#The Origin of Capitalism; A Longer View | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zenosanalytic · 10 months

Text

I'm reading The Origin of Capitalism; A Longer View by Ellen Meiksins Wood, and something very obvious occurred to me:

In Part I Section I she discusses the works of Karl Polanyi and his objection to Smith's characterization of humanity as naturally "economic": to wit, that not all societies with markets are market-societies and that most non-capitalist societies's markets operated by non-capitalist logic and were subordinated to other economic concerns than profit and need, and it occurred to me:

Capitalism is a system where people require markets to provide their needs, but for that to happen people can't be able to provide for themselves some other way. Shortages HAVE to be created for capitalism to come to exist, and they have to be maintained for producers to compete because, if costumers can provision themselves without the market, they don't have to use it. Famine is a NECESSITY of capitalism.

You don't have to buy what you already have, so people will only rely on markets for the necessities of life if you ensure they can't gain them some other way. I'd always thought of enclosures as a way for rich assholes to steal land and create a workforce for factories but it's more than that; by kicking all those english peasants off their land and destroying their communities(which provided for them before), those early capitalists created the markets for their "scientifically" farmed agricultural goods, and industrially produced textiles, in the first place. More than that: the Engineered Irish Famine of 1845 wasn't JUST an act of atrocious, racist, colonialism; it was enforcing market-discipline.

Capitalist shortages aren't just a way to control price, they're THE way to create market-necessity, "customers", and competition in the first place. Division of Labor won't do this naturally because non-market exchange, and non-necessary markets, are possible. It's coercion all the way down.

#Ellen Meiksins Wood #The Origin of Capitalism; A Longer View #Capitalism #Shortages #Coercion #Markets #Necessity #Politics #The Great Famine of 1845 #Enclosures #Forced Scarcity #British Colonialism #History #zA Writes #zA Reads #zA Thinks #zA's Inveterate Politicism

9 notes · View notes

alientitty · 1 year

Text

maybe it's cuz I listened to an "audiobook" (guy reading it aloud over video of playing cities skylines on YouTube) while at work but I didn't really like the book capitalist realism. ig I'm just in the mood for more dry material analysis instead of like ideological discussion lately...?

#really liked “the origins of capitalism: a longer view” which I read around the same time

0 notes

a-really-bad-decision · 18 days

Text

I don’t really give two wet farts in a hurricane about the fallout show or what it means for new vegas and west coast lore, but I do largely agree that bethesda deciding to nuke shady sands is indicative of their lazy writing habits and inability to engage with the structural critiques found in the source material. And I don't really think "well the ncr was close to collapsing anyways" is a valid answer to that criticism either.

Like. Fundamentally I don’t have any issues with the ncr being in shambles. Maybe the timeline is a bit more accelerated than I’d like, but we all know the ncr was already in trouble when we saw it in new vegas. They were corrupt (both abroad and at home), overextended, teetering on bankruptcy, and facing a food shortage in the coming decades. Not only was the writing on the wall, but the ncr as a faction was a blatant, textual reflection of america, both in universe and out: it's innate imperialist tendencies, it's unceasing, unsustainable consumption of natural resources, the problems inherent in viewing itself as a "civilizing force", etc. etc. etc. And I think for those criticisms to have any bite, the ncr needs to fall, (or change, or course correct). Otherwise, it goes against the entire thesis that new vegas was putting forth about retreading the mistakes of the old world. The game isn't subtle about this, and replaying it in 2024 really only drives those points home further.

But the show didn't do that. It didn't engage in any of what new vegas was trying to say with the ncr's storyline. And it wasn't like there were no satisfactory ways they could have explored the ncr's weakening or collapse either. Hell, in an ideal world, they'd have even gone about it realistically, and acknowledged that the fall of a nation is rarely due to any one problem, but rather a myriad of factors slowly gumming up the mechanisms in tandem until the system can no longer sustain itself.

Instead, they decided to nuke the capital of the ncr and call it a day, because... well I can't say for sure. I wasn't in the writer's room.

Maybe it's because the ncr’s problems are an intentional mirror of America’s problems, and bethesda as a company isn’t willing to engage with that at the risk of alienating the viewers and/or shareholders. Maybe they thought a realistic exploration of the ncr's shortcomings would be boring, compared the flash of nuclear destruction. Maybe they just genuinely thought it was an interesting way to dispose of the faction.

But I think claiming that anyone who take issue with how the show handled the ncr are frothing new vegas apologists who're unable to handle the changes being made to their precious, perfect, canon is kinda disingenuous. Change is inevitable - that's a rather important theme the game touches on. But if bethesda is going to make those changes, they should actually put some thought into what the original lore was saying, and how the changes they're implementing improve or comment on it, that's all.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout prime #for the record I don't think the reason is that todd has a grudge against obsidian and wants to destroy everything they've built #I think bethesda is just bad at writing post-post apocalypse media so they're not even trying #easier to nuke it all and make a wasteland than to ask 'how do we create a society without repeating the mistakes of those who came before'#lmao 'I don't give a shit about the fallout show'#>writes several hundred words about it

59 notes · View notes

wingsoverlagos · 3 months

Text

Update (April 2024): Since writing this post, I have found part of the audio for this interview, which you can check out here. It's not the full interview, so I haven't been able to check every quote against the original audio - I believe the video compiles the audio clips from this interview that appeared on Elliot Mintz's "The Lost Lennon Tapes" radio show. Citation 36-16 is not in the available audio, but citation 10-9 has been substantially updated.

