Conversation with fudge: political philosophy, Deleuze, cog

12:05:08 PM@ProfFarnsworthwoo
12:05:14 PM@ProfFarnsworthPresidential emergency alerts.
12:05:18 PM@ProfFarnsworth:o
12:05:27 PM@ProfFarnsworthWe're truly living in the future.
12:05:32 PMⓘ ProfFarnsworth set mode +v InfiniteSpire
12:05:33 PMⓘ ProfFarnsworth set mode +v sardaukar
12:05:35 PMⓘ ProfFarnsworth set mode +v shoegazer
12:05:52 PM+InfiniteSpireThe DOW has very little to do with how average Americans are getting by.
12:05:54 PM+InfiniteSpireFor example, most of the people in this room.
12:05:58 PM+InfiniteSpireFor example, the person who likely set that topic.
12:06:14 PM+InfiniteSpireProfFarnsworth: What do you think is the significance of that alert?
12:06:58 PM@ProfFarnsworthI just hope there's enough layers between him and the public to keep him from abusing it.
12:07:45 PM+fudgeInstead of tweets, you'll be getting direct messages from the President that you can't block.
12:08:16 PM+InfiniteSpireSeeing as the country is entirely broken under GOP rule, I think it makes sense to have obvious reminders of that.
12:08:32 PM+fudgeWhat's with the Russian stuff today?
12:08:36 PM+fudgeNot sure anybody mentioned Russia
12:08:41 PM@ProfFarnsworthNobody did.
12:09:21 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: Why did you bring up Russia?
12:09:34 PM+fudge[e] was going on about "RUSSIA RUSSIA"
12:09:44 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: [e]'s mind is broken.
12:09:50 PM+fudgeI know.
12:10:22 PM+InfiniteSpireI saw a great video about the MMA fighter Nurmagomedov.
12:10:33 PM+InfiniteSpireIt reminded me how much I hate Vladimir Putin, the Russian government, and strong-man leadership.
12:10:37 PM+InfiniteSpireTheir influence is everywhere.
12:10:46 PM+fudgeThey learned from the best :)
12:11:08 PM+InfiniteSpireYou think you're just going to learn about Nurmagomedov and McGregor, right.
12:11:29 PM+InfiniteSpireOh, but Nurmagomedov is from a Russian republic that has previously been in conflict with the Soviet Union and Russia.
12:11:39 PM+InfiniteSpireAnd it's headed by a strong-man who murders all the gay people in the region.
12:11:52 PM+InfiniteSpireWhen asked by Real Sports about the gay people he's abusing, he said Dagestan has no gay people.
12:11:57 PM+InfiniteSpireThis is the 'governor' of that region.
12:12:05 PM+InfiniteSpireWho is literally a lieutenant of Vladimir Putin.
12:12:18 PM+InfiniteSpireThat 'kill all the gays' guy sponsors MMA across the globe.
12:12:30 PM+InfiniteSpireThe biggest names in MMA have met with him and participated in his events.
12:12:45 PM+InfiniteSpireThis is just one area in which the reach of Vladimir Putin corrupts and destroys liberty and justice on our shared planet.
12:13:56 PM+InfiniteSpirehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUvsG2TC-Uc
12:14:10 PM+InfiniteSpireTrump supporters desire to under such a man.
12:14:18 PM+InfiniteSpireThey think it's an alpha way to live.
12:14:36 PM+InfiniteSpireWhat that means is your family, even if they've had family members murdered by the strong man's family in the past, has to submit to him and pay fealty.
12:14:48 PM+InfiniteSpireWhich is what Nurmagomedov's father has to do.
12:15:04 PM+InfiniteSpireEven then Nurmagomedov is by Western standards a powerful man who was in the military and is a fighter himself.
12:15:43 PM+InfiniteSpireWhat happens when you live in that world is you constantly scheme to overthrow that abuser and get justice for your crimes.
12:15:54 PM+InfiniteSpireWhich is best accomplished under the Western government, which they currently live in, and want to overthrow.
12:16:27 PM+fudgeNo he doesn't.
12:16:30 PM+fudgeTrump has his own back.
