Sports writer kills himself, leaves behind website describing how and why

That's what I'm trying to get at. There's this massive leap from his assertion that because commodities create human emotional responses, therefore humans are stripped of emotions and left bereft of their capacity for humanity.

Its like that underwear gnome strategy, literally

Step 1: Create commodities
Step 2: Use commodities to create emotional reactions in humans
Step 3: ??????
Step 4: Humans are now zombie robot lizard people from Momo 13

most marxists are purely materialistic/exoteric, they literally don't view people as individuals you're just a robot reacting to your surroundings

Dumar_sl said:

Hodj and others have and continue to either misrepresent or wholly not comprehend what I've been saying.

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No, we understand quite clear, and have made it quite clear that your arguments have a giant leap of logic in them you cannot justify.

I never said humans are stripped of all emotion

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Irrelevant but yes, you did. You said that their emotions and capacity for connection with others are removed to the point that they are no longer human. No longer human = stripped of all emotions. Its a premise without a point, and a leap of logic without a justification.

I never said there's magic involved.

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You seem to be missing the point here. The fact that you cannot explain how the premise "Commodities make our emotions for us" results in the conclusion "Therefore commodities make us not human" is why I'm referring to this effect as magic, because it does not exist. Its entirely in your head.

This subject is not an easy one to grasp.

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There's that condescension again. No one is having a problem grasping or understanding what you're saying. We think you're wrong. Because your premise does not support your conclusion. I have a 3.8 GPA in a field where the average GPA is a 2.7 nationwide. I don't need your condescending "I'm so smart this issue is just too DEEP for you" horseshit, so save it.

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

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Citation required. Peer reviewed, and not copy pasted from Marx.

Famm_sl said:

Hodj, you are having a philosophical discussion. You can't hit a win button by asking for peer reviewed documents and proof constantly. This isn't hard science.

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1. This isn't a philosophical conversation. It stopped being one when Dumar started making claims like

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

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Because that is a topic that has been researched literally to death by anthropologists, and it is quantifiably untrue. Individuals create their society. Culture is the end result of every person in a society interacting. People are influenced by it, and influence it. Social interactions help to develop consciousness, but consciousness is the reason social interactions exist. Cultural gradually builds, one generation after another, it is cumulative, but it did not come first and did not create consciousness. Consciousness developed as a result of brain size increasing with consumption of more fatty acids and the like in fish and meat as homonid consumption patterns changed. So his argument moved beyond the theoretical into the realm of quantifiable long ago.

But see, Dumar doesn't think any modern research is valid, or worthy. He writes them off, then cites dead philosophers with no quantifiable evidence or proof for their assertions, just 1300 page plus treatises based on their subjective opinions. Dumar wants this debate to be entirely about his circle jerk copy paste opinions, while also asserting points that are counter to modern research. Research he isn't aware of, because to him, research isn't necessary. All the answers were written down in Das Kapital 150 years ago and everything since, all that research, all those people dedicating their lives to furthering our knowledge of ourselves, they're wasting their time. The past doesn't matter, our evolution doesn't matter, our biology doesn't matter. All that matters is what Fromm and Marx said. That's the greatest appeal to authority in the history of appeals to false authority.

Marx was writing a treatise based on his subjective opinions of a particular place and moment in time. He never actually worked in a factory. Never actually worked a day in his life. While Mikhail Bakunin was in the streets, fighting the battles, Marx was sitting in his house, paid for by Engels, writing editorials for socialist rags. Quoting him as an authority on anything is an appeal to authority becauseMarx had no authority. No formal education in research, never conducted any research anyway. The entirety of Das Kapital is one giant hypothesis without any research to back it up. And when they tried to enact those theories of violent revolution leading to an uprising of the proles and a perfect leveling of society, what they got instead was mountains of bodies.

If you've ever wondered HOW Lysenkoism and the other ideological failings of the Marxist movements of last century happened, Dumar is the perfect foil to look at and realize how it happens: Marxists think all the answers to life are found in their little book. When their little uprisings start to falter, their solution is to double down on bad policies because, much like Christians, the book says it, so they believe it, that settles it.

Marxists literally denying modern biology (Lysenkoism) because it utilized evolutionary thought, which Marxists believe to be inherently capitalist due to its competitive emphasis (even though that's a misunderstanding of survival of the fittest), isn't anything new, but to see them still doing this, a century later, is pretty sad. Dumar, do us a favor. Google Lysenkoism and realize how you're making the same mistakes of rejecting modern research and biological facts that the old Soviet Party leadership made during their reign of terror.

2. Dumar is the one trying to hit an "I win" button by citing dead socialist authors, something he does every time he's losing a debate on pretty much any issue
3. Dumar has a premise and a conclusion that he insists are real world phenomena that he can observe. So asking him to prove his position is completely fair.
4. I'm pretty sure my point this entire time has been that social sciences aren't hard science, that these conclusions are very subjective, and that is exactly the point I made when I rejected his continued assertion that simply because Fromm or Marx said it, it must be true. Because Fromm's arguments are based on Fromm's observations and experiences, but they are not representative of everyone's world view and never will be.

Araysar_sl said:

hodj, quit sabotaging the dialogue

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Well, I guess I could use your tactic and just yell about him gargling peroxide for ten pages.

/zing

khalid_sl said:

Sigh Tanoomba, I know you hate Hodj, but come on. Not saying anything controversial? I mean, I know Araysar is trolling but I expected better from you. I mean, overriding our ability to exercise critical thinking? All he does is endlessly appeal to authority. It doesn't take any critical thinking to realize that. Well, I guess in your case it takes the ability to overlook your dislike of Hodj, which you clearly can't do.

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Don't worry, give Tanoomba a day, he'll completely change his opinion. Then he'll forget he ever had a different opinion. Then he'll passively aggressively shit post for the next month because he's mad about it.