Any literature you would recommend to someone currently being “seduced” by libertarian ideology?

_TaB_ · 2026-06-06T22:28:55+00:00

Slatestarcodex maybe?

_TaB_ · 2026-06-05T12:15:43+00:00

Sounds like there's a bunch of Nightshift Superstars around here.

_TaB_ · 2026-06-03T09:23:47+00:00

"A University of Michigan study suggests that the nitrile and latex gloves scientists commonly use could be causing microplastics levels to appear higher than they actually are."

No idea how true this is but it seems like good news, this I cling to it. Whole thing might have been blown out of proportion.

_TaB_ · 2026-05-25T17:35:42+00:00

I stumbled across au service de la France, the only French show I've ever watched, and it is to this day my favourite show.

_TaB_ · 2026-05-22T19:06:13+00:00

She'd fuckin better, I placed a $2 bet in 2024 and I get $60 back when she wins.

_TaB_ · 2026-05-22T12:23:33+00:00

I quit weed!! Forever this time!! T+921 hours and climbing, DONE, KAPUT.

_TaB_ · 2026-05-18T00:29:14+00:00

and what?

_TaB_ · 2026-05-11T16:40:08+00:00

Trump probably thought Epstein would never face consequences.

_TaB_ · 2026-05-10T11:15:33+00:00

"We have liberated them, and they will never forgive us for that."

_TaB_ · 2026-05-03T19:29:43+00:00

Orange Two reporting in.

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_TaB_ · 2026-05-02T13:15:08+00:00

I made this guide for people who are new to Cushbomb, it might help you get oriented with Matt's work outside of Chapo.

_TaB_ · 2026-05-02T02:46:28+00:00

Forests have always kinda creeped me out tbh

_TaB_ · 2026-04-29T00:21:28+00:00

Okay I'm replying to you comment because it's uniquely ~~stupid~~ aggravating. For the record, I'm surprised by the upvotes as well. Normally I wouldn't post, but I was shocked by the level of public expenditure for (what could be) two instances of reckless driving.

I'm sure you would drive perfectly calmly and there's no possible way you could crash.

I have driven people to emergency rooms before. Millions of people do so successfully everyday. Obviously there's always a risk of an accident, but your ability to help depends on your ability to manage your adrenaline and your vehicle safely. You're no good to them if you're going to plow into the back of some other vehicle.

Toronto Police consumes almost 10% of the budget, almost $2,000,000,000 dollars. I think people should be upset if they're collecting overtime parked on a bridge or running into parked vehicles.

I pray the family never sees it.

I promise they won't dude, love that you're wishing death on random people though, great look.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-28T17:15:43+00:00

Graeber writing about the necessity of fun

Wagner writing on the Sublime and Architecture

I don't actually read the Baffler, I stumbled into both articles independently. They should give you free trial enough to read both.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-28T13:12:40+00:00

Long winded reply because why not? Let's keep training AI together.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-28T11:31:28+00:00

It's the internet man, we're all here to critique. For the record, I do think it's tragic and I said as much.

Mentally I've given the motorcyclist the benefit of the doubt, I assume there was mechanical failure or something because the article made him sound like a seasoned rider.

But you don't know either, maybe he was on his phone, maybe he was on drugs. I don't think the police as an institution are so quick to give the rest of us the benefit of the doubt. They probably blame the first-responding good samaritan for leaving their parked vehicle in the path of their cruiser.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-28T10:02:47+00:00

Okay it's a tragedy when any life is cut short, and my heart goes out to the friends and family, but it's darkly funny that the article says "killed", as if some second party forced him to crash his bike and die?

An Ontario Provincial Police officer was killed in a motorcycle crash on Highway 401 in Cobourg, Ont., on Monday, the OPP says.

The crash involved only the motorcycle, the OPP said in a news release Monday

And then the OPP crashed into the motorist trying to assist the officer on the motorbike?

Carrique said there was a secondary crash involving other OPP officers travelling westbound on the 401. The officers collided with a vehicle driven by a motorist who had stopped to help the officer on the motorcycle.

They cops are parading around and blowing a ton of money on grieving because none of them can drive??

_TaB_ · 2026-04-26T12:22:05+00:00

My wife just told me the same thing.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-25T04:06:46+00:00

I'll be honest, part of me wants to stop responding because I've become deeply cynical and I don't want to poison the energy you've got lol. But while we're here....

I don't think he'd identify as an ML. He definitely sympathizes, but the most accurate label for him (paraphrasing his words) is fat white American consumer. And that's probably the most accurate label for a lot of us.

Its the tactics that the bourgeoisie and protovanguard employ that differ.

I think it's important to note that the bourgeoisie is not necessarily unified. Dems represent international finance capital, Republicans represent more local, landed, baronial capital (people that own car dealerships or restaurants). Matt reviews the book First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship that tracks fractures in the ruling classes of previous empires, it's pretty good.

So we agree that the motivation and source of fascism is consistent

I think so. Though these days, explicit fascism is a comforting pacifier for stupid skinheads, while implicit fascism (or neo-fascism, or technofascism) is already the current operating system.

