@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

HeavenlyPossum

@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social

Anarchist, communist, opossum. But then, I repeat myself.

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HeavenlyPossum, to random
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“How would we do this or that under anarchism?”

Consensually, through voluntary agreement, or by yourself, without coercive interference.

I’m sure that sounds like a cop-out to a lot of people, but it’s based on a principle of humility: we can’t possibly know what solutions people will pursue, negotiate, and adapt to the ever-evolving problems we face in the world.

Some anarchists have invested a lot of work in figuring out how we might organize ourselves if free—federations of councils and the like—and that work is valuable. Some people might adopt some of those solutions some of the time. But it’s not for me or anyone else to prejudge or insist upon any particular solution.

We’ll do it together, in free cooperation, by talking to each other, persuading each other, inducing each other, or by leaving each other alone.

1/

HeavenlyPossum,
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But that ambiguity is just part of being human.

And so is the interminable inefficiency of reaching solutions by talking to each other. I have frequently encountered people repulsed by the idea of having meetings, of talking to and negotiating with other people with equal agency, of having to do the boring and tedious work of anarchist direct democracy.

And there’s an element of truth to that! Reaching decisions through conversation and consensus building can indeed be difficult, tedious, boring, and without certainty of resolution.

But the costs of the alternative—aside from the pain and horror of state violence—are immense. The police, the surveillance, the rules and courts that adjudicate them, the military and the industry that arms them, the prisons and border fences, the internment camps and tax collectors and intelligence agencies—these are vast and crushing burdens on society. They are immensely costly and deeply inefficient.

Of course states fail and collapse all the time! How could they not? Control is very expensive and deeply inefficient.

3/

HeavenlyPossum,
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

I think this makes a lot of people very uncomfortable, because a lot of people dislike ambiguity—not in the interpersonal sense that might elude an autistic person, but rather an ambiguity of outcomes.

We can’t possible know how everyone would do this or that under anarchism, because conditions and people are constantly evolving. What might make sense to some people in some place and time might not work for someone else, or might evolve as conditions evolve, or might change as people negotiate and compromise with each other.

The allure of systematic and predictable answers is deeply attractive to a lot of people, from ancaps with their natural law deontology to the high modernists who bulldozed cities to make orderly grids of highways to the techbros who think they can engineer their way to eternal perfection. Lots of people want one singular, predictable, replicable Answer and are horrified at the thought of not knowing the results of a social negotiation.

2/

HeavenlyPossum,
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

@topher_batty

Why would anyone be powerless to stop them? Coercion is not a synonym for violence; it is a subset of violence. Anarchism is not pacifism and anyone is justified in defending themselves from aggression.

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

So the World Central Kitchen convoy a) cleared its route with the IDF beforehand, b) traveled on an approved route, and c) departed at an approved time, so d) the IDF knew exactly who it was killing when it struck the convoy three (3) times.

It was so obviously deliberate, and so deliberately cruel—not just to murder these people, but to terrorize other aid workers into abandoning the Palestinians to be starved to death. To prove the IDF’s impunity and reach, and to compel the IDF’s defenders into apologizing for yet another unforgivable atrocity.

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

I will never understand the audacity of showing up in someone’s mentions to be a condescending asshole and then being genuinely surprised when that someone mutes or blocks said asshole.

“Who could have anticipated these consequences of my own shitty actions???”

HeavenlyPossum,
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

@SallyStrange

I am frequently an asshole to people I believe deserve it but I am under no illusions that they will enjoy it or like me. It’s the surprise that gets me every time. “Good heavens! They did not meekly accept my shit! This is unheard of!”

lethargilistic, to random
@lethargilistic@kolektiva.social avatar

"I have a hard time taking white philosophers seriously."

The philosopher: Antonio Gramsci. (Italian, when that meant something.)

HeavenlyPossum,
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@lethargilistic

flips hair you, like, don’t get it mom.

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

Super curious to find out if the IDF just murdered an American aid worker using any American aircraft or American munitions.

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

If you look at, say, an American city, with

  • its physical infrastructure built for cars, and

  • its cops who will arrest people for using the public space called “the street” without first purchasing a car, and

  • its compulsory wage labor,

and conclude that people collectively chose a carbon economy that’s destroying the planet, you’re missing the point.

HeavenlyPossum,
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@sknob

I’m not aware of anyone given a meaningful choice, except maybe during the initial period of covid isolation, when global fossil fuel usage did decrease.

HeavenlyPossum,
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@sknob

Are you one of those people who could do less harm but don’t bother?

HeavenlyPossum,
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@MisuseCase

I’m generally skeptical of explanations that require millions and millions of people to all decide to act identically and simultaneously in spite of enormous costs, in ways that make lots of them miserable. I’m also really skeptical of explanations that assume people have political agency in ways that I’ve seen no evidence for.

