purpleworm [none/use name]

Nazi Germany was always a much more powerful nation, and existed during a time where it was easier for them to gloss over the magnitude of their violence to the foreigners (and there were more foreigners who liked pogroms). Israel is still not on the level of Nazi Germany, not because it’s morally superior but because it’s just not in a position to feasibly “accomplish” many of the things that the Nazis did and, as deranged as it can be, Israel does still have a mote of self-preservation.

I will hate Israelis and their descendants forever.

It’s likely that a lot of them will be like Afrikaners, but we probably shouldn’t be doing “sins of the father” sight-unseen

That is somehow much worse than what I thought they were going for with Japanese colonialism more generally, which would still be an abominable, nonsensical comparison but not as acutely gross

if i was asked “which country is it most likely that neighbors would kill each other?” i would say the usa without any hesitation and it’s not even close

Well, there’s probably some argument for a place like former Yugoslavia or Israel, and obviously Ukraine

Tell that to Reverend James Reeb, a white protestor of segregation who was beaten to death in Selma. But really, they are making an extremely shady argument because the biggest protestors of various socially reactionary policies are uniformly going to be people targeted by those policies, so MLK or Harvey Milk or someone “don’t count” as assassinations based on political views because they were themselves minorities and it is “merely” a hate crime.

But does it catch on fire?

Lots of popular shows are dogshit, especially political ones that pander to stupid chauvinists.

It’s such a tired, disingenuous thing to say that being oblivious to racism as a young white child means it didn’t exist and therefore the wokes are the source of all racial conflict. People have been saying this shit for decades and it’s just never made any sense.

Yes, it absolutely is too bloodthirsty.

Okay, so were you just guessing from the name?

Oh, okay, I see. Yeah, negation is funny in English, usually it’s less ambiguous to just use positive statements like “I hope everyone survives like last time.”

This comment confuses me because King Gizz isn’t a jam band really at all. Well, maybe I just haven’t investigated their live shows enough, but their studio albums are very un-jam band like, since a lot of them are concept albums that use leitmotifs and developing themes and stories across tracks and such.

I also don’t think it makes sense to tie jam bands inherently to hippy-ism, since it’s a pretty common approach practiced across several genres and subcultures.

I feel like the White House loves having this absolutely meaningless bullshit to talk about instead of the Epstein thing or the BBB or the economy

Someone died last time?

I really wish he wasn’t so uncritical of Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem.

I think, while we can obviously extract a political significance from anything, part of the issue here is that Stoicism isn’t a political philosophy in the normal sense of the term, and even in what I read of Seneca he’s mostly doing self-help epistolaries like how Aurelius is doing self-help notes. I think, as an ethical philosophy, it’s a matter of interpretation rather than explicit doctrine what the politics of Stoicism is, and I don’t see there being any issue with a progressive interpretation of its values. We’ve seen many times people say that it directs people to merely cope with their class position, but is that true? Epictetus, who would have been regarded by Seneca and Aurelius as the Greek father of Roman Stoicism, was still born a slave and did not by any means suggest that people should remain where they are, and indeed discusses quite a lot about improving oneself and at least attempting to become something great, along with what we’ve discussed about being in cooperation with others, and Seneca for example is very clear that becoming a good person is at odds with politicking and chasing riches and status (despite he himself doing this).

Sorry for the late reply, but I just want to point out that what I’m talking about has to do with the open discussions among economists, the National People’s Congress, and so on. You don’t need to maintain long-term epistemic suspense when it’s not too difficult to research, even if it might take you some time to gather a sample size to your satisfaction.

First of all, yes it absolutely does matter, because there are fundamental failures on the part of western economists to understand elements of their field with serious social consequences (see the second quote for an example), and if these are the only real voice, what the hell can you do?

But second, and I probably should have emphasized this more, as much as I don’t like that Marxism is gone from Chinese economic study, a worse element is that those politicians you mention are also plainly not Marxists and are debating, again, mainly in terms of western economics. The National People’s Congress is a bunch of liberals (not all created equal, mind you) who are debating policy on western economic, nationalist terms rather than Marxist[, nationalist] ones. That’s part of why I suggested looking at Qiushi more, because the government really does not hide this, it just also uses the terms “socialism” and sometimes “Marxism” here and there. Probably the most effort that I’ve seen them put into red-washing was when I was reading a debate from ~2006 where someone suggests that “risk-labor” must be added to the LTV, with their meaning being identical to how the western bourgeoisie justify their wealth by citing “risk.” I don’t think that’s really representative of the contemporary discourse, but that’s mainly because it acknowledges substance from Marx to make its liberal point instead of just making its liberal point directly.

Christianity and Stoicism eventually formed a significant connection, “Christian Stoicism” is a thing and the most famous example is probably Boethius, but I am not sure that it’s really that important to Christianity on a fundamental level and, furthermore, Stoicism does not ascribe much power at all to individuals but does identify common interest as being a major priority, and this also appears repeatedly in Aurelius’s Meditations, where he continuously coaches himself to not squabble with people because they (inclusive) must all work together.

That’s the NPC meme, I guess. It has very little to do with even Stirner (who, to be clear, I really dislike). You’d find something closer to that in Plato, who believed that most people had “appetitive” (base, animal-like) souls, some had emotional souls, and only a few had intellectual souls, making them fit to run society.