Sebrof [comrade/them, he/him]

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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: March 31st, 2024

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  • I would love to talk about this stuff with anyone who is interested. I’ve learned some (linear) production theory along the lines of Sraffa, Pasinetti, Ian Wright etc - essentially representing production relations as a network. If you feel comfortable with some Linear Algebra you can start there. And I have been working on a way to model this production network, but I sometimes spin my wheels and get stuck on tangents. I am thinking of a model along the lines of what Ian Wright has worked on, and either doing a macro model (modeling the explicit emergent relations) or micro model (model the micro interactions and letting the macro structure emerge). Wright has papers for both types of models. The later would be more along the lines of complexity science. The former is closer to diff eqs, and would be easier for applying ideas of control theory to. I think.

    There are a series of papers from Political Economists from the new school arguing about whether to start models from the individual interactions, vs the emergent macro conditions (which is more in line with classical political economy).

    Later one could add financial networks, etc. to such a model.

    But if you’re familiar with linear algebra, diff eqs, and control theory, then you may find the authors above interesting. If anyone wants to brainstorm let me know. I think this stuff is interesting and would love to know more, but I also have to work to pay bills lol










  • While I can’t speak for liberal policy makers and higher-ups, the average liberal voter is so supportive of civility politics and “free speech” that it’s going to get them killed. A protest I was at recently had neo-confererate counter protestors and a progressive lib I spoke to at the protest said that while they didn’t like the neo-confererates, they had as much right to be out there as we did, and we have to respect their freedom of speech.

    So yeah, the frustration is real.

    Liberals voters are fucking idealists and they don’t understand power. When they lose they’ll be so confused because they followed all the rules! They think politics has refs or something. Most won’t even care too much, they’ll keep shifting further and further right as the empire decays.


  • I don’t think the argument would be that the opinions that people form, or want to form, always come from a conscious understanding of imperialism. The author would likely say that Westerners want to believe, and do believe, the rest of the world is bad, dangerous, unfree, undemocratic, totalitarian, etc. to make them better about their own lives - even if, or because they are, facing difficulties themselves.

    The article mentions China and the supposed genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as an example. The phrase may as well be gibberish to Westerners. They don’t know, nor want to know, anything about the topic.

    You are right, they aren’t doing any critical thinking. They are simply repeating nonsensical lines and absurdities, and they don’t want to think about it.

    They don’t understand imperialism on a conscious level. But they want to believe that even if they can’t pay their bills, and their own life in the West has its hardships, and their state could be doing more, that at least other places are worse. And they want to feel superior to the rest of the world, so they believe any atrocity propaganda they stumble across to fuel their coping mechanism. But it doesn’t require an understanding of imperialism on their part. If they think about it at all, I’d guess they would attribute the superiority of the West to white supremacy, “democratic values”, etc.