Sebrof

Dirty bombs? ISIS? Theocrats? Chaos? Sounds perfect for the empire!

Blowback is just another opportunity. Safety is not the goal.

Though in more serious talk, if you believe Ben Norton from Geopolitical Economy Report and the sources therein, the ultimate goal isn't Safety from nuclear war or dirty bombs. The goal is China. Fracturing Iran into weak states, where a few may be comprador western allies gets us one step closer to the goal of China. A goal that I dont think is viable, but a goal nonetheless.

And this is just my vibe here, but I dont think the architects of the apocalypse give a shit if some Americans die from a dirty bomb. If need be, a hundred American cities could be nuked to glass. Accumulation of their power and control is all that matters.

I see what you mean about believing that Israel is independent is not idealism in itself, but calling idealist is shorthand for the fact that such a view, at least the extreme version of Israel having some complete sovereignty from the US empire, entity doesn't seem to correspond with a meaningful analysis rooted in imperialism and how the US supports and props up Israel. Israel does have some degree of "independence" in that they are there own actors, but I'd say based off the US propping up Israel for its purposes, that the game theorist YouTube is making a severe error. And he isn't rooting his analysis in historical materialism, i.e. in an analysis of imperialism, capital accumulation, class power, and value flows. For him, Israel is a nation state hence it is on some independent footing as any other nation state. That is some form of idealism to me. Almost like a mystification of Israel as some independent entity because it is a nation state, instead of focusing on the interrelationships between Israel and the US, and how Israel is both a nation state and an extension of US empire. An analysis starting from material facts on the ground will lead to that vs one that treats Isreal as independent from the start.

But, I may be wrong about the details of this hill I'm standing on. So I won't die on it, but I think its a hill that's close to something worthwhile.

Also, an aside on the aside about math. I don't think math can escape materialism. I think most math people disagree with me on this, Platonism appears very common with mathematician. Even if the abstractions are "ideals" and dont exist in a one-to-one way, I dont see this as invalidating dialectical materialism. Ideas in math are abatractions that, like all abstractions, have their roots in the material world and its historical trajectoey. Every abstractions of ours come from this material world, but this isnt some crude materialist view that says that every abstractions has a direct one-to-one material version of it. But I dont believe even math is some pure idealism, even if it is analysis of abstract, ideal, structures.

But some abstractions are definitely harder to pin down to something real. Utility for example. Maybe it could be a proxy, like fitness in evolutionary systems, for something else more material or having a feedback relationship with something in the material world.

Yeah I wasn't put off by the guy doing "game theory", it's another tool or approach. But the problem is his game theory analysis is not based off historical materialism. His idealism shows through and polluted any analysis and made it cheap. Thinking that Israel is independent of the US and that it will be the US's military competitor in the region shows that no amount of game theory will correct for idealistic world views.

Your comment reminds me of my own rant I have had in the past. It's like when Marxists economists disparage math because neoclassicalists use it. Math isn't the problem, its the base assumptions that bourgeoisie economists have. I'm not even saying that a Marxist analysis requires the same math that neoclassical economists use, but there's a tendnecy, hopefully minor, to throw the baby out with the bathwater because bourgeoisie academics use math. I havent seen that here in Hexbear, but I have come across it in person.

Understanding the material world and our social relations in a scientific manner will require some math, and some analytical tools. It wont be reduced to math, but math is an indispensable tool in understanding material reality. There is a group of Marxist economists, or at least followers that I have spoken to, that are almost like the econ version of Ultras in that they think any math is some bourgeois perversion and wish to stay in the realm of purely qualitative descriptions. This has gotten a little off topic as this complaint is focused in the "economy" side of political economy analysis

I got suspicious when he talked about Israel for those same reasons - seems to put too much on Israel being an entity independent of the US and almost in competition in West Asia.

You may be thinking of Chapter II of the Manifesto, Toiletarians and Cumunists the term "shitter's republic" is actually a misnomer and Marx himself never used that term. Our monarchist would have known if he had actually read Marx.

By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of defecation, the free bowel movement, free shitting and farting.

But if toilets are abolished, then shitting and farting go with them. So all this talk of “free shitting and farting,” and all the other brave words of our porcelain bourgeoisie about restroom liberty, only made sense when compared to the fettered flatulence of feudal chamber pots.

They shriek, horrified, at the idea of communal bathrooms—“You want to abolish private toilets?!” But look around: for nine-tenths of the population, private commodes already don’t exist. They're stuck sharing stall after stall in the public latrines of this clogged society.

It's one of my favorites too. Really lays down historical materialism and has a lot of bangers

lol wtf is this

That section in the Manifesto is a fun read. Some of the same struggle sessions 170 years later lol

For your quotes, try Chapter 3 of The Communist Manifesto

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation[A], these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible....

In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus, the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new masters and whispering in his ears sinister prophesies of coming catastrophe.

In this way arose feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.

It is interesting to compare this with the section Ruling Class and Ruling Ideas in part I.B of The German Ideology. The following isn't what you were asking for, and instead discusses how a class, when contending for dominance, must express its own ruling ideas and interests as the universal ideas and interests of all classes, i.e. of "all of society". In actuality those ideas (of the bourgeoisie, aristocrats, etc.) are not truly universal though. This is written in the context of a new class, such as bourgeoisie, striking for dominance in an old order, such as the feudal order. But when the aristocrats try to fight back and maintain power, they will still aim for the same tactic. To express their ideas and freedoms as universal freedoms for the proletariat and as presenting themselves as guardians against the nefarious and harmful bourgeoisie, as explained above in The Communist Manifesto. Quoting from The German Ideology:

For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class. 

It can do this because, to start with, its interest really is more connected with the common interest of all other non-ruling classes, because under the pressure of hitherto existing conditions its interest has not yet been able to develop as the particular interest of a particular class. Its victory, therefore, benefits also many individuals of the other classes which are not winning a dominant position, but only insofar as it now puts these individuals in a position to raise themselves into the ruling class.

When the French bourgeoisie overthrew the power of the aristocracy, it thereby made it possible for many proletarians to raise themselves above the proletariat, but only insofar as they become bourgeois. Every new class, therefore, achieves its hegemony only on a broader basis than that of the class ruling previously, whereas the opposition of the non-ruling class against the new ruling class later develops all the more sharply and profoundly.