12:16:31 PM+InfiniteSpireBuddhism might describe this as Trump supporters live on a wheel of suffering they don't know how to escape, they keep creating for their children the same kinds of suffering they had to work with.
12:16:43 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: I argue it is unethical to engage [e].
12:16:47 PM+InfiniteSpireWould you care to debate that?
12:17:08 PM+InfiniteSpireMy primary thesis will be that [e] is a bad actor on the chat scene the way Russia is a bad actor on the international scene.
12:17:15 PM+InfiniteSpireAnd that the non-violent way to manage that is through sanctions.
12:17:15 PM+fudgeI don't care to bring ethics into the realm of IRC chat which has lately become a nationalist, sexist, racist, fascist cesspool.
12:17:31 PM+InfiniteSpireYou sound overwhelmed.
12:18:01 PM+InfiniteSpireEthics is the best way to resolve those problems you've highlighted.
12:18:11 PM+InfiniteSpireCoupled with mental fortitude.
12:18:16 PM+InfiniteSpireAnd hope.
12:18:33 PM+InfiniteSpirehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K30e9O3Nng
12:18:56 PM+fudgeI am not overwhelmed, because this channel and the contents are a very small piece of the overall picture, and I find lots more sanity among friends and among writers.
12:19:28 PM+fudgeNothing discussed on IRC touches anything discussed offline.
12:19:32 PM+InfiniteSpirehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Scholl
12:19:46 PM+fudgeAnd nothing discussed on IRC gets anywhere near any of the philosophy and political economy I've been reading.
12:19:47 PM+InfiniteSpireThat boundary seems artificial to me.
12:19:49 PM+fudge:3
12:19:56 PM+InfiniteSpireYour mind is present in IRC and IRL>
12:19:57 PM+fudgeIt is a boundary I am used to.
12:20:10 PM+fudge[e]: No.
12:20:14 PM+fudgeI am not.
12:20:25 PM+fudgeEveryone here is below people in my life though, yeah.
12:20:29 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: You cannot ethically avoid ethics.
12:20:44 PM+InfiniteSpireEastern religions would describe this as karma.
12:20:55 PM+InfiniteSpireI describe it as causality in a realist metaphysics.
12:21:03 PM+fudgeWhat does anyone here hold against Hume? Locke? Deleuze? Spinoza? Derrida? Arendt? Nothing.
12:21:13 PM+InfiniteSpireA little bit.
12:21:21 PM+InfiniteSpireMe, for example.
12:21:59 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: What are the top goals individuals should aim for?
12:22:12 PM@ProfFarnsworthhttps://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/649850498/you-just-don-t-touch-that-tap-water-unless-absolutely-neces...
12:22:32 PM+InfiniteSpireI think one of the top goals is to facilitate a planet/states/communities where each person can express their self and think freely.
12:23:04 PM+InfiniteSpireThis is highly valued in Enlightenment ideology, for example.
12:23:21 PM+InfiniteSpireThe belief the universe is intelligible and can be understood by human reason -- at least somewhat.
12:23:34 PM+InfiniteSpire[e] acts out everyday an ideology that is the death of The Enlightenment.
12:23:56 PM+InfiniteSpireHe supports despots like Vladimir Putin and he'd support pogroms if that was the political landscape.
12:24:11 PM+InfiniteSpireThere is precisely zero content in [e]'s mind that prevents him from genocide -- only power and happenstance.
12:24:20 PM+InfiniteSpireAnd when you engage him as if he's just another chatter, you worsen the planet.
12:24:48 PM+InfiniteSpireHe's a lost Auschwitz guard in a world where somebody went back and killed baby Hitler.
12:25:00 PM+InfiniteSpireHe gets zero credit for the lack of Auschwitz in his timeline.
12:25:57 PM+InfiniteSpireIn the essay Who Becomes a Nazi, the author highlighted lack of empathy is the number one predictor.
12:26:10 PM+fudgewho wrote that?
12:26:11 PM+InfiniteSpirehttps://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
12:26:17 PM+InfiniteSpireDorothy Thompson.
