And many of the "smart" ones still think economic market models are more accurate than reality.
Nice theorycraft, but it’s just theory. In real life, it doesn’t work.
It's not "theorycraft" I provided scientific citations and evidence of it's basis in reality. You havent, and everything else you've written after this is unsourced theorycraft with no citations or evidence.
For one thing, by our own definitions, life is inherently evil. It takes, consumes, destroys, selfishly breaks down something else in order to sustain itself. We may rationalize it in different ways, but it can’t escape that attribute. And as long as an individual has to sustain themselves, they will have no choice but to commit evil. But we selectively view badly those who indulge themselves.
I see you're a right-winger Hobbesean, as that's what they believe - that human beings are brutish, warlike creatures that require a "better few" to monopolize the violence. Except that has no basis in reality, if that were true then everytime you see a natural disaster like a hurricane or flood and there's a societal and infrastructure collapse, you'd expect people to be raping and killing eachother en masse. Except that's not what human beings do, they come together and rebuild. You have a very pessimistic (and outright evil) point of view on human nature, and it's divorced from reality.
Accidents, logistics, incompetence, corruption and the like cannot be completely prevented. There will always be something beyond the calculated parameters that can and will eventually overwhelm a system.
So this is enough reason for you not to try and make things better for people? "It won't be perfect so we shouldn't try" what kind of braindead evil philosophy is that? What kind of lethargic devil are you?
And let’s not forget about the desire to control. Whether tyrants or the utopic society you’re implying for, it’s about control, whether to control oneself or all others. But is the mind that easily controlable and should it be? The desires we have and the willpower to pursue or restrain them aren’t that easily defined.
What about sharing food for the hungry and making sure people have a high quality standard of life considered "control"? YOU might want control and dominion, most people don't. And people who want control and dominion should be consciously removed from any sort of power, American Indians understood this notion (if you bothered to read the last link I posted you'd understand that) I provided evidence of societies that functioned without these mechanisms of control you so blindly worship, and you turn around and say "That didn't happen"? Do you realize how stupid that looks? Not trying to insult you, just pointing out what you look like by saying silly stuff like that.
We are not all of the same mind. Neurodiversity proves that people are different in thought and in feeling. The pursuits and responsibilities two different individuals can maintain for themselves over their lifetimes can go below or above the set standard and a civilization must take into account the satisfaction of its citizens in order to avoid its own downfall.
What? So you're simultaneously saying that "all minds are different" but that culture should "appeal to everyone"? What a confusing statement. Yes, there are many different minds, and a diverse community makes a strong community. I'm unsure of what you're trying to argue here.
Also, what was achieved in one society will likely not be accepted in another. So good luck expecting everyone, everywhere to accept a unitary system simply because it’s better. I sincerely have my doubts that anyone can succeed in that.
Who wants that? Who tries to do that except fascist autocratic totalitarianist cultures that fail every time? Again, a diverse community is a strong community, and cultures that welcome and celebrate differences do better than ones that fight against eachothers differences. Again, I'm confused what you're arguing for, what reality are you thinking of when saying stuff like this?
This all has to take into account the planet’s uneven geographical resources distribution as well. Our current production rates barely give a damn about sustainability. Soil nutrition, water consumption, population density, logistics and so on have to be taken into account, so this means population relocation, specialized production specific to regional conditions, limitations of product diversity and availability.
Tell me you know nothing about agriculture without telling me you know nothing about agriculture. Have you heard of rewildling projects happening all over the world? The dedesertification of Etheopia? Play-farming or lazy-farming? Are companies who drain the watertable and fill up peoples land with waste products to move them out to dig up uranium are considering soil nutrition, water consumption, population density, and logistics? What about trade networks, like moving a product from one place with resources to a place that doesnt have those resources? You realize that's how trade networks work, right? You also realize that money doesn't have to change hands for this process to work, right? Look up things like "gift economies" and how they predate money for milennia.
