Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
"...Perhaps laughter will then have formed an alliance with wisdom; perhaps only 'gay science' will remain."
User ID: 342
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
3d ago
If nothing else, it’s fascinating to watch just how impregnable the neoliberal world order really is.
”It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.”
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
5d ago
I consider Israel’s survival unlikely in the medium term
Can you elaborate on why?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
5d ago
This is gonna sound like dumb self-help book advice, but I mean it entirely in earnest:
You can't stop it from bothering you. Comments and insults like that carry a certain amount of pain that is unavoidable. You don't actually have that much control over how you react to stimuli on a fundamental level; it would be like asking how you can make it not hurt when a needle stabs you. And no, this isn't a "you can't change how you feel but you can change your reaction to it" either, because that's actually still just trying to cheat yourself out of the original problem; the hope for some people is that if you "change your reaction" enough it'll stop hurting. But there's actually no way out. It'll just always hurt and that's it.
What you can do is change your beliefs about the situation, and stop viewing the pain as a bad thing or as something to be overcome. Because right now you're giving yourself two problems: there's the original pain, and the meta-belief that you're doing something wrong because you haven't found a way to overcome the pain yet. You can ditch the meta-belief and get rid of that problem, leaving you with only the one original problem, which is an improvement.
So the next time someone insults you, you'll still feel bothered. But at least you won't have to make it any worse than it already is.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
5d ago
Variously:
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A heightened sense of vulnerability and helplessness
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Turning yourself into an instrument of someone else’s pleasure
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Indulging in a certain sense of “interiority”: “pleasure is an affair for me, it’s complex, secret, hidden, and thereby more scarce and therefore more valuable”
etc etc.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6d ago
But you'd also have girls (on reddit you never know if every single thing is a lie, mind you) discussing how they would wear something called "butt plugs."
The pleasure is primarily psychological. The sensation itself doesn't have to be directly pleasurable, so no prostate required.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6d ago
Again, if he does pull back, or if he leaves a loophole so big that the tariffs are effectively symbolic, then I will acknowledge that the whole thing was dumb and a waste of time.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6d ago
Well we can do a !RemindMe and if he does cave on China (i.e. returning to basically the pre-tariff status quo, modulo perhaps some minor and ultimately inconsequential concessions on either side) then yes, I will acknowledge that the whole thing was dumb and a waste of time.
Decoupling from China is a legitimate and important strategic goal for the US, and I think there are enough China hawks in both the administration proper and the Republican party in general that there is enough political will to see it through.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6d ago
but he also seems to be a scaredy cat
125% tariffs on all Chinese imports is "scaredy cat" behavior?
If he caves on China then sure, make fun of him all you want.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6d ago
The problem is the tariff boosters don't care. They believe in some unicorns-and-rainbows benefit from tariffs that's never going to happen
I don't think that tariffs are going to result in a magical surge for the US economy, no.
I am happy to accept a net reduction in wealth, even a significant net reduction, as long as we get something in return. A weakened China, a more self-sufficient US, manufacturing jobs for the working class. Something.
If we just get literally nothing in return, not even pain for our enemies, then yeah, that would be a bit silly and that should ideally be avoided. But the PRC online army is calling us bitches and saying that we'll back down because we can't take the pain. So we may have to keep going even if it turns out to be purely self-destructive. Because the one thing you can never do under any circumstances is look like a bitch.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
6d ago
· Edited 6d ago
I've seen a few people over the last couple days claim that "Trump has good instincts". And that's true; and it's also one of the most positive things you can say about him. The goals are good, you can kinda see the vision, but the execution is so haphazard and reckless that the only conclusion you can draw is that he's operating on pure instinct, rather than anything approaching a calculated and rational plan.
All of Trump's "earth-shattering" foreign policy moves are things that, on a fundamental level, I think are good things. I think we should pull out of Ukraine and have friendlier relations with Russia. I think we should move some amount of industrial production back to America and become more self-sufficient in general. I think we particularly need to reduce our dependence on China, because we shouldn't be so dependent on our foremost geopolitical adversary; a full embargo is a reasonable goal to work towards.
Drastically reshaping existing alliances and trade relations is fine; but at the end of the day, we still do need friends and allies. We can't go full juche. Starting a trade war with every country on earth simultaneously was probably not the most advisable way of going about things. He could have worked to get more countries on board with his new world order before dropping the tariff nuke on China.
