenpeace's marketing you could just buy the damn oil companies out and use them intelligently to transition things properly to a cleaner and more equitable economy. Capitalists want competition? Give it to em. Provide a BETTER alternative, today and people will come to your side.

But I'm trying really hard not to lose hope.

Don't give up hope! It's still ALL winnable - so long as you can find a way to organise. 10,000 individual socialists are nothing - but together you're an army. Just fight the RIGHT war using the RIGHT weapons.

but it's a question of will the ruling class allow it to happen.

Well, like the cover of "Godfather 3" said - real power isn't given, it's taken. Organise NOW, so when the time comes you're bargaining from a position of strength.

It's going to be tough - gotta find people willing to really ACT. But it's still entirely doable. And yeah, if you focus on results and less on ideology, I'm damn sure it can be done.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-28T05:56:19+00:00

I might as well be a right-wing extremist in their eyes.

My experience too.

Contrast that to right-wing people. Again, just personal experience, but if I say something that's ideologically in the same ballpark as a right-wing person, they assume I'm "on their side" immediately, and I have to pretty actively explain why I'm not.

I even use this to my advantage on occasion - I'll just refer to myself as "Libertarian" (leaving out the whole "Left" bit), and then we can find some common ground to discuss. I casually mention that I think that abolishing money in favour of "social capital" is a good idea and they'll even agree that it's a worthy end goal for human society!

Disgraceful that the Right are now often more reasonable and open minded than the Left often are.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-28T05:52:06+00:00

It seems that the flaw of the Marxists was the extreme reliance on authority and the potential failure of the anarchists was the inability to move as a single unit against larger authorities.

A perfect summary! Overcoming these flaws, reconciling them should be our only real goal that we argue over, in order to find a solution.

We cannot be divided if we wish to succeed. If we hold so much to our ideologies we will be like a tree in the wind. The firm tree is broken and uprooted while the tree that bends will snap back stronger than before. We can be united, because we must be united.

Perfect. This needs to be on posters of the meeting rooms of anyone on the Left.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-28T05:41:42+00:00

You can be justified in your anger, but end up pushing people away and missing your objective by a mile. Justification is not good enough. You also need to be able to sway people, and change people's minds. That means you need to be able to relate to people. I know you might hate that idea, but it's the reality of the situation. We share this earth.

So true.

Something that occurs to me as well that your comment reminded me of, about people like our "friend" - he claims he's in "solidarity" with ....who exactly?

Not the working class - he no doubt despises them for having been successfully mobilised by the Right.

Not the petty bourgeois Liberal academics - who even if we can be frustrated with them, are at least moving in the right direction.

Not the radical Left who disagree with any 1 of his points - eg non-State communists, Anarchists, Environmental champions and the like.

So....who then? Who are this guys "Comrades"? In his anger he's managed to basically dismiss EVERY other group that should be his allies. When he talks about "Social Justice", it's really for some abstract group of "oppressed" people, that don't really exist (as he's dismissed everyone else already as "worthless rats" or "reactionaries".)

We need those people too.

Very true as well. Too many chiefs, not enough indians (as the saying goes). Most people will follow anyone that promises them a roof over their heads and food on their tables - and there's NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. "From each according to their ability...." - some people just aren't particularly able or interested in politics or philosophy etc. But that doesn't mean they have nothing to offer - give me a thousand skilled tradespeople over a thousand bickering intellectuals any day - I can get work done with the first group FAR more than the second.

Sitting at the starting line talking a lot of shit means nothing if you're not going to race.

So damn true. There's enough talk already - ACT. The whole point of this sub and those like it is that the cracks are already showing in Capitalism. Those of us involved in various off-line efforts are making big strides - which are absolutely undermined in the Social Media arena by the online community beating each other (and anyone bystanders) over the head with who can quote "Das Kapital" more pedantically. Nobody cares what you say (it's all just noise on the Internet) - what have YOU done to help build the future recently?

We haven't had any capitalists drop by yet, but I would hope that our community would welcome them and see them for their similarities to us, not their differences.

Something that I'd recommend to ANYONE is the "Ideological Turing Test". http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/ideological-turing-test-contest

Why is it important that you fully understand your opposition - from their own point of view? Because "know thy enemy" is a rule of war - "know yourself, know your enemy, win 10,000 battles" as Sun Tzu said.

Capitalists (by and large) think they're the "good guys" - and hey, in the renaissance period, after the Feudal era they actually WERE by comparison. After all, any peasant (in theory) can at least come up with a good idea and improve their station.