@mythserene's fantastic exposé “A Beatle Didn’t Say That! Lewisohn’s Lab-Created Quotes” exposed several altered, sewn-together, and otherwise doctored quotes from Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years (henceforth Tune In). I already had a less-than-favorable view of Lewisohn’s work after @anotherkindofmindpod's mammoth “Fine Tuning” series, a well-researched, often infuriating, always entertaining series that laid out the overarching bias in Tune In, but there can still be value in a biased work, particularly if you consume it with that bias in mind. Doctoring quotes, on the other hand--for a biography of supposed historical import, that's a capital offense. So how could a big-name author, revered for his rigor and devotion to primary sources, put so many barely-concealed doctored quotes into his work? Why would he do it? And if @mythserene could turn up several as part of an initial investigation, just how many of the quotes in Tune In weren’t actually quotes?

Naturally, I’ve chosen to do the sane thing, and check each of his sources, one by one.

I’ve started with David Sheff’s 1980 Playboy interview of John and Yoko, which Lewisohn cites 19 times in Tune In. Of these nineteen citations, sixteen are in some way altered, many in substantial, meaningful ways. I’m working on a longer post with side-by-side comparisons of all sixteen altered quotes, but that’s taking me aaaages to construct. In the meantime, here are two examples that illustrate some of the common ways Lewisohn alters source material.

A note on sources and notation: My numbering system for Tune In's footnotes is Chapter Number-Endnote Number, with "P" used for the prologue. My comparisons were made using All We Are Saying (David Sheff, 2000, St. Martin's Griffin, 229p). Page numbers are given as Sheff 2000. Lewisohn recommends the version of this book contemporaneously published in the UK by Sidgwick & Jackson as "the best available publication of this Q&A" (P-22). Onwards!

We will start at the end with the quote Lewisohn uses to close out Tune In (36-16). Sheff 2000 (p.72-73) on the top, Lewisohn on the bottom, commentary under a cut.

Highlighted in yellow are changes made by Lewisohn; in pink, a phrase of Lewisohn's invention. Hardly his most egregious work, but it demonstrates four common features you'll find in many of his altered quotes. They are:

First: The misleading use of the ellipsis. An ellipsis can be used to indicate text omitted from the original quote, but Lewisohn uses it here where there is no omission. He does the same thing with brackets in other quotes. This is one of the strangest patterns I've found while fact checking, and I can't figure out why he does it. Is it sloppiness? Or is he using notation that looks correct to give his work the semblance of academic credibility while distracting from parts of the quote he's actually changed?

Second: The pointless switcheroo of "the best rock 'n' roll group" and "the best pop group". Lewisohn frequently flips the order of words in a list, phrases in a sentence, or sentences in a larger quoted passage. Frequently, as here, this has no effect on the quote's meaning. It seems arbitrary.

Third: The glib closing line. I've found a few other examples of Lewisohn inventing a closing line to a quote that wraps up the meaning he wants the reader to take from it with a tidy bow. This line feels out of place, doesn't it? It's a little too tidy, a little too cheesy-dialogue-y.

Fourth: The tonal shift. This line comes from a larger exchange in the original interview where John discusses whether the Beatles will get back together, and what their musical legacy is. He seems proud of the Beatles, but he also seems conflicted, jaded, tormented by constant dissatisfaction with his musical/artistic output. Never satisfied. By adding his final line, Lewisohn turns an emotionally complex statement into the victory lap of a has-been, a high school quarterback reflecting on their glory days. It flattens John Lennon, and it's hardly the only example. Which brings us to...

Tune In 10-9 (Updated)

This quote (Sheff 2000 p.182) is from the part of the interview where Sheff runs through the Beatles' catalogue to determine who wrote what. In this section, they tackle "Getting Better," and John candidly discusses his violent nature. He ends with the self-reflective “I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.” Lewisohn quotes this line, then adds an additional line that doesn’t appear in All We Are Saying. I assumed Lewisohn had invented this line—that may still be the case, but things are stranger than I initially assumed.

Take a listen to the audio of this exchange at 2:12:10 in the video. Here’s my transcript:

JL: That’s Paul and me. His main lick, but lots of the words and parts and bits from me and possibly the others in the studio. All that [sings] “I used to be cruel to my woman and beat her…” That’s me because I used to be cruel to my woman physically. Any woman, y’know. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself, and I hit. I fought men, I hit women. I was violent. That’s why I’m always on about peace, you see, it’s the most violent people who go for love and peace, and I sincerely believe in love and peace, but I am absolutely a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. [Sheff interrupts] DS: …the chorus or just the idea for it? JL: Is this Getting Better? Getting Better is his chorus and then both together writing the sort of Chuck Berry-ish sounding, but I know that input about beating was from me and references to school and things like that. [clip ends]

HOO BOY. I’ve bolded the parts that Sheff used, though there are some minor edits/paraphrases compared to the audio even then. But the line, “It’s a diary form of writing”? Not in the audio. “Everything’s the opposite”? Not in the audio. “I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster”? Yeah, that’s not there either.

This clip doesn't appear to have any pieces cut from the middle. Sheff tries to interrupt John pretty much the entire time, so there isn't much dead air where you could seamlessly chop out a few sentences. This is particularly true where John supposedly says the "youngster" line. What the hell is happening here?

I’ve got two theories. Theory 1: John says the “youngster” quote at another point in the interview, and Sheff added it here. This leaves the possibility that Lewisohn’s “hitting females” quote actually appears before it on the tape.

Theory 2: Sheff made up the “youngster” quote. This is, unfortunately, plausible to me. Listening to the audio, Sheff spends the entire time trying to interrupt John, and eventually succeeds in doing so. He was a man on a mission: he wanted to sort out, on the record, who contributed what to each Beatles song. Then John was killed. Sheff listened to the tapes, and was mortified to hear himself derail John on an extremely sensitive topic. To make things right, he editorialized a bit, added a final, remorseful sentence, something he thinks John may have said had he not been cut off.

