/hell/ - internet death cult

>>5421
>People want stuff. There's not enough stuff.
That's where you're wrong janitor-kun

There is a 'Zen' way to affluence. If there's not enough stuff, we should limit our wants and live within our means to enjoy a simple but affluent living. But it seems many politicians are obsessed with ideas like productivity and growth and think that we can meet infinite human needs through increasing industrial productivity which necessitates more extensive exploitation of people and nature. This is futile because finite resources can never meet inexhaustible desires. I've only ever read Sahlins and know very little about economics beside him so I CTRL + V'd his shtick here.

>>5410
I don't think Engels is a good fit here. You can't really understand Marx without understanding who he was having conversations with intellectually. I guess for political economy, you'd need to read Adam Smith, and for his social theories you should look at Hegel's philosophy of history and his political theory as well as Darwin's Origin of the Species. Marx was a huge Darwin fanboy. Even sent him a signed copy of Capital.

>>5421
Since we have a economy thread, can't we have a religious studies and theology thread too? What about an anthropology and archaeology thread? Ethnomusicology?

Infinite verities of economies exist.
An economy is a goal.
Such as the goal of the ever increasing quality of a specific collective..

Quality naturally increases unless a barrier emerges and then an economy problem solves.

Some goals never end and that’s the goal.
Goodness gets ever goodder.

Hmm, I will try to respond without reading much of the replies ITT, perhaps I will repeat something but oh well. Also feel free to skip, it's NOT particularly smart or educated in any way hehe.

>Is economics a bunch of lies?
Not quite. But it IS tied into politics heavily and is based on a bunch of political beliefs. Classical economics is based on beliefs of a certain social group hehe.
Now, I think there are at least two ways of looking at economics and both are employed but at times people think economics is only one of them:
- according to the first, economics is akin to managing a factory: good and services come 'round according to a set of predetermined rules - or perhaps there are no rigid rules but the "economy" concerns itself mostly/only with the "functioning" aspect, i.e. to build a car, one needs a long list of prerequisites to be met, both in personnel qualities and the goods provided - why a car should be made is out of the question tbh (generally it's answered as "we need a device to move something from point A to point B" I guess)
Perhaps I'm bad at explaining this, but the point is we leave human motivations from doing anything out of the picture and just focus on managing goods and services. It is certainly reductionist but it's powerful in a sense if you don't master it, you actually cannot get anything done. So, when people say "let's fix the economy" I think a lot of think think like that, let's restore the functioning of the exchange machine. That "definition" of economics is free from any politics but we cannot make a functioning economy without bringing humans into picture.
(TBH perhaps I'm conflating economics and technology a bit but I am myself not sure if one can easily separate the two)
- so, according to the second, economics is humans doing favors to each other. We realize we cannot fulfill our needs by ourselves, so we use others to do our bidding, quid pro quo. So, economy is the art of making deals and related stuff. Also, economics is the way to control others, control society, economies are complex machines of social nature. Therefore it's heavily political. In fact, "favor for a favor" and "mutual exchange" are definitely not the only principles to run society by. Likewise, humans are vile and do things to distort the "fair" picture by doing clearly "unfair" things.
So with that in mind, economics is inseparable from humans which do not necessarily evePost too long. Click here to view the full text.

The body was too long

Now onto some other points
>It has been said the economists definition of rational behavior as behavior consistent with their own models, with all other behavior dubbed irrational
I think there are other ways to approach economics other than "modelling an ideal society" like classical people did, though I haven't studied them really. But yea, I would agree that whatever they teach at schools outside of heavily specialized ones seems to be kinda horrendous. I would agree that political ideologies should NOT dictate economics.
Further down you describe classical liberal economics would be my guess. Yeahhhh, there have been corrections to that, people mostly do not run "pure" liberal economies these days, but the liberal ideology is an insanely tenacious one and things like neoliberalism exist, too.
>Similarly, Trobriand islanders used to travel great distances to trade seemingly useless and valueless objects Why?
TBH I don't know why but yea, I would agree that humans are generally not rational beings. In fact, rationality is a human invention, I don't think there was any civilization other than the European/Mediterranean one which would be so stuck up at pursuing the truth. I think most civs just follow the hedonistic route, more or less. Trying to answer that question though, maybe it's the journey that matters to them more than the end goal w
>Even the whole inc*l trend was caused by people trying to apply economics to sex and relationships and its created a whole horde of delusional people
To be fair, to me incel stuff doesn't seem to be *that* out of touch with reality. As far as I know, there were certain periods of history during which certain societies all across the globe… basically treated women as livestock aka slaves and a [valuable] commodity - so, women could be traded like goods, deprived of agency and certainly be an object of economies. It is really as simple as that. So, some men want to revive it heh - I know I don't hehe. I assume the "delusion" ascribed to incels is that they can find a loving soul that way - yeaaaa, let's just say they are not necessarily looking for one, they just want a woman to fuck and dominate or something.
>Are there any good economists?
The ones concerning themselves with human nature as opposed to delusional modelling. The ones Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

ive been a neet with no job for over 20 years, i win.

The keys to the internet is a turf war.
The opponent is the utmost vaguely slightest associated forces of the rejected singularity. Intolerance/standards makes girls stronger.

My singularity is absolute girl power.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xsPtUNB1z-Q

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fGALcE5BD4U

My singularity files all assessments of even the slightest multiversal conflict and creates infinite verities of compilements to be assessed by unanimously agreed upon vastest verity of assessors. And puts volunteer girls to sift and sort and create, giving volunteer girls authority&power to design our singularities multiverse.





girl volunteers
sift
girl volunteers
so each has
the
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>5427
I feel often the most important conflicts to solve are the ones at the outer most rim of an issue. For example many issues can be linked to the massive Queen wars of the past.





girls who think of these utmost petty slightest grifts are of
the most powerful people ever..

