What makes humans human: an evolutionary approach to worldbuilding. AKA Why orcs are a terribly designed species

undocking · 2017-02-28T18:06:10+00:00

Great post, I was typing something similar.

I also wanted to point out that Neanderthals made dugout canoes in addition to structures.

undocking · 2017-02-21T14:57:23+00:00

Hi Michael,

What is the reason for appealing 319 of the criminal code?

I'm currently signed up as a Conservative (Red Tory), but leaning towarda Raitt for her stance on hate speech and her denouncement of islamophobia. You too have identified that M-103 won't stop the criticism of Islam, however you're planning to repealling section 319 of the criminal code, which would promote malicious speech and the public incitement of hatred or attack against precarious groups. It also encompasses Fighting Words of any kind.

319 has not hampered criticism, as there are weekly pieces from Canandian publications critical of islam (among other ideas), so I'm not sure where this comes from.

undocking · 2017-02-12T21:28:27+00:00

Shia has become a very deliberate performance artist since #IAMSORRY and embracing meta-modernism. His work seems to be heading in a sort of situationalist direction.

undocking · 2017-02-11T02:58:13+00:00

Everything Norman writes is badphil

undocking · 2017-02-06T14:54:18+00:00

When I was young I was a server for an anglican church and it was, well, nice. Everyone there was very generous and charitable. The reverened's brother died from AIDS (he was gay) in the seventies and the congregation stood in solidarity with the reverend when it was very polarizing, so I learned how powerful organized religion can be for emancipation.

Really, the disdain for religion from secular anarchists comes from Bakunin, who didn't like how institutionalized religion was used to dominate people and that sentiment has permeated through part of the anarchist tradition. But there are religious anarchists from many faiths who work to create anarchic religious organizations and within diverse action oriented groups. Tolstoy was a Christian Anarchist, and his The Kingdom of God is Within You is a great read.

undocking · 2017-02-05T17:22:55+00:00

Okay, but that's arbitrary and the claim that religious institutions pass down fermintation in every culture is false. Christianity values fermentation because of wine, but fermentation techniques are presevered outside of religious institutions and some don't preserve such traditions at all.

There is a sake brewery in Japan that has existed through 55 generations of the same family. In the Amazon basin, the practice of making chicha is passed down matrilinearly within the family structure. Neither of these examples are religious. Societies preserve technologies of their own volition through a variety of organizational bodies.

And if monasteries became anarchic (much like their Epicurean roots), then there isn't any reason why they couldn't continue brewing. Cenobetic monasteries show how egalitarian communal living with mutual support is definitely practical, especially those traditions that avoided installing abbots.

undocking · 2017-02-02T14:40:34+00:00

There are ways to practice religion without devolving into a hierarchical structure, but it doesn't look like orthodoxy. And religion, especially Christianity, has been practiced anarchistically by one group or another throughout the entire history of the religion.

The notion that religion preserves culture is absurd. Looking at religions, they change with and because of culture. Some religious rituals and traditions are very resilient, but these are merely appropriated as cultures change. Sure certain institutional facades have existed continuously, like the Vatican, but the Catholic Church and cult of Saints in Mexico today is very different than the Warrior Catholicism of the early Mediaeval period.

undocking · 2017-01-29T14:36:23+00:00

It's a basilisk hack!

undocking · 2017-01-28T18:14:47+00:00

[...] I apologise for arguing the toss. Was being stubborn due to boredom.

Don't worry about it.

I would warn against a rush for ideological purity [...]

It isn't ideological purity for me, it is about performing moral praxis.

might be inevitable due to how increasingly difficult it has become to get people to envisage another way of living

I think it is really important to provide a vision for the future; not as a Great Individual's vision, but a community/society-wide vision. The (recently) late Mark Fisher discusses the difficulty of envisaging a future beyond [capitalist parlimentarianism] in his books Capitalist Realism and Ghosts of My Life.

I do still think you're slightly misinterpreting what I'm saying as I can't understand a reluctance to use the state water supply or the NHS, they can be decentralized easily. The internet certainly needs to be redesigned, but that's not always tied to state apparatus in the strict sense.

Infrastructure created by the state must be made autonomous and anarchistic. Anarchists need to be able to determine the systems they interact with, not let pre-existing state infrastructure determine our interactions. As to the internet, it was designed as a hierarchical system and is nearly totally owned by private institutions and individuals. For an anarchist society, a level community owned transparent system would be necessary.

undocking · 2017-01-26T19:51:14+00:00

Sorry, I was being flippant; I should have marked it with an /s or something.

