I am anti-capitalist. I aim to dismantle commodity relations and build radical new social relations that stand outside of the transactional hegemony of the market. Every bureaucratic structure of corporations and governments should be dismantled, and anti-hierarchical democratic structures should occupy their place.
I do not consent to be advertised to, nor for the fulfillment of my corporeal needs to be placed in the hands of an unaccountable, anti-democratic, profit-seeking cult that is known as a "business". I support the organization of radical, anti-estabishment, anti-authority, anti-capitalist labor unions to consolidate the power of the dispossessed laborer, and I abhor the violence the state uses to repress them.
8 months ago 路 馃憤 userfxnet, lykso
Free Will can easily be manipulated.
Sublimminal suggestive influencing can AND WILL manipulate the mind. Even those who are fully aware of it can be mind phucked. As none of us/them can be 100% focussed on the plethora of tricks that are being used. Specially on facebook and google,who both happen to be in the hands of people with the same religious background, the cohorts are driven to the exteme. while data is being shared with Cambridge Analytica (british military psychological warfare) read wikipedia on Alexander Nix. for more insights. So free will is a farce majeure. 路 8 months ago
@clseibold, thank you for the wake up. i indeed know very little about religious history. I'm looking at this from a freudian perspective. I'm no fan of Freud but he, a self declared 'godless jew' gave me a new perspective on christianity (judea christianity?) In "Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse" He shows that christianity is one big group-think 'cult'. Without ever saying it that specific. BUT i do think he is correct. While his solutions are wrong, or flawed, or bullshit. But he did on hell of a psychoanalisis on religious priciples.
And his nephew, Edward Bernays, exploited the shit out of it. And created the mess we are in with his books on Propaganda and PR 路 8 months ago
Also, I will admit that I conflated anti-establishment with disestablishment. You use "anti-establishment" in your original post, which I am firmly against, because it is not backed by Science, Philosophy, or History. 路 8 months ago
Anyway, I won't be posting any more comments in this thread. This conversation is exhausting and useless. In future posts (not this one), I will be deleting any replies I don't like, in a totally unprincipled manner according to my biases and whims. 路 8 months ago
@willowf Separation between Church and State, like I already explained, is a religious concept. 路 8 months ago
@clseibold "Disestablishmentarianism" is the position of separation between church and state. It's a position I endorse, and one I make no apology for. You are correct that free will is a religious concept - and free will is also a concept that I am highly skeptical of.
I think religion should be tolerated for the simple reason that I think people should be allowed to be wrong. But I don't think that religious principles should be regarded as the political basis of governance. 路 8 months ago
Religion is less about the belief in the divine than it is about society as a whole. It's your shared history, your stories, your morals, your ethical system, your structure, your connections, your individual characteristics. It's about how society tackles the problems of the human condition - of suffering, of violence, of chaos, of persecution, of your purpose and roles in the world and in society.
One may say they are atheists, but they have undoubtedly been influenced by the religion of their society. There are many atheists who are anti-LGBTQ+, or that share many other beliefs with religious people, they just don't recognize it. 路 8 months ago
To demonstrate my point futher, both the Bible and the Qur'an talk about the concept of Free Will. Free Will is in fact a religious concept. The Qur'an takes this *even further* by saying that you cannot force Islam on someone. This is what led the Islamic Empire to have religious toleration in the first place! 路 8 months ago
@willowf If you are using the term "disestablishmentarian" to mean the removal of establishments, of governance structures, then yes, I am against Anarchism. If you mean the term for the rejection of state religion, then my point is religious toleration and toleration of lack of religion is a religious value that came out of religion itself. 路 8 months ago
In case I haven't made it clearly yet, religion and society are interconnected. Religion is not about belief in God or gods, it is about the interconnectedness of society and the human condition. Why does Spirituality often lead to cults? Because it took religion and removed the ethical system, the social connection, and replaced it with individualism and hubris. Why does Religious Fundamentalism lead to autocracies and persecutions? Because it took religion and removed the empathy, the individuality, the diversity, the mercy, and replaced it with legalism. You cannot have too much structure, but you also cannot remove too much structure too. 路 8 months ago
@clseibold Are you an antidisestablishmentarian, then? I think religion should be tolerated, but I also think that irreligion should be tolerated.
Pondering the nature of the divine for myself, I've gone back and forth on the issue and remain uncertain of the truth - right now I consider myself an agnostic leaning atheist, but I don't consider it a settled or certain matter, and either way I don't think it would be right for me to prescribe my beliefs about the divine to others.
And whatever structure society may take on, I would hope there would still be room for that. 路 8 months ago
Society requires a ruleset. Religion is a response to this lack of ruleset. You know what happens when you don't have state-building? Persia gets conquered by Greece swiftly, Democratic societies set up in the Middle East after the Arab Spring fall to religious extremists and autocrats because there's no state-building, no structure to keep democracy stood. What you get is the Taliban requiring women cover 99% of their body. Anarchy has always led to authoritarianism. That's just a historical fact. 路 8 months ago
@willowf Then you are not as far fringe as I suspected, and I appologize. I still believe your "disestablishmentarianism" is naive and reckless. Democracy requires structure to work. Anarchy doesn't work. Religions grew out of choas. The chaos of Chinese society around Confuscius, the chaos of extreme asceticism around Buddha, the chaos of persecution under Assyrian and Persian rule. The chaos of zealots against the roman empire. The chaos of Arabian tribal violence. Religion is the whole basis for our US system. Our founding fathers were inspired by the Islamic Empire for gosh sakes! Cyrus, King of Persia, set a policy of *religious toleration*. Knowing the history is important! 路 8 months ago
In case my stance on religion is unclear: I support religious tolerance. I am a disestablishmentarian, but I believe that people's right to believe and practice religion should be respected. 路 8 months ago
@clseibold Sorry, did I say something about religion? I don't think I've expressed a position for or against religion, so I'd like to state for the record that I'm not some kind of militant atheist. Yes, modern communist intellectuals have criticized Marx, both because his predictions didn't all come true, and because his hardline atheist stance was used to justify religious persecution.