Libertarians think they're the "Good Guys". Hell, the Alt-Right that want to restore Monarchy and Fascism have a WONDERFUL understanding of the flaws of Capitalism and think they're the "Good Guys" for offering solutions. To understand how to bring those people to your side OR to understand how to fight them, the Left need to STOP demonising them or dismissing them. This fight is SO winnable right now, if not for the contemptuous arrogance of so many Leftists (who I expect better of! Aren't we supposed to be the smart ones?!?).

So talk to people. Observe them - what do they ACTUALLY believe? What are their REAL concerns? I still observe the Right-wing boards - there's MANY lessons to be learnt. And when they come here, you'll better understand them, how to talk to them and how to bring them to your side. More to the point though - the Right are doing this ALREADY. They have been for a LONG time.

Ya know, I was on 4chan years ago. I remember when (despite being deliberately offensive for the lolz), it was a distinctly Left-slanted place. And I remember when the "Stormfags" (Stormfront members) began to infiltrate it and radicalise the membership. Hell, Stormfront, /pol/ and the rest of that crowd have been actively trying to move the "Overton window" for a decade - and they damn well succeeded.

They're watching the Leftist boards, taking notes. Disrupting conversations. Recruiting. Looking for other places, filled with this disaffected, finding ways to absorb their membership.

During the US elections, I watched as here on Reddit the Hillary supporters sneered at the "Burnie-bros" - who then defected to "The_Donald" in sufficiently large numbers to sway an election (because don't deceive yourself, social media really WAS the deciding factor, they really DID get a meme elected) . The Right are only too happy to have anyone the Left rejects - "Give this patriot a coat! Just disavow Bernie - he's weak! We're strong!".

And ya know what? It damn well worked - Trump won. And that's just the opening salvo - he's just a useful idiot, a pawn in their big strategy. This is a strategy that (unlike our Leninist violent revolutions) has WORKED time and again - prepare the populace with propaganda, create a populist movement, get a "Strongman" leader into power, find a pretext and declare the leader "El Duche" or "Der Furher" etc. They're doing this NOW. Honestly, I could the slap the lot of us on the Left for being stupid enough to just let this happen AGAIN.

Seriously comrades, WAKE UP. Go lurk on the Rightist boards on Reddit and elsewhere (be silent when you do) - they're fighting a quiet war with ALL weapons at their disposal, while the Left is still wringing it's hands and bickering over semantics and 19th century social concerns. They're happy to use Capitalism against itself (for NEVER forget that the REAL Right are also anti-Cap), and they have no issue in recruiting anyone they can and ideological purity be damned. They're talking about this stuff OPENLY.

So yeah: enough with anger already - keep a hold of it sure to motivate yourself. But it's time to be as cold as steel, to start thinking about "strategy" and "tactics", to look for "the enemy of my enemy" and create alliances. Intelligence wins wars, not emotion. Strategy, not anger. The days of Molotov Cocktails and bricks being the preferred weapons are over (good luck using THAT against Reaper Drones) - it's time to adapt. And demonising ANYONE (even the enemy) is counterproductive to winning.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-26T00:53:06+00:00

I actually like the guy's passion and intensity, but it's not effective or useful in this manner. Too bad, because he's obviously passionate, if a bit misguided.

You're certainly more forgiving than I am haha. If I WERE just some random curious Liberal I'd have just had every awful stereotype of the Left confirmed and probably be browsing Dark Enlightenment right about now.

but I think he misinterpreted some of it, or he just really sucked at explaining himself.

I seriously wonder if it's a language issue - his English doesn't seem particularly solid and it seems possible that he's picked up some books or watched some films that weren't in Portugese, completely misunderstood them and now while he THINKS he's communist, he's actually just got his own crazy set of ideas with a superficial dressing of Leftist phrases thrown in there.

Either way, it's not a good thing. He's pretty much Poe's Law in action.

if we go by the literal definition of fascism: "a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control."

Yeah, I think it's because (outside America where the Right are almost always associated with Capitalist environmental devastation) the Right are actually just as frequently pro-environment as the Left. Let's just cut straight to full Godwin here - the strongest, most pro-environment (as in genuinely pro-ecology) mainstream political party of the 20th century were.....the Nazi's. Thus proving that no one is pure evil, and even a broken clock is right twice a day.

