Any successful new regime must have four properties - it must be *labile*, it must be *full-throated*, it must be *perpendicular*, and it must be *grotendous*.
Probably not? Matt’s Twitter beefs with leftists are much more
regular than any beef he might have with rationalists. “Leftists only
talk in jargon!” is a popular liberal / centrist talking point.*
Matt changes his mind with the weather, I wouldn’t put much store by that, although my personal assumption is that he doesn’t need to be thinking of anybody *too* particular but that Siskind falls within his mental Venn diagram
I’ve said mean things about Yglesias in the past and will again in
the future (and I will also take the opportunity to do so right now; his
most recent book One Billion Americans is stupider than 90% of the
bullshit we make fun of in this subreddit).
…But credit where credit’s due: that’s a solid burn.
*One Billion Americans* is not a book advocating for accepting immigrants (though Yglesias does make that point) it is a book advocating for increasing the national birth rate to keep up with China and India in terms of who's national G-Dick-Pee is bigger. There is no way to accept enough immigrants into the USA to increase the population to one billion, not given the trajectory of the TFR in the Western Hemisphere. Africa is really the only place that's seeing significant growth, and I don't think you can convince enough Africans to come here to triple the population.
And attempts to increase the fertility rate above replacement level by governments have, basically, never worked. Those that have increased it at all have been buried underneath larger decreases; Australia's TFR increase of of 0.08 was sold as a victory but now it's 1.58, lower than when they started pronatalist policies.
This is to say nothing of Yglesias' blithe dismissal of environmental concerns. Aside from American consumption patterns, a lot of the empty areas of the USA do not have much fresh water available.
> One Billion Americans is not a book advocating for accepting immigrants (though Yglesias does make that point) it is a book advocating for increasing the national birth rate to keep up with China and India in terms of who's national G-Dick-Pee is bigger. There is no way to accept enough immigrants into the USA to increase the population to one billion, not given the trajectory of the TFR in the Western Hemisphere.
dang that sucks.
>And attempts to increase the fertility rate above replacement level by governments have, basically, never worked. Those that have increased it at all have been buried underneath larger decreases; Australia's TFR increase of of 0.08 was sold as a victory but now it's 1.58, lower than when they started pronatalist policies.
agree
> dang that sucks.
It does mean the book is bad, but the population decline is really a good thing--it means the USA can start to decrease its agricultural and industrial footprint without having to deal directly with decreasing individual consumption. And to be clear, I do think consumption is something that needs to be confronted, but those choices will be easier to make if we're sucking less water out of aquifers. Most people want to, say, blame groundwater loss on agribusiness, then turn around and buy pecans grown in Arizona.
So they--and I'm including a lot of people who are my political allies, here--don't want to give up the shit that's only possible because of the business practices they're denouncing. The only way to squirm out of that choice is either a disgustingly unequal society or to have way fewer people. Allowing population declines to play out is a just, noncoercive, voluntary way to accomplish the latter.
I gave up on it halfway through a weird nationalist rant about how we have to be willing to sacrifice in order to defeat the perfidious Chinese devils.
I'm exaggerating the racist undertones, but not by much.
This got me thinking that rationalism in philosophy is closely
associated with analytic philosophy, in turn famous for their
deconstruction of many tropes with ordinary language philosophy.
So, ironically enough, jargon and ambiguous bullshit is a regression
to the dark times of hegel and marx.
I don't have a horse in this race, and I'll cede right off the bat that MarxBro was clearly baiting you as he has baited many before you.
I expect he baited you for the same reason that I'm commenting, a deep suspicion that you haven't read Marx or Hegel.
The reason *I* believe this is that in your down-thread link you cite wikipedia and reddit almost exclusively.
I'm not so holy as to tell you how to live your life, but if you are planning on arguing about philosophers on this subreddit in particular, it will help your credibility if you've read primary or secondary sources. (Marx doesn't use the word 'dialectic' very often for example, and Das Kapital is not short)
Additionally, I almost always mentally mute anyone whose only understanding of a topic comes from the unholy trinity of wikipedia, reddit, and tweet threads a mile long. I'm sure there are others like me.
But, I did also read your linked Lenin note and Popper's short essay on why Marxists, Adler, and Freud annoyed him (fair tbh).
Since Lenin was focused on *Engels* in that note, I'll skip it.
You and KPop don't like that Marx's theories about history are not falsifiable, which is not *wrong*... but it's also not something that's *expected* of theories about history and human relationships.
I think you can imagine on your own why actually attempting 'empirical' tests of population level theories would be both horrendously insane and *still* wouldn't be scientific.