Anyway, what you want can’t be done and if it can be done, it can’t last because people aren’t static pieces of paper. A near-perfect distribution of basic needs requires a level of sacrifice and constant maintenance that we lack the willpower and stare of mind to accept responsibility for at this point in time.
But according to you, people ARE static pieces of paper who are all self-interested, warlike, dominion craving, power hungry fascists. Except they're also not? Which is it? Why does equal distribution of food and resources "require a level of sacrifice and constant maintenance that we lack the willpower" despite there being countless examples to the contrary, some of which I provided evidence for?
In conclusion you're cleary not coming from any evidence based perspective, you are of the dogmatic school of thought that capitalist like to preach to justify monopolizing violence. You're the type of person who wants violence and dominion, who thinks the way things currently are is the best way forward. It's very catholic, like the old medieval saying "If this is the way things are then this is how God wants them to be." What you don't realize is your mentality is not the majority, it's not "reality", but it's the minority, and history is constantly filled with stories of the masses overthrowing people with your mentality and flourishing because of it. Humanity moves forward when we reject these notions your spouting, because they're religious, dogmatic, and devoid of any evidence in reality. Take your pessimistic fairy tales elsewhere or come back with evidence to support your claims, like I provided evidence for mine. Otherwise I might as well be talking to a religious zealot, you're no different.
Instead, fill the streets in front of their offices, so neither they, nor (more importantly) their employees can get to work. It will piss off the other tenants in the building, the building owner, the buildings and businesses next door and across the street, etc. The message gets sent that it’s this Sociopathic Oligarch’s behavior that is causing all this trouble, and they’ll want him gone, too.
You're living in a fantasy world if you think people getting blocked on their way to work by protestors are going to blame the oligarchs and not the protestors, they get mad at the protestors every time. Literally zero of them go "Hey maybe they have a point" and skip work that day to join the rally. No, they go "Fucking hippies" and roll their eyes before laughing at them with their work colleagues and taking loyalty paychecks from the oligarchs that employ them. Rather than pissing off fellow workers in an attempt to convince them (which it famously doesn't) perhaps actually directing the attack towards the actual culprits. Again, it seems like everyone (and you) seem to try their best to figure out how NOT to go after the oligarchs, and that we should try every other roundabout idealistic mystical way instead.
Global agricultural systems produce 4 million metric tonnes of food each year. If the food were equitably distributed, this would feed an extra one billion people (paper)
Food is clearly not finite, we produce more than we already need, so why does it cost money? Why don't we give food to people simply because they don't have enough pieces of paper or coins of silver?
The ancient people of Teotihuacán decided to stop building pyramids and instead built everyone homes, in a sort of luxury social housing, that "In comparison with other ancient Mesoamerican patterns of housing, these structures do look like elite houses." (Source) This one is especially fascinating and maddening.
It seems that a peoples society can just, you know, make the decision to build and provide a luxury life for everyone, even in the "hard" ancient days of old. Why can't we provide a good life for everyone? Why are people obsessed with the idea of suffering being a prerequisite to urban society? It would require proof of a large scale, urban society with no evidence of hierarchy being able to collectively build some sort of intricate sewage technology without any top-down management or something... https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/aug/chinas-oldest-water-pipes-were-communal-effort
Poverty is artificial, it's a product of using social violence through some abstract currency to protect people from literal violence. Money isn't the root of all evil, but evil is the root of all money.
" The statement of the Soviet scientist’s is very interesting. Does he know what this alternative energy source will be? No, he simply has faith. Science will find a way. I hear revolutionary Marxists saying that the destruction of the environment, pollution, and radiation will be controlled. And I see them act on their words. Do they know how these things will be controlled? No, they simply have faith. Science will find a way. Industrialization is fine and necessary. How do they know this? Faith. Science will find a way. Faith of this sort has always been known in Europe as religion. Science has become the new European religion for both capitalists and Marxists; they are truly inseparable; they are part and parcel of the same culture. So, in both theory and practice, Marxism demands that non-European peoples give up their values, their traditions, their cultural experience altogether. We will all be industrialized science addicts in a Marxist society.