12:26:36 PM+InfiniteSpireDorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt.[1] She is notable as the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and as one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s.[2] She is regarded by some as the "First Lady of American Journalism."[3]
12:27:20 PM+InfiniteSpirehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ztVKXsvajM
12:27:37 PM+InfiniteSpireSophie Scholl stood up to the Nazi government at the age of 21.
12:27:46 PM+InfiniteSpireShe was beheaded for it, but she never yielded.
12:27:56 PM+InfiniteSpireWe have the courage and strength to stand up to all bullies in our universe.
12:28:07 PM+InfiniteSpireIt's okay to die.
12:28:32 PM+fudge`Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.` Yep
12:28:53 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: There's a further update to that viewpoint.
12:29:01 PM+InfiniteSpireFrom cognitive neuroscience.
12:29:29 PM+InfiniteSpireExcept for smart people who value science, there isn't a thing known as 'political worldview' in a person's mind.
12:29:45 PM+InfiniteSpireThat's just a boundary we put around some of their cognitive traits when they interact with politics.
12:30:10 PM+InfiniteSpireYou and I have a political worldview, as we're smart and rational.
12:30:25 PM+InfiniteSpireThe average person has emotional dispositions which they express in their parenting, relationships, and 'politics'.
12:30:36 PM+fudgeIn Deleuzian terms, there exist apparatuses (social, political, etc) that create subjectivities for people.
12:31:03 PM+fudgeTo be a subject is to be expected to fill in a space.
12:31:16 PM+fudgeit is to become part of larger machinery.
12:31:23 PM+fudgeWhich codes your behaviors.
12:31:59 PM+InfiniteSpireThat sounds like an overemphasis on culture, in my view.
12:32:07 PM+fudgeIt's an emphasis on machines.
12:32:20 PM+InfiniteSpireThe average human, e.g. IQ 100, doesn't appear to have much ability to understand their own programming.
12:32:23 PM+InfiniteSpireThey just do things.
12:32:42 PM+InfiniteSpireAnd about 1/3 humans are born with right wing authoritarianism programmed into their cortex.
12:32:48 PM+InfiniteSpireAs it's a stable evolutionary strategy.
12:32:53 PM+fudgeIt isn't an emphasis on culture, it is an emphasis on the material machinery of social organizations.
12:33:09 PM+InfiniteSpireThe political and social structures you're discussing, in my view, are the superstructure resting atop the cognitive foundation.
12:34:01 PM+fudgeBut they can be looked at as discrete, territorialized spaces.
12:34:07 PM+fudgeSpaces that turn flows inward.
12:34:07 PM+InfiniteSpireAgreed.
12:34:28 PM+fudgeOtherwise you get disintegration.
12:34:47 PM+fudgeSo given historical context, you can look at specifics inputs and outputs, specific internal structures, and specific codes for behavior.
12:34:48 PM+InfiniteSpireWhat's disintegration like?
12:35:27 PM+fudgeIt's when outward flows can no longer be contained by the territorialized space, when the attractor at the center of the space loses its ability to reinforce itself.
12:35:52 PM→ CaveGuy has joined
12:35:53 PM+fudgeThere's always flows that escape and flows that get captured, but an inbalance can cause structures to fall apart, break down, etc.
12:36:48 PM+InfiniteSpireIn the abstract, that seems reasonable. Can you give an example of applying that analysis to a recent event?
12:37:20 PM+fudgeIn all honesty, the key is to not take it as abstract at all.
12:37:25 PM+fudgeIt is not figurative.
12:37:28 PM+fudgeIt is machine.
12:37:31 PM+InfiniteSpireIsn't it, though?
12:37:48 PM+InfiniteSpireIt seems like he's applying some structure from dynamical systems and physics to understand social organization.
12:38:02 PM+fudgeIt's the same analysis applied to physical sciences as well.
12:38:24 PM+InfiniteSpireCan you try and explain the rise of right wing media in the US using this framework?
12:38:31 PM+fudgeThis is the first line in Anti-Oepidpus:
12:38:50 PM+InfiniteSpireOr, the degradation of MSM's influence in the last 10 years.
12:39:24 PM+fudge"It is at work everywhere, functioning smoothly at times, at other times in fits and starts. It breathes, it heats, it eats. It shits and fucks. What a mistake to have ever said the id. Everywhere it is machines—real ones, not figurative ones: machines driving other machines, machines being driven by other machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections."
