?

Gimble vice and a fleshlight?

People’s brains fall out of their heads on this one hey? Like wtf, you’re actually responsible for what you say seems pretty basic. Nobody is arguing for prosecuting anyone who expresses opinions, or what they earnestly believe to be true and communicate in good faith. Just, if you make shit up and people get hurt well then, you did that hey.

Hmmm lets examine this statement.

Isolated weird place, scary Russians, Russian stereotypes of intellectual game + tremendous violence.

Gee, it almost sounds like this is a too convenient racist lie. Any proof? The oldest reference just says ‘it totally happened’ and cites something I can’t access on Google books. It’s 20 years after the fact and not a primary source.

It’s a book about non monogamy and how to practice it in a considerate and sensitive manner.

Look ultimately words mean what they mean in the context that they’re spoken but broadly neoliberalism is highly socially permissive. Provided, that is, one does this as a responsible member of the capitalist economy and doesn’t disrupt the market.

Like you can have neoliberals that love trans kids, celebrate pride, want more black female drone pilots etc. It is, however, not a neoliberal position say compare the number of vacant properties to the number of homeless people and suggest that perhaps we should just take the unused houses and give them to homeless people? That would violate the principles of private property and free markets. After all: what freedom does one have if you can’t watch someone freeze to death on the doorstep of your vacant investment?

If your friends think that freedom to do that is utterly absurd and a society which defends that is fundamentally rotten then they are not liberals in the academic sense, however their substantially more leftist stance may be called liberalism in the political context you find yourselves in.

To clarify my question. What do you mean ‘actually liberal’ ideologies?

Like what are their thoughts on monetarism?private property? free association? private entities in markets? Debt and paying it, both private and state held?

If they think that the state should provide the means of subsistence of the entire populus, that property should in general be held in common and private property is not sacred, that government entities in a market are often more effective than private and/or that business should be heavily regulated to serve common good, that debts should be cancelled when it is not realistic or fair to pay them etc. Or perhaps even further afield positions like questioning nation States, police, militaries and boarders… well, then they are not in fact liberals haha.

What do they see as different between neoliberalism and classical liberalism. Neoliberalism is mostly a post-Keynesian revitalisation of classical liberal economic positions updated with modern banking practices and globalisation.

… everyone? hence my use of broadly? It has complete and utter ideological hegemony since like the 70s. If you study economics you study neoliberal economics and they don’t even bother specifying. All major political parties in the anglosphere and most of western Europe follow neoliberal ideology, even the green-left is largely neoliberal. There are basically no classical liberals left.

She makes a handful of digital toys free. Slurs hurt real people. Keep this in context

I think I misunderstood you.

See my other comment for why I think freedom is sort of a useless thing to frame anything around. At least without further clarification.

Reactionary ideologies are incoherent.

I think it’s tempting to try and be pithy but freedom is complicated. For some people freedom is an absolute, do what you want when you want. For some it is about theoretical possibilities, for example if you ask if people are free to quit there job the answer heavily depends on how someone balances theory vs practice. Others take a practical lens, freedom only counts if it’s plausible to do.

Sometimes freedom is about ideals. you are free to read all the political theory you like, you umm wont because it’s boring but if someone threatened that would you be upset? At other junctures freedom because pragmatic, “what use is freedom to read if I don’t have freedom to eat? I’ll trade one for the other” someone might say.

Some people rate permissions more than restrictions, some the opposite.

I don’t think it’s a concept we can really pin down. Everyone has their own interpretation and it’s not universally values: much as dominant ideologies often insist it is, the rise of fascism should hint that others care much less about it.

Sigh, I’ll wade into this river of shit.

Liberalism is broadly understood as neoliberalism, which is an ideological descendant from classical liberalism. This ideology positions itself as being broadly in favour of individual freedom within a rather tight definition of freedom. Namely liberals are concerned with the ability of people to read what they like, own what they like, marry whomever they like and so on provided they do this inside of a system of capitalist free market exchange.

Modern liberalism tends to frown on heavy government intervention in market affairs, which they see as representing the free (and thus good) exchange of goods between individuals. They also tend to be broadly in favour of the militaristic western global hegemony.

Criticism of this attitude comes from 2 places.

1. too much freedom.

2. not enough freedom.

(1) is people that want women bound up in the kitchen and walk around with an odd gait that makes you remember Indiana Jones films

(2) are people (I’m in this camp) who see liberalism as a weak ideological position that favours stability over justice and, in so doing, ignores the suffering of billions.

Power is pretty corrupting and anyone who is a famous person (as in, public enough to maintain fame as opposed to just broad recognition) probably has a bit of an ego.

I mean your average normal person would be like “Don’t idolise me, I’m just someone who writes books you like. Now please leave me alone” not posting on tumblr to adoring young fans.

Wrong!

No frotting the electricity

I’ve been called a tankie for just trying to be clear about what Marxism actually is. I would say I’m sympathetic to Marxists but not one. Having far stronger anarchist sympathies.

But you know, being critical of the usa or saying anything remotely positive about China/the ussr means you are either a Russian bot/op or a tankie.

Sometimes I’m blown away by the quality. Like a lot of the shit I’d buy locally is chinese made anyway.

Often you get stuff like ‘premium’ retailers getting the stuff that QC passed to a higher standard or whatever but it’s worth minor decreases in quality for a 1000% discount or whatever absurd retail markup there is.

The thing is, if you’re buying something for a dollar it’s gonna be about that quality. you need to know the brands that make good shit. Like some of the 40 dollar kitchen knives on aliexpress are amazing value, some are scams. Electronic components are similar. I can buy an esp32 there for 5 bucks, or locally for 45. Same product.

Now would I trust a fruit bowl bought for 2 dollars to be good? lol no. There’s just material reality at the end of the day. No amount of genius engineering and dubious manufacturing conditions can make high quality material appear from thin air.

I’m not calling anyone out. We all eat worse than we’d like to, exercise less than we feel we ought to, have a home messier than we’re pleased with, spend more time watching mindless tv than is really good for us or some analogous permutation of minor sins.

We’re apes trying to figure out how to use root digging and berry picking brains to navigate the lightbox of eternal distraction and a world of concrete, glass, and tedium. This shit is hard.

If you have similar experiences to my past ones then I hope you can draw comfort from knowing you’re not unique in your difficulties and it is possible (although life circumstances depending not always easy) to overcome them.