I’m not saying it happened, but, imo, it’s plausible. At the least, Sheff added in a real quote from a different part of the interview—this may be a common comorbidity for John Girls™.

The implication of this theory is that Lewisohn quoted something John never actually said, and then added in a further spurious sentence. I wish I could dismiss this as ludicrous, but maybe it’s fake quotes all the way down.

#mark lewisohn #tune in #the beatles #john lennon #i'm sorry this is so long i promise i don't have this much to say about every non-quote #lewi-sins

67 notes · View notes

elbiotipo · 2 months

Note

Do you think there’s any hope to save the planet? Like, whatsoever? Or are things just totally fucked forever? I’ve seen a lot of professionals (citation needed) saying everything is irreversibly fucked forever and we’re doomed

Not only there is hope, but things have changed in positive directions lately.

If you're concerned about climate change, recall that the initial expectations for climate change, during the Paris Agreement, with no intervention at all, were an increse of 4°C by 2100. This would have been virtually a collapse event for human civilization, as this would have meant catastrophic crop failures, violent changes in climate, deadly heatwaves, and more.

That is not the scenario we're heading towards to, however, because that is the scenario without any interventions at all, that is, the "business as usual, we keep burning coal" scenario. We no longer live in that sccenario at all. Coal plants have closed at a fast pace, while renewables are cheaper than ever in history. Virtually all of India's new electricity production, to give one example, are renewables, while China is thoughening, if inconsistently, its carbon zero targets, but renewable energy is so cheap that it does not make sense to invest in fossil fuels anymore. Current actions point to 2.7°C increase, but this means CURRENT actions. Further pledges reduce that to 2.1°C. Future technologies such as carbon sequestration, as well as the ol' reliable "planting trees" might even reverse climate change in the future. These are things that are happening right now.

If you're concerned about ecosystem degradation, ecosystems can recover VERY quickly when just left alone to recover. True, ecological succession is slow to recover biodiversity rich areas, but without human pressure, habitats recover surprisingly quickly. Animals are quicker to reproduce than humans in general, and while you do need to give a push, reintroducing species and rebuilding original vegetation cover, once that's done, the biomes that were there originally spread again. The key factor is how to do that while having a good relationship with the people who live in those areas. Coordination with native peoples and rural communities is key here.

If you're asking about the more political side of things, I subscribe to a historical materialist view of things. For me, the fall of capitalism is inevitable once states serve the working class. This will happen, eventually, because of the contradictions of capitalism and organized popular struggle (by many ways, not just one). I don't believe in the end of history. Capitalism will be only a phase in human history, and perhaps not even a long-lived one.

43 notes · View notes

vivi-the-sky-kid · 2 years

Text

So if you're a Dreams moth or later, you've probably never seen the original version of the stadium, as it (and the races, to an extent) saw serious changes happen as a result of Dreams

Well here it is, in all its terrible glory. This is the view you'd see after finishing a race, in the form of a cutscene showing the central platform and the two bridge pieces rising from the clouds (which you could control your kid during, but as they were flying around, didn't mean much). Rather than sliding straight into the stadium, you'd be launched off the edge of the race track and take flight into it, as the ice wasn't there. There also wasn't the bit where you'd collect lights scattered around the base of the stadium (for obvious reasons).

Additionally, the winged light found in the stadium wasn't always on the shoulder of that giant statue. Before, it used to be at the top of the stands, right around where Proud Victor now is. If you wanted to grab it, you'd try to get onto that tiny side ramp at the very edge of the stands, closest to the temple, and then run up that

You can still see a version of this stadium in the game, if you watch the Valley Elders' cutscene or go to their oob, but that one does have some differences. For starters, the central area of that is technically a fusion of the base level of their temple and the stands of the stadium. The statues present in that cutscene also overlap with the side ramps near the temple doors, and the lone pillars are not present. The rest of it is the same, however

Now you're probably noticing those pillars rising from the clouds between the central platform and the stands. The two pillars that are closest to either side used to be where the daily bonus candle cakes were, and before the update that allowed you to switch flying modes no matter where you were flying, you had to get incredibly lucky to actually land on them properly. Yeah, you read that right. Before that update, if you were flying over clouds (even a tiny bit of them), you were automatically forced into the second flight mode and could not select the other kind

See that little light to the left of the small platform in the center? That used to be where you collected Bowing Medalist and Proud Victor's respective emote/stance. The two of them used to be in the races (Bow in the flying race, and Proud in the sliding race) as little lights that you had to collect during the race in order to unlock them. Bow was on the other side of the capital-i-shaped structure where that one winged light is, and Proud was within a temple just past the tunnel with the 3 collectable lights, on the right side of the race

Cheerful Spectator used to be on the other half of the stands, on the side where the exit to the Village of Dreams now is (their memories have stayed roughly the same, despite this, though they're now much shorter). The devs keep moving them around tho 😔. There also used to be a blue butterfly that would appear and occasionally circle around the "winner" of the race, but I haven't seen it around in a while

Don't get me wrong, I am so very, very glad the stadium was changed (though I am sad each of the races no longer provide a whole candle). What we have now is leagues better than this. I just thought it'd be nice to share a piece of Sky history with y'all and show how far the stadium has come

#sky children of the light #sky

412 notes · View notes

molsno · 2 months

Text

I feel like it's foolish of me to fantasize about getting this job that a recruiter brought to me today.

it feels too perfect. my passion project for the past 5 years has given me the exact skillset they're looking for, after all.