Maybe his calculus was that the only way to reshape existing trade relations was to just rip the band-aid off, because otherwise governments and businesses would have just eternally dragged their feet. Maybe he reasoned that he only has 4 years, and if he doesn't act NOW he'll miss his window of opportunity. Or maybe he just doesn't think at all and he just acts on whatever impulse he's feeling at the moment.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
7d ago
your people and my people could never be friends
What were “his people” and “your people”, in this context?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
7d ago
It looks like a perfectly fine high school reading list? It explicitly says it’s for grades 9-12. We read many of the same books when I was in high school.
What sort of list would you propose instead?
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
7d ago
It actually has a lot of relevance. The real reason you act like it doesn't is that you do not seriously engage with the possibility of losing, and losing badly (losing what? To what degree?
I am well aware that losing is a live possibility, and I know exactly what losing would look like. Losing means a Guangxi Massacre in every American town and city. Losing means obliteration; losing means being consigned to the graveyard of civilizations. Still we press on.
Given that your deepest yearning is for technology to liberate us from life as it has existed hitherto, it is unsurprising that you find these values to be unintelligible.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
7d ago
You don't even notice my point about simple economics and logistics
No, I did notice your point about economics and logistics. But your point wasn't relevant. The likelihood of winning a conflict has little relevance to whether that conflict should be waged in the first place.
Ironically, and contrary to your accusation, it is the serf who acts in accordance with prudence and rationality. The serf is a serf precisely because he correctly calculates that servitude is what gives him the best odds of continued survival. The nobleman, in contrast, acts in accordance with virtue, even when the outcome is certain destruction.
A Nietzsche quote for every situation:
Noble and common. - For common natures all noble, magnanimous feelings appear to be inexpedient and therefore initially incredible: they give a wink when they hear of such things and seem to want to say, 'Surely there must be some advantage involved; one cannot see through every wall' - they are suspicious of the noble person, as if he were furtively seeking his advantage. If they become all too clearly convinced of the absence of selfish intentions and gains, they view the noble person as a kind of fool: they despise him in his pleasure and laugh at the sparkle in his eye. 'How could one enjoy being at a disadvantage? How could one want with open eyes to be disadvantaged? Some disease of reason must be linked to the noble affection' - thus they think and look disparagingly, the way they disparage the pleasure that a madman derives from his fixed idea. What distinguishes the common nature is that it unflinchingly keeps sight of its advantage, and that this thought of purpose and advantage is even stronger than its strongest drives; not to allow these drives to lead it astray to perform inexpeditious acts - that is its wisdom and self-esteem. In comparison, the higher nature is more unreasonable - for the noble, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing person does in fact succumb to his drives; and in his best moments, his reason pauses. An animal that protects its young at the risk of its own life or during the mating period follows the female unto death does not think of danger and death; its reason likewise pauses because the pleasure in its brood or in the female and the fear of being deprived of this pleasure dominate it totally; the animal becomes stupider than it usually is - just like the person who is noble and magnanimous. [...]
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
7d ago
Broadly I have concluded that the main problem the US faces is racism towards the Chinese; the ill-earned sense of centrality and irreplaceability.
I can of course only speak for myself, and not the Trump administration, or even the "MAGA movement" as a whole.
IR policy wonks would say that this suggestion is nonsense; that any conflict between the US and China is just the rational, mechanistic outcome of two world powers who are both vying to secure their own interests. But for my part I will acknowledge that, yes, there is a racial element to the designation of China in particular as a geopolitical adversary, as opposed to some other nation. Ceteris paribus, I would prefer for world power to remain concentrated in the hands of European and European-derived peoples, as opposed to non-European peoples. (This is largely already a doomed project due to the ongoing mestizofiction of America, but, you know, you can't win 'em all...) And I particularly don't want power to rest with the Chinese, who have produced a civilization that (in its current phase of historical development at any rate) I view as uniquely soulless and utilitarian. (I do not view all non-Europeans, or even all East Asians, as exactly equivalent in this regard; if Japan were in China's position instead, I would be welcoming them as liberators!)
The Chinese, too, have a sense of centrality and irreplaceability. They too believe that they have a world historical mission to be the center of world civilization. Very well then, we shall see who prevails.
