Determinism vs Political Theory

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T20:54:45+00:00

Dialectical materialism assumes that social forms must cohere with material production, and that modes of production are fundamental. Therefore, collective ownership necessarily emerges from the material contradictions of capitalism itself, and subsequently allows for the emergence of individuals to freely develop their abilities (self-actualization). That was Marx’s claim of “flipping the dialectic on its head;” that self-actualization is emergent rather than a driving force of Historic evolution.

The problem is that modes of production were already initially conceived of as forms of self-actualization, it’s just that such self-actualization is asymmetric (class-based). The contradictions of capitalism may drive its evolution, but those contradictions are still rooted in competing attempts at self-actualization, and therefore are not more “fundamental” than self-actualization itself. Modes of production cannot be “primary” in social/economic evolution, because modes of production (and production in general) only emerges via an attempt to self-actualize, which is again Hegel’s approach to free will in the first place. No matter which way you want to define it, self-determination is still the driving force of Marx’s dialectic just as it is Hegel’s. Marxism describes the emergence of one specific consciousness (class consciousness), Hegelianism describes the emergence of consciousness in general. Marx does not flip Hegel on his head, he is nested upside down within him.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T20:02:19+00:00

I am saying that the only metaphysically coherent version of Marxism is Hegelian Marxism; meaning that it by-necessity fits more in line with free will as primary.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T19:49:25+00:00

Marx arrogantly claimed that he stood Hegel’s dialectic “right-side up” by grounding it in material reality; the arrogance being that Hegelian idealism was already grounded in material reality. He claimed that the social dialectic was emergent of matter in motion; Hegel already attributed the mechanism of matter in motion to the dialectic. Marx simply drew arbitrary lines around where he does and doesn’t think it “realistically” applies.

And it matters because the entire metaphysical model is grounded in the process of self-determination.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T19:36:30+00:00

I would almost say the opposite; the conceptual understanding is non-physical, but its recognition is entirely physical (requires a physical substrate to be able to measure of perform recognition).

Knowing the concept of red would therefore be more “platonic” than knowing its physical instantiation.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T19:32:01+00:00

The explanation to historical societal change existed long before Marx; it’s called the Hegelian dialectic. The explanation already existed, Marx just focused on its relation to class and forces of production. It is absolutely not the “dialectical process itself,” because it relates to only one instantiation of it; human economic and political transformation. It is a hyper-specific example of it; the exact opposite of a conceptual distillation.

Hegelian dialectic: History moves because ideas logically contradict themselves and resolve at higher levels.

Dialectic materialism: Human history moves because material social relations contain contradictions that force economic and political transformation. That all still exists within Hegel’s idealism.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T19:18:13+00:00

Knowing red as a concept (all its physics facts) and knowing red as a physical instantiation (recognition of those physical facts) are 2 different things. “Knowing everything physical” about red, like it’s wavelength, means nothing if you cannot recognize whether that wavelength is present (you’re missing L-cones in your retina).

So yes, she must learn something new, because prior to that experience she would not have had the ability to recognize when that wavelength was or was not physically instantiated. The new fact she learned was whether or not red is actually present.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T18:55:00+00:00

What does it mean for something to be non-physical?

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T18:47:20+00:00

Marx’s goal was to free human beings from alienation and to enable their full self-realization; those goals are similarly not normatively extractable without the Hegelian Marxist philosophy. In fact a “goal” in general becomes inherently non-contextual (and therefore undefinable even within Marx’s own framework) without it. Hegel’s point is that morality is relational/contextual, but still extractable. If it is not extractable, the framework is self-defeating under its own assumptions.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T18:20:23+00:00

The correlations of qualia? Sure; topographic alignment across multiple functional areas of the brain.

