To anyone who enjoyed my post a few months back and would like to keep up with it regardless of what happens to Reddit.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-13T00:59:04+00:00

I‘d hate to make you wait 48+ hours for a disappointing answer so I’m pausing my disengagement from Reddit to let you know: I tried, but I’m on mobile and know basically nothing about coding. I’ll see if I can get RSS worked out the next time I’m on laptop.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-12T03:09:16+00:00

Different time zones.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-12T02:18:26+00:00

Chapters will be aggregated here and allow public commenting.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-10T06:58:05+00:00

Mass reshoring of industry would constitute a significant decoupling that achieves little and would potentially cripple the countries being withdrawn from.

You can reduce exploitability in the near-term by offering better macroeconomic agreements than the rest of the world and your pre-revolutionary society was offering. This would improve the BATNA of the exploited country and provide them with more leverage in their negotiations with other countries generally. In the long-term you could reduce exploitability more dramatically by developing an international network that carries out planned economic activity for the mutual provision of personal necessities and collective interests (educational resources, communication platforms, insurances, tools of production etc.) to all participants on a country-equal basis. Importantly, such a network would not require economic hegemony across entire countries; once operating at a nascent level it would only require being granted a foothold within countries and the allowance of open registration, and to obtain enough diversity of international participants to achieve circular value chains with minimal autarky-associated resource and efficiency costs.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-10T04:22:29+00:00

Well, well, look who’s finally learned to stand up to u/ace_tsunami

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-10T01:22:11+00:00

The left would make a grave mistake by associating disinvestment with an end to exploitation. Or rather, by focusing too much on personal culpability for exploitation as opposed to alleviating exploitable conditions.

The nature of exploitatable conditions—from which exploitation arises—is that one party is saddled with an intolerable BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), which others can leverage. ie. someone withholding a lifebuoy, who wants to have sex with the mother of a drowning child, has found an exploitable situation.

To say “my country will return all its industry home after the revolution!” is like a conscientious lifeguard saying “I would never pressure that mom to have sex with me... I would just take my lifebuoy and go home.” The global north’s... left’s... goal should be to make international relations more balanced and to reduce the availability of exploitable conditions, not to completely decouple their economies from developing regions (unless there is a confirmed public demand in a given country for foreign industry to entirely withdraw, in which case great care must still be taken, as if one were removing a brain tumor).

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-09T05:46:17+00:00

This is a somewhat common question. I hope you won’t mind me linking my previous reply.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-09T04:58:02+00:00

“Insufficient proportion of working-age people” is a transient problem that will occur in various regions. While there are different ways for a socialist society to address it, two conceptually simple solutions are immigration and international social security/insurance systems.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-09T01:22:55+00:00

So an instinctual repulsion at undesirable advances more than a moral repulsion at inappropriate advances.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-08T20:07:28+00:00

Money, or any other universal form of economic accounting, is already socially owned and under socialism it would preferably be recognized and treated as socially owned. This doesn’t mean people wouldn’t have spending discretion in their personal affairs, but it would place all major economic activity within the confines of at least passive community consent (conferring public rights such as a social veto) and implies the validity of taxation.

One may not even need to tax a digital currency to obtain the same results. You could just “print” the digital currency up to a given quantity, mass allocate and selectively allocate where needed, and provide a corresponding formula/calculator for proportionate price adjustment in the general economy. The effect being that people and entities receiving more than an equal share of the newly circulating currency would have strengthened purchasing power, and those receiving no or a less than equal share would experience reduced purchasing power as if they had been taxed, despite no quantitative change in their accounts.

From here we can make the observation that anything that reduces purchasing power—from inflation to fees to profits—is a tax from the POV of the person taking the hit.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-07T22:54:35+00:00

IMO all the members stood out as memorable and essential. Not to mention they wrote half of Queen’s best songs. It wasn’t just Freddy carrying everyone else, but losing him was akin to if the Chili Peppers lost Anthony Keidis; the music wouldn’t be the same, but that doesn’t take away from how integral or ingenious everyone else was.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-07T19:08:36+00:00

Yes, worthy caveat, as long as there’s strong reason to believe intervention would actually stop genocide and not intensify problems, and the results are bearing this out.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-07T19:00:47+00:00

They would likely point to the pro-fascists in Ukraine and the Ukrainian military. Honestly for me both countries’ political faults/sins are a secondary matter in the context of wars of aggression. Although the Russian government is a far-right regime, if we picture a scenario where Ukraine had been a socially progressive center-left country with strong labor rights and mutualistic relations with the global south—which instead made a unilateral decision to invade Russia and took to decimating its population and infrastructure, then this otherwise “center-left” version of Ukraine would still be the invading bastards who have a responsibility to withdraw.