the pay is unbelievable, beyond anything I've ever dreamed about. literally double what I was getting paid before, at minimum. on top of that, it comes with full benefits and unlimited vacation time. sure, it would require me to stay in this area, but would that really be so bad? how could I not fantasize about a job like this?

but part of me knows that no matter how qualified I am for it, they'll still find a way to turn me down. I don't have the privilege to deserve a life like that. even if they checked out my passion project and realized just how talented I am, I have a feeling that my hopes will be dashed. one interview is all it takes for an employer to realize I'm not what they're looking for.

can they see it in my features, I wonder? do I look a little too clocky for their liking? can they hear it in my voice? I genuinely can't tell, but there has to be something. there's no other explanation I can think of for why every time I get an interview, even when I think it went really well, I get ghosted, or if I'm lucky, I receive an email weeks later telling me the position has already been filled. I know it's not my skills that are the issue.

it's funny. people seem to think that people like me have "male privilege". that I'm a "tech bro" whose "male socialization" puts me ahead of the rest of the community. I wonder what they would think if they knew that my last and only job was a predatory contracting firm that forced me to move across the country with less than a month's notice under threat of legal action, and that I knew exactly what I was getting into when I signed a contract with them because it was either that or nothing. the best I could get as a tranny was the absolute bottom of the barrel in the industry I decided to dedicate my life to.

sometimes I think about how much easier it all would have been if I was a man. my accomplishments would be taken seriously, my appearance wouldn't be judged, my personality would be viewed as "eccentric" instead of "incompetent". I could be making even more than what this job offers me. wouldn't that just be wonderful?

sometimes I think back to when I was first considered the possibility that I might be trans, the sleepless nights where I was paralyzed with terror over how I would be treated. I was always told I had a future, but there I was, considering ripping it all away. I couldn't imagine why on earth I would give up my "male privilege", and yet I wanted to anyway.

the more and more I thought about it, in fact, the more I came to realize that holding onto it was a guarantee that I would have no future. I had already decided that I would kill myself when I turned 30, for no particular reason at all. maybe I could regain some economic opportunities if I detransitioned, but there is no belief I'm more certain about than the fact that if I did, I would end my life sooner than I originally planned to.

in other words, to me, the only privilege that would come with being male is that I would no longer have to live under capitalism.

so, maybe it's unrealistic to believe I could still attain such success. but I'm a trans woman. that's all I've ever been, and that's all I ever will be. and because of that, I have to believe that I have a future. transitioning was not an act of destruction. it was, is, and will always be an act of creation, the synthesis of life itself.

even if it's foolish to dream, I'll do it anyway. because that's what it means to be alive.

#personal

21 notes · View notes

thetravelingmaster · 9 months

Text

Remote Controlled Puppet - Part 2

- Kendra’s Unwitting Conversion -

Female's Point of View - Brainwashing - Conditioning - Mindless - Personalities - Robot Theme - Technology

Amy

After weeks of exploring what he could condition my mind to do while it was held prisoner inside my own body, Patrick’s genius and scientific curiosity soon found multiple ways to brainwash me. The most obvious of which was that he could force me to watch specific brainwashing media without worrying if my eyes were actually focusing on it because he could program my collar to force me. Then again, with the massive amounts of pleasure he could inject into my body, he didn’t really need me to watch or even listen to hypnotic audios.

He could simply have my mouth repeat whatever idea he wanted to program into me. We both discovered that the process was much more intimate for me and incredibly effective. The pleasure overload that was imposed on me made my stray thoughts focus on what I was saying instead of trying to form an independent idea. Which truly internalized the ideas because after an hour or so of constantly repeating the same few phrases while my body swam on the edge of release, I would easily forget that it was my AI talking and believed wholeheartedly that I was the one doing the repetitions.

Patrick quickly capitalized on that, combining it with audios, recorded in my own voice, I could listen to while at work meant that my mind kept being bombarded with the idea until it sank so deep into my subconscious that it became part of my sense of self. On the rare occasions where Patrick decided to afford me a little ‘human’ time, my scientific mind couldn’t help but be fascinated by the efficiency of my own subjugation.

He had effectively transformed me into an organic machine as he worked tirelessly on my original mind as if it was a secondary AI he needed to program and perfect.

Which, it turns out, quickly became my new sense of self.

I was no longer a human woman named Amy that was being puppeteered to act like a pleasure drone. To me, I was a pleasure drone that had a human emulation personality. The shift between the 2 was so natural that I never truly woke up one morning believing that I wasn’t human. Granted, my life was a blur of mantras and endless service, which made it infinitely hard to keep track of my own thoughts. So instead of waking up to a new self, it was more like getting lost in a hazy fog for an uncountable amount of time before finally coming out on the other side as a pleasure drone.

My life boiled down to executing commands and experiencing near constant pleasure.

Nothing more and nothing less.

Copy this link in your browser to read the rest of this chapter

mc-diaries.com/diaries/remote-controlled-sex-puppet-part-2

#Remote Controlled Sex Puppet #Full body story

50 notes · View notes

zenosanalytic · 10 months

Text

Reading The Origins of Capitalism again, and something else obvious occurred to me: The meaninglessness of contracts under capitalism.

What do I mean by that? In Part I Section 2, Marxist Debates, Meiksins Wood discusses Marx's definition of 'capital' as a social-relation(ie: that it isn't just wealth, but wealth deployed to create more wealth through the labor of others), and specifically how it drove competition in the example of "scientific agriculture" in the English countryside during and after the period of Enclosure, to wit:

landlords raise their rents to driveout the old holders(realistically this was a MUCH more coercive and violent process than merely rent-increases, and it was a big change for other reasons I'll get to at the end)

then sell the land to agricultural-capitalists who can pay those rents.

