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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • The KKK aren’t anti-capitalist. The Nazis aren’t anti-capitalist. The Confederates weren’t anti-capitalist.

    Except all of these groups were, although the Nazis were much more explicit about it- that is indisputable so I’ll focus on the others. The Confederacy was simply a plantocracy near oligarchy, not to mention slavery which is incompatible with capitalism(already explained in another comment, but a brief breeze over it- slave masters act as entities of the state by the very nature of them having a monopoly on regulation of other humans). As for the KKK, much of what it and other racist organizations of its era did was try to “protect white jobs”, and lobbied heavily for state intervention to that effect- such as targeting immigrant and black “scabs” and pushing for minimum wages aimed at driving them out- though the KKK also explicitly opposed a lot of unions and other organized labor activities(often because they weren’t white enough or included Catholics). Fundamentally though, the KKK viewed their goals of white-protestant supremacy as greater than an economic system, and were more than happy to destroy private property and private individuals- or use private property when it benefited them. Similar to what the Nazi’s believed- its private profits are okay as long as they are working in the interest of the greater goal, but the second its not they’re more than happy to steal it and kill you. Capitalism doesn’t require private profit from the means of production, it requires private control of it- and if it can be seized if not following exactly what the state wants, that’s not private control.

    it is a coherent idea to create collectives within a system that is philosophically oriented around the individual power of property-owners, that’s what labor unions are.

    That’s what unions are to some people. To other people unions are a convenient organization of people with similar and/or parallel goals on a specific matter(and not necessarily others) so that by collaborating they can achieve their individual goals.

    The unavoidable fact of capitalism is that it relies on pushing most of society into the same general social class (workers, as contrasted with owners; employees vs employers)

    No, that’s not true. Capitalism doesn’t ascribe the distribution or organization of labor, just that it is privately controlled. A society of independent agrarian farmers could still be capitalist, or a commune of people who voluntarily donate their labor to each other.

    but it’s no less coherent to draw lines of common interest between them, most often something like race or religion that is convenient to capitalists, because the capitalists can say “look, I’m white (or whatever) too, I’m on your side!” even if they truly aren’t because they are only seeking their own profits.

    Yeah no doubt, though I think it is a little perverse to use “capitalist” to refer to owners/employers when they themselves are often not ideological capitalists, although it is still a correct use of the word I think it leads to intentional confusion(though not by you, just in general).

    The reason, the real motivation, for the racial terrorism I described above despite merely deflecting worker ire, is that by “clear cutting” more space open for your market share by slaughtering competitors, people sitting on land you want, etc., you can gain more room to grow, although this too only lets you grow temporarily until you bump into your new limits, so you need to keep killing inconvenient people to keep growing, and that’s more or less how the Nazis worked, both internally by picking out minority after minority, and externally with their continuous invasions and “lebensraum” and so on.

    I don’t think business owners are that generally competent to have orchestrated the total destruction of black and jewish owned businesses, I think the Nazis and KKK were both more than motivated enough to do that themselves, but I agree there definitely were some to supported it when they saw it happening and benefited from it.




  • Political ideologies being clearly defined and understood on a wide scale is not a negative thing.

    I think the concept of a political ideology needs to die. People not identifying with them and instead listening to peoples actual ideas is a good thing. Essentially everyone has a unique set of values shaped by their experience, they should listen to and interpret the ideas of others based on those values- instead of trying to categorize them and build an identity off them. Its a similar problem to the DSM, and leads to tribalism.

    You really think the last 20 years were a shining example of public intelligence?

    I think way more people are questioning authority figures, though that might be recency bias.

    the outright lies that have been signal boosted

    When before the lies were the narrative.

    How can you justify saying “these terms are esoteric” when they are literally modern?

    They exist to categorize ideas and people into neat little boxes, rather than actually evaluate individual ideas. They are also totally ineffective for communication, when each boxer disagrees where and what the boxes are.

    How can you justify this position you’re taking where low/no information being the norm needs to be enforced for things to be “normal” for you?

    Where did I say that?

    You’re flippantly dismissing the idea that people could have opinions or motivations you aren’t instantly aware of

    When did I do that? Instead I’m stating my own opinions, and I’m happy to hear yours.

    What the hell is the problem with letting people who are informed talk about it in a public space?

    When did I try to stop that, I’m one of the nerds I was talking about.





  • From DuckDuckGo:

    1. An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development occurs through the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
    1. An economic system based on predominantly private (individual or corporate) investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods and wealth; contrasted with socialism or especially communism, in which the state has the predominant role in the economy.
    1. A socio-economic system based on private property rights, including the private ownership of resources or capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a market unregulated by the state.
    1. A socio-economic system based on the abstraction of resources into the form of privately-owned capital, with economic decisions made largely through the operation of a market unregulated by the state.
    1. A specific variation or implementation of either such socio-economic system.
    1. An economic system based on private ownership of capital.

    This isn’t necessary for all of them, but from Wikipedia:

    A state is a political entity that regulates society and the population within a territory.

    Slave masters are regulators of population, so they are an actor of the state.




  • I am not defining capitalism as just everything bad, and capitalism is not as recent as you think.

    No that’s pretty recent, racism is millennia old. Furthermore, yes mixed economies exist, actually now they’re basically the only thing that exists.

    American society developed the notion of race early in its formation to justify its new economic system of capitalism, which depended on the institution of forced labor, especially the enslavement of African peoples.

    I disagree that it was capitalism that needed racism to be justified, since slavery is anti-capitalistic. But yes, fake “racial science” was used to justify slavery, that however was not the origin of racism. Roman and Greek and many other empires used ethnic/racial division to justify their oppression. Even the Mongols whose empire was “cool and accepting” by ancient empire standards still had strong sentiments of a Mongol race being different from others.





  • then suggest it’s not necessarily their opinion,

    I believe it is their opinion, I suggested that pointing that out isn’t a criticism. Its a very common opinion.

    The guy just said American political literacy is embarrassingly lacking

    Because they don’t know esoteric terms nerds like us argue about on the internet. They do know what they believe is right and wrong, and what they value in their lives. They vote for people who talk about what they value. You can criticize what they value, but that’s just pitting your values against theirs. You can also criticize them for trusting, but if the last 20 years has shown anything, voters are actually not that much worse than technocratic governments at figuring out lies. And most lies that trick voters aren’t* lies to the people that tell them, or believe them.