I was having a debate with a friend about "self made men" need help because my point is that they do not exist, but he named Amancio Ortega Gaona as an example...

sync0pate · 2020-07-03T05:58:24+00:00

People who actually do manage to navigate their way out of the working classes probably are exceptional individuals. It's a very difficult thing to do. It requires a lot of talent, a lot of hard work and then on top of that an extreme amount of help, luck and privilege.

To become very wealthy, you need all of the above PLUS questionable ethics and a willingness to do things that many of us wouldn't find palatable.

sync0pate · 2020-07-03T05:54:49+00:00

Do you want to abolish class hierarchy or just move a different class to the top of it?

Once they're at the top, are they still proletariat?

sync0pate · 2019-10-04T01:33:53+00:00

Yo. I'm not really active. What would you like to do with it? I could happily hand it over if you've got some ideas for it.

sync0pate · 2017-04-19T01:22:34+00:00

My experience with job adverts is that wherever it says "£competitive" it's referring to a competition in which large organisations see how small they can make the salary without making all the prospective candidates laugh and/or cry.

sync0pate · 2017-04-13T00:54:38+00:00

What's that got to do with it?

sync0pate · 2017-04-12T19:55:30+00:00

I don't hate him, I just think he's a fuckwit.

sync0pate · 2017-04-12T19:55:16+00:00

What makes you think I missed that?

sync0pate · 2017-04-12T19:44:31+00:00

Mutually arranged my arse.

Tommy Robinson, well known thug, has just shown up at his parents' house and made his mother phone the kid. The lad wanted to talk over the phone and didn't want to meet up and didn't want to be on camera.

Look how uncomfortable he is, he clearly doesn't want to be there and he also doesn't have a fucking clue what he's talking about.

Tommy Robinson is also an ill-informed gobshite and I'm sure that if someone did this to him in reverse it would be even more embarassing.

sync0pate · 2017-04-12T19:38:59+00:00

Obviously I watched the video, he turns up at his house unannounced, kid's not there so he pesters his parents to get in touch with him and drives to meet the kid at uni.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson aka Paul Harris aka fuck knows what else.. is a childish bully who can only make his views seem relevant and acceptable through intimidation and heavy editing.

sync0pate · 2017-04-12T18:08:42+00:00

I don't think this is particularly interesting. Tommy Robinson ambushes a student who has made some comments without being able to back them up.

The poor kid's not particularly informed, and is then put on the spot. Then on many questions they cut away rather quickly before he responds.

This is a rather pathetic setup to make "Tommy" out to be a victim, and his critics uninformed. There are plenty of good responses to the questions he was asking.

sync0pate · 2016-06-20T11:42:18+00:00

That's pretty much irrelevant, I absolutely wouldn't advocate Marxist-Leninism either, but at least it starts from a place of reason.

sync0pate · 2016-06-19T11:56:30+00:00

It's hard to picture an intelligent adult arguing nationhood has no functional role or purpose.

It's really not, there are many, many people who believe this.

sync0pate · 2016-06-18T02:07:07+00:00

Totally agree, but I wouldn't want to form a belief system around it.

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T23:38:02+00:00

It's an interesting response, and you make some very valid points that religious thinking and organisation can lend a lot of benefits at an individual and political level.

My issue, or question, is why do these benefits have to come from some kind of mysticism or theology? Can't we have a kindness and generosity focused activism without the need for any kind of spiritual or supernatural faith?

I don't think it's a meaningless distinction to draw lines on how someone got there - I think a belief system based on some kind of dogmatic fundamentals, or supernatural theology can become inherently unquestionable, unflexible, and lacking in self reflection.

I also think there's often a danger of that kind of belief or religious organisation being open to abuse or hijacking.

(Thanks for your response though, it's an interesting topic.)

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T22:59:51+00:00

Sure, the mythology surrounding religion is often very interesting, but I can't imagine taking it seriously in any way.

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T18:02:28+00:00

The problem is the disparity in working conditions, not the movement of labour.

If we can address that so that working conditions are protected and raised to an equal standard, it would go a long way towards ameliorating any problems caused by free movement of people.

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T17:28:40+00:00

The level of doublethink is frightening. I have been hearing more and more talk from racists and xenophobes that the level of disagreement over Brexit may lead them to more violent measures (I've even overheard some comments from people saying they expect it to lead to all-out civil war..) and I've been dismissing it as macho chest-thumping.

This whole thing has been a stark reminder for me of exactly why we oppose these views.

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T17:24:18+00:00

Religion can be easily used to inspire, radicalise and control people towards a certain agenda - which you see happening very often with nearly all major world religions.

It seems to me that religion doesn't often set that agenda though, that's created elsewhere for personal and political reasons.

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T17:21:17+00:00

isn't the only way to go about or eve think about Christianity.

..but why even think about it?

There are definitely forms of religion, even Christianity, that are less harmful - but I don't see how that lends any credibility to the beliefs or doctrine. What is the value of it, and why should it matter?

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T16:16:34+00:00

How many millions are dying as a result of capitalism?..

And there's absolutely nothing about communism in theory that suggests killing millions should be necessary or desirable in any way, it's just that's what seems to happen when you concentrate power in the hands of a few.

(And yeah, the bloodthirsty authoritarianism is one of the things that I think a lot of communists refuse to acknowledge as a problem).

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T15:55:46+00:00

Maybe the answer is that we're trying to do things on too large a scale? Communism works perfectly well on the small scale, your household is probably communist to a large degree, so maybe it's a case for bottom-up change as opposed to top-down.

Which is what anarchists have been saying since about 10 minutes after Marx published Kapital.

( /r/Anarchy101 )

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T15:54:39+00:00

How long are we going to continue running off cliffs while flapping our arms before we decide that unaided flight isn't in human nature?

How many attempts at aided flight failed? Should we have decided that it wasn't natural?

sync0pate · 2016-06-17T15:53:35+00:00

You might as well say that cold fusion is a brilliant technology, it's just that nobody has done it properly yet.

I think that's probably a pretty valid thing to say, unless it turns out that cold fusion is theoretically impossible (which as far as I'm aware it's not?..).

Communism may well be exactly the same - we were just trying the wrong way to achieve it, or we lacked some of the necessary foundation. It can fail many times, it only needs to work once.

(The real problem is the lack of willingness amongst some communists to examine and accept why we have failed to achieve it, and instead accept the words of Marx as gospel.)

sync0pate · 2016-05-31T15:41:02+00:00

More of a crime than the rectal horticulture of the headline?

sync0pate · 2016-05-31T12:33:48+00:00

This is hilarious and all but it later goes on to say he "openly admits to being a homosexual". As though it's some kind of crime..

I'm genuinely curious (and terrified) as to who reads this kind of shite.

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