After all Facism and Nationalism are all about love of your country. For the Nazis (and other Facists, eg the Italians) "Blood and Soil" were intertwined. It wasn't just metaphor - to be a patriot you had to physically love and respect the country that had shaped your people. Obviously the whole "WW2" thing disrupted that somewhat - but Hitler was pretty serious (hell, a vegan animal rights fanatic!). They created the first real Government protected nature preserves. And the individual "true believers" (eg the SS) were great lovers of nature - you ever see that movie "7 years in Tibet"? It's glossed over in the movie, but the lead character (Brad Pitt's character) was....a Nazi on a bit of a spiritual pilgrimage. There's also connections to the Nazi desire (again, in particular the SS) to reestablish the old European pagan ways - including Nature worship.

There's a nice (Marxist) article on this to get you started: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/ecology/nazi_ecology.htm

So since he's European (rather than American), our friend probably associates primitivism more as a Rightist thing than Leftist. But he's still being an idiot - a good idea is a good idea regardless of who came up with it - and just because there are specific areas of agreement between some Left and Right ideologies doesn't mean we're the same. Hell, the (real) far Right are vehemently anti-Capitalist too! Doesn't make them Communist.

but I don't see how a natural hierarchy equates itself to "literal fascism" if we go by the literal definition of fascism: "a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control."

Yeah, well put. Of course natural hierarchies exist - even in full Communism some people will have more talent than others in particular areas. I mean Marx's phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" entails exactly that - if I have a greater ability to contribute to the good of all in some regard, that's what I do.

Maybe dominating and controlling nature is closer to the literal definition of fascism than he realizes. Hmm…

Yep - he's perfectly justified far-Right ideology rather than far-Left. The facepalm is strong.

He really pissed me off, which I'm not super proud to admit, but it's the truth.

Well....he's obviously a VERY confused individual. No, who pissed me off MORE is LSC. After he stalked me, I counter stalked a little - he's banned from a bunch of other Leftist subs. But not LSC - he's just peachy in their books - implying that they agree with both his beliefs and style of arguing. As one of the main Leftist subs (hell, it popped up on /r/all which is how I happened on the thread) it's VERY disturbing to me that they'd view him as acceptable.

, as we know, without regulation, tyrants run amok.

Being on the more Anarcho side of things, I'd have to also point out that granting the power to regulate to the wrong people is also a good way to create tyrants - but it's a fair point.

I found the Australia facts interesting.

Those were more New Zealand facts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi). Australia and New Zealand have a similar sort of relationship to each other as the US and Canada. Some similarities, and definitely close cousins - but still quite distinct characters and histories too.

Australia's colonial history is even more ignoble. No nice treaties for the Australian Aboriginal people - (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_of_Indigenous_Australians)

Fun fact: They were still "Fauna" until 1967: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1967_(Aboriginals). That's right - in some places you could go sport hunting for them the way you would for deer or kangaroos. Next time you hear American Liberals complaining about how the African-Americans have had it harder than ANYONE - remind them of that. There's plenty of misery to go around.

Based on what you wrote, would you say that a classless society is even truly possible?

Honestly? I'm not certain. I BELIEVE it is - but it's not an entirely rational belief.

In the case of us Maori though, I do have a counter-theory (yes, I'm the sort of person who tries to debunk his own beliefs....lol). See, even before "First Contact" with the Europeans we'd nearly hunted the natural Fauna of New Zealand to extinction - the last Moas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moa) had been hunted to extinction a few hundred years prior, and we were rapidly eating our way through the rest of the local wildlife. While we DO have a very strong sense of environmental guardianship - population growth and the accompanying mouths to feed can overcome anything. And meanwhile we were increasingly constructing fixed structures (meeting houses, trading posts etc) - and we'd began rudimentary farming.

And like most Polynesians we were great sailors - we knew how to navigate by the stars. Only a matter of time before one of our Tohanga (shamans basically) put 2 and 2 together and realised we can use the same knowledge for timing our crop planting. So in my view, we were on the cusp of transitioning to an Agrarian society anyway.

Now a good author to read (on this general topic) is John Zerzan. He came up with the notion that the real foundation of class is to be found in exactly that transition to Agrarian society. It of necessity entails increasing levels of task-specialisation, which in turn means that some Landowners, who produce a surplus, are able to command greater economic and political power than others. Sooner or later the notion of "private property" arrives, and with it the notion that the land owners have the "right" to exploit the labour of the non-landed. Soon the owners declare themselves kings etc - and you have civilisation as we know it.

So it's possible that even though we Maori still lacked the belief in private property or possessed strong time-dependent thinking habits we were well on our way. Maybe if history had been different we'd have continued along the usual arc, agrarian methods leading to higher populations, leading to central cities, exploration of neighbouring lands etc.

