I am philosophically lost. ContraPoints recent video on Jordan Peterson not only deconstructed him, but also the skeptic community and their adherents. However, I am not a Marxist, I support meritocracy. I also value culturalism, because First World cultures have certain amenities and faculties that Second, or Third World cultures do not. I would describe myself as a pragmatist, egoist anarchist and a cynical nihilist. Although, I value human life as a means to self-progression, legacy and a distraction from existential dread. I too value environmentalism and am concerned about our impact: ocean acidification, habitat destruction; air pollution, microplastics; et cetera. I value the ecosystem for a few reasons: self-preservation, sentimentalism and the interesting forms of life that exist within it. I also fear death, and wish I could be a spiritualist of some variety, but refer to myself as an agnostic; I am open to the existence of a higher power, with proof. What on Earth am I?
Caveat: Zig Forums is no help as any intellectual integrity left has long since been washed away by the Trumpist Redditard Flood of 2015.
Master Stirner, I'm sorry. Unspooking oneself in itself, is the hardest spook to overcome.
Xavier Evans
All those words for "I'm a conservative." Congrats on your autism.
Cameron Sanders
But I'm not a conservative, I dislike both Tory and Republican policy.
Logan Martin
It doesn't matter. Any philosophy detached from practice is LARPing. You are lost because you spend too much time on the internet.
In good all times, when asking a question "what are you", you are assumed to answer "what do you do", and it is the only way it can be.
Aaron Collins
What makes you think Marxism is not compatable with with meritocracy?
Canuk, Aussie or britisher? The last I can helpwith.
Lincoln Watson
Hahaha this is great, what a dumpsterfire. Socialism is the only way a meritocracy will ever truly exist. What we have now is rich people investing in their children, and public education allowing a few select proles to cuck hard enough to get money. Some cultures are better than others, but it isn't culture that separates the worlds. It's industry and power that gives you your iPhone while others starve, not that you studied western philosophy while they studied the Quran. Everyone is pragmatic, but you probably are just making it clear you have no backbone, and "pragmatically" choose the easy way and go with the majority. Wow, you're so cool. I'll invite you to my Google Hangout later so we can discuss rock. You haven't read Stirner, and you're a memer anyways. Forget the Google Hangout, give me your SoundCloud so we can trade tunes. You're such an edgy meme it's kind of unreal. Notice how your politics still looks like your average liberal! Really makes you think. I'm bored now. What you are is a liberal, and all of your beliefs are memes and status quo.
Luke Watson
Neither do my conservative family members. It doesn't make you not ideologically conservative.
Eli Green
Your "valuing" something and your self-descriptions as something don't reflect anything of actual philosophical matters. Any idiot can come into internets and describe himself with bumper stickers and occupy "positions" however retarded they are. Go read actual books.
Brody Ramirez
First stop watching contrapoints. That's not a good example. Second, do you think this is an ideal society? youtu.be/ExHCAjRsZhA youtu.be/f9p20dxtTkY youtu.be/0ByHDEnOsXE If yes then you are a socialist. I don't give a shit about preppy college boys like contra, I like the soviet union. I want the soviet union back and better. Theory only exist to understand what the USSR did good, did wrong and will do better. You only need lenin, marx, stalin and mao. The rest is just bullshit
Brody Powell
I think you might be right, user.
To answer:
I'm British.
That is true, and a belief I hold long with my moderate complotism. Accurate. No, I don't mean it in that sense. I'm not trying to edgy, it just seems self-evident that we exist without meaning and must derive our own meaning. Ouch.
Landon Campbell
Just no.
Lincoln Fisher
Can you recommend some that aren't Zig Forums memes?
Looks good, but how do I know that isn't just propaganda? What about Stalinist starvation? Gulags? Mao's pest control debacle? Etc.
Anthony Diaz
A score in an online poll doesn't mean shit.
Samuel Sullivan
why did you just said two completely unrelated sentences?, this is like saying "i'm not a ballerina, i want to paint my ass blue"
Jace Taylor
Holy shit. I think drugs should be legalised (to decrease the crime rate, both in false crime and actual crime, like murder) and sold by the government (to reduce the need for taxes, if we must have governments). I dislike the current form of police and think they often overstep the remit they should inhabit. I dislike the amount of government surveillance. And so on. An online SURVEY does at least offer something, if you answer truthfully and lying on a political SURVEY is retarded and literally lying to yourself. You're an idiot and now I'm gong to stop replying to you, because the other anons are actually being helpful and you're just being retarded.
