Posts by bluemason3

gentlerider7 said:I guess that’s exactly why people find his stuff so damn entertaining to read.

To each their own.😁

gentlerider7 said:Look, I get that there's definitely a religious undertone to any kind of utopian thinking, but I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing.

I mean, Freud argues that back in the day, during the early Enlightenment, having an anti-religious stance and focusing on a rational, technical mindset actually had its perks since it helped shake off the Church's grip, but nowadays? He suggests that kind of logic is basically just used to defend the status quo of the dominant ideology (you know, neoliberal capitalism).

Just another "philosopher" pretending to be an economics "expert"? 😁

On top of that, his work in psychology falls into that pseudo-scientific rambling category. Honestly, he’s irrelevant in his own field, let alone in this one.

Andrew Booth29 said:It's actually even more interesting that Ricardo laid this all out back in 1817 with his principle of comparative advantage. That’s a massive blow to Marx... honestly, it's incredible how that mentally stunted slacker managed to churn out such a massive tome on Capital when he clearly didn't grasp what he was even writing about. lol.
Marxism is essentially just a 19th-century version of a conspiracy theory. Not that those didn't exist before, of course.

The 'Labor Party' syndrome. I honestly can't decide if I'd rather listen to cultural studies professors and linguists lecture me on the economy and the tax code, or some dim-witted pop singers trying to explain immunology.😳

gentlerider7 said:And honestly, isn't that exactly what utopianism is? Just this endless, desperate striving to overcome our own biological limitations (you know, that whole thing the Hegelians call "progressing toward consciousness of freedom")

So, we're looking at a sort of pseudo-religious delusion here.🙂

It all sounds great on paper, until people get carried away and try to force these grand visions into reality without any grounding.😁

In practice, we've seen how sending experts and doctors out to rural areas often ends up wrecking everything from local clinics to public schools and agricultural programs. Just brilliant.😬

gentlerider7 said:So, just imagine for a second—what if we weren't actually aiming for this kind of community at all? What if our whole damn goal was just to see how little we could get away with doing while still hanging around? Like, what if the ultimate mission was basically just finding new, creative ways to slack off and master the art of being completely useless? Can you even picture that? Just a bunch of us sitting around, dodging responsibilities and perfecting the craft of doing absolutely nothing while everyone else does the heavy lifting... honestly, wouldn't that be something?

If you want more time to slack off, you have to make work hyper-efficient just so you can get it over with faster.

Plus, life is inherently competitive. Dreaming about a non-competitive society is like dreaming about having superpowers—it’s outside the realm of what’s even theoretically possible.

But I suppose this kind of delusional utopianism is just a materialistic substitute for religion, so expecting it to actually happen is probably asking too much.

Telling Peter he needs a side hustle is pointless—he’d probably end up doing it anyway. If cleaning is his main gig, it just means he lacks the skills or the drive to aim higher.

Maybe he could rotate between the coal mine and the restroom.

Another issue, which makes that Marxist quote sound pretty idiotic, is specialization. I can DIY almost anything a plumber or a mason can do at my house, but it might take me all weekend to finish what they wrap up in an hour. That works fine for home projects or hobbies, but on a societal level, it’s inefficient. It wastes labor and produces inferior results, eventually making a community less functional and less competitive. Specialization and trade work much better than everyone trying to do everything poorly. Ignoring that because of some ideological fantasy is just counterproductive.

Joseph Bailey41 said:If Joe Biden's only skill is cleaning toilets, I'm starting to doubt his mental state.

Maybe we should just crack him open to see where the short circuit happened? 🤔

He’ll probably end up studying philosophy and cultural studies.

gentlerider7 said:I don't even think job rotation is some kind of necessity—that was some other group's idea anyway—but if we're talking about doing things by choice, then yeah, that's entirely up to the individual. There's that famous quote from Marx:

"In a communist society, where no one has a single exclusive sphere of activity, but every one can carry out any activity he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus still permits me to do one thing in the morning, another in the afternoon, and a third in the evening; to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and tend cattle in the evening; to criticize after dinner, precisely what I please, without ever becoming a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critic."

Turns out that high-society type was an even bigger idiot than I originally thought.

ruggedraven36 said:That isn't the key to progress. Real progress comes from evolving our consciousness regarding freedom.

And by cranking up this vibrational energy to a density of 5...👍

ruggedraven36 said:We already live in a society driven by greed and ego—it’s not exactly a blueprint for progress. What you're describing is some kind of utopia. People who are purely motivated by their bank accounts or social standing? They aren't the ones building a better world. They're just maintaining the status quo.

That's a bit different from the people who'd want to swap out surgeons for garbage collectors, or somehow turn someone without an education into a pilot. Specialization, trade, and the monetization of labor have been the backbone of human progress since the Stone Age—starting with simple barter, obviously. There’s nothing utopian about being foolish.

Amanda Flores88 said:Honestly, the only real difference between those "men's jobs" and "women's jobs" is that the guys actually get paid better. Even when you're talking about pro football players. 😛

Men watch more sports, and frankly, more men are high-level athletes. I doubt models make more than... well, let's just say certain other professions.

