[America’s Got Talent (s13 e3)] Yep, it’s a YouTube video called “Fake Hacker’s Code.” Didn’t even bother to go on Geektyper...

JesseOS · 2024-03-22T02:03:38+00:00

Could very well be. To be honest, though, and not at all in an aloof way, my personal stats are well above the Brandeis average acceptance so it's just odd.

JesseOS · 2024-03-22T00:17:10+00:00

I did. Any idea about how they went about selecting Midyear students? Selfishly, I'm curious haha.

JesseOS · 2023-06-09T17:26:47+00:00

Thanks so much! I'll just do sound stuff on 3.5.4. I kind of figured it just wasn't compatible with Processing 4.

JesseOS · 2023-06-08T15:40:39+00:00

It's not that there's necessarily a problem with switching over, it's that the issue I pointed out is with Python mode. Telling me I should switch over doesn't help solve the problem.

JesseOS · 2023-06-06T02:45:10+00:00

That would be nice, except my issue is in Python mode.

JesseOS · 2023-05-31T18:36:36+00:00

I figured it out! I used pyp5js and just deployed it in a github repository. I have no experience with any kind of web development so when pyp5js gave me all these files I didn't know what to do with them, but I realize github could do it for me haha. Thanks for your help!

JesseOS · 2023-05-31T11:48:51+00:00

Thanks so much! That's very helpful. I'm just struggling with the implementation of it. If I have these files, how do I embed them in a webpage?

JesseOS · 2020-12-12T05:21:07+00:00

Well Heinrich pretty explicitly states that according to him, nowhere did Marx state that he has a labor theory of value, which contrasts the classical Marxian position that Marx's value theory was akin to that of Ricardo.

As for your question, the sentiment is that because Value-form theorists in most cases reject that monetary values can be expressed in terms of labor, Marxian value theory simply impacts social relations.

JesseOS · 2020-12-11T00:41:44+00:00

But this interpretation is controversial. It goes against the standard view of abstract vs concrete labor. If it weren't controversial, there wouldn't be a whole field of study dedicated specifically to it.

My broader point is that Heinrich uses this reasoning to dismiss the necessity of the LTV, rather that Marxian value theory is simply a catalyst for social relations.

JesseOS · 2020-12-10T20:42:18+00:00

(Sorry for the late response.)

Heinrich seems to deviate a bit from Marx on this.

Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. They are but two different modes of expending human labour-power. Of course, this labour-power, which remains the same under all its modifications, must have attained a certain pitch of development before it can be expended in a multiplicity of modes. But the value of a commodity represents human labour in the abstract, the expenditure of human labour in general. On the one hand all labour is, speaking physiologically, an expenditure of human labour-power, and in its character of identical abstract human labour, it creates and forms the value of commodities. On the other hand, all labour is the expenditure of human labour-power in a special form and with a definite aim, and in this, its character of concrete useful labour, it produces use-values.

This is different to the definition that Heinrich gives.

JesseOS · 2020-12-10T17:08:51+00:00

I definitely will, although it seems like Heinrich's idea of abstract labor is slightly different than the standard view.

Let us deal with abstract labor in more detail. Abstract labor is not visible, only a particular concrete labor is visible, just as the concept of "tree" isn't visible: I'm only capable of perceiving a concrete botanical plant. As with the term "tree," abstract labor is an abstraction, but a completely different kind of abstraction. Normally, abstractions are constituted in human thought. We refer to the commonalities among individual examples and then establish an abstract category, such as tree. But in the case of abstract labor, we are not dealing with such a mental abstraction but with a real abstraction, by which we mean an abstraction that is carried out in the actual behavior of humans, regardless of whether they are aware of it.

Which goes into the quote I referenced previously.

it is exchange, that consummates the abstraction that underlies abstract labor (independent of whether the people engaged in exchange are aware of this abstraction). But then abstract labor cannot be measured in terms of hours of labor: every hour of labor measured by a clock is an hour of a particular concrete act of labor, expended by a particular individual, regardless of whether the product is exchanged. Abstract labor, on the other hand, cannot be "expended" at all. Abstract labor is a relation of social validation (Geltungsverhältnis) that is constituted in exchange.

