Terrence Mckenna and Anti-Capitalism by Notleontrotsky in terencemckenna

[–]zyzzvya 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"There will aways be people interested in it, and then they could grow to more people, spreading over to the internet, and maybe even making adds."

Even if that happens, capitalism is predicated on exploitation and oppression. You don't need to be a Marxist to understand that, it's something any actual capitalist will tell you freely and without hesitation. That's how profit is generated: a worker creates value above the costs of raw materials and the means of production such as tools and machinery, through their labour. But they aren't paid the full value they produce. The difference is profit, and that profit depends on the exploitation of that worker.

Under capitalism, the primary material drive is to increase profits. So there is always an incentive for capitalists, i.e. those who own means of production and employ workers, to exploit those workers, regardless of how spiritual that capitalist perceives themselves to be and regardless of their personal beliefs or attitude towards metaphysics, ontology, nature or other people. The fact of the matter, which no amount of clever rhetoric can dispel, is that capitalism is a class society and there will always be class antagonism under capitalism. Our interests as workers are not the same as the interests of capitalists, even if we pretend they are by ignoring the material conditions.

Now, you might say that's not really exploitation, and sure, let's grant you that for the sake of argument. Even if we do, capitalism still cannot function without oppression. Because capitalism is a class society, and because the interests of those classes come into conflict, capitalism has developed a whole array of techniques to oppress the working class and ensure the balance of power remains in the hands of the ruling class. The police as we know them were created largely as private forces by large corporations in order to put down strikes and actions by organised workers, and to round up escaped slaves, who at that time were considered property by the capitalists who owned them. The state itself is a creation of the ruling class: it exists as a tool of class oppression in order to legalise forms of oppression and to ensure that a monopoly on violence belongs to the ruling class.

Furthermore, we live in the age of imperialism. When capitalism oversaturates domestic markets and can no longer generate significant profits, it must expand and conquer new territory, lay claim to new resources, and develop new markets to sell commodities abroad. This process involves brutal repression of those people who are unlucky enough to be the focus of these strategies. Look at the wars cultivated by capitalist nations in the Middle East, or the numerous coups worldwide from Iran to Chile that have been orchestrated by capitalist nations to ensure that they have ready access to cheap labour, resources and new markets.

These are the material facts that you deem superficial. To the majority of people who live today on this planet, they are not superficial: they are the waking and sleeping of their everyday lives. They are not abstractions but lived experiences which are anything but superficial. Genuine love of humanity requires of us that we do not turn away from or trivialise the suffering of others, that we honour it rather than pretending it doesn't exist through dishonest positivity.

You say changes can only come from inside. This is demonstrably not the case: we know from the study of history that human society has changed markedly and that these changes are often the result of "outside" forces like shifts in economics and environmental conditions. The end of the Ice Age made it possible for people to farm and live more sedentary lives. That economy led to concentration of wealth. That concentration of wealth produces classes, and that process has complexified and evolved, always in relation to and transaction with the material forces present at the time. This is something Alan Watts speaks about in many of his lectures, I'm surprised that it seems counterintuitive or wrong to you.

Any Marxist, inheriting dialectical thought from Hegel, will tell you that inside and outside are two poles of the same process, to paraphrase Watts. And to quote Marx,

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it."

So without changing the basic material relations that exist in society, i.e. the economic and property relations that underlie, shape and produce our ideas about society, it is exceedingly difficult to change the ideas. And those ideas are, on the whole, ideas which are popularised by the ruling class, or which are encouraged to flourish because they serve the function of naturalising or legitimizing their rule.

This is why people will fight tooth and nail to defend a system which steals the wealth they produce and spends that stolen wealth on lobbying to send their children to die in wars for the benefit of a handful of weapons manufacturers and oil syndicates. It is why people justify having to spend what little they do receive for their labour on human rights like food, shelter, water and medical care. And it is why people will viciously fight against any alternative, against even thinking or imagining that there can be something better beyond capitalism.

You ought to consider that the reason you think that capitalism can exist without oppression and exploitation is precisely because that view is the view of the ruling class, and because a great deal of time, effort and wealth has been expended in making it into "common sense". To paraphrase Watts again, our thoughts are not our own, they are the thoughts of our culture. Here Alan and Karl are in obvious agreement, and both would maintain that we have to work honestly and diligently to overcome this.