Levi Smith
I've always been made to believe that Marxism is antimeritocratic. If that position is wrong, please explain to me.
Levi Stewart
Another one of these threads already jesus christ read plz
None of that is out of ideological step with classical liberalism (conservatism)
I don't know why it makes you so angry that you can't have a hyper specific label to apply to yourself. I just call myself a socialist and I get by.
You're also falling into the classic trap that you have value to us as a potential convert and that we have to be nice and helpful to you. Nobody gives a fuck about winning you over. Either lurk around or fuck off.
Grayson Reyes
Are there a lot of lost sheep?
Juan White
Classical liberalism, yes, In fact, I'd used to call myself a libertarian. But semantic drift is a thing and now: They are different things now.
Dylan Baker
All I'm asking is a little direction from a board that I would call more objective. Zig Forums is literal pointless shit now, as in, zero content. There is, at least, some content here.
Kevin Baker
Your polls show that you support capitalism for the most part. That's the one prerequisite that socialism has: Recognizing that capitalism is a fuck kill all factory owners i am a working man 184,343,932 DEAD COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES
Daniel Morris
This is a very short and digestible pamphlet that can at least begin to address the biggest problem with your current outlook. You don't have to agree with it, but if you're in search of "objective" viewpoints, then you should start by challenging your notion of capitalism as a meritocratic system.
Take two hours to read it when you're comfy and undistracted, and jot down your questions/concerns.
The only answer to your queries is straight up Marxism. We'd be doing you an intellectual disservice to find some kind of "socialist" thought that caters to all the spooks listed in your OP. Slam it back faggot.
Owen Carter
Pure ideology.
Daniel Rivera
Everything in life is about sex, except sex, which is about power. Peoples attitude towards sex is fundamental to their politics. If you oppose the redistribution of sex, then I am sorry to say that you are petty bouj in mindset. Many leftoids claim to be for liberation until oppression dons a spiked heel. Are you better than them?
Isaac Thompson
Capitalism is far less meritocratic. The only sort of unearned income that exists under socialism is modest welfare payments to the elderly and disabled, while under capitalism a narrow sliver of the population is able to heap up great fortunes through the work of others via profits, rents, and interest. This is all then passed down through inheritance. Grandma being able to subsist seems to me like a less egregious violation of meritocratic principles than a manager making thousands of times more than the people they oversee and shareholders who sit on their asses receiving more payment than workers.
I understand that capitalism has a death toll, but from what I've learnt about the application of so-called communism, it too has one. Although, I'm not some AnCap who thinks everything can be ordered by the market, some people would abuse that. Incidentally, my maternal grandfather's father was a communist and fought in the Battle of Cable Street.
Got it, I appreciate the conciseness of your post.
Perhaps.
Jordan Johnson
During socialism (conceived as the transitional period in the progress towards communism) the principle is "from each according to his ability, to each according to his WORK". I.e. a meritocratic principle, whereas capitalism is far from meritocratic as pointed out. Under socialism people would be rewarded according to the amount of productive labor they've done; Marx himself and Paul Cockshott have suggested that (expirable) labor vouchers rather than money should be used as reward, so that no accumulation of capital is possible. "To each according to his needs" is how it's supposed to be when "full communism" is achieved, which would only be possible in a post scarcity society in the first place. The reward would then no longer be material things (through labor vouchers/money) but for example the prestige and admiration that you gain from making an important invention, writing a great book, …
Cooper Watson
I think you might be right in that regard. There is certainly a wealth of unjust capital, certainly within the degenerate hovel that is Hollywood and its sphere of influence upon teenage girls and boys - id est: "YouTube stardom". As for labourers and craftsmen, they are, by the virtue of capitalist monopoly unable to compete and make a living starting up their own businesses, that too is unjust. And bankers, bankers are the worst of all, manufacturing money from debt, whilst scrapping themselves off a nice helping of the myth.
Robert Jackson
It isn't a joke though, something like 70% of our oxygen is due to diatoms and reefs, both of which ocean acidification and pollution greatly harm. So, if we're levelling our forests and destroying plant life, whilst soiling our oceans, we will greatly reduce oxygen input and CO2 uptake. That would only further lead to a vicious cycle of ever more acidic oceans.