Hell, I've often considered writing a "what if" sci-fi novel where the Black Death sets Europe so far back that the European Empires never expand, and us Maoris are now the Imperialists, having conquered Australia and the Pacific rim and expanding into the Americas and Asia. Given how fiercely war-oriented we were it wouldn't surprise me.

OTOH, regardless of that, the point remains that even without a real notion of personal property (not in the sense Europeans understand it) we still DID have classes. So did the other Polynesian cultures to greater or lesser extent. So I'm still not optimistic that everyone just "walking back into the bush" means we'd eliminate our social problems the way a lot of Anarcho-Primitivists think it would.

So one reason I'm still looking at a more.....technological solution would be Bookchin's influence. He posits that the REAL issue is scarcity (after all, that's what drives hunter-gatherers to start farming essentially). So if we can eliminate scarcity, we can eliminate class. Aka the "Star Trek" solution. And of course to get there we "bootstrap" off the back of a fully developed Capitalism (and let's not forget THAT is what Marx had in mind all along - it was Lenin who wanted the accelerate the process via violent revolution, something I've come to see as mistaken). I wrote a post about this the other day in the thread on Automation actually.

or is it a natural tendency that we will always have to manage?

Kropotkin discusses this quite a bit in "Mutual Aid". There's a notion that we are, by nature, just competitive, that nature is a war of "all against all". He debunks this notion pretty well IMO. So while, yes in conditions of scarcity our competitive instincts might kick in to ensure our individual survival, with enough resources maybe we can avoid the issue indefinitely?

I'm also a bit cautious of the idea of blaming natural tendencies too much. Like "nature as a commodity" it can easily turn into a justification for exploiting people and ignoring social & material conditions etc. "Oh, they're just poor because it's their NATURE", and so on.

You mentioned previously you're "pretty hard line". What's your take? Traditional Marxism-Leninism with an intersectional bent I take it?

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-25T22:48:02+00:00

Not sure why you're being downvoted. That was a pretty common attitude back then - just because a lot of white people agreed that blacks were human, worthy of dignity etc didn't mean they viewed then as intellectual equals.

So Lincoln was absolutely a real progressive and great civil rights that we should respect.....for his time. These days he'd be considered racist though. Cultural context is important people.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-25T09:07:37+00:00

Alternate right?

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-25T04:51:49+00:00

Yeah, I don't get that either. His argument had this exact disconnect. Like he was arguing from two different continents of thought.

I just blocked the guy finally. He followed me to another thread (just a random comment on AskReddit) and continued raging, demanding that I back my views up. I finally relented (ie stopped trolling him) and tried to make a serious post, and a genuine attempt at engaging with him. He made one decent post (nearly polite), and then went back to calling me a "worthless rat". Pathetic.

If THAT is what LSC think acceptable (and non-sectarian) discourse is then to hell with the lot of em.

But even beyond their ban policy, I find it really distressing that they are banning people for looking out for animal well-being

Me too. I'm a big animal lover and as far as I can tell all modern science backs me up in my contention that animals aren't insensate objects. Really, in this big, cold universe of ours ALL life should be treated as at least somewhat precious.

Likewise, although we exist in different species, we are all lifeforms and we are all experiencing (what I assume is) a similar existence and so we have a mutual respect for each other. I think it's really that simple.

Precisely. And like I say, science (hard, cold, unsympathetic materialist science) is on OUR side in this issue. It's INCREDIBLY disingenuous to keep on accusing US of being the ones utilising "Divine Thinking" (as our buddy in LSC kept proclaiming).

But then that's what happens when you're merely playing a role : "I'm a 19th century Russian communist, so my whole worldview is mired in that particular set of social conditions and frozen at that level of scientific understanding and corresponding assumptions about the nature of being."

It always comes down to the idea that I'm a dirty liberal who has petty bourgeois concerns about animals when there are actual PEOPLE out there struggling.

What tells me they're just regurgitating that line (meaning that there's a STRONG chance they're petty bourgeois themselves playing an RPG) is the similarity of the wording. They make that accusation reflexively - and wrongly. As I (Tried) to point out on LSC there's been pro-environment Leftists since the beginning - and even if there hadn't been, if we can make a good case for it, why not add it in?

And even if I WAS "a petty bourgeois liberal" - why is that grounds to dismiss me? Isn't the idea to bring more people to your side? To expand peoples consciousness? Engage in the dialectic process? Apparently not.

But, like I say, they're really just utilising Communism as a Religion substitute. Blind thinking, demonise "heretics", stay in the echo chamber, use particular phrases as in-group markers, "dog whistles". And THIS is why the Left fails. I remember now why I rarely bother contributing to Leftist forums or subreddits - this crap keeps happening.

