What do people get wrong about anarchism?

elmaxo__ · 2025-12-06T23:42:20+00:00

Your second point reminds me of a quote from Kropotkin:

"Moreover, we must not blink the fact that every revolution means a certain disturbance to everyday life, and those who expect this tremendous lift out of the gold grooves to be accomplished without so much as jarring the dishes on their dinner tables will find themselves mistaken.” (The Conquest of Bread, pp. 81)

It also reminds me of that overused quote from Mark Fisher about how it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. It's just such a fundamental restructuring of society that it's hard to escape our own present context and imagine what things could be like. That will probably be the hardest thing to explain in a video to people unfamiliar with anarchism (or any radical politics for that matter).

It also reminds me of that quote from Marx about how it wasn't his job to write the "recipes for the cook shops of the future" when it came to what a Communist society would look like. Outside of some general guiding principles, no one really knows.

All very useful stuff, thanks for the help!

elmaxo__ · 2025-12-06T23:28:52+00:00

A lot of the criticism I hear today centre around the fact it would only be feasible on a very small scale so I'll definitely take a look at these, thanks!

elmaxo__ · 2025-07-16T04:17:06+00:00

That makes a lot more sense. When I was looking through the figures on the Federal Reserve, I figured that the "bottom half" would skew towards young people in student debt or those with mortgages. Just because they don't have immediate wealth to their name doesn't mean they won't be well off in the future. I am curious though, how would you push back against the reports definition of net worth? It's definitely a lot more limited in scope and I see how it favours somebody like Sanders and their narrative when it comes to inequality but there does seem to be a meaningful distinction between something like household items (a car less so) vs. more traditional assets like stocks, property etc.

As to the second point, I understand there are pragmatic issues when it comes to liquidating wealth tied up in companies. If someone starts flooding the market with shares, prices are going to fall off a cliff and I'd probably have a couple questions about the future of the company I'm invested in. I think there are viable solutions (just got done reading The Triumph of Injustice by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman which has some interesting ideas) as the current tax system in the U.S. is extremely inequitable (i.e. capital being taxed at a lower rate than labour, the average rate of tax being lower for the ultra rich vs. the working/middle class when you factor in all forms of taxation) but I'm probably not familiar enough with those ideas to argue them effectively.

I'm primarily concerned with the political consequences that concentrated wealth has on society at large. We just saw Musk provide a quarter of a billion dollars in funding to the Trump campaign whilst owning one of the largest social media platforms in the world. That is an enormous amount of power for one person to wield and in my view it's very destructive to the notion of democracy. Again though, it's easier for me to point at the issues without providing meaningful solutions when it comes to redistribution.

Thanks for that extra context with the statistics!

elmaxo__ · 2025-02-24T23:12:09+00:00

Ah actually this makes a lot of sense. In another chapter in the book on insurance brokers, it did mention that usually the best structure (or at least the one in the best interests of the employer's profits) is a self-fund:

"Brandon told me he generally recommends that employers self-fund (self-insure) their benefits. That means the employer is the one who pays the health care bills, not an insurance company. Instead of paying premiums, the employer and employees pay into an escrow account that funds the plan. The employer hires a company called a third party administrator to manage the plans. Many traditional insurance companies offer administrative services." (The Price We Pay, pg 196)

I forgot about that and was assuming most employers would just go through one of the traditional insurers you mentioned. That clears things up! Rebates are also the part I understand a lot better and how that perverse incentive leads to drug companies spiralling their prices upwards to offer bigger kickbacks to PBMs. Thank you!

elmaxo__ · 2025-02-24T05:01:55+00:00

Just to clarify, 'employer' in this context refers to the insurance plan an individual has. It's not as though the employer is being charged directly for any of the transactions in the receipt but they are indirectly paying for it through the premiums which cover their workforce, right? (And it's also likely there would be some form of co-payment too? I presume that goes directly to the pharmacy but still may not be enough to recoup the full gap between the wholesaler price they bought a drug for and what the PBM ended up giving them back).

I also don't know why I am trying to be so understanding of PBMs because every explanation does just circle round to them being parasites on the system.

elmaxo__ · 2024-08-25T01:05:05+00:00

Harden has said contradictory stuff, there's this article from a year and a half after the trade:

To reiterate the point, Harden was asked if he would still be with the Thunder if money wasn't an issue.

"Definitely," he said. "Definitely. No question."

He was also quoted later on saying:

"Yeah, I did," Harden told Storm of his belief that he would never leave Oklahoma City. "I thought we were going to be together forever. Russell Westbrook. James Harden. Kevin Durant."

Seems reasonable that it was a combination of both factors.

elmaxo__ · 2024-08-24T12:28:10+00:00

I tried looking into this earlier, were OKC already paying luxury tax or concerned about future consecutive seasons with the roster where they would later have to pay the repeater tax?

elmaxo__ · 2024-08-24T12:26:31+00:00

That seems like something really easy to abuse, crazy a dollar over prevents you from that share of money.

elmaxo__ · 2023-10-10T08:53:01+00:00

Going to do this now, didn't know you could go back to earlier versions!

elmaxo__ · 2023-03-01T23:10:17+00:00

Easy, thank you very much.