But all this only goes so far as influencing the fundamental choice to take up the conflict in the first place; it has no bearing on the strategic considerations for how the conflict should actually be navigated. China is obviously very powerful and capable, and it would be the height of foolishness to underestimate them as a nation of "trinket producers".
Americans don't understand that they're actually not that big of a deal.
A change in American economic policy sent global markets into a tailspin, so objectively speaking, America is in fact a big deal.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
8d ago
· Edited 8d ago
wherein truth takes a more directional form
The existence of God is one of the least “directional” questions we can consider.
What people want from God is immortality. They want a guarantee that biological death is not the end. My immortal soul will either ascend to paradise upon my death (or I will experience bodily resurrection at some point in the future etc, whatever your preferred theology is), or it won’t. That makes a big difference in terms of what I can expect to directly experience in the future. Being “directionally correct” is cold comfort if you don’t get the actual immortality along with it.
The retreat from viewing eternal life and eternal damnation as very concrete, tangible, and urgent matters is yet another symptom of religion continuing to cede ground to materialism and atheism.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
8d ago
Trumpism has been exposed.
Give it some time, the jury's still out...
democracy itself has been exposed
This one is true.
The sentiment I'm seeing from both leftists and "centrists" is "surely this won't be allowed to go on, the business class will step in and save us, the 'powers that be' don't like losing money"... if these "powers that be" do indeed have that much political power (because you presumably don't mean Congress), then aren't you admitting that we already don't live in a democracy? If you want the democratically elected president to be overruled by unelected elite interests, then aren't you admitting that you don't think democracy is actually a good thing? Sure, maybe ~30k swing voters in Pennsylvania actually shouldn't have the power to unilaterally dismantle the world economy. That's a perfectly reasonable position to hold. But don't keep calling it democracy.
Combined with the actions taken against Le Pen and Georgescu, we can conclude that there are actually very few principled supporters of democracy, but plenty of people who are willing to use the rhetoric of "democracy" as long as their side is winning.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
8d ago
Quality over quantity.
I held off on making a post because I assumed it would get buried under a flurry of tariff discussion. Although it looks like that hasn’t materialized yet.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
11d ago
My read is that this is just standard leftist wealth envy/hatred.
I'm not wealthy wealthy, but I am significantly wealthier than the median American. I could drop to zero net income and live off my current wealth for years without having to work a day. And I feel no moral guilt about this whatsoever. So no, I have no envy/hatred of wealth.
You're upset that people exist who are not satisfying "from each according to his abilities".
I'm upset that our vital and necessary work is being done by immigrants and illegals instead of native-born American citizens.
If we get back to the point where the work of maintaining American society is again being done by Americans, and there's still enough surplus to go around to enable some people to live as NEETs, then fine by me. Bully for them. Being a NEET is great! I've done my share of NEETing in the past. I empathize fully with why people want to do that and I have no criticisms of them from a moral perspective.
There are humans out there who are not doing the specific thing you want them to do, so you will simply tweak society to engineer conditions that force them to do your will.
There is no politics unless someone is being forced to conform to something. There is no civilization unless someone is being forced to conform to something.
Obviously some civilizations are much more totalitarian than others. But even the most libertarian among us will still usually support some minimal state order for the purposes of punishing violent crime, enforcing property rights, etc.
If this doesn't work, or X and Y fail to complete your goals, perhaps some still manage to mooch and others just feel some additional hardship, then we must go further.
Incorrect, see above.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
11d ago
More on Trump's tariffs.
I ran into a very interesting comment on reddit last night:
Trump's ICE thugs raided a roofing company in Washington State to arrest three dozen people.
I guess my 31 year old unemployed brother that weighs 400 pounds and plays Halo all day and occasionally destroys the plumbing and breaks the toilet seat and makes my 68 year old mother clean up the mess will just have to get out his tacking hammer and get busy.
MAGA.
To which I respond... yes. That's exactly right. Suppose ICE actually deports enough illegals to cause significant shortages in farming, roofing, factory work, construction, etc. Suppose that Trump's tariffs contract the economy to the point that lazy unemployed 20-30 year old men find it much more difficult to comfortably survive off their standard combination of day trading, intermittent gig work, and freeloading off their families. Suppose it gets to the point that their only option is to begin filling the vacancies left by the deportations. Isn't that just... wonderful? Isn't that exactly what Trump's base voted for? Isn't that, quite literally, how you make America great again?