I mean, his entire philosophical base?
Putting even aside the wrongness of being anti-positivist, you just can't argue shit once you go after [dialectics](https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateaCommunist/comments/u5nna9/dialectics_the_methodology_of_hegel_and_marx/i54ywqu).
Thankfully he also did some legit amount of science, but that was *despite* his unsound obscurantist premises not thanks to them.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with being anti-positivist
Please, if you’re going to discuss continental philosophy on here, talk about *your* opinions thereof, not what you read Richard Dawkins retweet. This would, ideally, include reading the material
Karl Marx *strictly* does not fall into the institutional category “continental philosophy”, under any circumstances
Nor does Hegel, and many “hegel affiliates” either don’t fall under “continental philosophy” or are explicitly within the “analytic” or other contrasting philosophical traditions
The rest of your posts in this fight are just as shockingly bad and poorly researched, much worse than your average Scott Siskind fart and not saved at all just because they’re not horribly racist
> There’s nothing inherently wrong with being anti-positivist
Besides that, is Marx really the most natural candidate for anti-positivism? He was part of the classical foundations of sociology that were regarded as broadly positivist, and he was one of the targets of the original anti-positivist critiques. No doubt he did not agree entirely with Comte, but neither did Durkheim -- and neither would most 20th century neopositivists -- so that's probably not worth making a meal of.
There's certainly been rapprochements between *Marxist thought* and the anti-positivist tradition, particularly through the Frankfurt School. And if we approach Marx through the context of these later developments no doubt he can look like an anti-positivist. But significantly there are also important trends in Marxist theory that reject this way of interpreting Marx. So there's at least an ambiguity in what to make of this issue.
I have found myself *more* comfortable over time, overall, with Marx the ‘anti’-positivist whose synoptic influences broaden his conception of science to - ironically in this case? - a probably more accurate picture of how science is in fact properly practiced than has the caricature of the positivist I understand we are supposed to be valorising here.
(Is our positivist really also a Popperian? Well, that’s mass media for you…)
I defer to *some* of the mainstream economists on the matters we can partition to strictly positive analysis, with a big “but”:
the alleged tendency of the rate of profit to fall has - if we are good Lakatosians - not done well in Marx’s original conception;
BUT, the alleged tendency of the rate of profit to fall is nonetheless an interesting point to start - if we are cheeky post-Lakatosians - to work out synoptically why we no longer think there is such a thing, and if we think so correctly, even if we think Marx’s analysis thereof is conceptually and empirically wrong.
Falling rate of profit has done very well in Marx's original conception:
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2020/07/25/a-world-rate-of-profit-a-new-approach/
I don’t think by any standards, the author’s included, the data in there imply “has done very well” so much as “isn’t inconsistent with observation”. Our “good Lakatosians” would presumably refer to that as auxiliary abductive scaffolding to an overall degenerated research programme. Don’t be afraid of the Lakatosians though, they’re just a posit.
*To the Lakatosian*, Lakatos of the “conjectures and refutations” model of the history of science, the data - arguably - show that given a sufficiently baroque abductive explanation, Marx was not wrong; to the Lakatosian this is not the same thing as being correct.
You just said that:
>the alleged tendency of the rate of profit to fall has - if we are good Lakatosians - not done well in Marx’s original conception
But Marx's original conception has done very well, since the data shows that he was correct.
To assess the strength of Marx's original theory about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall you should probably look at the relevant data. The relevant data shows that, yes, Marx was correct.
I can send you other similar analyses. The Michael Roberts thing I linked has a few different sources you can look at.
Then you should have noted that your imaginary Lakatosian hasn't done the basic required reading and doesn't know what they are talking about regarding Marx.
I would also advise not to use phrasing like this:
>we think Marx’s analysis thereof is conceptually and empirically wrong.
Since we don't think such a thing.
I’m disappointed, I thought we both agreed that misquotations, ellipses, and so on were bad when David Friedman did it? Here is the full quote with new emphasis:
>BUT, the alleged tendency of the rate of profit to fall is nonetheless an interesting point to start - if we are cheeky post-Lakatosians - to work out synoptically **why** we no longer think there is such a thing, **and IF we think so correctly**, **EVEN if** we think Marx’s analysis thereof is conceptually and empirically wrong.
These are *heavy* conditionals, and my comment does not fall on one side of them. Economists generally do not think that there is a TRPF, why is that? Asks the post-Lakatosian.