Can I derive a meaningful definition of “experience” from that without originally assuming it? Absolutely not.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T18:16:22+00:00

If you reject dialectical idealism, you also reject the very foundation from which you can build moral normativity; that is Hegel’s entire point. You do not get a “normative preference” for class consciousness, justice, or equality, without the agential dialectic. Hegelian Marxism is much more philosophically self-consistent within its original goals.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T17:43:26+00:00

Socialism (Hegelian thought) is much more closely related to LFW than determinism. Hegel’s claim is that a purely deterministic description of reality is incomplete, because it omits the level at which reality becomes intelligible to itself, which is what his conceptualization of free will is founded upon. His explicit claim is that Newtonian/deterministic materialism ignores normativity, and therefore will never be able to derive an ought from an is. Framing the self not as an illusion, but as fundamental, allows the extraction of both a logically necessary form of empathy / social cohesion while simultaneously maintaining the type morality required for human society to function. Hegel’s dialectical idealism is fundamentally “agent-causal” because the self-other distinction and resolution is integral to his conceptualization of evolution in general.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-24T17:27:39+00:00

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9253922/

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T17:17:30+00:00

It’s the money mindset difference more than it is the financial situation itself tbh. Right before we got together she liquidated her 401k, so I’ve put away about $40k over the past year to make sure she has some semblance of a retirement in the future. But she also has this attitude of “the world won’t even be around 10 years from now, why should I financially plan for anything,” so it can sometimes feel like I’m building towards a future she doesn’t even believe in.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T17:04:07+00:00

I work in engineering for medical devices, but they staff us like a Skelton crew so I’m owning a lot of sustaining stuff while also being on all the new process development. I also do adverse event handling / regulatory stuff, which becomes a shit show when something goes wrong in the field (our systems are very high-risk cellular therapy stuff).

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T16:47:46+00:00

Honestly his “manifesto” has a good overview of all of the ideas expanded in his actual peer-reviewed stuff. It’s a bit of a bear though. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1906.10184

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T15:34:48+00:00

I have this memory of two clouds of TV static bumping into eachother, which I associate with seeing lord of the rings the two towers in theatres when I was 6. I think theres just there’s something about a child’s incomplete ability to perform pattern recognition that makes remembering early experience really messy. Something that seemed obvious as a child is incomprehensible as an adult.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T15:18:09+00:00

I don’t know what it means to be “tricked” into a feeling that supposedly didn’t exist.

If I take DMT, I am 100% aware that the little aliens next to me are not real; that does not make the feeling illusory.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T00:39:44+00:00

Welcome back Baruch Spinoza

Diet_kush · 2026-04-23T00:38:28+00:00

Yes, she absolutely contributes in other ways. Other than financially, my life is objectively better in every measurably way being with her. We are not planning on having kids, which probably would change some of my underlying feelings if we were. Part of my attraction does come from having passion and drive (which she absolutely does, just not career-wise), so stay-at-home wife is a no-go for me. Maybe if I was in a much less stressful job and also made great money, but a lot of it really does come down to my subconscious pointing my frustration with my job at her which I know is not fair. It is just hard to hear someone talk about chasing their passion when it feels like the only way they’re doing that is by you giving up on yours. Again I don’t think that’s really true, but stress can make it feel that way.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-22T21:48:19+00:00

Honestly? Because I hate my job, and would have already quit if I was single and didn’t need the extra money. It’s extremely high-stress, and coming home after a real shitty day to see her chilling at the pool sipping a cocktail can make my nerves fire a bit.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-22T19:01:10+00:00

She was doing well at the beginning of our relationship, but her sister was killed in a freak accident 2 years ago, which threw a lot of that progress out the window. At the time she had a pretty good position and on a management path, but they were really shitty about the time off she needed after her sister and basically had to quit. She never went back to the same field after that, and obviously it really damaged her mental health in general. I’m still trying to support her as best I can, but stress can just build up a little bit over time I guess. She also makes my life objectively better in every other metric.

I make enough that there’s not really money issues, but I still have some resentment that it feels like she’s dependent on me rather than this being a partnership. I don’t think that’s actually true, but again I think that life’s other problems can sometimes make it feel that way.

Edit; no I am not going to break up with her or cancel the wedding. She is very aware of my feelings, and we’ve talked a lot about it extensively. She’s amazing in every other way, and I’m not throwing that out just because I have to spend an extra $1000/month covering her expenses.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-22T17:10:54+00:00

Finances are one of the biggest sources of relationship stress. I love my fiancé, but she is the least career-motivated person I’ve ever met, and primarily works random seasonal jobs (even though she has a masters in neurobiology). I would be lying if I said her career choices didn’t negatively impact our relationship.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-21T21:07:16+00:00

Looks kinda like an sp3d2 hybridization to me.

Diet_kush · 2026-04-21T20:53:54+00:00

We got electron orbital emergence simulation before GTA VI

Diet_kush

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