Then continue to raise the rents on those capitalists, in response to their yearly production; the better the tenants do, the more the rent goes up.

This forces the agricapitalists to constantly reinvest(and "reduce costs" by cutting corners and abusing their laborers) to continue covering their rents

and forces them into competition with EACH-OTHER(in any method they can think of) as one farmer doing better will raise rates for EVERYONE, and eventually lead to the landlord selling THEIR land out from under them to those better performing

So what does this have to do with contracts?

In the feudal period, your contract was unassailable. Sure: the local lord could come and take your stuff by force if they wanted and waving the contract around wasn't going to stop them, but if you survived, and kept the contract intact, and made it to a royal or circuit court, you could prove your ownership and that you hadn't violated the terms, and you'd likely receive compensation if not complete restitution, AND the lord would be punished for harming his tenants(since the only thing nobles loved more that stepping on their tenants was stepping on each other).

In practice, trying to expropriate your tenants was so troublesome that lords tended to just honor their agreements. A Freeholder and their descendants would stay forever freeholders(excepting a violation in terms, for instance refusing feudal service), a leaseholder would live secure in their land until their lease's term expired, if you held your land for life your lord could not take it from your family until you died(and often "for-life" contracts would stipulate terms of renewal), if you paid rent for your land that rent COULD NOT BE Renegotiated for the term of the title; even a Serf or a Ward was guaranteed 1)a place to live 2)land to generate food from and 3)food to survive on when either that land, or their bodies, could not produce said food, under their, essentially, slavery-contracts.

In the feudal period contracts could only be legally renegotiated when their terms expired, or on holder-violations, and a lord who violated those contracts ran big risks: from their tenants who could rightfully resist such violations, from their peers always looking to expand their holdings, from their overlords(ditto, and always strapped for cash), and from The Church since IT, along with overlords, guaranteed contracts.

Under capitalism Renthold was powerfully favored over other forms of landholding and your rent- or lease-contract, then as now, could be "renegotiated" whenever the hell your landlord wanted, your consent and knowledge unnecessary. "The Sanctity of Contract" is supposedly one of the pillars of capitalist society, but the reality is that rentiers VIOLATING their contracts constantly is a central mechanism of it.

#Ellen Meiksins Wood #Capitalism #The Origins of Capitalism; A Longer View #zA Writes #zA Thinks #zA's Inveterate Politicism

12 notes · View notes

dailyanarchistposts · 2 months

Text

Chapter 1. Human Nature

A broader sense of self

A hundred years ago, Peter Kropotkin, the Russian geographer and anarchist theorist, published his revolutionary book, Mutual Aid, which argues that the tendency of people to help one another reciprocally, in a spirit of solidarity, was a greater factor in human evolution than competition. We can see cooperative behaviors similarly playing a role in the survival of many species of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Still, the belief persists that humans are naturally selfish, competitive, warlike, and male-dominated. This belief is founded upon a misrepresentation of so-called primitive peoples as brutal, and of the state as a necessary, pacifying force.

Westerners who see themselves as the pinnacle of human evolution typically view hunter-gatherers and other stateless peoples as relics of the past, even if they are alive in the present. In doing so, they are presuming that history is an inevitable progression from less to more complex, and that Western civilization is more complex than other cultures. If history is organized into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Age, Information Age, and so on, someone who does not use metal tools must still be living in the Stone Age, right? But it is eurocentric, to say the least, to assume that a hunter-gatherer who knows the uses of a thousand different plants is less sophisticated than an operator at a nuclear power plant who knows how to push a thousand different buttons but doesn’t know where his food comes from.

Capitalism may be capable of feats of production and distribution that have never been possible before, but at the same time this society is tragically unable to keep everyone fed and healthy, and has never existed without gross inequalities, oppression, and environmental devastation. One might argue that members of our society are socially stunted, if not outright primitive, when it comes to being able to cooperate and organize ourselves without authoritarian control.

A nuanced view of stateless societies shows them to have their own developed forms of social organization and their own complex histories, both of which contradict Western notions about “natural” human characteristics. The great diversity of human behaviors that are considered normal in different societies calls into question the very idea of human nature.

Our understanding of human nature directly influences what we expect of people. If humans are naturally selfish and competitive, we cannot expect to live in a cooperative society. When we see how differently other cultures have characterized human nature, we can recognize human nature as a cultural value, an idealized and normative mythology that justifies the way a society is organized. Western civilization devotes an immense amount of resources to social control, policing, and cultural production reinforcing capitalist values. The Western idea of human nature functions as a part of this social control, discouraging rebellion against authority. We are taught from childhood that without authority human life would descend into chaos.

This view of human nature was advanced by Hobbes and other European philosophers to explain the origins and purpose of the State; this marked a shift to scientific arguments at a time when divine arguments no longer sufficed. Hobbes and his contemporaries lacked the psychological, historical, archaeological, and ethnographic data that we have today, and their thinking was still heavily influenced by a legacy of Christian teachings. Even now that we have access to an abundance of information contradicting Christian cosmology and statist political science, the popular conception of human nature has not changed dramatically. Why are we still so miseducated? A second question answers the first: who controls education in our society? Nonetheless, anyone who counters the authoritarian dogma faces an uphill battle against the charge of “romanticism.”

But if human nature is not fixed, if it can encompass a wide range of possibilities, couldn’t we use a romantic dose of imagination in envisioning new possibilities? The acts of rebellion occurring within our society right now, from the Faslane Peace Camp to the Really Really Free Markets, contain the seeds of a peaceful and openhanded society. Popular responses to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans show that everyone has the potential to cooperate when the dominant social order is disrupted. These examples point the way to a broader sense of self — an understanding of human beings as creatures capable of a wide range of behaviors.