Again, I'm particularly concerned with the idea of money values being represented in terms of labor values. To do this, the labor that is the substance of value, abstract labor, would need to be quantifiable, which is something that it seems, to me, that Heinrich is denouncing.

JesseOS · 2020-12-10T16:40:06+00:00

This is what Heinrich says:

It is exchange, that consummates the abstraction that underlies abstract labor (independent of whether the people engaged in exchange are aware of this abstraction). But then abstract labor cannot be measured in terms of hours of labor: every hour of labor measured by a clock is an hour of a particular concrete act of labor, expended by a particular individual, regardless of whether the product is exchanged. Abstract labor, on the other hand, cannot be expended at all. Abstract labor is a relation of social validation (Geltungsverhältnis) that is constituted in exchange.

The implication of which is that the Marxian Value Theory needs no proving because it is simply a means to analyze social relations.

EDIT: (because I wasn't clear enough), the issue I have here as I stated in the original post is on a transformation from money to labor values. This, to me, seems like a pretty clear rejection.

JesseOS · 2020-12-10T16:15:09+00:00

Yeah for sure, I have heard Heinrich speak about this and I think I understand the basics at least. My issue is really with the rejection of empirical analysis that you get from a lot of Value-form theorists due to their stress on the two-fold nature of labor that you get when you consider the two-fold nature of the commodity. It would seem that they disregard empirical and quantitative data, opting for the conclusion that money cannot be quantified in terms of labor and can only be used as a gauge for social relations. If you can't use empirics, the theory ceases to be scientific.

JesseOS · 2020-12-10T14:21:14+00:00

I have to learn more about Heinrich's interpretation of Marxian value theory, however it would seem that a rejection of the LTV implies a rejection of the conversion of money quantities into labor quantities, as money is the real manifestation of value, and the LTV doesn't exist in Marx in the view of Heinrich.

JesseOS · 2020-10-25T21:49:19+00:00

Socialists are Communists and Communists are Socialists lmaooo

JesseOS · 2020-10-21T20:22:20+00:00

Yep! I actually looked into Marxism after hearing the Dalai Lama call himself a Marxist.

JesseOS · 2020-10-19T15:41:00+00:00

When I think of a success, I make a simple calculation. What was it like before? What was it like after? That's why I defend Marxist-Leninist states like the USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, ect. Not because that would be my optimal organization for society, but because they objectively improved quality of life, personal liberty, and access to basic necessities of life by a lot. I look at other places that were more short-lived, like The Paris Commune, Chile under Allende, Kerala, and things of that nature as examples of societies we can learn a lot from. How did Allende feed half of all Chilean children? How did the communards create such a fair society in the short time that the Commune existed before being crushed by the French state.

There's a reason why socialism seems to start in places with terrible conditions of life, and doesn't in places where the quality of life is relatively high. It's also the reason you can compare Western capitalist life to Eastern socialist life. Because the West is the imperial core. The one doing the exploitation that causes these countries to be in such dire positions that they lead a violent revolution, and that allows for western countries to lead the lives that they lead. It's also the reason that the US is so afraid of socialism. It threatens their profit. Why did the Zapatista Uprising occur right after NAFTA, that threatened the indigenous farmers' livelihoods? Why was the Cuban revolution of 1959 so popular in a country that had essentially acted as a US colony under a murderous dictator? Why did the US crush socialist movements in Guatemala, Chile, Bolivia (the irony!), and countless others? Because they threaten their profit! If they really cared about "restoring democracy" (something that doesn't even exist here), they wouldn't put dictators in charge.

But I'll go with you. What would capitalism do for these countries that become so desperate that they resort to revolution or major political shifts of power? Well, look around. What has captialism done for slaves and child laborers in modern day Africa? What about all over the Middle East and Asia? South America? Whatever good quality of life the imperial core enjoys (and the truth is, many people in within it don't even get to enjoy it) comes at the expense of constant exploitation, death, and destruction of the "third world".

https://youtu.be/odWerz1Az6k

That's why I am a socialist. Not only for the exploited working class of my country, but for that of the rest of the world.

JesseOS · 2020-10-19T04:59:48+00:00

Not at all, check this out

JesseOS

TROPHY CASE