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   silverwizard (silverwizard@convenient.email)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:28:08 JST silverwizard

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   • FoolishOwl

   @foolishowl yeah, I feel all this

   the thing we've built is bad, and, in the next small number of years, we need to build a new thing, a better thing

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     FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:28:10 JST FoolishOwl

     in reply to

     I used to be a Leninist, which involved an idea that someday, all this stuff that workers were building would be taken over by workers, and that would change their valence, from evil to good.

     But increasingly I've felt that these things we're building, from top to bottom, should not exist, that an intention to oppress and exploit is in every detail of their structure and organization.

     I don't know how we rebuild this, or even how we stop building.

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     FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:28:11 JST FoolishOwl

     in reply to

     I don't know how to get out of this trap we're in.

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     FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:28:12 JST FoolishOwl

     in reply to

     Yesterday I was reading an article about TESCREAL, the set of "progressive" beliefs so strongly held by tech entrepreneurs that it resembles a cult.

     It mentioned the concept, in "effective altruism", that it's more efficient to earn as much money as possible, then donate it, than it is to do the work directly.

     It occurred to me that I'd seen people argue that tech workers should stop trying to volunteer their skills to left groups, and instead just donate money. Similar argument.

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     FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:28:13 JST FoolishOwl

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     The problem we have now is the widespread belief that if capitalism collapses, it will destroy us all, because we're integrated into it. Even if we hate it, even if we know it's destroying us.

     So for instance, not only do I have to work for wages, but I keep getting told I have to get better at my job to keep working, and that if I stop working, not only will I suffer, but so will my family.

     And getting better at my job means making the world worse.

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     FoolishOwl (foolishowl@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 10-Feb-2024 02:28:15 JST FoolishOwl

     As I recall, one of the ideas of the Frankfurt School was that the working class had become integrated into capitalism, and therefore was no longer revolutionary.

     I think there's some truth to that. In the 18th and 19th centuries, and to some extent the early 20th, you see a lot of descriptions of industrial workers as a despised social out-group, and I think that was a significant aspect of working class militancy.

     This is not to say that workers are privileged, but that they are integrated.