One might say selfishness is natural, in that people inevitably live according to their own desires and experiences. But egoism need not be competitive or dismissive of others. Our relationships extend far beyond our bodies and our minds — we live in communities, depend on ecosystems for food and water, and need friends, families, and lovers for our emotional health. Without institutionalized competition and exploitation, a person’s self-interest overlaps with the interests of her community and her environment. Seeing our relationships with our friends and nature as fundamental parts of ourselves expands our sense of connection with the world and our responsibility for it. It is not in our self-interest to be dominated by authorities, or to dominate others; in developing a broader sense of self, we can structure our lives and communities accordingly.

#anarchism #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #anarchy #anarchists #libraries #leftism #anarchy works

14 notes · View notes

pissfizz · 3 months

Text

I haven’t said a list about the “removing sokkas sexism” thing yet but I wanna explain my thoughts on it. Does removing this aspect of his character ruin the whole show? No. Does it destroy his entire character? Also no. In most cases, it would be fine to remove this and still have a perfectly good, respectful adaptation. Things don’t have to follow the source material exactly to be a good adaptation, see the Scott pilgrim anime for example. However, this is not the Scott pilgrim anime. There are two glaring issues I see with doing this, plus one minor one. Let’s start with the minor one.

While I see how it’s problematic due to the representation involved, a lot of katara’s arc revolves around the sexism in the water tribes, and that includes within her brother. Both of these siblings have a lot of their initial arcs undermined by this change. However, you say, they could just be planning something new! This is true, and this is fine. Not to my personal preference, for a plethora of reasons, but I can see how it’d still be done well.

Let’s move on to the bigger issues.

Issue one. Removing sokkas sexism from season one because it’s “iffy” is a red flag. From the sounds of things, it sounds like the show runners fail to understand that how Sokka acted wasn’t a product of the times, and was actually a lesson for the target demographic of young boys that “hey, acting like this is bad. Don’t act like this.” They seemed to pass by on the fact that he is like that for a reason, and that his arc of bettering himself is important. When combined with the fact that the original creators left the project due to “creative differences”, this red flag is even louder, brighter, and practically dripping with blood. If you fail to understand a character being sexist and then bettering himself, what else do you fail to understand? It’s a fairly simple arc and it isn’t metaphorical in the slightest, which makes it hard to believe they didn’t understand it. Sokka is more than his season one arc, but the arc is still important, and if they’re willing to take it away, which also undermines a lot of kataras arc and probably takes hers away too (presuming they take away the N Water Tribe’s sexism as well), what ELSE are they willing to change or take away?

This leads to issue number two. “Mari,” you say “they probably aren’t that stupid to misunderstand such an on the nose arc like that, don’t you think you’re a little presumptuous?” To that I say, you’re probably right, although I wouldn’t be surprised. The alternative, and more likely reasoning, actually is something else. Capitalism. Art can no longer be art, instead it has to marketable and perfectly polished. Three thought processes probably happened here: 1) Your protagonists can’t be bad people, that would be endorsing their behaviors! 2) By making a character sexist, even in an arc where he realizes he’s wrong, some people might be uncomfortable or dislike him, costing Netflix money (or potential money) and 3) showing an arc about a man becoming a feminist could make some of the audience uncomfortable or upset, costing them money. Now, as you can see these are all stupid. Number one is technically more of a fan point of view that hollywood abides by and worsens. Which these three points leads to the same question from the early issue: if they’re willing to cut this stuff to stay profitable, what do lose of the original story are they going to change and/or make way more obvious and simplistic.

I can’t say for sure, but I have zero faith the show will be good due to these reasons.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #discourse

9 notes · View notes

letstalkwhump · 1 year

Text

Let's Talk Whump No. 19

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump, a series of interviews that spotlight the amazing people in our whump community! I’m Izzy and I’ll be your host today.

On this segment, we will be rumbling around with the one and only @justplainwhump!

Welcome to Let’s Talk Whump! Why don’t we start off with an introduction to let folks know a little bit about you? Perhaps something not whump related from the start?

Sure! Hi everyone, I’m Sara, in my thirties and from Germany. I love long rides on the train, otters and playing with words.

Trains and otters are positively spiffy! What does whump mean to you?

Characters challenged by traumatic events out of their control. A chance to explore the bare essence of a character under duress. Finding out what stays, when everything is breaking apart.

How did you find the whump community? What made you want to join?

I’ve started as a writer with some original stories, and realized some of the things I wanted to put into my main character Alicia’s backstory were darker than the content I would post to my writing blog. I went to look if other writers on tumblr had gone down that road, and I found a story by whump-tr0pes that hit all the right buttons and vibes. It blew my mind to find out that there in fact was a space and a community for this sort of content.

I hit some bumps after that, having to acknowledge that however welcoming the whump community is, the gender of the protagonist mattered a lot more than I expected, and as a writer of female protagonists I felt estranged for a while.

Luckily, however, with time I found more and more like-minded and super supportive writers and friends, and I’m proud to be a member of this community.

Would you say your view on whump changed since you joined?

I’ve always been an OC whump writer, and still like to focus on female protagonists. Something unexpected I’ve come to love however is the collaborative, dystopian universe of the BBU. I am not an enjoyer of pet whump or highly conditioned protagonists, so at first I wrote this setting off as “not for me”. But while these elements are surely something present in some BBU stories, there is so much more behind it - stories on capitalism, on rebellion, on ethics, on what makes us human in the very core. And due to the collaborative sandbox concept of it, it’s perfect to connect to other writers, be it in roleplays, shared stories or just extended worldbuilding discussions.