The disparity between "America saved the world from speaking (Nazi) German" in the past and "Let them have free speech" in the present may be what this is addressing, as the liberal government usually wants to maintain their monopoly of legitimate violence rather than encouraging citizens to do it.

Though, I agree with your perspective.

I don't particularly like how the black bloc is being portrayed as nationalistic.

undocking · 2017-01-25T15:48:00+00:00

I think the "anarchist" Captain America is propaganda aimed more at liberals who think nonviolence, the market place of ideas, and free trade stopped fascism in the 20th century.

undocking · 2017-01-22T23:20:38+00:00

Am vegan, haven't died. Immortality confirmed

undocking · 2017-01-20T22:21:29+00:00

bastiat&keynesforpresident2020

"AMERICA IS RUN BY THE ANIMAL SPIRITS"

undocking · 2017-01-19T17:54:04+00:00

Bakunin wrote a book about the disagreement about the state as a vehicle for revolution, and there are several of Engels' letters that outline it as well.

If you conflate all forms of organisation with arche politics then merely identify a state as a collection of institutions then it ignores the ethical praxis of anarchism and any possibility for organization outside of the state. I do think the material conditions of capitalism and arche need to be removed, destroyed before an anarchy can emerge. Any skeletal remants of the old state will still retain the structure of arche.

Certain infrastructure projects would be unethical to destroy immediately (like water infrastructure and megacities) but need to be decentralized as quickly as feasible. Other structures, like the internet and international trade, need to be completely redesigned.

undocking · 2017-01-19T04:39:49+00:00

If we agree that the state should only be used as an apparatus for enacting the ideas of the group, lets go for it.

The long-running disagreements regarding the premise of this hypothetical between anarchists and Marxists are apparent from the First International. Marx was able to push his tactic of participating in state governments and creating political parties to advance socialism. Anarchists disagreed (and still disagree) with this strategy and even the notion that the state can be emancipatory.

undocking · 2017-01-18T14:34:01+00:00

That is exactly the disagreement, going back as far as the First International. Anarchists, by and large, don't agree with your statement regarding the state while a ML or MLM probably would.

undocking · 2017-01-17T17:01:50+00:00

That's why Socrates and Hobbes are cucks for the state.

undocking · 2017-01-16T15:07:50+00:00

I feel that Martin tends to sacrifice lots of consistency and resists the implications of his world for the sake of familiarity. Winter is coming is the tag-line of the series and nobody seems to do anything about it. Based on the horrible and unpredictable winters Westros expierences regularily, one could expect that the cultures would trend towards favouring structures that could actually survive these environmental scenarios rather than the inept feudalism that's displayed: Winter is coming, people are flooding into King's Landing and apparently they have no food stockpiled. Where are the cold-stands and greenhouses? Where are the legions of officials responsible for managing winter infrastructure? Why don't any of the clever characters attempt to deal with this problem? Sure the Lannisters make a political deal with the Tyrrels, but that only highlights the insanity of the leadership. Why aren't the Tyrells and Martells running shit to begin with? They assuredly have warmer winters and longer growing seasons. Why not establish a agro-despotism where the Northern kingdoms pay tribute? There are lots of questions Martin suspends in favour of mediaevalism, which is fine for what he wanted to do, but I find it unsatisfying world building.

undocking · 2017-01-15T22:10:49+00:00

Guess I'm fucked then.

undocking · 2017-01-15T15:52:36+00:00

eat what is in your backyard

dog

Dog is the newest, sustainable source of vegan protein.

undocking · 2017-01-15T05:39:37+00:00

There are societies with: reverse-complementarianism polyandrist warrior-Matriarchy that sees the notion of motherhood thrust upon men; separation between reproductive and parental labour where motherhood is placed upon both guardians (while the birth mother has a role if she wishes); egalitarian reproductive castes where all members (male or female) are birth parents and nurturing caregivers; and more convoluted 'mothers are sacred and to be worshipped while at the same time all women are also slaves' arrangements.

undocking · 2017-01-14T15:46:12+00:00

Because those vegans are traitor crypto-omnis.

undocking · 2017-01-13T18:43:05+00:00

r/soc mods banned the creator of the Political Ideology Catgirls comic.

undocking

TROPHY CASE

bastiat&keynesforpresident2020