The author of this comment would immediately answer with "well, he's so fat and lazy that he ain't gonna, so there". To which my response is, very well! Then we shall all go without roofs. Now of course, people are capable of far more than you expect them to be once their backs are actually up against the wall. People will leap into action if there's no other choice. But, supposing he's right and it does turn out that no one answers the call, then we shall simply go without. A nation, a culture, a race that does not provide for itself, should go without. This, I imagine, is one of the core ethical commitments that separates MAGA from its opponents.
Are we actually going to deport enough illegals to make a difference? Probably not. Is anyone in the administration consciously implementing the program I've described here? It may have occurred to someone in passing, but it's probably not written down in a secret master plan anywhere. But still, you can see here, dimly, the outline of a program that would actually give Trump's base exactly what they wanted, in a very direct way. Which is pretty neat.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
12d ago
· Edited 12d ago
You know, we were just talking a few posts downthread about how the "experts" are willing to blatantly lie in order to advance their ideological agenda.
We have been told repeatedly for years by the experts that making any sort of adjustment, pushing any buttons on the control panel at all, to the global trade system would lead to complete economic collapse, the rise of fascist dictators, the end of civilization, and in general all manner of untold horrors.
But why should we believe the experts? We know they're ideologically motivated liars. So, fuck it. Let's just start pushing buttons. Smash away and let's see what happens. If for no other reason to prove that you can do something different, alternatives are possible, even if you may indeed get burned.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
12d ago
· Edited 12d ago
A genuine recognition and acceptance of hard limits on our ambition. A point at which we let go, lift our foot off the gas, cease escalating and make peace. And not a hypothetical point in an indefinite future, or a point that we bend all available power against in an asymptotic approach, and not some tangential point off to the side divorced from the core aims of the project.
My interpretation of what you're saying here is "look, I can tell you in plain English exactly what I want. It's a very short and simple list of requests. And after I get what I want, I'll be out of your hair, you won't be hearing from me anymore. But these other guys, the communists, all they can say is that there will always be 'problems'. They can't tell me exactly what problems they intend to solve, or how they intend on solving them. So you never know what they're gonna do. Today everything could be fine, but tomorrow they could want something else, and then it's something else, and then something else, all because they found a new 'problem'. That makes them dangerous, because you don't know what they're gonna do from one minute to the next."
Do I have that right?
I will acknowledge that, yes, this is a feature of basically all the non-utopian Marxists. They think the future is fundamentally open. They don't know what's possible, what's impossible, or what will need to be done in the future. They don't claim to be capable of this kind of knowledge. (The utopian Marxists do claim to have this sort of knowledge, but we've already established that they have other problems).
I think however you can easily be a white nationalist while operating on a model that's basically like what you describe, with a more concrete list of demands. Mainly they just want to live in a country with other white people; it's really quite simple. There are many historical examples of 99% white countries. Just copy one of those, add on some extra immigration laws, and you're basically good, besides the continual ongoing maintenance that every state requires. You don't have to be Bismark with infinite will to power in order to be a white nationalist.
I'm curious what you would think of Keith Woods.
Does Zizek have room in his theories for loss? Does McGowan? Does Marcuse?
Yes! Dear God, yes!
For Lacan (one of the foundational reference points for Zizek and McGowan), the human subject is "constitutively lacking". There's a gaping hole that can never be filled, condemning us to the eternal samsara of desire. Unlike in Buddhism, he offers no escape from the wheel of desire, and unlike in Christianity, you can't fill the hole with God. The "primordial lost object which can never be found" was such an important concept for him that he invented a special name for it ("objet a") and called it "his one true contribution". This is not a mere footnote or aside. It's foundational to everything he thought.
Of course this position does not have universal assent among philosophers/leftists/Marxists/whatever. Deleuze & co. have a position that I think is much closer to the one you're criticizing. Deleuze thought that all desire was "positive" and "productive", and that we weren't fundamentally lacking anything. He thought that suicide was incoherent; "no organism kills itself of its own accord". The organism simply has a "bad encounter" with the bullet, or the ground, etc. This is a major point of disagreement between the Lacanians and Deleuzians.