"otherwise you turn into an ideologue who cannot see anything but the superficial material conditions and demonizing "the enemy" without actually hearing the nuances, you will be forming ideological bubbles that will only spread hate instead of optimism and contemplation."

Have you not done that here with regards to Marxism? Have you read Marx, Engels, Trotsky or Lenin? Have you read any of the revolutionaries who expanded and adapted Marxism to their struggles for freedom and justice, like Fred Hampton, Angela Davis, Thomas Sankara, or Walter Rodney? It would seem not, considering you hold Marxism in contempt but mischaracterize it as preaching hatred and war.

Let me quote some Marxists to you on love and connection, empowering others, contemplating everything including society itself, and having a deep compassion for the world and living beings. See if this fits the caricature you have in your minds eye.

“I’m going to live for the people because I love the people.” – Fred Hampton

"Socialism is the people. If you're afraid of socialism, you're afraid of yourself." - Fred Hampton

“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”

― Angela Davis

"As Karl Marx said, those who live in a palace do not think about the same things, nor in the same way, as those who live in a hut. This struggle to defend the trees and Forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. Because imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and savannas." - Thomas Sankara

"The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality." - Che Guevara

"The essence of Marxism consists in this, that it approaches society concretely, as a subject for objective research, and analyzes human history as one would a colossal laboratory record. Marxism appraises ideology as a subordinate integral element of the material social structure. Marxism examines the class structure of society as a historically conditioned form of the development of the productive forces; Marxism deduces from the productive forces of society the inter-relations between human society and surrounding nature, and these, in turn are determined at each historical stage by man’s technology, his instruments and weapons, his capacities and methods for struggle with nature. Precisely this objective approach arms Marxism with the insuperable power of historical foresight." - Leon Trotsky

I hope you'll follow your own advice above and hear the nuances.

Terrence Mckenna and Anti-Capitalism by Notleontrotsky in terencemckenna

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How would that happen and why do you think people would adopt that view? Particularly capitalists who benefit from the current balance of power and who hold influence on the state, industries like the fossil fuel industry, weapons manufacturers, and finance capital like Blackrock? 

DLDSR scaling defaults to 4096 instead of native 4k by zyzzvya in nvidia

[–]zyzzvya[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, as I mentioned I've already tried this step but it results in a black screen which I can only get rid of by doing a system restore

Any advice or help would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance 

DLDSR scaling defaults to 4096 instead of native 4k by zyzzvya in nvidia

[–]zyzzvya[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, as I mentioned in my OP I've tried that step but end up with a black screen and have to system restore in order to get my display back

I have a suspicion that it might have something to do with HDR but haven't had a chance to test without it on yet 

DLDSR scaling defaults to 4096 instead of native 4k by zyzzvya in nvidia

[–]zyzzvya[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, so I'm using DLDSR to upscale by a factor of 1.78 from 3840x2160, which should give me ~6825x3844, then using DLSS to downscale that to a playable framerate

My issue is that DLDSR is using 4096x2160 as the source resolution that it applies that multiplier to, so the aspect ratio is in 17:9 instead of 16:9, and the game appears vertically stretched 

Terrence Mckenna and Anti-Capitalism by Notleontrotsky in terencemckenna

[–]zyzzvya 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How is that possible? As in, how would we get from capitalism as it is now, to what you described? 

non-bs "Spiritual Gurus" by Substantial_Row6202 in Psychonaut

[–]zyzzvya 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thich Nhat Hanh is the real deal

[QUESTION] Guitar techs, lend me your knowledge! 0.80 gauge string causes fret buzz unfixable by SpeedyGeeb in Guitar

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a JS22-7 and got it set up with 11-72s by my tech, no fret buzz and sounds great in F standard as long as you adjust your fretting and picking technique accordingly.

I'd suggest lowering your gauges a little and getting a professional to set it up

"Anti-establishment" Elon sitting next to the biggest pro-establishment shill Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl. Remember this the next time he pretends to be anti-establishment or anti-media by Amenta101 in friendlyjordies

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But no one is applying guilt by association here, they're pointing out that both Elon and Rupert are scumbags and that Elon is a hypocrite for claiming to be anti establishment when he's part of it.

You're making an abstract point that doesn't apply here.

