General Politics Thread

Italian fascism and Italian futurism (and I'm specifying Italian here because it's very particular to Italy's history) both shared the same view regarding Italy needing to catch up to the other imperialist powers of Europe and strengthen itself. As much as Marinetti focused on technological progress over Mussolini's obsession with the past, they both had very sharp, overlapping views, and kind of fed into each other.

As I said they are very similar, but not the same.

I really don't think one can look at Marinetti and say he wasn't a fascist, frankly.

Well you just met one than. I mean Marinetti was in Fascist party, but left it becase he deemed them reactionary. Im *not* denying the obivious similarities between Fascism and Futurism, but Futurist obsession with future instead of past seem like rather fundamental thing.

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 26th 2022 at 9:50:00 PM

Fascism can glorify the future, too—it's just got to be one inspired by its own mythical past and superiority. There's more than enough room in there for an art movement based around technological superiority and nationalism.

As long as said art movement could be co-opted to serve the needs of the state, and there wasn't some better reason to get rid of it, then 'new' art that's in line with the state's goals is acceptable.

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Yes, fascism can glorify future. I guess a better formulation of difference between Fascism and Futurism is "Fascism glorifies past and future based on it while Futurism wants to discard past in favor of future.".

Edited by Risa123 on Jun 26th 2022 at 11:21:54 AM

Responding here to a topic from the US Politics Thread.

So you can have law enforcement without having it be a profession. You can also have an Anarchical (so non-hierarchical) Government.

Think of law enforcement as a duty rather than a job, it could be done on a rotation, by lottery or as an office you run for as a side-thing. Look at Jury Duty or unpaid/token paid local government positions that people get elected to. You’re a member of the community first, an individual second and your (very specific) duty holder third. It’s like being the person in the house who takes the bins out than a career/identity.

The example of Anarchism I lived is that of a boarding school (60-80 kids and 10-20 staff), so we had rules about bedtimes and when you had to get up, each term we would elect the Beddies Officers who would have responsibility for enforcing the bedtime rules we created as a community. Other positions like Investigators, Ombudsmen and Screen Police similarly get elected. Each with their own powers granted to them by the community (and with all uses of said power subject to appeal to the community).

A key aspect is that elections were not popularity contents, everyone viewed them as a serious duty where you made a judgment on who you felt was best for that position. Everyone also knew each candidate closely, as you lived with them and saw them daily. And everybody voted, because the person running the election would individually locate you and hand you the ballot.

I’m sure that the scaling problems with Anarchism are apparent to everyone from how I’ve described a working system.

Edited by Silasw on Jul 29th 2022 at 8:51:25 PM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

I've always understood anarchism to be the criticism of hierarchies and the abolishment of specifically unjust ones (like, say, nobility or anything unelected), rather than 'none ever no matter what'. I seldom see anyone seriously arguing that, say, a chief surgeon or a fire marshal or a film director are inherently unjust, for instance.

Edited by Chortleous on Jul 29th 2022 at 3:02:03 AM

That’s correct, I’m practise it does mean that Anarchical societies are very flat, because even a hierarchical position based on merit needs to be regularly checked to avoid it becoming one based on “well I’ve always been above you”.

That’s also a key part of specialist roles. Yes there needs to be a hierarchy between the Beddies Officer and the people they put to bed, but it existing beyond that specific context is unjust. Thus why they have no power in relation to personal disputes (Ombudsman), matters requiring investigation (Investigations Committee Members) or the enforcement of screen time rules (Screen Police).

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

The way I've seen it laid out is like...the post office.

You need a post office of some sort in any society bigger than a certain size because it becomes unreasonable to expect everyone to hand deliver everything in a community of more than, say, 200 people. If the community is small enough, you could have one person sorting and delivering the mail, or maybe one person sorting and one person delivering, that sort of thing. No hierarchy necessary. As the community gets bigger, you need more people working and the more people you have working, the harder it is to decide as a group what the routes are. Splitting a community in half or into quarters is one thing, but how do you divide a town into fifteen sections for mail delivery when the town is irregularly laid out? Having the employees elect someone periodically to figure out what the best route arrangement is would be a justified hierarchy, especially if the position lapses until the next time the routes need to be rearranged.

Not Three Laws compliant.

Most anarchists following the major thinkers like Bakunin and Kropotkin are very much of the "no unjust hierarchies" variety. But there's some wackos who go full "no hierarchies period". They generally seem to take more from Max Stirner.

Dunno where to put this, but the HKSAR government denies massive emigration due to COVID-19 rules that don't allow HK residents to return and low fertility rate.

https://hongkongfp.com/2022/07/24/mementos-of-a-vanished-hong-kong-pile-up-at-vintage-second-hand-store-amid-emigration-wave/

The article has some research done with data provided by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and showed that massive emigration is still happening.

Crossposted from the US Politics Thread: The UN is saying humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.