12:39:56 PM+InfiniteSpireThat reminds me of the joke about Foucault where he describes everything as prisons.
12:41:02 PM+InfiniteSpireWhat I am getting from that paragraph is that the author thinks the analytic, systems paradigm is useful or even sufficient to understand human social organization.
12:41:36 PM+fudgeEh, well, with the deployment of conceptual machines.
12:41:37 PM+InfiniteSpireIt seems clear and straightforward that paradigm is very useful for understanding humanity.
12:41:47 PM+fudgeBut this is the ontological view.
12:42:04 PM+fudgeOf all things.
12:42:16 PM+InfiniteSpireYou can argue that viewpoint has been present since at least Comte.
12:42:47 PM+InfiniteSpireCertainly, it's been updated with some further appreciation of machinery that arose in the 19th century and beyond.
12:43:14 PM+fudgeNot too familiar, but in the Deleuze context it's more about how these machines allow for the emergence of new expressions and forms, and how strong those territories are, what terrain they are in, etc.
12:43:24 PM+InfiniteSpireAlso, your paragraph seems pretty consistent with codependent origination from Buddhism.
12:43:28 PM+InfiniteSpireWhich is about 2500 years old.
12:43:39 PM+fudgehttps://libcom.org/files/Anti-Oedipus.pdf
12:43:39 PM+fudgeMhm
12:44:55 PM+InfiniteSpireI guess the core semantics of a machine is 'an entity that is clearly constructed from sub-entities, and from which gains new capacities not present in the components'.
12:45:11 PM+InfiniteSpireI'm not sure why you consider this so revolutionary.
12:45:55 PM+InfiniteSpireIt feels like the most 'shocking' component of this ideology is the complete absence of 'divine' or 'sacred' qualia in the human condition as first-class ontological primatives.
12:45:56 PM+fudgeWell I only brought forth one thing from a big body of work.
12:46:22 PM+fudgeDecentering the human is important to me.
12:47:42 PM+fudgeIt's how I try to maintain distance from that which I'm thinking about, lest I become a drooling partisan waving a particular flag.
12:48:09 PM+InfiniteSpireI agree @ decentering.
12:48:13 PM+InfiniteSpireBuddhism is very relevant here.
12:48:38 PM+fudgeMhm, I haven't really studied Buddhism much.
12:48:45 PM+InfiniteSpireFor example, Alan Watts has a meditation talk where he emphasizes do not try to understand his words, just try and appreciate them as sound, like other sound free of meaning you might encounter.
12:49:02 PM+fudgeBut it doesn't surprise me that some area of religious beliefs would conceptually reach the same kinds of conclusions.
12:49:13 PM+InfiniteSpireThere's causality behind, but not meaning as we normally think of it in the sound of icebergs calving, rain dropping, or wind blowing through trees.
12:49:40 PM+InfiniteSpireHe emphasized that your mind is already highly tuned to finding the meaning in his words without any effort, so effort should be extended on just hearing the sounds without meaning.
12:49:42 PM+fudgeAlan Watts is asking people to remove themselves from the signifying regime? :P
12:50:14 PM+InfiniteSpireAnd so, by analogy, human effortlessly find the importance in the human condition, and so we should often practice not trying to find meaning, but just analyzing it as some arbitrary system.
12:50:46 PM+InfiniteSpirehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m8jD0itiPM
12:51:12 PM+InfiniteSpirefudge: Yes. Buddhism has a rich history of language/meaning breaking efforts.
12:51:16 PM+InfiniteSpireThe koan, for example.
12:51:33 PM+InfiniteSpireThe world of language is not the world we observe, but we spend almost all of our time in the language world.
12:51:49 PM+InfiniteSpireWe need to actively break ourselves out of language and meaning.
12:52:39 PM+fudgeMhm, in A Thousand Plateaus, in the plateu on Faciality, Deleuze and Guattari talk about the need to reach an existence away from subjectification and signification.
12:53:38 PM+fudgeThe despit and the tyrant in our lives.
12:53:40 PM+fudgedespot*