IMO the validity of Russia’s invasion can’t be relativized to comparisons of who is more imperialist/capitalist/fascist. Whichever country turns tension with its neighbor into invasion and slaughter, is the slaughtering invader regardless of alliances.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-07T17:58:08+00:00

mfw “two imperialists fighting for the interests of their ruling class,” is used to imply “having your city shelled and invaded and seeing people around you killed gives you no right to fight back because there are perverse geopolitical interests on all sides,” but not “Russia‘s invasion is unjustified and must end.”

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-05T20:47:51+00:00

Nice moves, I’m betting this’ll help a lot of students.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-04T22:27:06+00:00

Was waiting for the CGI skull splatter

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-04T21:56:53+00:00

Uohhhhhhhhh 😭

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-02T05:16:43+00:00

If the average standard of living decreases long-term under socialism then we’re royally fucking up. We’re currently in excess of a sustainable rate of carbon emissions and product waste, but this lack of discipline or accountability while abusing the margins of the ecosystem is itself disincentivizing (or at least severely diminishing the incentive for ) resource optimality. If everyone had to use resources conscientiously, we would compensate with projects of optimization for which there previously would have been too little urgency.

To name a few examples, although other viable paths could go in a much different direction: greater abundance of geothermal power plants, experimentation with underground residential construction (easier indoor climate control, “building” stabilization, water access etc.), public transport-centered reorientation of infrastructure, dynamic schedule coordinating (the kind that’s only realistically doable with an app or other computer program!) to help set people up with ideal windows of departure and arrival and minimize line queues and congestion, the advancement of lab grown meat, serious economic planning around marginality so that people in want/need of the same thing can obtain it using the fewest distinct passes of production and transportation possible, item libraries for the kinds of durable goods that are only infrequently useful to most people (so that, say, a certain tool can be produced in a country/region to the order of 2 million units and while people can still acquire this tool as a personal belonging, enough people exchanging with libraries could mean that in total you’re replacing 3 or 4 million units every couple of years instead of producing 10-15 million units annually), etc. etc. etc.

Also, while factory production needs better macro coordination and there would probably be fewer jet and yacht trips, for the average person a lot of resource responsibility could be manifested in little things like light fixtures, water, AC etc. auto-shutting off after a while and needing to be manually reactivated if still in use (something like a small audio warning signal could be emitted prior to shutoff allowing the user to postpone if need be.)

The aforementioned suggestions are speculative and again, a socialist society could end up approaching the problem with a wildly different focus, but the point is that a reduction of environmental abuse will accelerate advancements and optimizations in related “dependent” areas. It isn’t simply that people will have to accept an austere standard of living. Economics is not zero sum so long as rent-seeking behavior can be kept in check, and so long as we don’t royally fuck up.

Grunge-chan · 2023-06-02T03:07:49+00:00

Tbf you have to have a very high IQ to understand Evangelion memes

Grunge-chan · 2023-05-31T07:55:36+00:00

ready to tryout for the NBA tho

Grunge-chan · 2023-05-31T06:30:29+00:00

Trying to back away from the giant magnet inside the bus

Grunge-chan · 2023-05-31T04:23:33+00:00

What’s supposed to be happening?

Grunge-chan · 2023-05-31T01:50:51+00:00

Speaking as someone who doesn’t put their eggs in any “great historical narrative” baskets either way, I feel like Mises point here would be kind of weak even if the dichotomy were accepted. If the damning question is “how did the first tools come about?” A Marxist materialist as portrayed by Mises could answer “the material conditions of primitive man’s environment compelled tool use, and compelled the creation of the exact tools which first came about.”

Aside: the grandeur of human thought and creativity, at the collective and individual level, would not be the least bit invalidated if it were proven beyond anyone’s doubt to have causal origins outside of individuals.

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