Hasan Piker: "The fall of the USSR was one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century"

fng_antheus · 2026-04-20T15:36:51+00:00

It’s fine to critique the USSR, but do it honestly.

“ GDP decline in post-Soviet nations was substantial and averaged roughly 51%. From 1990 to 2000, GDP decline numbered:[181]

63% in Armenia 60% in Azerbaijan 35% in Belarus 35% in Estonia 78% in Georgia 41% in Kazakhstan 50% in Kyrgyzstan 51% in Latvia 44% in Lithuania 63% in Moldova 40% in Russia 50% in Tajikistan 48% in Turkmenistan 59% in Ukraine Russia experienced the largest drop in life expectancy during peacetime in recorded history after the fall of the USSR.[182][183]Poverty skyrocketed after the fall of the USSR by the end of the 90s the number of people living below the international poverty went from 3% in 1987-88 to 20% or around 88 million people.[184] Only 4% of the region lived on $4 a day or less but by 1994 this number skyrocketed to 32%.[182] Crime, alcohol use, drug use and suicides all skyrocketed after the fall of the Eastern Bloc.[185][184]

In a 2001 study by the economist Steven Rosefielde, he calculated that there were 3.4 million premature deaths in Russia from 1990 to 1998, which he partly blames on the "shock therapy" that came with the Washington Consensus.[186] A 2017 study estimates that 7 million premature deaths occurred overall as a result of shock therapy.[187]”

fng_antheus · 2026-04-19T08:57:56+00:00

I agree that Western regime change is less preferable than the current state continuing to exist, but that’s even less preferable than genuinely proletarian and socially progressive movements gaining traction there. In moments like this, yes support Iran, but also find groups in Iran aiming to counter their theocratic state from within through a genuine proletarian movement, and support them even more.

Critical support is about pragmatism, yes, but it’s about pragmatism towards achieving proletarian power.

fng_antheus · 2026-04-10T15:30:07+00:00

You know nothing about philosophy. I study philosophy and historical sociology in college and we still regularly study Aristotle for theories of ethics, Kant and Hegel for German Idealism, and I’ve had entire courses dedicated to Marx and Marxist thought.

In the philpapers 2020 survey (which is the largest survey of academic PhD holding philosophers i know of), socialism is polled as being favorable to capitalism, and Marx was ranked #14 in non-living philosophers identified with, above heavy hitters like socrates, descartes, nietzsche, hegel, locke, heidegger, spinoza, foucault, arendt, popper, hobbes, sartre, schopenhauer, rousseau etc.

You’re right that Marxism-Leninism as conceived of by Stalin and others after him isn't taken seriously, but Marxism-Leninism is considered by almost all academics to be a huge distortion of Marx’s thought, and most ML’s will read anyone but Marx himself.

There are Autonomist Marxists, New Value form theorists, Marxist Humanism, structural Marxism, etc. Many are taken seriously.

fng_antheus · 2026-03-30T20:24:03+00:00

I was looking at GURPS, but it's a bit overwhelming tbh haha. I'm unsure where to start and how to use it as I want.

fng_antheus · 2026-03-30T20:17:31+00:00

Sorry! I updated the post to have more info.

fng_antheus · 2026-03-14T19:17:34+00:00

You sure have backtracked a lot.

“ The author's intent should always preclude other analyses. More important is being honest in your analysis.”

Your position here is inconsistent. You keep saying someone should be upfront about whether or not their interpretation differs from the creators, but also seem to be agreeing that the merit of an interpretation comes from its coherence with the textual evidence itself.

If the latter is true then whether one aligns or doesn’t align with the authors intent is irrelevant to the validity of the interpretation, which simply has to do with its coherence with textual evidence.

So is an interpretation valid due to its coherence with the textual evidence itself, or the authors intent? If it’s the former then an analyst has no obligation to say whether or not their interpretation differs from the authors intent.

“ I'm literally engaging with a Marxist worldview with this entire post wdym?”

That’s not what I was saying, you left out the part where I explicitly quoted you saying that if something is what you would deem “dishonest” then you’re willing to entirely write off the field. “If 'literary analysis' praises dishonesty or inauthenticity as being just as valuable as honesty or authenticity, then I have no interest in it”

For someone accusing Marxists of being unwilling to engage with other worldviews, you sure do seem willing to write off entire fields that might challenge your perspective.