It *is* an interesting hypothetical in the context of the conversation I was having with somebody else about the historical development of interpretations of Marx, and as a descriptive example for *their* benefit of one of the *many* lines of thinking that goes through my head as *I* work out where *I* stand on something
There's no reason to think that Marx's work would be popular among bourgeois academics.
If you want to work out where you stand on this issue you should probably read the works that show Marx's original conceptions are correct.
There's hardly continental philosophy that isn't dense jargon that steps over its own feet, and hegel affiliates are some of the most guilty (see my previous link).
Anti-positivist means presumptively treating the social sphere with completely different methods and attitudes compared to the "physical" sciences. It doesn't seem controversial to argue this.
It does seem controversial to argue your position since you haven't posted any evidence. The reddit post you linked is just a bunch of wikipedia articles. I'm looking for primary sourced quotes from Marx.
If you think Marx is full of "dense jargon" then you should be able to find one example of a passage you didn't understand. Then I can help you understand it.
> It does seem controversial to argue your position since you haven't posted any evidence.
Marx didn't use the normal toolbox of the scientist, does it make sense? I mean, to be the fairest, it's not like there was much to use in sociology to begin with (which he almost invented single handedly). But again, it doesn't seem *nouveau* to claim dialectics is totally deranged from the scientific method.
> I'm looking for primary sourced quotes from Marx.
I swear I cannot see how this wouldn't already be self-evident. In theory, just as it happens in practice then with all the marx-descending fields, they don't even sit inside the framework of science. Let alone, as I was saying, [accepting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipositivism) the thing can and should be applied to social matters.
The moment you elevate the human mind/behaviour, that you add the historicist-dialectical dogma, normal epistemology dies.
Marxian economics is perhaps the only modern offspring that could still be saved, but ironically enough only because it dropped any metaphysical premise (and prescriptive norm) and it started to speak in terms of mathematics and rigorous definitions.
And I'd like to pull you off direct quotes, but as you can see from the last link before the break in what you just dismissed as wikipedia links, there are academicians arguing how not even the materialism label is legit if you actually want to be anal about terms.
> If you think Marx is full of "dense jargon" then you should be able to find one example of a passage you didn't understand.
It's not jargon because it's step-by-step incomprehensible ("reason is substance as well as infinite power", amirite?). It is because it inherently relies on the non-precision of words to check out overall.
If you read any of this in the most lowkey lazy possible way, yes economy (people trading stuff) is the most important thing in a society. Addition and subtraction are opposite (in certain specific contexts). In a lot of situations, most of the cost of an object is the price of the eventual labour put into it.
But try to dig any deeper, be it dispelling any semantic equivocation, or noticing that alas not all scarcity is man-made, and all roundabouted "demonstrations" fall on their knees ludicrously.
You still have not provided any evidence. I'm looking for quotes from Marx's work here.
>And I'd like to pull you off direct quotes
Why? You claimed that Marx spoke in obscurantist jargon. I asked for evidence of that. It's actually a very simple, common sense request. Currently you are the one being obscurantist.
I said the premises were obscurantist. And I said there is jargon.
And yet again I can only point you to my first link. It's not the wikipedia links that are important, just focus on the part were everything and its contrary could be true at the same time under "dialectics".
There's not even something *wrong* with marx being wrong about some fact then (plenty of people were in history, and nobody faults them for not having hindsight 20/10). The never ending problem arises, when you presumably confute a claim, and this is contested every time because somehow the meaning of the words you were using is magically the wrong one. That's what makes jargon.
EDIT: and this is even putting aside the big differences between young marx and old marx, and that the burden of explaining the most gritty details was always shifted to engels
If Marx has said something like "everything and its contrary could be true at the same time" under dialectics then you should have no problem finding a statement where he says something like that.
You've made a claim about Marx's work and you seem to be doing everything in your power to avoid the simple process of finding evidence for your claim.
Because I *already* did? There are already all the examples you want, as I said... Papers and all provided too. But if you want everything in-lined, sure I guess I can spend yet another two hours rewriting the same stuff.
Marx was never big on philosophical theory itself, but he bought into the hegelian criticism of classical logic. Once you nuke the literal law of noncontradiction, I don't think it takes a PhD to see you are automatically in deep doo-doo ^^*Mussachia,* ^^M. ^^M. ^^*\(1977).* ^^*On* ^^*Contradiction* ^^*in* ^^*Dialectical* ^^*Materialism.*
Engels was the detailed mastermind if any, and as in the worst amateur philosopher idiot ball, he went from an "is" to an "ought". Be it as it may these were really the laws of the human mind, how would dialectics apply to nature as well as to history, except on the idealist supposition that these follow it too? ^^*Dupré,* ^^*L.* ^^*\(1977).* ^^*Idealism* ^^*and* ^^*Materialism* ^^*in* ^^*Marx’s* ^^*Dialectic*.
