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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • The end result is comically bizarre and obviously extremely unlikely. The joke/criticism is how disconnected feminists are from the real world with their overly complicated, academic and abstract language, despite the fact that they ostensibly have a goal of influencing ordinary people into being better.

    The goal of feminism is gender equality. That is to reduce the authority men have over women (and in some cases vice versa). Part of that may be to influence people toward being kinder and more understanding towards others. But another part of that might be a deeper and more complex understanding of how gender functions in society.

    Think about it this way… Just because Einstein’s theory of special relativity is complicated and not well understood by most people doesn’t make the theory of special relativity incorrect. But for some reason in the social sciences you can make the argument that a theory is too complicated and therefore wrong and some people will think that argument makes sense. The theory being complicated is obviously not an argument against the theory of special relativity or Judith Butlers theories on gender.

    I do find this skit funny but I think the joke is one layer deeper. I think the joke is something along the lines of this Upton Sinclair quote:

    It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ―Upton Sinclair

    That is men benefit from the status quo of gender relations therefore men have a certain subjectivity that we expect from them that resists thinking critically about their own position in gendered hierarchy. Seeing (especially working class) men break from that subjectivity breaks expectations and the result is humor.







  • If wielding power in our “democracy” is so complicated that we must exclude non-experts isn’t that an indictment of our democracy? What is it about the legislative and executive process that people are ignorant of?

    While I am skeptical of the celebrity as politician trend which has been prominent over the last few decades; especially on the right. I don’t think lack of experience is the problem with the trend.

    Put aside what you think about Trump’s political project for a moment. He was effective at giving conservatives what they wanted. Tax cuts and Supreme Court seats. Despite having zero legislative and executive experience. You could say the same thing about Reagan and perhaps Schwarzenegger.

    I agree, expecting a strongman to come in and save us from all our political issues is problematic. We shouldn’t recreate feudalism. We need to learn to organize ourselves into a base of democratic power that we can wield towards our broad economic interests.

    But at the same time our media apparatus runs on spectacle, it takes someone with the charisma of John Stewart to be taken seriously by mainstream power brokers. Perhaps he could breakthrough the spectacle and kickstart a new progressive era that could enable those democratic ends.

    Because the alternative to charisma for gaining political legitimacy is going through the political system. And the longer you’re in that system the more time that system has to influence you towards ends that want to stop progress. Just look at Jamal Bowman and John Fetterman.



  • Yeah, I’m not sure I agree that YouTube wants their platform to shrink. Even if you don’t watch ads you are still giving them your data which they can monetize.

    Personally I would be willing to pay for YouTube premium but not under the current terms. 1. If I’m paying for the service they should no longer collect and sell my data. 2. Allow me to have a YouTube-only account not connected to other Google services and 3. The current pricing is a bit high.

    They can offer these terms or I’ll continue to use them logged out with Adblock. Or they can continue to enshitify and eventually their platform will start to shrink which will make the data they sell to advertisers less valuable.




  • I don’t remember them saying that specifically. But we did spend a lot of time on supply and demand curves which heavily implies that.

    To be fair to my econ101 class for a moment when I took that class it was during the Obama years and that was a bit before progressivism made the come back it has now. A lot of people were still Fukuyamaists.

    I think economics is a pretty complicated subject that is deeply intersecting with ideology. It maybe impossible fully to disentangle how the economy works with how it should work. To expect kids just out of high school to critically examine all the nuances of a field beyond the assumptions they grew up with, while simultaneously learning the basics of that field is a pretty tall order. And if the experts at the time are moving away from that way of thinking anyway, why bother?

    Of course in retrospect they probably should have bothered. But that’s just how the flow of history has to work I guess.

    Edit: There’s some nuance and detail I could probably add to that conclusion. But I’m running out of steam for tonight.





  • But it doesn’t matter because the lesson to take away is that in any system the people with power will modify it to what we have now

    Was the system that the peasantry lived under in the commons the same as what we have now?

    All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

    Ok?

    The quote you just gave is from famous socialist George Orwell from his book Animal Fram. Which is critical of the structures the Soviet Union created.

    But your comment is actually in direct contradiction to Orwell’s actual more nuanced point. His point was not that every system devolves into capitalism… he was himself a socialist who fought along side communists in the Spanish civil war after all. His point is that we need to think critically about the structures we’re creating to ensure they’re serving egalitarian ends. Something I agree with Orwell on.

    The original reason why I commented was because it didn’t seem you were engaging in the same project of critically examining economic structures in the way Orwell was and the way Smith was. Though I would love to be proven wrong.

    I think you should think more critically about what people tell you about Adam Smith and George Orwell.