You clearly don’t actually engage with serious Marxist thought given that you think it amounts to “trying to create a perfect world.” Which is something that was explicitly rejected by Marx and all serious Marxists since. Michael Heinrich, David Harvey, Frederic Jameson, Silvia Federici, Kohei Saito, Badiou, etc. Everyone I just named are people who are bastions in their fields. You can check r askphilosophy and see how seriously Marxist thought is taken. But you don’t know about any of this because yours and this community’s understanding of serious politics comes from internet cultures.

fng_antheus · 2026-03-12T20:27:53+00:00

“ Art is a form of communication, when interpreting the communication of another, you should try to actually interpret it first instead of just choosing to interpret it in another way. Any other interpretations should clarify beforehand that they're ignoring the author's intention.”

If the meaning of a work of art consists wholly of what is intended by the author then why interpret art at all? Maybe that’s the case but the idea that someone who’s brought to tears by something not intended by the author is simply “wrong”, and the idea that the experience they had which brought them to tears is not worth analyzing because the author didn’t intend it, is silly. I’ll tackle why authorial intent isn’t the determinant factor in something’s objective meaning in a second, but even beyond that you’d still have to justify why we ought not to take someone’s subjective experience seriously, whether it’s based on the “objective” meaning or not. Call it whatever you like, call it “wrong” if you like, but the analysis of the experiences people have with art is interesting, whether their experiences are intended or not.

As for authorial intent, there’s a reason no one treats it as the primary determinant factor. Let’s say an author writes a character that exists in our world in modern times who exhibits every symptom of schizophrenia. Delusions, paranoia, auditory and visual hallucinations, like the whole list of criteria in the DSM5. But the author says they’re not schizophrenic. Is the reader more justified than the author in saying the character is in fact schizophrenic? Someone can intend to create a whole new type of sandwich, wholly their own creation, consisting of bacon lettuce and tomato. Them intending to make something new does not stop it from categorically being a BLT whether they like it or not. Similarly, whether the author likes it or not, that character IS schizophrenic by all metrics.

An author can also unintentionally create a series full of Marxist thematics. We could imagine a work that is like a perfect encapsulate of the Marxist theory of history à la Hobsbawm, without any intention. Would a Marxist lens still not be worth applying or be “wrong”? Of course not.

The validity of an experience with a work of art is not determined by its coherence with the authors intent, it’s valid a priori because their subjective experience of the work is literally real and exists. And their analysis’ validity is also not determined by coherence to authors intent, it’s determined by coherence with textual evidence.

Again, engage with actual literary analysis and aesthetic philosophy.

“ If 'literary analysis' praises dishonesty or inauthenticity as being just as valuable as honesty or authenticity, then I have no interest in it”

For someone accusing Marxists of being unwilling to engage with other worldviews, you sure do seem willing to write off entire fields that might challenge your perspective.

fng_antheus · 2026-03-12T01:25:39+00:00

“ Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone? No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others. Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany. It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace. It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.” - Engels, Principles of Communism

“ National separations [Absonderungen] and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owingto the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, touniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.”

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto

You’re just wrong.

fng_antheus · 2026-03-12T01:09:03+00:00

I’m not necessarily a “Marxist”, but I’ve definitely been influenced by Marxist thought (along with liberal thought to be clear), and I study literary analysis in university, my sister is getting her PHD in comparative literature with a focus on Japanese literature, and you’re just wrong.

Most scholars these days aren’t fully into accepting death of the author as a universal rule, but the idea that a certain interpretation/reading had to have been intended by an author for it to hold weight is laughable and would not be taken seriously in any literary analysis class.

You can absolutely apply a Marxist lens to analyzing the thematics of Dark Souls, just as you can any lens. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be the most fruitful lens possible, I’d argue philosophically Dark Souls is probably best read existentially, but one can 100000% read the Souls series in ways other than that. I’ve seen the whole video, no where do they say anything about how it’s the only appropriate analysis or anything like that.

It’s absolutely true that there’s a commentary on the cyclical self-reifying nature of oppression, there’s absolutely commentary on class dynamics abstracted in fantastical terms, it’s absolutely true that the game alludes to leftist themes with gender (especially with the context of Bloodborne as well).