HeavenlyPossum,
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

I look at the world around me and see one of coercion: direct coercion by people, indirect coercion by institutions, and compulsion by impersonal systems.

I’ve made this argument in extensive detail over and over but I’ve got to admit that this is something I feel in my bones, beyond mere data and arguments.

I am not moved by arguments that we all somehow woke up someday and all simultaneously and coincidentally chose and continue to choose this failing hell-hole world we live in. They are non-starters for me; they stretch credulity beyond its breaking point.

HeavenlyPossum,
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@JeffC1956

I don’t really know what you mean by that

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

If we didn’t have police, then who would checks notes murder kidnapped children?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/01/california-police-video-shooting-15-year-old-girl-savannah-graziano

HeavenlyPossum,
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@hittitezombie

Police should not be allowed

HeavenlyPossum,
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

@eatyourglory @hittitezombie

The police literally are criminals with weapons

Adam_Cadmon1, to random
@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online avatar

So basically our ancestors designed a tool so well that thousands of years later were still using that design?

I see.

HeavenlyPossum,
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

@Adam_Cadmon1

Some even older than that:

https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2013/aug/12/neanderthals-invented-tool-leather-lissoir

adamgreenfield, to random
@adamgreenfield@social.coop avatar

I’ve spent more energy than I would have liked over the past few days responding to someone here who was stanning for China, bigging up the Belt & Road initiative as a fraternal and “socialist” gift bestowed out of boundless generosity, and ascribing Han anti-Blackness to the wicked Europeans. Let’s all be crystal clear, though, that in its obliteration of Tibetan culture, in its attempted physical erasure of the Uyghur people, in its own deep, organic racism, China is an empire like any other.

HeavenlyPossum,
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@Nicovel0 @gwil @adamgreenfield

Chomsky was denying the Bosnian genocide because NATO was antagonistic to Milosevic years ago. He didn’t exactly wait until the end of his life to adopt geopolitics-as-team-sport in lieu of class analysis or liberatory politics.

HeavenlyPossum, to random
@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social avatar

Mutual aid request for @rato. Help out if you can!

https://ko-fi.com/szczursky

seachanger, to random
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Reza Aslan argues that historical Jesus is best understood as a poor, revolutionary Jew who really wanted brutal Roman occupiers (and their Jewish collaborators) the fuck out of Israel. Aslan says “Jesus was a Jew preaching Judaism to other Jews. His was a Jewish mission, one concerned exclusively with the fate of his fellow Jews.”

Aslan argues that when Jesus referred to the Kingdom of God he wanted to usher in, he was referring to a Jewish Israel free of Roman rule

HeavenlyPossum,
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@seachanger

I haven’t read Reza Aslan’s book, but it sounds like it’s in the same vein as Michael Hudson’s work situation Jesus in the historical context of Bronze Age concepts about economic justice.

Hudson argues that the jubilee—the official erasure of debts and freeing of slaves—was the foundational pillar of Brone Age economies in the near East. The Iron Age Israelites continued this tradition by encoding it as a religious obligation on all Jews, the 50-year jubilee cycle.

Jesus, he argued, was revolting to restore this tradition that had been suppressed by the Romans and their local allies. The “year of the lord” he wanted to restore was the jubilee year. And, for that, the Romans crucified him.

richpuchalsky, to random
@richpuchalsky@mastodon.social avatar

No need to feed children in camps at the border, says the Democratic administration

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/29/biden-administration-migrant-children-food

HeavenlyPossum,
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@richpuchalsky

The US and Israeli states are exchanging all kinds of ideas these days!

gerrymcgovern, to random
@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green avatar

“It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact start date, but the declining lifespan trend seems to have gathered pace continuously. It varies in terms of the make, brand and robustness, but as an estimate I would say the lifespan has gone down by 20 to 30 per cent over the last two decades.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/modern-household-appliances-hit-scrapheap-201645822.html

The smarter and more digital things become, the shorter their lives. These devices are only smart from a planned obsolescence perspective. Digital is turning everything to waste. Progress?

HeavenlyPossum,
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@gerrymcgovern

For a quick sec I thought you were talking about declining human lifespans (in places like the US)

urlyman, to random
@urlyman@mastodon.social avatar

@jackofalltrades just to say thank you for trying so hard in this thread https://mas.to/@jackofalltrades/112133626258185236

The number of people imputing things they wanted to hear, seemingly so they could accuse you, but which you didn’t say, and/or not investing any curiosity in what you did actually point them at… was quite something.

It kind of brings home just how much is functionally invisible

HeavenlyPossum,
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@jackofalltrades @urlyman @Loukas @neonsnake @RD4Anarchy

He keeps falling back on the idea that his critics are “energy blind,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. It allows him to believe that the criticisms levied against him are purely the product of naive, idealistic ignorance about energy usage and the environment, because he can’t or won’t acknowledge that his beliefs are toxic totally separate from any claim about biophysics.

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