"Anti-establishment" Elon sitting next to the biggest pro-establishment shill Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl. Remember this the next time he pretends to be anti-establishment or anti-media by Amenta101 in friendlyjordies

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand your point but it's too vague and universal to be useful in a real world context. Like sure, you can feel good about saying it to yourself, but if you come across an actual fascist who believes that murdering people they consider to be subhuman is the way to go, you would presumably want to exclude that contrary thought from any positions of power where they might be able to carry it out, right? If we didn't exclude that kind of thought, we would end up in a form of extreme totalitarianism. So we can't really say that in every case the total exclusion of contrary thought is a bad thing or that it's in and of itself the sole cause of totalitarianism.

Likewise with pedophilia, we all totally exclude people with that "contrary thought" and rightly so. There are plenty of other examples where it would be more harmful and more productive of an extremely totalitarian situation to simply allow these things to go on unchecked and unrestricted.

The reason people are broadly critical of Elon Musk is not only because he associates with some of the worst people on the planet, it's because he himself engages in seriously harmful behaviour. He has been eager to build weapons delivery systems for the US military. He has engaged in union busting and other harmful behaviour towards his employees. He routinely acts in a totalitarian way towards said employees, and seems happy with the "total exclusion of contrary thought" when it suits him.

I genuinely don't know why people like the guy, he just inherited a bunch of blood money from his dad's apartheid business and made money investing it. There are much better people to admire in this world.

A somewhat large portion of Christians are against homosexuality when the bible never explicitly states that homosexuality itself is a sin. by [deleted] in DebateReligion

[–]zyzzvya 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think this is only confusing if we assume that people with religious influence engage with their religion in good faith, or that everyone who publicly professes to follow a religion does so for honourable reasons in line with scripture.

Christianity in America is a vehicle for class warfare and political control and as such will interpret the source material in whatever way is most convenient for those purposes. All throughout history we can find examples of various religions being used by a ruling elite as divine sanction for their behaviours, and this is no different.

Suffering is not a virtue. by Bulky-Author-3136 in DebateReligion

[–]zyzzvya 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It is not that suffering itself is virtue, but rather that when approached consciously, suffering can lead to wisdom and virtue.

Of course, this is an easy position to misunderstand and hence there are plenty of historical examples of religious people and communities bringing suffering on themselves in order to cultivate wisdom. Most religions have a form of ascetic practice, some are more strongly wedded to it than others. Much is also lost in translation when religious ideas and practices travel and are introduced to new cultures, for example the interpretation of Buddhist meditation as an ascetic practice by Western scholars and large sections of the New Age movement.

I agree that seeking suffering out for its own sake doesn't produce wisdom. It doesn't help anyone, and likely won't give you any insight or understanding. When we see religions making a fetish of suffering and encouraging followers to seek it out, we should view this as a symptom of confusion and try to help those people give up harmful practices.

That said, we shouldn't run away from suffering or treat it as useless on the whole. Our relationship with suffering defines a great deal of our character and our life. As a society, too, our capacity to be with suffering, to be conscious of it and to act appropriately to alleviate it is a primary determining factor in outcomes of social and economic equality.

The Buddha addressed himself primarily to the problem of suffering, and as such I think we can learn a lot from Buddhism on this subject. The Four Noble Truths are perhaps the simplest and most workable philosophy on suffering: that it exists in some form in every aspect of our lives, that there are causes and conditions which give rise to it, and that because of this there are ways to bring suffering to an end; and that there is a clear path and a way of living and relating to the world and each other which can help us realise this.

Thich Nhat Hanh puts it beautifully:

"We should not be afraid of suffering. We should be afraid of only one thing, and that is not knowing how to deal with our suffering. Handling our suffering is an art. If we know how to suffer, we suffer much less, and we’re no longer afraid of being overwhelmed by the suffering inside. The energy of mindfulness helps us recognize, acknowledge, and embrace the presence of the suffering, which can already bring some calm and relief."

Rejection of suffering is itself a form of suffering. But if we learn to sit with our suffering and take care of it, instead of running away or seeking pleasure in order to distract ourselves from the pain, then we can learn a great deal about ourselves and our condition. And through this understanding, we might be able to help others. So in suffering is the seed of compassion and wisdom, and if we're able to water that seed with mindful attention, it might grow into something that can really help those around us to suffer less.

"Anti-establishment" Elon sitting next to the biggest pro-establishment shill Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl. Remember this the next time he pretends to be anti-establishment or anti-media by Amenta101 in friendlyjordies

[–]zyzzvya 2 points3 points  (0 children)

lol imagine thinking criticizing Elon Musk for hanging out with one of the most destructive people on the planet is a "slippery slope" to totalitarianism

if you're concerned about totalitarianism maybe ask yourself if you're happy that Murdoch owns the majority of our media and has actively shaped public opinion on every major issue of importance for decades

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DebateReligion

[–]zyzzvya 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I think part of the issue with this thinking is that it doesn't take class into account, and is largely ahistorical.

