I don’t think I should severe the connection based on ideology either. The dude isn’t malicious, just edgy. It doesn’t bother me a whole much. While I don’t know the details of your conundrum, it feels that yours warranted the snipping.

Without me reacting to his non-funny stuff, he selfreflects on being nasty. I am not the thought police, so I don’t feel like it’s my duty to make an example, or have a fight on ideology. We do talk about it. I hear the usual spiel about grooming. I try and give credence to his worries, then come back to my point of view and try to take away stuff that makes sense.

To give you a concrete example: he made me realize an underlying flaw in my ideal: I am looking at the picture through lenses. Like how I think people will react differently to some ideal of mine, if only they understood the common win is best for us all. He helped me see the situation as it is. Or at least brought my thoughts from the clouds closer to the ground.

Of course we have to stand up against maliciousness, but when race, gender and so many other things are hot topic buttons, the shitty comedians are making a splash. I feel humor is a great latmus test. We need humor to digest all the info we are being bombarded with.

Just as an example: there is a ghibli imagine going around about the George Floyd murder. Both situations are so fucking scary in themselves (police brutality + advanced ML) and someone generated an incredibly offensive image that was so wrong that it got a chuckle from me. Taken at face value, even I can be easily called a racist (which I might be too, but just in denial). I am writing all this in hope to show that we are mostly gradients and not extremes. How I would be denying myself of an otherwise good friend. And while this is not a reason to stay friends, severing based on value signalling might entrench him in further stereotypes (that I happily played into).

Again, I can’t contrast it against your situation, as I can totally imagine the negativity in your case. And while I understand how a lot of edgy humor is just a front for being openly racist, and he may even help in a Holocaust 2.0, but he is not actively craving that or working to make it happen. Maybe my building bridges philosophy is also faulty, but I can’t live in a world where I have to pay attention who would kill me in a worst case scenario. If we vibe, we vibe. If he’s an asshole, I either call him out, or let it hang akwardly in the air, like bird shit.

Let’s hope what replaces it is as much of an improvement.

I say we’re doing one better than ‘just’ hoping it. Talking about it and articulating modern needs lets others learn new ideas and maybe find some social structure.

I think I understand what you mean about the shattered zeitgeist (or social cohesion maybe?). One of my friends is leaning heavy into one of my lesser favored narratives, and he sends me lots of jokes that boarder being edgy (like racist n such), but sometimes actually being quite funny. He’s a close friend who casually said he’d have no quarrel if the nazis took over. What can I do? Cut him off based on philosophy? Teach him his wrong ways? So far just asking questions helped me understand more about my view. And as far as his shitty racist jokes go, I don’t send a pity smiley. That’s the best I have for now.

the zeitgeist has fractured

I’d argue it’s being diluted by noise. There have always been conflicting narratives. History is so hard to untangle (for me at least), because most of us come out a bit brainwashed from the system.

I think we are seeing the ends of the safeties this form of democracy has to provide. We are all in it together, everyone hallucinating to some extent. The big difference today is that you don’t talk about tv around the watercooler. You send cat pics and talk about Will Smith AI spaghetti videos, digitally or in meat space.

The problem usually isn’t lack of shared context, I believe, especially when we have so much in our pockets. It’s signal dilution with some plain old ill-intent under the hood (i.e. ‘advanced’ marketing).

I was debating using the word at all, I just wanted to point out how I interpreted the message. The only reason I dared use it, is that you picked up this thread in a gentler tone (which just confirmed that you are not pushing agenda).

As I mentioned to our colleague in this thread, I do want to dip my toes in the basics of dialectic materialism, so excuse me if all of this has been discussed to the bone. I understand how we are (also) products of our surrounding, and matter can shape mind. My main argument here is that we also shape matter. So the direction goes both ways. If I am not convinced of my truth, I shall be swayed, thus I have to make sure that when I speak, I speak the truth to the best of my knowledge. If I have hangups, I might push for something faulty. Something that based on my perspective should be a natural part of life, a given, but is actually just a neurosis. So you are definitely picking up the vibes that I see the solution at home.

Anyhow, thank you for getting back to me. I’d love to discuss the topic further, but maybe I’m not ready for a proper debate of (or devil’s advocating against) communism.

Hey, I’m kinda in the middle of trying to dismantle my illusions, so if you can point out inconsistencies, please do.

So the gun advice immediately sent me down this doomsday path in my mind, where it makes sense to hoard medication and vitamins. Also it has a feeling of call to a standing army. I might also be terminally pacifistic and feel that a few dogs and floodlights can take care of most defense in all but the most dire of situations. You are right in that I would rather see comrades armed than the current governmental security agents, but I don’t trust that much power to really anyone. The idea feels weird that they can end an argument very quickly if they wanted to. I don’t want to live in a world, where we need to keep and use weapons to feel safe.

Why do you say that power corrupting doesn’t exist? I guess I haven’t seen any papers on the matter, but it does seem to be ingrained into our common psyche. On the solarpunk subreddit we were talking about how the finite game will always win out on the infinite one. I know corruption isn’t insant and there is a combo where we can have a common win, but that seems heavily in the idealistic territories.

One of my main arguments is some pop-psych, which states it is easier to fight for your truth than to live it. It feels like a time to collectively get our shit together at home and bring that to the streets. I know communism is about equal rights as well, so someone who grew up in an abusive relationship will find that natural and search for that feeling. If things are not tip-top at home, we will have some elements in the collective that will bring destruction.

I know society is set up to hang societal problems on the individual, but if I’m looking at the big picture, I feel the total opposite of empowered. It seems the most power I have is over my own decisions, and the best I can do is reign in my emotions and concentrate of me not sabotaging myself. There is probably great literature out there that deals with my exact dilemma, but I have yet to read it.

And just as a side not, in our original discussion I kinda felt waved away and talked down to. I am definitely prone to victimization, but the triggers are coming from the world. You are right that more literature on the subject at hand would do me wonders, but being sympathetic (and not totally unknowledgable) to the cause, it made me wonder if I’m talking to a tankie.

The system definitely encourages and rewards explotation, but why do people do it at all? Will this behaviour stop if we penalize it? Or just gently teach the children after the bloody revolution?

How do we get past the notion of power corrupting people? All I’m arguing is that communism is not an outright solution for society.

I promise to read up on dialectic materialism, but the end of link you sent mentions getting a gun. That’s just bad advice.

I genuinely don’t know what you mean by Communism requiring everyone to “act in good faith.”

What if someone doesn’t adhere to ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’? We can go and imagine a real utopia, but there are very real ways it can go wrong and the system will have trouble handling it.

The main thing I am arguing though, is that communism doesn’t really account for imperfect behaviour. At the moment, no one system does.

The problem wasn’t with communism. It is a great ideal that we can keep in a back pocket comes time to build something new.

I still feel the crux of our problem is human behaviour. I know democracy isn’t really working out for us, but it seems to be the hardest system to hack. Of course it’s not impossible as seen in the US (and Hungary, for an interesting example), but it’s definitely harder to buy up and/or convince a majority.

We definitely have to find something better, but my main problem with (my imagined) communistic ideal is that almost every actor needs to be good faith in it, otherwise it dystopes.

Which rule? The adult content one? I’d argue the politics side is the 18+ content, not the drawn nudity.

I haven’t checked OP’s history, but lots of people love to vent and are, on occasion, wrong. In this clickbait world, I am actively trying to avoid suspecting malicious intent.

You might be totally right, I just usually don’t block anyone. Wouldn’t it be more better for the common good if you keep an eye out for OP’s posts in your feed and call them out next time this feeling comes up again?