I do not believe that capitalism itself is really responsible for the situation in which American Indians have been declared a national sacrifice. No, it is the European tradition; European culture itself is responsible. Marxism is just the latest continuation of this tradition, not a solution to it. To ally with Marxism is to ally with the very same forces that declare us an acceptable cost.
There is another way. There is the traditional Lakota way and the ways of the other American Indian peoples. It is the way that knows that humans do not have the right to degrade Mother Earth, that there are forces beyond anything the European mind has conceived, that humans must be in harmony with all relations or the relations will eventually eliminate the disharmony. A lopsided emphasis on humans by humans — the European’s arrogance of acting as though they were beyond the nature of all related things — can only result in a total disharmony and a readjustment which cuts arrogant humans down to size, gives them a taste of that reality beyond their grasp or control and restores the harmony. There is no need for a revolutionary theory to bring this about; it’s beyond human control. The nature peoples of this planet know this and so they do not theorize about it. Theory is an abstract; our knowledge is real.
Distilled to it’s basic terms, European faith — including the new faith in science — equals a belief that man is God. Europe has always sought a Messiah, whether that be the man Jesus Christ or the man Karl Marx or the man Albert Einstein. American Indians know this to be truly absurd. Humans are the weakest of all creatures, so weak that other creatures are willing to give up their flesh that we may live. Humans are able to survive only though the exercise of rationality since they lack the abilities of other creatures to gain food through the use of fang and claw."
- Russel Means of the Lakota People (Full speech here)
Is your argument is that anyone who is unwilling to nuke their entire life for the movement is insufficiently motivated and shouldn’t even bother getting involved?
No this is not my argument, and I never said these words. If that's what you interpretted, then either I am communicating poorly or your projecting something else onto my words.
Being that you and I have similar experience in activism and direct action, don't you also have a feeling of futility? I mean we've helped make minor iterations, made minor accomplishments, but what has it been worth when you look around at the state of things? Have the billionaires who roadblocked every legal court battle, every protest, every movement, every innovative patent for alternative energy/plastic products, every bailout, every recession, do you really believe that continuing to occupy some insignificant sidewalk is doing anything anymore? Did it ever?
I'm not asking for a "vanguard movement" of blood and carnage, I'm simply asking about moving the crowds outside their mansions with zero violence would be lightyears more effective than what we're doing. It's far time we at least take that next peaceful (with strong implications) step, that we are clear and concise about who/what our problem is, and where, where they can see us. I'm not physically able to attend protests right now, but the first mass gathering outside a mansion that occurs I swear on my health that I'll turn up to add to the numbers. The world is going to shit, what are we doing? The same old shit. Yay for us? I'm trying to avoid bloodshed, not welcome it, and if simply gathering outside the homes of oligarchs are met with a firing squad then that makes the conversation much clearer for everyone.
I also apply this logic to animals. A lot of people, even some pet owners, are quite far divorced from our connection to animals, and don't spend enough time with them. Even wild animals, they are far more intelligent, inquisitive, emotional, and communicative than most people give them credit for, and coexistance with them would actually be a wonderful thing. I'm not religious, I don't say grace, and I eat meat... But anytime I eat an animal I try to at least be mindful and thankful for the animals sacrifice.
"Humans are the weakest of all creatures, so weak that other creatures are willing to give up their flesh that we may live. Humans are able to survive only though the exercise of rationality since they lack the abilities of other creatures to gain food through the use of fang and claw."
Yet they're still tricked into bombing brown kids over a WMD lie or for the religious act of patriotism. Doesn't sound very intelligent to me, it's like saying Oxford/Harvard educated math nerds making millions trading in high finance are smart because they think mathematical models of reality are more accurate than reality itself.