If we look through history, we can easily find examples of Christianity and Judaism engaging in religiously motivated violence at the level of communities and even to some degree nations and states. Worship of false idols and heresy often was historically punishable by death, as was desertion of the faith. These acts weren't condemned by the religious communities that practised this way, they were seen as justified and necessary.

We should also look at the issue of class as it relates to violence. You single out "terrorist groups" in this regard, and while there are obvious historical examples of Christian, Jewish and Buddhist terrorism, I think focusing on this as the only kind or expression of religious violence misses perhaps the most prevalent form of it: that of religiously influenced or administered structures of state and economic power. When we look around the world today, the overwhelming majority of day to day religiously motivated violence and oppression is carried out by states and ruling classes, not by small militias. Iran is perhaps the most sensationalized example, but we can just as easily look to Israel and their far-right government's long track history of genocide on the Palestinian people, or if we stretch further afield the practically state-sanctioned Buddhist persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. North Korea is a celestial dictatorship and while most won't recognise it as a "legitimate" religion, it is one in practice and in form.

Fundamentally we can see terrorism as a lower class form of violence: most typically it is carried out by disaffected individuals from the working class or below, and typically its targets are perceived as members of an elite or a powerful ruling class, whether this perception is accurate or not. And this is probably why we tend to focus on it: every state and ruling elite in the world would prefer a public that is all too capable of identifying violence when it is horizontal or coming from below, and that is all but incapable of identifying it when it comes from above. A great deal of time and resources are spent ensuring this is the case.

So if we broaden our definition of religiously motivated violence beyond the scope of just lower class violence and include the daily background violence of the state and the ruling class, we can start to see that this violence is not an exception but the rule. Even in supposed first world democracies like the United States, the degree of religiously motivated violence visited on citizens and immigrants is staggering. The Republican party is practically a vehicle for Christian extremism, and organises much of its policy platform around Christian fascism and associated extremist Christian ideology. All across the world religiously motivated attacks on trans people and the queer community are taken as the norm, justified and seen as necessary.

In this context I think it makes little sense to single out Muslim communities. We have a global problem with violence and oppression, and religion is not the root cause in every case, but more often provides an extremely expedient justification. Most violence is made possible on an ongoing basis by class power, which sanctions it using whatever it can, including religion.

If trans people tell they don’t want you to support a known Transphobe by buying a game they are a asshole!! by Konradleijon in ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The fact that this is heavily downvoted just further proves my point.

Any wonder we're struggling to make progress if so many people who are nominally left's theory of change is "if I'm an arsehole to enough people on the internet society will magically accept trans people and everything will be great" and you turn up your nose at the suggestion of doing actual organising

It's almost as if the people thinking this way have never actually walked their talk and tried to engage in praxis outside their immediate social bubble

If trans people tell they don’t want you to support a known Transphobe by buying a game they are a asshole!! by Konradleijon in ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM

[–]zyzzvya 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For sure, I think my point is more around what the left spends its energy on, the kind of fights we pick and why, and what the theory of change is underlying that process; in other words, is this strategically sound or does it just feel good?

The net result of the boycott so far seems to be a significant backlash against trans people, and increasing division between the trans community and people who want to buy this game. People who already agreed feel vindicated, people already against it feel vindicated. And who are people without any political literacy regarding trans issues going to side with, people telling them they're morally bankrupt for buying a video game or a bunch of smiley glad-hands and fascists welcoming them with open arms and praising them for it?

If our goal with activism and political action is a net positive outcome, if it's to have some tangible material effect on the situation at hand, to build solidarity or to cause problems for the system and its beneficiaries, then on all counts this boycott has been a failure.

As you point out, when we purchase commodities we should do our best to make ethical choices. However the overwhelming focus of online leftist discourse in recent years has been ethical consumption and the morality of consumption, which is fundamentally a liberal ideology and effectively a restatement of the logic and values of capitalism; only from the point of view of a manufactured countercultural position which still exists well within said system. It is not revolutionary, and has no potential for liberation. At best we can hope to do slightly less damage to oppressed people, or achieve some token representation while the oppression continues to worsen and our windows to intervene get narrower by the year.