Parker Russell
Sure, but I would argue that those deaths have been caused less directly by socialism/communism as a policy than those other deaths have been caused by capitalism. People dying from curable illness and hunger could have easily been saved if it wasn't unprofitable to save them. In other words, their deaths are a direct consequence of capitalism and the logic of the market. On the other hand I don't see how Stalin purging his political opponents is the direct result of the implementation of socialist economy. The fact that things like the Great Purge can happen is a problem for sure, and fighting corruption is a serious issue, but I find it somewhat silly to think of those purged opponents as "victims of communism" as if the ideology of communism was directly responsible.
Landon King
Well, that sounds completely different from the propaganda I was fed on the right. It also sounds far more desirable than capitalism.
Andrew Garcia
We've all been there dude. It pisses me off how meaningless the words socialism and communism have become due to rightist propaganda identifying it with "giving away free stuff", "making everyone equal" etc. To put it bluntly the one essential element to socialism is that the workers collectively own the means of production. All the rest is either secundary or not necessarily socialist at all.
Henry Lopez
You see, even on that (supposedly objective) survey they deliberately led you dichotomy. There's a question which asks you: Now, if that had been worded in the socialist sense: I would've wholeheartedly agreed. As many people, have a great deal of ability, but never apply it. That statement requires they use their ability to be worth, which is meritocratic. Oh shit, I'm a socialist.
Mason Morales
Agreed on all those things btw.
Matthew Bennett
Although, I support legalisation of all drugs. You should, as an individual be able to choose when you don't and do put into your body with your purchasing power. So long as, of course, you don't cause any warm to others.
I hate to break this to you bud, but these results make you look like a fascist. I suggest you read the Bread Book and sing The Internationale 12 times as penance. Go in peace now, son
Evan Taylor
dude read some political theory youtube.com/watch?v=XTQasSQ2a6Q this girl has a good reading list, but i'd skip the book by anwar shaikh unless you have a degree in economics because its actually a graduate level econ textbook
Robert Thomas
*harm
Alexander Murphy
Don't get it wrong though, the ultimate goal is communism and "to each according to his work" is thought of as a temporary principle during the transitional period. So you don't really agree with the socialist sentiment yet, if you think people should always get a material recompensation equivalent to their amount of labor. We think money and material goods are ultimately an imperfect motivator because, as Marx put it, they alienate people from their labor. You don't "live to work" but work to live. Only under "full communism" will it be possible to experience work in a non-alienated way. So if you strongly disagree with the "to each according to his needs" thing I wouldn't say you're a socialist at this point.
Tyler Russell
Yes, it's just that some of us aren't very content with being sheperds and ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE ELSE KNOWS ABOUT IT
Dylan Cooper
To be quite honest, I think the only reason I hold material meritocracy as so important is because of the limited nature of our current resource means. If communism was fully implemented and we had a surplus, there would no longer be a need for material meritocracy, instead a "community worth" would be far more beneficial. An intellectual, or honourary legacy. And yet at the moment, a great deal of the world lives to work, very sad.
Yeah, I can see that.
Xavier James
Socialism is the only way true meritocracy can exist. Capitalism isn't a meritocracy, it is literally random.
Culture is shaped by material conditions, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Your amenities and faculties exist due to Western material conditions and in large part due to the exploitation of the global south. What you call superior culture is achieved by advancing the mode of production, not by waving flags and hating niggers.
We all described ourselves as that when we were 13.
What a meaningless statement. We all like being alive.
You are a big brain centrist who stands for everything that is good against everything that is bad. It's more of an identity than a political stance since it posits no problems and offers no solutions. I suggest you to read some texts from our recommended reading thread and see that Socialism is fundamentally for your base values of pragmatism, egoism and environmentalism.
Andrew Gonzalez
see . It seems like I've been supporting the wrong side for a couple of years now.
Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Yeah, me too. Halt die Fresse, Contrapoints. Herr Contrapoints.
Christopher King
Rood.
Owen Long
A funny as memes like that are, they assume the "bumbling empire", America as a incompetent, bumbling entity that is still benevolent on the whole.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The American state is both very competent and actively malicious. They know exactly what they're doing with the drug war.
When do we start seising the means of production from the fat bourgeoisie?
Dominic Scott
I think the best thing you can take to sort your brain out is a bullet
Chase Morgan
Be the change you want to see in the world, but I'd recommend you get a couple more people in your area to support your side of the revolution before going guns blazing.
Luis Lee
Aye, welcome comrade! Zig Forums is seriously instrumental in turning people to the left, it's what initially got me into it as well.
