The battle of sarcastic creek rages.
Do not go gentle into that goodnight, rage, rage against the dying of the sarcasm.
Fully Automated Luxury Communism by Aaron Bastani – a manifesto for the future
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The battle of sarcastic creek rages.
Do not go gentle into that goodnight, rage, rage against the dying of the sarcasm.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Prevent literature speaks of the threat of the extreme left. No better way to negate that threat than to bore its adherents into submission with half arsed arguments about human nature.
Nobody ever made these arguments before. Thinkers like marx and Rousseau never took on simplistic tosh like this so it's a good job we have Donald here imo
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Are you trying to groom me now?
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
Who could resist wanting to brush your luscious strawberry-scented mane?
Not at all ... but I have two cute puppies if you like to stroke them.
SpackleFrog
Smash showy bell-bottom pants and sporty haircuts
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
The dirty old rotter.
Sweet FA
✪ Three rounds Lord, in my .44 ✪
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
petee
no gods, no malarkey
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
From what I can remember it was mainly about technology, the various crises facing capitalism and... social democracy, mixed economies etc.
I will probably read the book. As a slogan FALC is an interesting attempt at rebranding communism as optimistic and utopian rather than bureaucratic and dystopian.
I just don’t think there is much behind it except over excited tech-journalism and an attempt at making the Labour Party seem more avant garde and funky than it actually is (ditto “acid corbynism”).
I might be wrong. Bastani might be really annoying and also have something interesting to say over and above this string of buzzwords.
It reminds me of those 90s tech magazines Mondo 2000 and Boing Boing. How the internet and smart drugs would herald a new world of emancipatory possibilities. For many of us the new world is an in box full of emails that need answering or shared files that need amending or copy for a website that needs proofing or whatever.
I will probably read the book. As a slogan FALC is an interesting attempt at rebranding communism as optimistic and utopian rather than bureaucratic and dystopian.
I just don’t think there is much behind it except over excited tech-journalism and an attempt at making the Labour Party seem more avant garde and funky than it actually is (ditto “acid corbynism”).
I might be wrong. Bastani might be really annoying and also have something interesting to say over and above this string of buzzwords.
It reminds me of those 90s tech magazines Mondo 2000 and Boing Boing. How the internet and smart drugs would herald a new world of emancipatory possibilities. For many of us the new world is an in box full of emails that need answering or shared files that need amending or copy for a website that needs proofing or whatever.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
I think there's an angle to be explored around psychology and the mental health of humanity if the FALC thing has legs. If everything is easy to obtain and produce and luxury loses any real meaning (a big 'if' but that's something else) the FALC optimist says we'll then have full lives of creativity and leisure, but maybe for well-being humans actually need a bit of struggle and some difficulties?
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
seventh bullet
sovietwave
It's a little bit Star Trek. I am going to get shit from some people in a minute but bear with me. ST isn't communist as we might see it but it's a future utopia where various problems and ills of capitalism are quaint aspects of the past. Of course we see the cool people doing cool stuff that's 'important' and fulfilling. Products of human possibility and purpose in a more collaborative post-scarcity world society where potential can be reached further than previously thought, on earth at least. But then, we don't see the lives of those still stuck cleaning the toilets...
no-no
Small robot you know
No one cleans the toilet, they can beam the shit out of the toilet, christ they can just beam the shit out of your body. Picard doesn't poo, he just says "energise"
seventh bullet
sovietwave
Well, it's less to do with the actual role I used but the labour that is still to do, from 'saving the day' and being fucking awesome to more menial tasks, what it means in relation to all labour, it's nature has been transformed under new social organisation sure, not just technological, but...
Before cantsin knee-jerked earlier, the Soviet example, although falling far short in reality, saw quite rightly that equality does not mean uniformity but rather everyone has the ability to realise their own potential and particular abilities and talents to the fullest. The promised abundance with mechanisation and stewarding capitalism within a compressed timescale to 'develop the productive forces' in order to reach 'socialism' and then onwards to the whole world, would also see universal access to a new system of polytechnic education and training allowing all citizens, no matter their individual abilities to move from one form of fulfilling labour (and leisure) to another throughout their lives, if they so chose to.
Before cantsin knee-jerked earlier, the Soviet example, although falling far short in reality, saw quite rightly that equality does not mean uniformity but rather everyone has the ability to realise their own potential and particular abilities and talents to the fullest. The promised abundance with mechanisation and stewarding capitalism within a compressed timescale to 'develop the productive forces' in order to reach 'socialism' and then onwards to the whole world, would also see universal access to a new system of polytechnic education and training allowing all citizens, no matter their individual abilities to move from one form of fulfilling labour (and leisure) to another throughout their lives, if they so chose to.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
This is a 90 minute video you are asking people to watch, you should at least summarise some key points.
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
This may be covered by the FALC arguments, but one point I can think of that is partially supportive of part of the idea is the massive increases in productivity we have already seen - aside from housing, which has been corrupted by asset bubbles, we spend a *tiny* amount of total economic value on covering the bare essentials of life (albeit in terms of individual budgets this is not always the case).
Had things gone differently, we could have been working very short weeks already, or at least spending much of our time in activities with a lot more immediate human value, even if we still put it under the umbrella of “work”.
Had things gone differently, we could have been working very short weeks already, or at least spending much of our time in activities with a lot more immediate human value, even if we still put it under the umbrella of “work”.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Any attempt at giving transformative class politics and its end game of a classless society the positive hopeful vision & perception it should have, rather than its dour, brutal, pious, miserable (and primarily leninist) image is a good thing tbf.
Will read the book at some point - my background knowledge of the author and those circles is that its unlikely to be much of a break with 20c socialism in its ML and SD forms but who knows maybe I'll be surprised
Will read the book at some point - my background knowledge of the author and those circles is that its unlikely to be much of a break with 20c socialism in its ML and SD forms but who knows maybe I'll be surprised
ska invita
back on the other side
Jumping the gun a lot with that concern I think
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I think we could be reasonably sure that even without 'work' and capitalist alienation, we'd still find ways to struggle and face some difficulties pretty easily.
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
We’d also make up new difficulties for ourselves. Possibly even engineering artificial scarcity (thinking exploration and trips into wildernesses etc. - those ways we like to ditch the creature comforts and challenge ourselves).
Less healthily, we’re very good at creating another kind of artificial scarcity. Any good can be segmented in a manner that creates distinctions - think ‘luxury goods’, VIP areas at clubs, backstage access to events, just about anything involving the word “exclusive”, the unattainable worlds of “Instagram influencers”.
Scarcity doesn’t go away when it is so easy to just make more of it.
cantsin
Well-Known Member
fair comment, will do so in the week
HoratioCuthbert
Deep seated inconsequence
I thought Fully Automated Luxury Space Communism was just a daft meme!
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