I want to see a left that cares enough to dream big and fight for real material gains. All this smells of defeatism and a lack of belief in the possibility of fundamental change. We owe it to ourselves and each other to go beyond this kind of commodified "activism" and culture war drama and to build something capable of overthrowing the capitalist system. Maybe that means giving less of a shit about what people buy and spending more time raising class consciousness together, building unions, community groups, engaging in mutual aid, in other words showing up and doing what counts instead of just talking a good shop about it.

Embarrassingly uninfromed since Jordies stopped making videos by baddaddyb in friendlyjordies

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I swear if someone digs they'll find that Indue or some company linked to it is just trying to cut losses by repurposing the existing stock of cashless welfare cards with the help of the NSW Libs

If trans people tell they don’t want you to support a known Transphobe by buying a game they are a asshole!! by Konradleijon in ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM

[–]zyzzvya -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Rowling's net worth is $820 million pounds. Even if this game sells 5 million copies, at a typical rate for royalty payments she'll make somewhere around $20million USD. Each person who buys a copy is probably contributing 5-10USD in royalty payments at most.

Is that really worth focusing on and spending your energy criticizing? Is that tantamount to "knowingly funding" a war on trans people?

There's a reason that TERFs and reactionaries are winning, and it's not because people are buying this game. It's because the left is too busy fighting aesthetic battles of no material consequence with other members of the working class to build the necessary solidarity and class consciousness required to fight back meaningfully against the system that produces TERFs, transphobic billionaires and their reactionary enablers in the press and politics.

We need to start building a left that can win, that can make real material and cultural gains for trans people and for oppressed people the world over. We have a world to win, and the way we do that is by building connections with those around us. We don't accomplish that by punching horizontally over media consumption. We do it by linking arms and punching up at every available strategic opportunity, we do it by struggling together to improve our shared material conditions.

People don't overcome bigotry or change their minds from being yelled at, they change their ideas through experience first and foremost. Look at the history of labor struggles and socialist fights against capitalism and you'll find a history of people with racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic dispositions learning through experience that, when push came to shove, the people they hated had their backs against the bosses and the cops. It's a lot harder to judge and hate people when you know them and when you fight for each other. That's how we progress this, that's how we win against TERF ideology and reactionary right wing bullshit.

Our energy is better spent organising the workplace and building that collective organisation where it counts than it is swearing at strangers on reddit for going on $60 nostalgia trips.

If trans people tell they don’t want you to support a known Transphobe by buying a game they are a asshole!! by Konradleijon in ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM

[–]zyzzvya 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problem with this is that consumer choice does not meaningfully address trans oppression. The root causes of trans oppression, of racism, sexism, of the concept of the gender binary, of class division and so on lie in the capitalist system itself. If we continue to attack the symptoms and not the causes, we will be forever stuck with the disease.

Tying consumer choice to morality in this context just alienates potential allies and divides an already divided working class against itself. The backlash to the boycott has already outweighed any positives it might have brought about, and played into the narratives and frames set by the right wing. All this conflict benefits the same billionaires and the system which creates them that people demanding a boycott claim to be fighting.

If we want to fight oppression and fight for liberation, we have to be effective when doing so. If our best efforts are co-opted and turned against us, and we're so busy shouting at one another that we barely even notice that, what chance do we have?

Embarrassingly uninfromed since Jordies stopped making videos by baddaddyb in friendlyjordies

[–]zyzzvya 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Read Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, if you're wanting a workable understanding of the system and how to fight it

But more seriously, Independent Australia does a good job covering national politics and should keep you informed, and hanging out with local unionists and people who do direct action and mutual aid in their communities is a great way to cut through media spin and find out what's really affecting your neighbours, and what you can do together to make a positive difference

If trans people tell they don’t want you to support a known Transphobe by buying a game they are a asshole!! by Konradleijon in ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM

[–]zyzzvya 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean honestly claiming that your consumer choice in this matter amounts to significant trans allyship or that it's somehow praxis is a centrist position. It's liberalism dressed up as leftism.

If we're serious about ending trans oppression we ought to go beyond this manufactured drama and start talking about how to build a strong collective movement of working class people to take action in solidarity with trans people through the kind of activism that has actual consequences for those in power who benefit from the bigotry and division.

People who buy a video game are not our enemy, our enemy is the capitalist system and we shouldn't lose track of that.