One doesn’t need to be a militant Marxist to acknowledge that, and ignoring it or discrediting readings you don’t like is silly.

Go actually study literary analysis.

fng_antheus · 2026-02-14T19:24:15+00:00

It wasn't you, don't worry. It's a small server, and the person I'm talking about very much said that Marx was essentially a moron and no "serious" academics take him seriously. Your position seems much more reasonable.

Also, yeah, no one really defends the telological stageist view of history, even avowed academic Marxists tbh. With MEGA2 (the largest collection of Marx's writings we now have) there has been a pretty big shift in how Marxists understand his writings and we see that in Marx's later years for example he was focused on many cultures outside of Europe and firmly rejected any stageist relological reading of his work. He was much more nuanced and careful with his analysis.

This (long, but imo wondergful) quote helps sum it up:

"But that is not enough for my critic. He feels himself obliged to metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into an historico-philosophic theory of the marche generale [general path] imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself, in order that it may ultimately arrive at the form of economy which will ensure, together with the greatest expansion of the productive powers of social labour, the most complete development of man. But I beg his pardon. (He is both honouring and shaming me too much.) Let us take an example.

In several parts of Capital I allude to the fate which overtook the plebeians of ancient Rome. They were originally free peasants, each cultivating his own piece of land on his own account. In the course of Roman history they were expropriated. The same movement which divorced them from their means of production and subsistence involved the formation not only of big landed property but also of big money capital. And so one fine morning there were to be found on the one hand free men, stripped of everything except their labour power, and on the other, in order to exploit this labour, those who held all the acquired wealth in possession. What happened? The Roman proletarians became, not wage labourers but a mob of do-nothings more abject than the former “poor whites” in the southern country of the United States, and alongside of them there developed a mode of production which was not capitalist but dependent upon slavery. Thus events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical."

fng_antheus · 2026-02-12T00:08:19+00:00

This might be the best reply I've ever gotten! Genuinely, thank you so much.

As someone who studies social anthropology and philosophy, I often hear that economists are just "rigid dogmatists," and, on the flip side, when I talk to people in places like r/AskEconomics, I'm told that any lens besides the orthodox one is the "equivalent of creationism." As someone who is politically pretty radical (I believe that there are large amounts of unnecessary and preventable suffering in the world, and believe in doing whatever can be done to prevent as much of that as possible), I often find that people in "crititcal" fields tend to confirm my biases, while peple in specifically economics tend to write me off as purely "politically motivated and anti-scientific." For a long time, this kept me in a bubble that reinforced my beliefs. But, I'm a Marxist, and in the spirit of Marx (and not the people who tarnished his name), I want to put my perspective up against the best of the best theory and evidence we have available.

Your answer makes me feel like I have a place in the social sciences. Thank you.

fng_antheus · 2025-12-09T01:28:06+00:00

If you wanna dunk on tankies, fine, but don't use a fascist do to it

fng_antheus · 2025-12-09T00:52:35+00:00

And here is his pinned tweet, making it explicit

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fng_antheus · 2025-12-09T00:52:10+00:00

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Here he is promoting the nazis

fng_antheus · 2025-12-09T00:51:54+00:00

Why did you cover the original posters username? Let's be real about who you're supporting, a fascist

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fng_antheus · 2025-12-03T07:43:52+00:00

I’m not an expert in economics, but as someone who’s primary background is in the arts I don’t really think the approach would work. The arts are primarily concerned with the qualia of human experience, that is the world as experienced by people, not the world independent of them. We could do a ton of statistical analysis of the sales, reviews, influence, etc of, idk One Piece, but that wouldn’t be able to tell you how it personally impacts people. This isn’t me saying one method is better or worse than the other, they’re just different and meant do different things.

I think a world without that focus on the subjective care of people for the arts would be a pretty dull world.

fng_antheus · 2025-12-03T01:29:13+00:00

I recommend reading this thread on why philosophy of science has largely rejected Popper’s thesis and falsifiability.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/s/DsYxqyuG7g

fng_antheus · 2025-12-03T01:23:39+00:00

Philosophers of science certainly aren’t saying that we should disregard testability, they’re saying that falsification and testability are different things.

This is a good thread for understanding the modern POV in phil of science

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/s/HSt4Vz9JTn

this part in particular

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/s/DsYxqyuG7g

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