While i give what UN says more significance than what some randos say. It is still feels like they are enging in doomsaying which does not reflect well on them and they should certainly be very carefull about what they say.

Edited by Risa123 on Aug 2nd 2022 at 10:13:53 AM

Bluntly I think they're Right for the Wrong Reasons, given the sheer stupidity going on with Taiwan right now... that isn't even mentioned in the article. North Korea and Iran are never going to trigger a nuclear apocalypse with their tiny and (currently) nonexistent arsenals.

(IIRC we actually have a nuclear weapons and policy thread somewhere that'd be way more appropriate than this one, though. It does feel kind of like doomsaying to bring it up in a general politics thread.)

Here you go.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

Please do not insinuate that Pelosi’s visit will trigger a nuclear war.

Edited by M84 on Aug 2nd 2022 at 7:33:56 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

I mean... the chance of China deliberately starting a war is basically zero, but the chance of a miscalculation is not. Articles have reported John Kirby as suggesting one possible Chinese response might be a blockade of the Taiwan Strait; he didn't actually say that, but it's the sort of thing that could easily sound like a plausible but manageable escalation to sufficiently stupid people. And once a shooting war starts there is no guarantee that it'll stop anywhere safe - I am convinced that China's no-first-use policy is not worth the paper it's written on in terms of a similar sort of accidental escalation. It is, again, if nothing else a hell of a lot more dangerous than Iran (which TBH is likely to suffer a purely conventional attack by Israel and possibly Saudi Arabia if it looks like it's seriously going to get The Bomb.)

That said, though, by "stupidity" I more mean just the general attitude towards crisis management I'm seeing on both sides here. The biggest reason I doubt there's any real risk of war here is that the Chinese simply do not have the ability to invade Taiwan even in their best-case scenario - but this kind of brinksmanship driven more by domestic politics than a coherent strategy is not a good precedent to set for five years down the line when they might actually have that capability. (And that's assuming the US doesn't let the same Republican idiots who are one of the big problems here into power.)

Also, the article places greater focus on Russia than on North Korea or Iran anyway.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Which isn't unwarranted, given Putin's nuclear threats - but I feel like the existence of those threats pretty much means that it's next to impossible any other nuclear power will ever get openly involved in the war in Ukraine. I focus so much on the US-China stuff because it's been my belief for over a decade that it's the only real scenario where I can actually picture two nuclear powers ending up in a shooting war. (I used to think India-Pakistan was also a possibility, but honestly, while they still hate each other I kind of feel like border tensions are no longer especially high. Look how quickly that misfired rocket thing was defused.)

Thing is, you kind of come off as insensitive to Taiwanese people when you make these posts. I for one don't appreciate doomsaying about Taiwan being a catalyst for a nuclear conflict.

Edited by M84 on Aug 2nd 2022 at 8:03:15 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised

China also has, by far, the least possible to gain from a nuclear conflict out of the big nuclear powers. Like, if they somehow manage to make it through, their economy would collapse because they're dependent on everyone they just blew up being their customers. They're almost certainly never going to take any steps that could lead to a nuclear war if they can help it.

Not Three Laws compliant.

I mean, I can understand why I might give off that impression, but it's certainly not my intent: my entire position is that Taiwan is not some abstract, far-aware country of no relevance to the average American, and if I considered the Taiwanese people nothing but geopolitical pawns with no agency I'd be arguing for the US to cut ties. If anything, I think it's the single healthiest democracy in Asia; maybe healthier than the US (they both have a two-party system where one party is pretty much anti-democracy, but the KMT doesn't seem to have the GOP's structural advantages or ability to win elections, at least not since the PRC dropped the facade of not being a dystopia).

The stuff I've been saying recently about how the jaded reaction to Chinese threats actually makes those threats more dangerous is meant in regards to Washington as much as Taipei.

Again, I don't think there's been any real chance of an intentional, pre-planned nuclear war since like the 60s. The thing that keeps me up at night is unintentional escalation spirals - "they fire off one nuke at a minor target to show their resolve, we do the same back, so the stakes get upped" and so forth and so forth. Which is why my concern is about nuclear powers getting into a shooting war at all.

Edited by nrjxll on Aug 2nd 2022 at 7:27:38 AM

Wouldn't firing off nukes just to make a statement of strength require the leaders to be too far off the deep end? I don't see any nation entertain using nukes unless they are already deep in a war like with Russia. North Korea uses nuke scares but that is part of their aid maximizing diplomacy to stay afloat, if I recall, which China hardly needs. And i don't see how Russia's current situation in the war would do anything other than discourage China from getting involved in a similar war with Taiwan until they are absolutely certain it would end quickly in their favour, which isn't going to be the case for a long while if at all.

Edited by xyzt on Aug 2nd 2022 at 6:57:17 PM

We've also been going over this in the East Asia thread, for those interested.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)