Why aren't you all Communists?

[red_elk]

This reminds of that one time I took an ambien.

By the way, just noticed that the beast in cartoon was wearing jacket with Adidas emblem for a second (at 0:59)
It was offering free food to the poor, but the offer was a trap.

 

[AdamCrock]

I lived in a small isolated society on a submarine. It had a very obvious structure. It also had a much less obvious structure. Rising to the top of either structure was not really made more difficult by being a dick. There was no risk to being a dick, other than being cast into the lowest caste, which was reserved for failed dicks.

I lived in a small isolated society in prison for years. While being a dick didn't work there, at all, it illustrates my point that consequences both immediate and fatal are the only thing that prevents dickishness from being tried.

Hmm... Have You been playing Second Life ? It is a wonder how this game brings out to light the "inner dick" in us all. Mainly because there are no consequences of being a dick whatsoever which proves Your point

 

[aelf]

If communism is some far-away fantastical state of mind that can only be reached by jumping through an infinite number of hoops, then sorry guys, we'll never really have communism. Might as well abandon ship now and get with the program.

You wouldn't think this way about your own life and the pursuit of happiness. Why do you think society as a whole should give up on its journey towards the ultimate ideal?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Next time go by what I'm saying, not what you think what I'm saying "sounds like".

It's a staple of CFC OT. You have to try and learn to embrace it I think.

 

[El_Machinae]

If communism requires drugs, then the legalization of marijuana in certain states is a step towards communism?

More than you think. It's an example where you can very easily put the means of production in the hands of the people. The majority of the benefit of marijuana will be due to information technology - and that's mostly encoded in the actual genome of the plant. There's not zero capital required, but there's very, very little.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Hmm... Have You been playing Second Life ? It is a wonder how this game brings out to light the "inner dick" in us all. Mainly because there are no consequences of being a dick whatsoever which proves Your point

Nope. I just live the one I have.

 

[warpus]

It's a staple of CFC OT. You have to try and learn to embrace it I think.

I am really not going to include a disclaimer in my signature that says: "I AM ONLY SAYING THE THINGS I AM SAYING, THE THINGS YOU MIGHT THINK I AM SAYING THAT I AM NOT ACTUALLY SAYING IS NOT WHAT I AM SAYING". Most people on here are intelligent enough to not have to be told that.

 

[AlpsStranger]

You wouldn't think this way about your own life and the pursuit of happiness. Why do you think society as a whole should give up on its journey towards the ultimate ideal?

Because society as a whole is not a perfect analogy for a single being.

The cells in the bottoms of my feet are subservient to the will of my whole. If I decided to destroy them for the thrill of running a marathon, then they oblige. My teeth are also will-less and enslaved to my will. If I decide playing hockey is worth having them all smashed out, to thrill my brain cells by playing but destroy all my teeth in the process, that's also okay.

The "body" of society is not entitled to such absolute authority. It has no right to sacrifice part of itself to another part. This, to me, is the primary failing point of the analogy between the two.

 

[Honor]

Ah, I haven't even considered oxytocin.
I thought real Communism required some scifi tech like brain implants, but maybe we just need to put the right drugs into the drinking water.

Oxytocin is not a drug. It is the love hormone.

 

[Hygro]

Oxytocin is not a drug. It is the love hormone.

How did this post ever get past your filter?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Oxytocin is not a drug. It is the love hormone.

I know, but hormones and neurotransmitters can be manipulated by drugs. MDMA doesn't get people high, serotonin does.
But MDMA causes a massive serotonin build-up.

 

[Hygro]

Oxytocin is also used directly as a drug, according to the first sentence on its wiki.