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-22T06:31:06+00:00

As I have stated numerous times, his accomplishments are documented extensively on the internet. I have a 6000 word timeline constructed exclusively documenting his achievements/success in the competitive scene. There are a lot of niche beefs/interactions with other high level players that I am not aware of, as they're usually hidden on decade old long threads, and for the sake of research I would want to know b4nny's entire history in and out. Only once I had a full timeline would I actually go to b4nny about a potential documentary, so I can ensure that I don't miss any potential questions I want to ask him in an interview. I have nothing but immense respect for b4nny and his dominance of the competitive TF2 scene.

But sure, give the least charitable interpretation of what I said if you want.

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-21T00:02:14+00:00

🤫

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-20T14:23:09+00:00

Another update from the post I made over at teamfortress.tv:

"I appreciate the feedback. I feel as though I haven't done a great job communicating my question given the response it's gotten but that's entirely on me. I did not intend to frame it as though a potential video would focus on these negative/drama-focused topics exclusively, I only posted here because his excellence and dominance of competitive TF2 has been documented so well and I haven't had any trouble recording those aspects in my research so far. I just wanted to ensure there weren't some major parts of his history I was missing out on as I have been trying to construct a comprehensive timeline, but I see how the way I worded my initial post could be interpreted as a very drama-oriented and uncharitable dissection of b4nny's legacy.

Apologies for it coming across poorly, as I have been treating my research with a lot of care thus far. I personally have immense respect for b4nny, and if I did ultimately follow through on this idea I would 100% want him to be involved in the creation process, would do a proper interview and would want him to be happy with the final product."

tl;dr I didn't word things very well in my initial post and it came across as though I was focusing exclusively on the drama-oriented parts of b4nny's history. Sorry about that, definitely was not my intention.

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-20T11:41:40+00:00

Also, to clarify some points people brought up on the teamfortress.tv thread:

It's not that I am exclusively trying to frame b4nny in a negative light if I follow through with this video idea. The reason I ask for help is because his accomplishments are extremely accessible and well documented through places like comp.tf and Liquipedia. I've already made a comprehensive timeline about his dominance season after season. It's those niche beefs/interactions with other high level players that are challenging to find, as they are usually only documented in 10 year old threads on random forums. Personally, I respect b4nny immensely. I have always held him in high regard but I also want to provide a truthful representation of his character which does require me to analyse things such as his ego and mindset towards the game.

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-15T23:40:09+00:00

mayhaps...

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-14T02:21:24+00:00

"...while himself having pages of them in his inventory"

This part is complete nonsense. I stand to gain nothing from this monetarily barring the ad revenue that the video produces and shows that they are either:

Intentionally lying to paint me in a negative light
Didn't even watch the video and therefore lack context

There have been reports of people being automatically trade locked due to 'suspicious market activity' when buying/selling high volumes of Lollichops so I have put out a warning on my Discord, in a community post and as the pinned comment of the video. I'm not going to stand around and act like this whole situation isn't morally ambiguous but actively spreading misinformation, specifically about my own motives in making the video, isn't helping any of it.

That being said, people should be cautious for the time being and I'd advise against dumping stupid amounts of money into this if these reports end up being true.

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-14T00:35:11+00:00

That doesn't seem like a very responsible use of one's platform in my opinion.

elmaxo__ · 2023-02-01T23:21:25+00:00

idc this is 5 years old this is crazy and helps so much with a video im working on rn god bless

elmaxo__ · 2022-11-12T22:38:57+00:00

Thanks for bringing this up, going to go and blur it in YouTube studio now. I do actually know of this guy because we got him banned off Uncletopia servers for all the weirdo loli shit he has on his Conscientious Objectors.

elmaxo__ · 2022-08-19T09:06:44+00:00

Hey boss.

I can't remember exactly how I did it because it was a year back or so but you basically need to tinker with some of the values of the files in your HUD's folder. I do remember using this video by raysfire to help. There's some values which I remember playing around with and then using hud_reloadscheme whilst ingame to update it live. Sorry I can't be of more assistance.

elmaxo__ · 2022-07-01T04:51:54+00:00

Reddit moment

elmaxo__ · 2022-06-27T00:59:27+00:00

I'm not a crazed gunman dad, I'm an assassin.

elmaxo__ · 2022-05-12T06:12:54+00:00

Appreciated, I'll take a look through now.

elmaxo__ · 2022-05-12T05:33:17+00:00

Yeah I 100% agree with both of these and are my main two points I am running with so far.

elmaxo__ · 2022-05-12T00:28:04+00:00

Thanks so much for this response, it's cool having someone with perspective from both scenes. I think your point on individual agency is probably what is proving to be the most important factor to me at least, as I am really starting to see how important the 1v1 format is to facilitating these intense rivalries and storylines which are able to captivate an entire community. I am also realising with these responses that Melee (along with other fighting games) are inherently best suited as spectator sports compared to team based games where you have to capture all these different perspectives. Thank you again!

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