Friday, May 29, 2026

Karl Popper 1

 Karl Marx 0

If Marx and Freud are the answer then what was the question?

SO WHERE DID HEGEL GET HIS IDEAS FROM?

https://marxwords.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_marxwords_archive.html

With enemies like critical Western Marxists, red fascists didn't friends.

They were never even defined. Authoritarian bureaucrat doesn't cut it.

Isaiah pops

 It should be obvious by now that the Frankfurt School (and all other dialectical philosophies) are substantively wrong about a key element of that approach: history is not moving toward some preordained end. Progress is not slowly revealing some sort of truth about human nature, the idea that there is ultimately one, and only one, correct way for humanity to live has no support. Isaiah Berlin (yes, another European Jew, but of a later generation) wrote extensively and persuasively about this: that there are a plurality of value systems that could make human beings happy, unfortunately they are not all compatible with each other, hence the necessity of choosing. The difficulty humanity has in choosing which of many equally plausible set of values is where war and conflict come from, would that we could find a better way. But the ultimate evil (says Berlin) is Absolutism--the insistence by one faction that their solution is the one and only Truth, and therefore they feel justified in imposing that "truth" on the rest of us, by force if necessary.

If history has no inherent direction, then phrases like "civilized" and "primitive" cannot adhere to their traditional meaning. So-called "primitive" people are, on an individual basis, just as cognitively complex and well adapted to their environment as we the more "civilized" ones are. Similar considerations apply to other subjective terms of value judgement when applied to entire categories of people.

The ideal society might then be defined as that within which everyone is maximally adapted to their environment. The problem is that we are all in competition with each other, trying to secure access to and control over social resources at each others' expense, so any one state of affairs is inherently dynamic and subject to change. There is no ideal society to strive toward--merely an arena in which the competitive advantage of large scale cooperation ensures that living conditions slowly and incrementally improve for most (though not all) people.

Procedurally, the purpose of social criticism, as practiced today, isn't to propose solutions to anything. It's to point out the way in which the distribution of power protects the status quo and hides itself behind cultural stories. Movies, music, clothing, narrative, aren't inherently *bad* per se, but they do conceal and protect the status quo, including unjust inequalities.


No true Scotsman

 You proposed two people correcting a statement about Marx is opposite directions, implying that they're probably both wrong. That's true, but you missed a crucial element - the statement they're correcting is almost definitely wrong, as well.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-dialectical-imagination

Examples. Quotes from marginalia as canon. The German Ideaology and Grundrisse commonly abused in this fashion.

Then this howler that Marx never really described his ideal state. He is actually quite detailed in the Manifesto of the Communist party. 

Scott Alexander could be the new Marx.

Putin is the new Hitler

 So this means war

Russian drone injures two in NATO nation


Nato ready to defend ‘every inch’ of territory as Russian drone hits Romania


If it takes a bloodbath lets get it over with. Rus delenda est

Russia must be destroyed

Lenin was a bad man

 But a Marxist

https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/41864

We must learn from Lenin. His polished intensity. His concrete clarity.

Gross point blank

 

  • Treating the AI sector as a coherent economic entity yields preliminary estimates of nominal AI GDP at approximately $250 billion in 2025, growing at roughly 2,600 percent per year in quality-adjusted real terms. 
  • National economic statistics accounts were not designed to track this kind of activity.
  • $250 billion is actually quite small. Since US NGDP is around $32 trillion, this makes AI 0.7% of NGDP. That makes AI's contribution to aggregate output slightly larger than the airline industry, but smaller than the auto industry.
  • 2500% growth of $250B means that, next year, AI will be $6.5T, which is about equivalent to all consumer purchases of goods in the USA. Two years, at that rate, implies $170T, which is 133% larger than all *global* GDP. This is all quite exciting for CYPHERPUNK 2027 to bring forward the singularity and boost the first uploads, presumably elderly volunteers.

Thursday, May 28, 2026

Suit yourself Clarence

 Southwestern Ontario - Wikipedia

The Detroit–Windsor urban area is North America's most populous trans-border conurbation. Linking the Great Lakes Megalopolis, the Ambassador Bridge border crossing is the busiest commercial crossing on the Canada–United States border, carrying about one-quarter of the two countries' trade volume.

Windsor is a major contributor to Canada's automotive industry and is culturally diverse. Known as the "Automotive Capital of Canada", Windsor's industrial and manufacturing heritage is responsible for how the city has developed through the years.

Windsor, Ontario - Wikipedia

Karl Popper 1

 Karl Marx 0 If Marx and Freud are the answer then what was the question? SO WHERE DID HEGEL GET HIS IDEAS FROM? https://marxwords.blogspot....