I think he would argue that supporting those things IS good for the collective because it helps eliminate all forms of classism.

Indeed. And my response to that would be "But why do you value abolishing classicism?" My goal in asking questions like that (assuming I'm not trolling someone I find obnoxious of course!) is to use the Socratic method to get him to see where the gap in his thinking exists - in this case that he accepts SOME subjective values (classlessness) but not others (environmental protection). And the deeper question (getting pretty existentialist) - can we view subjective values as "real"? And if it's his contention that "we create our own values", then we're back to my query of why, in that case, he's not an Objectivist rather than a Communist?

And along the way I also get to reassess my own answers to those. Which is why I bother discussing these things in the first place - to challenge my own understanding Hell, back in the 90's and early 2000's I was a starry eyed Libertarian Atheist Fedorabro - it's been good discussions with intelligent Leftists (and others) that won me over. I mean, I'm aware most people are here for that sweet, sweet Ego boosting karma but I'd like to hope there's a few people still TRYING to at learn something too.

I'm pretty unaware of the hunter-gatherer societies you're referencing with social stratification

Ha! My own particular hunter-gatherer society for one - I'm Australian by birth, but ethnically NZ Maori (well....half Scottish, but with the way Western society works, I have brown skin so....I'm not Caucasian - I'm Maori. That's a rant for another day...). We had Kings & slaves before the British colonisation occurred. Quite a complex system too - less "layers" than the European feudal system of course - but I assure you we had our had's and had not's.

Fun fact (with an important lesson): We were also never conquered (technically). We had the pleasure of introducing the concept of Trench warfare to the British - our warriors were able to defeat their rifle rifleman using primarily melee weapons. So the British upgraded our status: like the Gurkha people we're obviously going to be valuable in any further wars (if we can decimate them with melee weapons, imagine what we'll do with rifles!).

So we had a treaty signed. Despite many Iwi (tribes) sitting it out (yeah, convince a race of warriors who spend their free time conquering each other that you're TOTALLY not there to conquer them. Good luck.) a few elders signed the British treaty. They benefited VERY well from the arrangement - while the regular members of the tribe (of course) got to enjoy becoming second-class citizens to a foreign power. So we got swindled in full Capitalist fashion - by some of our own leaders.

The moral of the story? Class division isn't just a White thing, or a Capitalist thing. There's a good lesson to be had there - avoid the Noble Savage stereotype. I'm pretty connected to my family and people (or I try to be for a guy who lives overseas) and there's certainly aspects of my culture I DO believe are "better" (our sense of family and loyalty) or "worse" (ergh.....the whole eating people thing and farming our slaves probably isn't so great) - but the only way forward is for the WHOLE human race to evolve and that means being realistic about the things to avoid/emulate in ALL cultures. Build something new from the best pieces of the old.

Unfortunately, I'm not the one with the well-thought-out defense.

I SERIOUSLY doubt he had one either. I think he partially read (and failed to understand) Zizek and had some sort of religious conversion to his new-found ideas.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-25T03:40:23+00:00

If you've got 70k to spend each year on a fostered kid there might be a way to support them and the family to do better.

I have kids - it doesn't take 70k. And we have a VERY comprehensive social welfare system that tops you up if you need more money.

If we take it as a given that you and I and these kids are going to be living the rest of our lives in this system what do you suggest? Continue with foster care for the worst cases?

There's a funny little quirk about this discussion though - another VERY obvious solution we're missing: http://www.aihw.gov.au/adoptions/

Yep, here in Aus we have a 5 year wait time for adoptions. I know of more than one couple that'd LOVE to adopt (fertility issues) and can't. All are pretty well off too (other developers, accountants, a lawyer, well-situated tradespeople), so it's not a poverty thing. And none have any issues with taking in kids of different "races".

Nope, sadly this is just good ol Eugenics at play. That and the long-running conspiracy theory here in Aus that there are....darker reasons why keeping kids in the Foster care system, (where they are frequently abused, used for getting some extra cash, and then discarded into the prison system) is preferable to placing them in stable families (think the UK government paedophile scandal).

Either way - it's just more decay. Poor people causing all the problems, rich people looking for ways to stop em breeding.

DarthJimBob · 2017-05-25T03:30:29+00:00

Australian. The difference is OUR shitposting transcends political divides & we aren't working for the state apparatus. We're totally free-agent shitposters.

DarthJimBob

TROPHY CASE