The difference is also that women tend to avoid the grit. They aren't interested in blood, sanitation, or oil rigs. Risk-taking in business isn't really their thing either. They'd rather stay in an office and complain about their manicure being ruined.

Amanda Flores88 said:You totally forgot those pathetic pro football players. ☕

That’s a non sequitur.
And there you have it—our answer to why there aren't enough women in philosophy departments.

Sam Martinez9 said:Women.

It’s the same pattern we've seen throughout history. Women handle the cooking, change the diapers, care for aging parents, tend the garden, clean out the barns, scrub the toilets... and the list goes on.

Sure, sanitation workers, sewage crews, and miners are all women too. Just because they enjoy complaining about it doesn't mean they aren't stuck doing the absolute worst jobs out there. ☕

Physical labor will probably shrink anyway thanks to automation, and since utopias don't exist, there's really no point in chasing them.

Communes fail because, by definition, they're just escapist clubs for naive idiots who can't adapt.

Though, they're still slightly less idiotic than those (former) socialists who thought they could just rotate tasks and split everything up equally among everyone.

Casey Bennett said:Is the mod picking their nose with their left hand while clicking delete with their right? Or is it the other way around, depending on their preference? That’s my only theory, but then you have to wonder how the thread starter knows the mod is picking their nose while deleting posts.

Only a woman would immediately associate a one-handed obscene act with nose-picking.🕺 😁

stormytiger4 said:None of you guys actually get him. Deleting a post can be pretty gross.
I’ll give you an example to make it clear.

Back when I was a kid, there were these VHS tapes floating around featuring German adult comedies about Heidi. They were pornographic, sure, but they were basically comedies because of how ridiculous they made life in those Alpine villages look. The main character was, predictably, getting busy with everyone. In haylofts, behind tractors... you name it.
Anyway, a sophisticated doctor from Venice once visited their village. While he was busy with her, you could tell it was different—more refined, more dignified. But to make sure nobody missed what was happening, the narrator dropped this gem: "Nobody has ever bedded our Heidi quite that gallantly."

🤣🤣🤣

Usually, we’re talking about the three jewels of dharma. Shastra is essentially a subgenre of literature, primarily within Hinduism. You find some versions in Mahayana Buddhism too, though they aren't considered foundational texts there. And obviously, when people mention this, they aren't referring to general heresy that just leads you astray; they mean specific Buddhist BDS frameworks. 🧐 😬 🤣

As for the second point, there's two sides to it. On one hand, humans are tribal creatures. We feel good being part of a group, and those communities bond through shared myths, taboos, rituals, and the like. The tighter the connection within the group, the "stronger" we feel.

On the other hand, that same thing traps us in an ideological and social bubble. It makes us feel alienated from the rest of society, heightens our biases against outside ideas, and ultimately stunts our ability to think critically.

What souls? 😁

Just finished my stint in the service. It was an interesting experience, sure, but I’ve lost all interest in playing along with those fake family dynamics and little "tribal" cliques. I’ll leave that nonsense to the next generation of naive kids who haven't figured out how the world works yet. 😁

Sure, cults are actually pretty useful if you want to keep certain myths alive in the long run. 😳

Eric Newman75 said:Look, you can't really blame a philosopher when science is still playing catch-up to their intuition. I mean, what else could they realistically do? Build an electron microscope just to prove a molecular structure? The point is, if the idea is solid, it serves its purpose. If that spark of insight lights a fire under some scientist, then mission accomplished.

The Big Bang was just an idea once, too. Lemaître, Gamow, Alpher... they sketched out the model, and then Bohr, Hubble, and a whole crowd of others stepped up to provide the proof. Everyone chips in a little piece of the puzzle. In fields this complex, there’s no such thing as being 100% right from the jump.

Science isn't lagging, nor does it depend on philosophers. Visionaries will always churn out a mountain of different theories, and atomism popped up everywhere else, too (like ancient India). It's just pure speculation.

Their version of atomism is about as useful as believing in dragons—completely irrelevant.

Before the Big Bang was ever confirmed, it was just a theoretical way to explain certain astronomical observations. Ancient "atomism" was nothing more than speculative rambling without any actual foundation.

We shouldn't fall into the trap of projecting modern knowledge backward in time. That's just the same cognitive bias toward selective interpretation and confirmation bias that fuels conspiracy theories and other delusions.

Eric Newman75 said:Look, there’s zero proof that guys like Leucippus or Democritus actually relied solely on logic when they were breaking the world down into atoms. In epistemology, rationalism inherently involves intuition too. It’s the same story with their rivals, starting from Parmenides and moving forward. Most of their actual writings didn't survive, but we can usually tell from other historical sources whether they were actually onto something or just spinning their wheels.

True, which is why they were mostly just talking nonsense, too. Their guesses—driven by poor epistemology—aren't any more accurate than anyone else's. They just happened to land somewhat near what we know today purely by luck, though they aren't even close to being truly correct.

The real question is this: do I hang onto these literary relics from my "years of stupidity" to spread the nonsense, or should I just toss them in the trash? 😁