When I say businesses are like "cults", I'm not saying that they are like religious organizations - that would imply an equivalence between cults and religion. I'm not religious myself, but I think that would be unfair to those who are. 路 8 months ago
@maxheadroom However, I am a Theology graduate that focused largely on Judaism in my free time. I've studied quite a bit of religious history, I've read the Bible many times. I took classes on the History of the Middle East and on Islam, on the History of World Civilizations, on World Religions, and how religion and trade interacted with them. I've studied the history of the Christian Churches in multiple classes. I'm telling both of you right now, @maxheadroom and @willowf, you don't know a DAMN THING about religious history. Stop pretending like you do. 路 8 months ago
@maxheadroom willowf is on the far far fringe left that villainizes everyone else on the left. I get that you also think your positions on religion are correct, but they are not. Both of you are against the history here. You are both flat-out wrong. Get with the times, modern Communist intellectuals have criticized the positions of Marx. Why? Because he was WRONG. What he said would happen DIDN'T HAPPEN. Instead leaders took his system and used it to persecute LGBTQ+ people *and religious people*, among many others. It only took many many years for some communist parties/leaders to start accepting LGBTQ+ people. 路 8 months ago
FYI, 50% of the LGBTQ+ community is religious in the US. If you want to tear down your own community for the sake of selfishness, be my guest, but I will never stop countering the bigotry of the anti-LGBTQ+ and the Militant Anti-religious bigots. 路 8 months ago
@willowf Fortunately, you are part of an old horrendous trend of the past within the left that is hopefully on its way out. I'm tired of the bigotry and homophobia of the "social democrats" like George Orwell. I'm tired of the unrealistic anarchists that just want to tear down all social structures just to get what they want because they care more about themselves and what they want than what is good for society. They pathetically militarize themselves against religion and anyone who even slightly checks their bigotry, their antisemitism, their unrealisticness, their stereotyping. You are no different than the autocratic right, because you are not part of the left. 路 8 months ago
@willowf I'm actually ashamed that being part of the LGBTQ+ community myself, I have to share it with biggots who hate me for being religious, but I choose to deal with it because I know what's *right*, and what's *right* is not stereotyping people. What's *right* is recognizing that WWII happened because of the human condition. What's *right* is recognizing that the Enlightenment has wrecked havoc on society not because we introduced Science, but because we became more individualistic, narcissistic, and arrogant as a society.
Anti-religious bigotry has no place on the left. Just because you're LGBTQ+ doesn't mean you get to justify your bigotry. 路 8 months ago
@willowf Language also harms others, which I'm sure you well known considering you're trans. But here we are arguing over the fact that you want to harm others because you think it's "justified". Why? Because you don't know an ounce of history. Because you have no critical thought. Because you just take whatever people tell you and you use it to select which information you want to listen to and which information you want to ignore.
Your positions are not supported by Science, by History, or by Philosophy. That's plain and simple. You would know this if you've actually studied history well, but I doubt you have. 路 8 months ago
I also can see peertube as as a way to make money. And i'm sure the greedy ones will exploit that as soon as they figure out a way to do so. And we get a brand new mess to wreck our brains with. Still peertube makes more sense then the youtube capitalism that mainly makes google rich and turns content creators into advertisemend mules. 路 8 months ago
@clseibold a cult is a group think system and people with an ideology are together in a group-think and somehow these groups have issues with echother and then we get clashing 'cults' of groups who can't see the hypocracy of their own bubble.
Now, this is complicated, and it's not easy to solve this as most people are not aware of the pitfalls of the human mind. I agree with willowf on the profit seeking cult but at the same time i see a anti capitalist 'cult'. and other group-think systems. I hope we can find a balance between the options. Capitalists should be open for other options and vice versa. 路 8 months ago
I'm tired of the capitalist greed, still we need a trading system. Or a rewarding system.
In a way I thought that bitcoin could have helped us, but that got poisoned by the same capitalist greed. I like peertube and i think gemini should be distributed the same way so that viewers distribute the content they view. At the same time I think that both systems should exist so that people have a choice and that what ever system works for the people should be available to those people. I'm sure something like peertube will win for many/most cases. But we also should stay openminded for more options. So that we don't get the same in the future when peertube grows old 路 8 months ago
@clseibold Actually, I can use the word "cult" for anything I please. It has many actual usages, and one of them is mine, because I'm actually using it.
Businesses, at least the ones I've worked at, want me to make them my top priority. They say outright, "We're like a family", and the way they behave indicates that they want me to feel dependent on them, that they want me to believe I can't afford to leave. They elevate profit to sublime status.
Language is participatory and democratic by its nature. If there was a central authority or legislative body that would assert regulation over the form and meaning of language, I would oppose it on principle. 路 8 months ago
Also, you don't get to use the term "cult" for anything that you just don't like. It's bigoted. The term has an actual usage and meaning. 路 8 months ago
Funny how you don't know history very much: labor unions are liberal. Social democracy is economic liberalism. Democracy is political and social liberalism. Forcing communism or capitalism on people is not democratic, and certainly not liberal. Businesses are groups of people that exchange money for services or products - they are not inherently "anti-democratic" or illiberal, because they are using their freedom. They are also not inherently an authority or an "establishment" unless they heavily influence government and politics. Yes, abolishing Citizens United is a common LIBERAL sentiment!
You're using a lot of weird, charged words that sound more like you're living in a cult yourself. 路 8 months ago