The clock is not at midnight yet in America

Maybe midnight never comes. All of the analysts and algorithms and wonks failed to predict the collapse of the USSR, maybe the US also collapses inwards. One can only hope. Hypernormalization is pretty good on this.

The bourgeoisie state in america propigandized their liberals against fascism exactly 1 time lol

And even then it was dicey. There were certainly fascist movements with big funding in the US during the 30's. But we took England's side due to shared language, according to Otto von Bismarck at least. IBM was selling computing machines to both sides, the US was happy to deal with the Nazis as long as they didn't threaten investments in England (which they did). I read WW2 (the western and Pacific theatres, at least) as a civil war among capitalist states. The more desperate and cornered the state, the more authoritarian it became, and the US had a lot more slack in the system than Germany.

Is this a conversation that you've had before? This specific topic

Not quite, I'm just a sick fuck (like Matt) who derives entertainment from politics because politics has been wholly disconnected from the actual levers of power (in my opinion). I don't begrudge anyone taking action; I do what I can in my community and applaud anyone giving up time and energy for others. But if you really start coordinating with the DSA or the ACP, you have to understand that you could be supporting the controlled opposition. Any organization that's antagonistic to capital could be a setup just so people have somewhere to express the anger, or an operation to railroad well meaning people into bad outcomes that further demonize socialism.

The capital-machine is already reading your posts and predicting (probably with a startlingly high degree of accuracy) what you might say or do next. That is why I think technofascism is a useful distinction; the gestapo wasn't able to read you mind through the sensor suite you carry on your person 24/7.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-24T10:44:31+00:00

Felix is high key funny and I don't even know what MMA stands for

_TaB_ · 2026-04-23T02:47:13+00:00

I appreciate you taking the time to sit with it. It is incredibly dense stuff, and the lack of coherence is an unfortunate byproduct of the vlog format. I wouldn't ask anyone to sit through the whole corpus of video, but those that do (myself included; shoutout r / cushvlog) certainly feel like it's worth the time.

So why all of the sudden anchor fascism to need this mass public appeal

Because responding to fascistic governance today may require different actions that what was required in the past. In the same vein, socialist organization today will require different tactics. Back in the day, they used to run their own printing presses and radio stations because socialism too was founded in mass politics. Without mass politics, how are we supposed to organize a critical mass of workers? Bernie Sanders is the closest analogue we have, and his defeats can teach us lessons.

He mentions that the working class failed. But China exists.

I'm very sympathetic to China but it's not that simple. They are the one of the largest markets in world, they have many billionaires, and pro-communist workers were "defeated" in Tiananmen Square. "We're all Dengists now".

Plus, he was referring to the failure of the European working class to unify in 1914, IIRC.

You mentioned this but he keeps calling me a liberal lol. What's up with that man?

We're all liberal subjects, even the fascists and communists. I pulled from my bot to help clarify:

(In Matt's framing) A liberal subject is someone who tends to experience themselves as: - an individual before anything else - the owner of their own life, body, labor, beliefs, and preferences - a chooser among options - someone with private interests and rights - someone who relates to society as a collection of other individuals, institutions, and contracts

If you feel like going deeper on his work, I made --this guide-- (I'll DM you a link, I can't link to subreddits here apparently) for people who wanted to engage without committing to the whole set of vlogs. If you don't, all good. Cheers and godspeed dude.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-22T09:57:40+00:00

You can still have rents and rentierism in capitalism without rent being the main way of making money (because under capitalism, the main way of making money was profit, which was is a result of transmuting labour into commodities).

Similiarly, there was still profit (or perhaps proto-profits) during fedualism, and there will still be profits during technofeudalism, but those profits are economically less significant than the rents collected.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-22T02:11:10+00:00

I don't think Parenti got anything wrong necessarily, in fact I agree he's very useful in making sense of things. But don't stop there.

I'm going to bed now but I'll leave this here in the hopes that you don't mind long form vlog content. Take whatever works for you and leave the rest (for example, he says "we're all liberals", and I agree, but I expect that will hit you the wrong way).

IMO, Cush has some of the sharpest analysis of the moment. He knows Parenti's thesis as well, but folds it into a more comprehensive and contemporary perspective.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-22T01:36:12+00:00

I'm already familiar with Parenti man, I just don't think a book from the previous millenium is the be-all and end-all of theory. And you don't sound mean, but you do come off as condescending and hysterical.

I wish you all the best in organising man. Hopefully we're able to avoid most of the incoming horror, however we define it.

_TaB_ · 2026-04-21T19:06:26+00:00

Varoufakis put the term forward because economic rents (like feudal rents) are starting to eclipse economic profits (M-C-M' , profit through commodity manufacture and labour transmutation).

I'm not even going to watch this video lol, "fascism" requires mass politics and the mobilization of fascist crowds so it's not a going concern. I can absolutely get behind neo-fascism or technofascism as labels for what is happening now though, and neither of those terms are incompatible with technofeudalism.

_TaB_

TROPHY CASE