That’s actually an interesting perspective to see that in! Now, you gotta know this question was going to come up during this interview, so let’s have at it: You got any favourite whump tropes?

Too many. If I have to choose one, I guess it’s intimate whumpers.

A whumper, knowing their whumpee, getting into their private space, testing out their limits and breaking through them. A thumb on whumpee’s cheek, gently wiping away a tear after suffering torture from those same hands. An off-handed comment about a secret nobody should know. A hand wrapped around whumpee’s neck, tender now, but a lingering threat.

Oh my, I can feel the whumperflies already from here!!! Would you care to honor us with a favourite piece you've written?

My favorite longer story is “Mark and Gemma Get A Pet” (Mark and Gemma get a pet), a short novella set in the BBU about a “normal” middle-class couple being gifted second hand human pet Ira, and the wild downward spiral this sets in motion. It’s written from all three POVs, and focuses on the mundane evil of the BBU. What I love about it, the depiction of how easily the narrow line between a perfectly normal life and becoming the villain of the story can be crossed. Especially Gemma has been a fascinating character to explore and I got the feedback that I’m not the only one enjoying her character arc.

As a short story, there’s “Match”. Another BBU story about a villain thinking he’s just a dude, until the circumstances make him realize he isn’t - but he could’ve been. I am very proud of the setup of this story, the pacing, and the absolutely devastating gut punch in the end. It’s just a very neat and round thing; and if one is vaguely familiar with the BBU it perfectly works as a stand alone.

What's your writing style like on average?

I write when inspiration strikes. And even then, I’m a very slow writer, and tend to be so glad when the words are finally out that I post them right away.

I’d like to get to a more regular schedule or to writing longer pieces with some planning in advance, but my life doesn’t allow for it. So my followers need to live with random streaks of creation in between seasons of drought.

Toolwise, I do write everything on my phone. It’s horrible for my eyes, and given the weird autocorrect of my phone keyboard, it’s also horrible for my sanity. But it’s also just so practical…

Hey, you know what they say about inspiration. You gotta write when the spoons are there and when the mind is going brrrrr. Is there an easy thing for you to write?

I enjoy giving my characters a voice, both in narration and in dialogue, and often these are the elements of my writing that just flow.

I *would* probably struggle with description - but I just don’t write a lot of it and leave that to the readers, and as of yet nobody complained.

When I really struggle with writing, it’s usually because I’m too fast and I myself don’t know what it is I’m going for; and a signal that I’ll need to figure that out. Sometimes I *do* figure it out. Sometimes I just pause that project. Writing is what I do for fun, and if stops being fun, I stop to write.

I can absolutely respect your struggles as it’s not always so plain and simple to know where a story is headed, let alone not getting stressed at times. Is there anything you're working on at the moment?

I’m hosting an event at my sideblog, bbu-on-the-side, to bring together the BBU whump community! It’s going to start next week and has a mixture of prompts, most community based, and I hope to bring together many lovely and inspiring creators! If you’re a BBU writer, roleplayer, or plain enthusiast, I’d be glad to see you there:

Ooooh, that sounds like a wonderful event and I do hope that those interested in those tropes/genre join in with you! Do you have a joke or pun you would like to share to spread some smiles today?

Knock knock. Who’s there? UUuuuuuh. Kn… knuckles? [Seriously if you want to smile, watch Kung Fury, it’s a 31-minute short film, for free on youtube, and it’s absolutely hilarious. I’m a simple girl. And I melt for barbarian ladies on giant wolves fighting laser-raptors.]

Knock knock jokes are the pinnacle of comedy, and I already got the movie queued up to watch. Is there anything you can impart on us in terms of advice?

Writing is a craft, and you get better by practise.

That’s kind of a bland advice, I know, but it works for me. Just write. And you’ll find out what works and what doesn’t. And if it’s hard for yourself alone, get someone you trust, and talk it through with them.

But never forget - your story belongs to you, and you’re the one to tell it! Writing the story you want to tell will always end up being way way better than the one you think somebody else wants to hear.

Well said and I concur. This is now the time to give a shout out to those you hold dear and close!

Honestly, there’s too many. I have many recommendations on my blog and always forget someone and then feel horrible about it. Just one - @whumping-newbie, my first whump friend who I had the honor to meet several times in real life in the past years and whose support and encouragement are invaluable!

Anything you'd like to add?

Happy Whumping everyone, and: be excellent to each other.

Well thank you so much for taking the time to get interviewed with us, @justplainwhump!

*As a quick discretionary note: @justplainwhump is an 18+ blog only, so minors please do not interact with their works or with their blog please.*

And there you have it, folks! Another segment of Let’s Talk Whump may have ended, but we have more to show next time and it’s coming to a hellsite near you! Have a Whump-tastic day/night!

29 notes · View notes

eisforeidolon · 1 year

Note

https://www.tumblr.com/eisforeidolon/717151384192090112/the-latest-jensen-is-evil-conspiracy-is-that-he

So, I actually do think Jensen posting during Walker (well, just before and then during) was intentional. But I don’t think it was some super secret way to sabotage Jared or anything like that, or distract from the show because, you know, people can watch a show and check Twitter at the same time. But, whether we like it or not, Jared and Jensen are celebrities as well as friends, and the moves they make on social media are about their brand/image, not just about supporting friends.

I think Jensen did post when there was likely to be a good amount of fans online since many Walker fans are SPN fans. Also, despite how it might seem at times, there are plenty of people who watch Walker and still like Jensen, and who even watch both shows.

