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

This feels like square peg (some statement about Marxism) being hammered into round hole (suicide is logically justifiable). Half the posts don't even reference the core argument. They're just used as a vehicle to ramble about Marx.

Is there a way to embed non-youtube vids?

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clip...g-the-outbreak

Sebudai_sl said:

As far as I can tell, all of this is true. But why does that mean suicide is logical? It's like we've all forgot what we were arguing about under an avalanche of vague social science horseshit.

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Absolutely to your second thought. Like I said in the beginning, I try my best to avoid the ivory tower disease of using technical terminology that few people care about. Only when hodj used Marx and showed a complete lack of real understanding (which isverycommon, especially those with simple cursory knowledge, digesting just 'excerpts') did I have to school him in technical definition.

Yes, it is all true: it's a phenomenon we can identify by observing the relative experiences of people. Can we measure fully this phenomenon (yet)? Not in precise, quantitative terms, but qualitatively we can see it. There is an absolutely huge body of historic and contemporary research and literature on this topic, as it's almost one of the foundational pillars of sociology: the topic of alienation, and how that alienation leads to feelings of loneliness, powerlessness, and estrangement. The ISA (International Sociological Association) has a research committee dedicated tojustalienation theory and its effects, and one of the areas concerns what I've been talking about here.

If you'd be interested in learning more,hereis the ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology section concerning the research.

But I'm sure hodj will tell you it's more radical socialist propaganda, as he labeled Harvey and the technical definitions I leveled at him. He's been trying to form some narrative that what I'm talking about is fringe or radical, and it isn't in any sense of the word: it's as academically mainstream in the social sciences as you can get. To use his own terrible analogies, it's like a hardcore Christian denouncing Jesus and Christianity yet still calling himself a Christian for some stupidly weird reason.

With my next post I'll address your first and more important question: if suicide is logical, forgetting all the technical jargon of the last few pages (although I do hope my last post was insightful).

Tanoomba_sl said:

I don't know if I buy it. How are you measuring "power" and "consequences"? Sure, any one individual cannot reach the levels of power held by emperors, but what does "individual" mean when some of the most devastating attacks on the planet are being done by corporations who aren't held accountable for anything? Are you telling me that any previous period in history is able to match us in sheer devastation being done to the planet and its resources? All in the name of money, no less?

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That's actually a fantastic point. +nets for it.

ps: (And it sounds so Frommian!)

Tanoomba_sl said:

I don't know if I buy it. How are you measuring "power" and "consequences"? Sure, any one individual cannot reach the levels of power held by emperors, but what does "individual" mean when some of the most devastating attacks on the planet are being done by corporations who aren't held accountable for anything? Are you telling me that any previous period in history is able to match us in sheer devastation being done to the planet and its resources? All in the name of money, no less?

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Devastation how? I measure devastation in human suffering. Which is lower. Granted, I will take into account diminishing biodiversity, climate change and other factors as net negatives to us in the future--but if you're asking if I think those things are worth giving up the modern era for? No. And that's what it comes down to. Are the negatives worth the positives, and I unequivocally think they are. I think human suffering today, on a grand scale (And relative for population growth) is far less. If in 20 years rising shore lines has made this statement false, I will retract it, but thus far? Absolutely I'd say were not even half as bad a how brutalan empire like Rome was, or even some local lord and what they did to their populations. And I pointed out emperors and what not, but in general, the elite in those societies? Just as bad. They just had a little less reach.

Tanoomba_sl said:

And sure, capitalism was a great equalizer at the beginning when you had to be productive to benefit from the system. That's certainly not the case now, and the fact that the rich are the only ones guaranteed to stay rich seems as arbitrary as any previous claim to royalty or being chosen by God.