No wonder you have then Lenin coming up with brazenly nonsensical comparisons between arithmetical operators and electrical polarity... to argument the purported contradictions ingrained in the fabric of reality (the depth of such analogy reminding me of the showerthoughts of a child).
And last but not least, to cut it short with pompous metaphysical cruft, such is the level of ambiguousness that in actual historical practice I can notice way more times these principles have been used as excuses for a constantly ultimate appeal to authority (that would have had the privilege of determining the *je ne sais quoi* factor case by case), than as an actual tool for the pursuit of knowledge.
This is also setting aside the very conflictual relationship with empiricism and theory-ladenness.
So you really want to continue with this sealioning?
It doesn't come to you for marx to have ever supplanted or criticized formal logic?
Premising contradictions as the basis of everything there is and ever could be doesn't smells to you a bit preposterous?
And you can't be even arsed to open the link to marxists.org with Lenins's *On the Question of Dialectics*.
Seriously, it seems like I'm talking with some SSC [aficionado](https://old.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/lvx9b5/pseudophilosophy_encourages_confused/gpejk5v/).
You ask for evidence if you *actually* need it.
Your insistence that you need more implies that you have no clue whatsoever of what I'm talking about.
Which is astonishing considering I linked you papers with way better prose than I could ever have, and I guess lenin wasn't good for you either.
If you're making the claim that Marx argued that "everything and its contrary could be true at the same time" under dialectics, then yes, that does require evidence. Evidence here would be a quotation from one of Marx's works.
I'm not looking for "better prose", I'm looking for evidence.
I doubt it. A guy like Yglesias ain’t gonna be shit talking a guy
like Scott on Twitter. More likely he’s talking about some leftist he
blundered into while doomscrolling doing political science
research. Or a right winger to be more charitable, since Roe v Wade
seems to be distracting Twitter libs from punching left a fair bit.
I liked the “philosophers speak clearly, theorists don’t” comment. Im
sure that is based on a thorough empirical review of work, with clearly
defined terms of what differentiates a theorist from a philosopher.
Or perhaps it’s just invoking the sham divide that philosophy is true
good works of the elite and social theory is woke propaganda for the
masses.
MattY is famous in Extremely Online circles for knowing things about politics. As for why he's of note? Well, I'm pretty sure getting in early (he started blogging in 2002) helped.
And now I see this.
>In 2013, Yglesias garnered controversy for his statements about the 2013 Dhaka garment factory collapse, with Yglesias arguing that the lower building standards that partially led to the factory's collapse make "economic sense"[14] in developing countries, later tweeting that "foreign factories should be more dangerous than American factories"[15][16] and "the current system of letting different countries have different rules is working fine."
I suppose it also helps that he's a gigantic neolib.
Curtis Yarvin springs to mind.
Probably not? Matt’s Twitter beefs with leftists are much more regular than any beef he might have with rationalists. “Leftists only talk in jargon!” is a popular liberal / centrist talking point.*
Highly doubt it. Esp considering who tweeted it.
Consider this https://www.slowboring.com/p/slate-star-codex
I’ve said mean things about Yglesias in the past and will again in the future (and I will also take the opportunity to do so right now; his most recent book One Billion Americans is stupider than 90% of the bullshit we make fun of in this subreddit).
…But credit where credit’s due: that’s a solid burn.
This got me thinking that rationalism in philosophy is closely associated with analytic philosophy, in turn famous for their deconstruction of many tropes with ordinary language philosophy.
So, ironically enough, jargon and ambiguous bullshit is a regression to the dark times of hegel and marx.
A lot of replies taking this opportunity, as they probably do every opportunity, to be anti-intellectual.
I doubt it. A guy like Yglesias ain’t gonna be shit talking a guy like Scott on Twitter. More likely he’s talking about some leftist he blundered into while
doomscrollingdoing political science research. Or a right winger to be more charitable, since Roe v Wade seems to be distracting Twitter libs from punching left a fair bit.I made a meme
I liked the “philosophers speak clearly, theorists don’t” comment. Im sure that is based on a thorough empirical review of work, with clearly defined terms of what differentiates a theorist from a philosopher.
Or perhaps it’s just invoking the sham divide that philosophy is true good works of the elite and social theory is woke propaganda for the masses.
That could be about almost anybody lol
That tweet is very Y U D K O W S K I
Who is this? Like I can see from the bio that they are a writer but why are they of note?