It's funny that you used the word "loss" specifically, because this specific question has come up before in the canon of leftist philosophy. Derrida said that Hegel's (another one of the foundational reference points for Zizek and McGowan) dialectical system was incapable of conceiving of loss without recompense. McGowan pushed back and said Derrida was wrong, and that Hegel could conceive of loss without recompense. Any interpretation of an author or text can be challenged of course. There was a woman whose name completely escapes me now who wrote a critique of Hegel that went something like, yeah he can conceive of loss, I guess, but he can't conceive of super ultimate absolute loss, and in order to be able to accept super ultimate absolute loss we have to ditch Hegel entirely and go back to Kant. And so it goes, back and forth.
The point, regardless of who's correct in any of this, is that your enemies are already aware of all the points you raise. All of your concerns have been thought about, discussed, and debated in philosophical circles for almost a century now, and some of your enemies have even taken your concerns to heart. I mean, when Adorno and Horkheimer wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment, they had basically the same criticism of the Enlightenment that you have! It was the entire project of the book!
Dialectic of Enlightenment explores the socio-psychological status quo that had been responsible for what the Frankfurt School considered the failure of the Enlightenment. They argue that its failure culminated in the rise of Fascism, Stalinism, the culture industry and mass consumer capitalism. Rather than liberating humanity as the Enlightenment had promised, they argue it had resulted in the opposite: in totalitarianism, and new forms of barbarism and social domination.
They too recognized that something had gone horribly wrong with the Enlightenment, but they still wanted to see what could be salvaged of Marxism.
And even here, I've no doubt that you can construct some bespoke formulation that gives the appearance of limits or surrender, while retaining as much will-to-power as possible. But this, again, is in fact my point: "we know how to solve all our problems" is a lie, and lies are effective and often hard to detect.
If you've already decided that your opponents are lying, and your only job is to ferret out the lie, why even have a discussion at all?
The point is not to pencil-whip a checklist, but to recognize a predator that is actively working to conceal itself.
Perhaps this is another candidate for a formulation of the actual fundamental disagreement between us.
I don't look at political ideologies as "predatory". I look at them as social and historical realities. I look at them as concrete social organizations that different people may or may not be attracted to for different reasons. And yes, I look at them as abstract intellectual systems as well, whose study gives me a certain amount of pleasure. But I don't look at them as "predators". Not even wokeism, as much as I despise it.
Why bother looking for concealed predators when you already know that there are predators surrounding you on all sides? I am acutely aware of how many people from all quadrants of the political compass despise me, for various different reasons. When everyone's a predator, no one's a predator; or at least, when everyone's a predator, there's not much point in trying to distinguish predators from non-predators. I have no tribe, I'm an outcast everywhere. I am accustomed to the notion that my allies could betray me at any time. And this affords me a certain amount of flexibility in my outlook. I'll listen to what anyone has to say, but I'll also always keep one eye open as well, even with those who are ostensibly closest to me.
If you do have a tribe, whether it is called Red or some other name, whose support you can be relatively assured of, and from whom predators can be meaningfully and consistently distinguished, then it's unsurprising that this would lead to a fundamental difference in our outlooks.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
12d ago
For example, a "Christian" who believes that Christianity should be enforced by law, and children who don't seem likely to properly adhere to Christianity should be put to death before they reach the age of accountability to ensure their souls are not lost? Such a person also believes that "We know how to solve all our problems"
No, he doesn't. Not necessarily.
"We're going to enforce Christianity by law in order to build as spiritually pure a society as possible, but of course the battle against Satan and his works is never over and sin is impossible to entirely eliminate, people are going to keep sinning no matter what, so we must maintain constant vigilance lest we slip into a state of totally unconstrained decadence and chaos". Boom. Done. He still believes in problems. It's right there. And of course you can perform similar constructions with Marxists, white nationalists, etc.
With those caveats clearly stated, sure, fair enough.
For the record, what you listed are not caveats, but another position entirely.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
13d ago
"Material is all that exists[*], free will is an illusion, humans are machines that we can engineer to our liking"
If you can agree that the principle political distinction for you is between people who accept this statement and those who reject it, and your other formulations are (in your view) in some sense equivalent to or derived from this one, then I am content to let it be. I can at least understand how you would arrive at such a position.
Can anyone steelman why corporate taxes are good but tariffs are bad?
I still see people even as of the last couple of days advocating for higher corporate taxes.
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