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And yet, Capitalism is far more restrained now in it's exploitation than it was then. So, in some ways, the ability for Capitalism to disenfranchise has continually diminished. Now, you can make a case for social mobility diminishing due to various legislative changes in the U.S., and you'd be correct if your comparison window was within the last60 years, or so. But overall, it's still on an uptrend--don't forget, we're still only 100 years removed from situations where entire towns were essentially enslaved through rental/work practices. What we are seeing now is some constriction on the last round of higher attempted social mobility (Social Security ect). Will we continue dive or will we bounce back? I'm not sure. It's like I said above with possible climate change, it's really going to depend how the next few decades pan out. If people hit rock bottom and a new wave of change sweeps through the country and brings about a second new deal? This era will look like the 30's did to to us, and then we can all say Capitalism continued it's social expansion.

Of course, Marx would say Capitalism just continued it's march toward socialism. Don't forget, Marx did predict a lot of this. He knew Capitalism would lead to the adoption of higher social equality as production rose. This is all just a process. However, we, as humans, tend to view things with a very relativistic lens. But in economics, when discussing the failures or success of broad systems, we really need to take a look at the big picture--and that means we can't just draw comparisons to the superior social mobility of one generation. We need to look at all the time since Capitalism's inception--and from the lens, we really aren't doing too bad (Again, especially compared to all the systems that came before.)

Tanoomba_sl said:

It's foolish to assume capitalism is the final step because it's bested everything that came before it. weknowwe can do better.

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I never stated Capitalism was the final step--I don't believe that, either. In fact, I went out of my way to point that out multiple times.But, I think it's the mostappropriatestep for where we are right now. I think we're going to see a lot of evolutions in Capitalism and Democracies until we see the third world join the first world. Once that happens, I think Capitalism will be outdated and possibly replaced. But that's going to take some leaps in production, which luckily we have coming that's to machines and computers. However, this is all conjecture--I mean, I can make a good case for it, but I have no proof that it will work. (Even soft science proof).

So here's the question. How do youknowwe can do better rightnow? We havenoproof that we can. Every attempt at installing a superior system has met withutterfailure. And don't get me wrong,I understandsaying "Russia was communism" islaughable...but one thing Russia was, was an attempt to spring vault past Capitalism. And it did show, very clearly, why even Marx said Capitalism was anessentialstep in the process. Because it produces that initial prosperity and social mobility to allow for the next but the timetable for when this step ends? Is up in the air, even Marx knew that. As of right now? The most successful systems of providing for people, lowering human suffering and increasing the quality of life?AllCapitalist. The Scandinavian countries might have more socialist leanings, but make no mistake, they are Capitalists. Which should lead you to believe we aren't really done with this step.

Which is why I ask where the confidence comes from. Frankly, right now, there is no superior system if you take into account all the variables. You can say it seems like having more socialist elements is superior, and point to Europe, but that doesn't change what the base system is (Brown coffee is still coffee, even if it's less bitter.) Is Capitalism being abused? Yes. Does it need to be fixed? Yes, but the history of the economic system has shown that it's adaptable, and given that massive success has been had with alteration of Capitalism, and massive failures have been had with it's replacement, I tend to think we're going to be seeing large alterations in Capitalist economies to more refined, controlled forms of Capitalism.

Ultimately, I do think one day, when production hits an obscene surplus, and there is another constriction on social mobility, you'll see an eventual replacement of Capitalism. I don't feel Capitalism lends itself well to a "near" post scarcity society. And we are seeing some elements of that today (With the growth of synthetic markets in lieu of continued growth in actual markets). It can become cancerous in this situation. But we are a good clip off from that situation at the moment. Claiming "Capitalism is obsolete" is just not taking into account all those variables. It's better to say certain aspects of Capitalism are obsolete and will need adoption of socialist systems in their place. But the whole system? Nope.

TLDR: You're being too ivory tower, and not paying attention to real world failures. Yes, those real world failures might not have implemented the "theory" correctly, but that's part of a theories draw back--real world variables affect it in irrational ways because humans can be self serving and irrational. No one doubts one day we'll reach what you think we are at right now--but I disagree we are there now. I don't think we will see it in our lifetimes, but maybe our children's children will.