 

[El_Machinae]

The word 'drug' merely has a colloquial definition. If the hormone is being given exogenously, calling it a 'drug' is rather reasonable. There's some educational value in pointing out that it's a hormone, but denying that it can be used 'as a drug' will just bog down a conversation in semantics. And not a high-value conversation, since the main goal here is just to communicate gist effectively.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The word 'drug' merely has a colloquial definition. If the hormone is being given exogenously, calling it a 'drug' is rather reasonable. There's some educational value in pointing out that it's a hormone, but denying that it can be used 'as a drug' will just bog down a conversation in semantics. And not a high-value conversation, since the main goal here is just to communicate gist effectively.

I think you overestimate the main goal of many posters.

 

[red_elk]

In other words, development of productive forces and pharmaceutical industry will eventually bring communism to us.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

In other words, development of productive forces and pharmaceutical industry will eventually bring communism to us.

Steering these forces in the right direction will be a challenge. Pharmaceutical companies cetainly won't be cooperative if they know that the goal is Communism. We might be in a chicken and egg situation here and we currently have neither. Now, I'm not saying anybody should start homecooking drugs. That would be illegal and evil and most of us don't even have the right equipment, and there's possibly a forum rule about starting a criminal conspiracy.
I'm also not saying that those with the skills and means to produce -or just the money to buy- drugs should then team up with people who'll get jobs at catering companies that are servicing Bayer or Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline.*
I'll not go into detail about what they should do there with the illegal drugs that they brought to work.
And I'll barely even mention phase two, which involves the infiltration of water works and bottling plants and which a burgeois pedant might call "technically terrorism".

I'm just saying there is a way to make a better world.



*btw, I have worked in catering before and Bayer's headquarters is pretty close to where I live.

 

[aelf]

Because society as a whole is not a perfect analogy for a single being.

The cells in the bottoms of my feet are subservient to the will of my whole. If I decided to destroy them for the thrill of running a marathon, then they oblige. My teeth are also will-less and enslaved to my will. If I decide playing hockey is worth having them all smashed out, to thrill my brain cells by playing but destroy all my teeth in the process, that's also okay.

The "body" of society is not entitled to such absolute authority. It has no right to sacrifice part of itself to another part. This, to me, is the primary failing point of the analogy between the two.

I don't know if "authority" is the issue here, or if it matters at all. Do you really have any say in the onset of economic crises or how your society chooses to deal with it? Are you not affected by them anyway?

Conversely, do you not believe that a society should have any goal at all?

Members of a society are so interdependent that it's not inconceivable to view society as a large organism, if a more complex one than biological organisms. Besides, in biology, there are a huge variety of cells, and individual cells can grow cancerous. The brain cannot absolutely control how cells behave. The analogy to people is not perfect, but it's not unreasonable.

I'd agree that society cannot easily move towards a coherent goal in a conscious way, and I think many Marxists/communists see it that way too. That might be the key differentiating factor of Marxist-Leninists (in contrast to some other types of Marxists), who hold a revolutionary vanguard as a conscious guiding force for the transition to communism.

But if your objection is that it's wrong for individual agency to be subservient to the good of society, then you should know that the primary goal of communism is to maximise individual agency the way that it can't be under capitalism.

 

[Honor]

I know, but hormones and neurotransmitters can be manipulated by drugs. MDMA doesn't get people high, serotonin does.
But MDMA causes a massive serotonin build-up.

Actually serotonin does not get you high at all. Serotonin is the "background" hormone - it basically blunts everything else. MDMA acts on dopamine as well, which might explain the high.

 

[Honor]

The word 'drug' merely has a colloquial definition. If the hormone is being given exogenously, calling it a 'drug' is rather reasonable. There's some educational value in pointing out that it's a hormone, but denying that it can be used 'as a drug' will just bog down a conversation in semantics. And not a high-value conversation, since the main goal here is just to communicate gist effectively.

My goal was to clarify what I meant. "Communism is not viable because people are not taking drug x" is not the same message as "communism is not viable because it requires a certain kind of human adapted to a certain kind of environment".

 

[Hygro]

Actually serotonin does not get you high at all. Serotonin is the "background" hormone - it basically blunts everything else. MDMA acts on dopamine as well, which might explain the high.

Where do you come up with this stuff?