So, do I think Jensen chose his posting times to capitalize on potential SPN audience because during Walker is a likely time to catch them online? Yes. Do I think Jensen premeditated this move for weeks/days or longer than maybe that afternoon? No. Do I think he was trying to sabotage or show-up Jared? No.

To me, saying Jensen posted to undermine Jared in some way is needless shit-stirring. But saying he doesn’t even know when Walker airs (like I’ve seen some claim) and the timing was all a coincidence is potentially a bit naive.

Yeah, my very first thought was along the lines of, "Just how distracting do you think a couple tweets could realistically be, ffs?" If it was some kind of deep sabotage on the viewing audience to tweet during a show, no cast would ever live tweet their own show!

It's a valid point that Jensen especially uses social media for promotion and branding moreso than in any kind of personal way. So, no, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he specifically was timing his posts for when more SPN fans were likely to be active on social media - because yeah, as you say, the GA especially isn't nearly as polarized as the stan corners try to paint things. In the original post, I was sarcastically pointing out the new conspiracy contradicts one of the common stan assertions that nobody but Jensen stans/hellers care about TW - if there are no mutual fans, Jensen posting during Walker shouldn't be able to sabotage anything, even if it wasn't patently absurd to suggest tweeting was some massive distraction from the show that could hurt it (uh ... somehow) even though it had already been officially renewed. Like, at least pick a consistent lane.

It's not the idea Jensen might purposely tweet during Walker hoping more SPN-related eyeballs are active that's absurd. It's the conspiracy-think that doing so is some Wile E. Coyote level scheme to sabotage Walker and Jared (uh ... somehow) because he's pathetic and ~*dEsPeRaTE*~ and is trying to trick Jared's audience (uh ... somehow). It doesn't makes sense as something Jensen would do, but even more than that? It doesn't make sense as something anyone would do - it's so obviously pathetically inept as a scheme only a braindead stan desperate for something to get pissed about would read a conspiracy of malice into it. And yeah, it's also silly to claim Jensen is just totally clueless as to when Walker airs. It may or may not have been the primary concern in when he tweeted (I have no idea what twitter tells you in terms of engagement metrics on your posts and therefore what other factors might be involved in the timing of posts), but saying he wouldn't even know? C'mon.

Seriously, some stans get so caught up in trying to [prove the other guy is bad/defend their guy] they sometimes seem to completely lose all track of anything even resembling common sense.

#askboxery #anonymous #anti actor stans

25 notes · View notes

argyrocratie · 7 months

Text

"I would rather not trade in hope, because like all trade, it’s a spectacle of deception. I grew up in the animal liberation movement of the mid- and late 1990s, during the original Green Scare. I remember reading a letter that Free (Jeff Luers) sent from prison in some zine, maybe a year or two after his sentencing, which had a lasting impact on me. It’s been a long time and I can’t track it down now even with the internet supposedly making the rarest of documents available at our fingertips, so I’m sure I’m a bit off, but—sentenced to over twenty years in prison, Free brought up the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion as an example of how hope or the prospect of success isn’t a criterion for struggle and resistance. That hit home back then, and still does now.

The future cannot be foretold. A good friend who was involved in the underground resistance to the apartheid regime in South Africa told me that the late 1980s were the darkest time. [President Pieter Willem] Botha was in power, the US was still strongly backing white South Africa as an important anti-Soviet bastion, and the end of apartheid was not even remotely in sight. And then the USSR fell and the geopolitical situation dramatically changed, basically overnight. At first, everyone thought that was the end because the Soviets were the ANC’s most important backers. But a less obvious side effect was that South Africa’s pro-West apartheid government was no longer very important in the post-Cold War era; the fact that there was a strong movement in place to capitalize on these geopolitical changes was what brought about political change and the (imperfect) fall of apartheid.

The moral of the story is to organize and build movements of resistance even when everything seems lost. My view of anarchism isn’t utopian. In my eyes, every victory, every success, must be immediately perceived as a failure, as a power structure to struggle against and take down. They say perfect is the enemy of good, but that’s only because they lack any imagination and good is never good enough. Imperfection is a constant, but we just keep on fighting, turning victory into defeat into struggle at every turn."

-Jonathan Pollak interviewed in “A Nuclear Superpower and a Dispossessed People”: An Anarchist from Jaffa on the Violence in Palestine and Israeli Repression (2023)

#anarchism #jonathan pollak #apartheid #south africa

12 notes · View notes

thechanelmuse · 6 months

Text

Labels Want to Prevent ‘Taylor’s Version’-Like Re-Recordings From Ever Happening Again

Warner Music Group, have recently overhauled contracts for new signees, according to top music attorneys, some demanding artists wait an unprecedented 10, 15 or even 30 years to re-record releases after departing their record companies. “The first time I saw it, I tried to get rid of it entirely,” says Josh Karp, a veteran attorney, who has viewed the new restrictions in UMG contracts. “I was just like, ‘What is this? This is strange. Why would we agree to further restrictions than we’ve agreed to in the past with the same label?'”

For decades, standard major-label recording contracts stated artists had to wait for the latter of two periods to expire before they could put out re-recorded versions, Swift-style: It could have been five to seven years from the release date of the original, or two years after the contract expired. Today, attorneys are receiving label contracts that expand that period to 10 or 15 years or more — and the attorneys are pushing back. “It becomes one of a multitude of items you’re fighting,” Karp says.

“I recently did a deal with a very big indie that had a 30-year re-record restriction in it. Which obviously is much longer than I’m used to seeing,” adds Gandhar Savur, attorney for Cigarettes After Sex, Built to Spill and Jeff Rosenstock. “I think the majors are also trying to expand their re-record restrictions but in a more measured way — they are generally not yet able to get away with making such extreme changes.”