Nice! I wish, I had had more. I’m basically self taught with podcasts and stuff.

Yes, I know, it’s great! Just thought wikipedia might be enough in this case.

Yes I totally agree, it’s almost opposite. That’s partly why I said I don’t agree with the content, just the sentiment. Even as I wrote it, I wondered if someone would pick up on it. I’ll put more care into it before posting random associations next time ;)

Nietzsche might not have liked those chuds though.

The idea of making the position of landlord into a minor deity is much more similar to the divine right of kings, in that ownership of land is divinely ordained, or antebellum pro-slavery Christianity, being a slaver is a necessary and holy thing.

Well said!

Master-Slave-Morality

By saying humility is voluntary, slave morality avoids admitting that their humility was in the beginning forced upon them by a master.

I don’t agree with Nietzsche on morality, as it’s not a materialist analysis, but still… Seeing people elevate bootlicking to a religion always makes one want to overturn all of ethics. (Not unique to these cases of course, christians did it on large scales.)

Maybe there will be some difference. Last administration he seemed to focus on representing a slightly different section of US capitalists then Obama/Biden (however with large overlap). Different parts of capital have different and partly conflicting interests, which might result in slightly different foreign policy.

Basically it’s less about which person is in office and more about what this means for how power is distributed among capitalist factions. For example capitalists with a lot of profit depending on fixed capital inside the US might gain power, as well as the industrial military complex with profit coming from accumulation by dispossession, while highly mobile international capital might lose a bit. This is just an example. In this case it might lead to slightly less hot wars, while the war machine continues to grow. There are more factions like landlords and finance and resource extraction.

It’s hard to tell now though, because these factions are probably now still fighting about power behind the scenes with very little transparency.

Also it depends not just on the interests of these factions, but also on what their respective strategies will be in dealing with the decline of the empire and inevitable crisis.

Ah, that makes sense, thanks for taking the time!

And just to come full circle:

Baalbek, named after Baal, is an ancient city in the Beqaa plane in Lebanon. It was known as the bread basket of the Roman empire. The Romans build the largest temples outside of Rome there and allowed worship of Baal to continue in the large entrance building in front of the Jupiter temple. The temples stood in good condition for centuries and are now under threat by IDF bombing, which has already come as close as 500 meters, while every building in the city has been declared a target and it’s people ordered to evacuate.

She will and after that eat some noodles.

Good effort comment, thanks! Are you sure about merit based evaluation for MJ? Wouldn’t people just strategically exaggerate their grades?

MJ encourages honest evaluation because exaggerating grades can backfire if too many others don’t follow suit.

I guess I don’t quite understand this point. Why wouldn’t everyone exaggerate grades?

Dolphin liberals would just tell all the dolphins to give dolphin Harris an excellent grade, insisting she was excellent in comparison to dolphin Trump. (Sorry to break out of the thought experiment.) So this:

This can help identify when all candidates are weak

wouldn’t happen when all the dolphins try to game the system. Did I misunderstand?

Wow, I do the exact same thing sometimes! Also watched allot of Star Trek. It’s not ideal for me, because it’s not a calm topic, but if I can’t help thinking about these things anyway, might as well. How does it work for you? Any tips, what (else) to think about when falling asleep?

It’s just that normal gravity on earth feels exactly like being in an accelerating elevator in space. So you can’t tell the difference from the inside. Like in the elevator you can ask them, whether you’re still on earth or accelerating in space. Einstein used this thought experiment to develop the general theory of relativity.

Basically Einstein thinking about that weird feeling you get in your gut when an elevator starts upwards led to him concluding that mass bends spacetime making light from distant stars go in curves around the sun, which was confirmed during the next available solar eclipse.

It’s often like, exchanging biting polemics in theory and wholesome support in praxis.

Some time after Engels father died, he sold the factory. With the money, he supported not just Marx and his family, but a large part of the underground/communist/German scene in London. He also speculated at the stock exchange and he must have been good at it, because when he died, he left more than he had started out with.

Also, while Marx said: “Je ne suis pas marxiste”, Engels really was the first Marxist.

They had met a few times before, but it was when Marx had read “The Condition of the Working Class in England” by Engels, that they became lifelong friends.

Yes! Plus, it doesn’t spoil as fast. It’s more deserving of our trust. Oat milk too and it’s cheaper then soy where I live. I now mostly remember cow milk for the bad taste when it spoils or when you pour spoiled milk on your cereal and have to trash it. Don’t miss it at all. Glad to be rid of it even. Though I know it’s a privilege with how heavily subsidized cow milk is. If it weren’t for that, the alternatives would be cheaper. Also, I like cows, but/and it’s weird to think where their milk has been.

Another metaphor for the US election.

From 2001 to 2003, people tried getting the Nazi party NPD banned. They sued at the highest court and argued, that it was a danger to the constitution. The court found, that too many members of the Nazi party, including highest ranking leaders, where funded by the state. Specifically, they were paid by the very agency (Verfassungsschutz) that was supposed to protect the constitution. They had funded the Nazis for years and radicalized them under the guise of introducing under cover agents. The court concluded, that a clear distinction between the state and the Nazi party could not be made. And so the case was dismissed. The funding continued.

Earlier this year, the former head of this agency set up his own Nazi party.

I just checked, Polaris is about ten times younger than sharks. The other two stars of its ternary star system are older, but not visible to the naked eye, so early sharks would not have been able to use them for purposes of navigation.

Would you say you inherited some of his ‘working with one’s hands’ sensibility?

Maybe I did to some degree, but I rarely practiced it. Went to university and only did some small projects at home. Maybe I’ll practice more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL_X7GelX5Q

Yes, working together can feel so good if no one steals what you make as profit.

Thank you! It’s really awesome of you to make all these quality posts all the time and share these cool comics.

My grandfather, a machinist, build their house in his early twenties with his own hands. It was in a kind of cooperative, where you could pay in party by working on building sites to help others build their houses. So, even though he had help from others in the coop, he really effectively build identical houses multiple times. He learned as he went and did everything except electrical work, even the heating and plumbing. My grandparents raised five kids in this house. It really was his proudest accomplishment and near the end, he told the story again and again, almost every time I saw him and I made sure to listen.

The reason is that all those other things create actual value, thus cutting into profits of capitalists if publicly funded. If you’re a capitalist state that wants to steal massive amounts of wealth from the people and redistribute them to the rich by funding an Industry, then war really is the industry you want because it only destroys value.

For example, if you cancelled the Pentagons budget and funded centrally planned healthcare instead, no private healthcare provider could compete. It would completely close down a huge market. Same with education, infrastructure, etc. War doesn’t have this problem of closing down a market, but has the advantage of opening up new markets (resources, cheap labour, more consumers, even rebuilding after the war, etc.) via imperialism.

Edit: In short, imperialism is in part a reaction to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and offers an opportunity to renew primitive accumulation.