>>5370
Because working, attaining wealth but lacking a true calling in life is the greatest hell of all.

>>5366
I'm in the same boat, so I'll jot here what I write for myself:

What do you mean by "the most out of life"? If money, be involved in business. If helping, go volunteer. If learning, read smart books and ask smart people. If laughing, visit a club or show.

If you don't know, that's great! There's truth in "I know that I know nothing." But don't let humility stop you from wandering around! It's a wonderful life :)

>>5366
It's a bit hard to say without knowing anything else about your interests, but I think travel tends to be a good thing for anyone with the energy and means to do so. Go places with a mind to have an adventure, even if that adventure is just a stroll in the park and finding lunch somewhere. Pack light and maybe stop at some interesting roadside attractions. Humans make loads of weird stuff and it is all out there somewhere.

Buy some land out in the middle of nowhere and build a rehabilitation center for NEETs.

Send your money to me and you will earn my gratitude. And that, my soon-to-be friend, is priceless.

>>5189
Was it ever not one?

>A vpn keeps you sushi rollymous on the internet.
no, the ones you see in sponsors just log your data to either sell or to give up in a subpoena
>It bypasses any school, home, office or country blocker.
unless they block it
It keep you un-banned from any website.
that's what i thought too until album art exchange blocked my IP for going there with a vpn
>It keeps the government from spying on your internet activity.
no it doesn't, they either buy it or steal it from the vpn company if they log activity
>It allows you to view region locked content from anywhere in the world.
this is one advantage of a vpn other than changing your ip

>>560
>It keep you un-banned from any website.
in my experience it basically keeps you banned by default, or relegates you to being a third class citizen and harasses you with endless captchas to do anything

>>5187
>I use RiseUp VPN
I wouldn't rely on free VPN's for privacy but I haven't heard anything bad about RiseUp.
>Complete sushi rollymity depends on your software and your mindset
This should be the default mindset. Too many people look for software to set and forget for sushi rollymity.
>There's a lot of guides to increase your sushi rollymity online
https://spyware.neocities.org/
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/index.xhtml
There are much more but those are the two good ones I can think of right now

>try a vpn
>it slows down my internet to a crawl
>videos buffering to the point they're unwatchable
>images load like they're on dial-up
>some websites outright break or auto-ban anyone with a vpn
never again

>>5332
apologies if this gets a bit political/uncomfy but

my mum has become radicalised by twitter, facebook and youtube in the past few months and i absolutely hate it. it has turned her into a really bitter, ignorant, perpetually angry/outraged person, and i don't think she even realises it. she's constantly complaining and fearmongering about immigrants, trans people, etc despite hardly ever interacting with them irl. she's stuck in a massive echo chamber, believing damn near everything she sees online and not even willing to change her mind on a lot of things. it's almost always american culture-war crap too, which has very little relevance to our country.

even when she's not watching political slop, she's watching videos of paedophiles getting busted, or celeb gossip about scientology or whatever. obviously these things are more justified, but there's still that underlying misery/negativity behind them if that makes sense ("this guy was trying to groom kids", "this actor is in a cult and abuses his family", etc.). like she doesn't really watch anything innocent or harmless (eg: cat videos or something), it's always something negative, something outrageous, something involving someone to look down upon and feel better about herself, however justified or unjustified that may be. if that makes sense, idk.

i think the worst part is that she still has good intentions, that she's still a good person at heart. like i don't think she genuinely hates immigrants or trans people or whatever, but her concerns (however valid or invalid) are being exploited by professional outrage merchants and grifters who actually *are* legitimately racist/transphobic/etc, and that she's too naive to realise it.

idk where i'm going with this but i just absolutely hate social media and how quickly it has changed her, with zero signs of stopping. i can't even bear to look at her sometimes because it just makes me sad, and i don't know what to do about it. at least my dad feels the exact same way so i have someone to vent about it with, but my god it's depressing. can anyone else relate to this?

>>5347
My aunt believes in psychic aliens. I don't need to interact with her tho. Also, I believe AI development poses an existential threat, but I think that is warranted since AI experts also believe it now.

Relatedly, AI optimizing for engagement is stoking bad vibes…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/

It's probably going to get worse. I don't know what to do about it, but start guarding your focus more diligently is a good idea. Keep a focus journal and write about the kinds of ideas you want to engage with and spend time on, and if you notice you are spending significant time focused on other things, it might be an issue. Maybe tell your mom you are worried she is spending an unhealthy amount of time focusing on things she hates in a really unproductive way.

I saw a discussion on some other site that said racism should be allowed because it isn't really the same as hurting another person. After all, these are just words and you know sticks and stones right? Liberals have a "no harm" principal but their idea of harm is very narrow. They only see non-consensual damaging of property as harmful, of course the body is someone's property according to Locke and therefore sucker punching a guy is really nothing more than unlawful property damage. When you yell the n word on the street, nobody's property rights are being enfringed on. After all, nobody owns the sidewalk right? Heh (this is actually not true). Hence, as distasteful and offensive yelling insults at blacks or trans or bald people is, its not actually harmful unless it falls under libel or you're doing it inside a classroom or a private place where its not allowed. But this contradicts the experiences of everyday people. At somepoint in our lives, we've all felt hurt by something somebody has said to us e.g. being told your brother was killed by a Tesla car, getting rejected, getting fired, being called a subhuman etc.

Because we don't see words as harmful we end up throwing it on the injured person. Its not anyone's fault if you're offended, you just need to toughen up and know words can't hurt you. The consequences of this narrow idea of harm are open to see. Western civilization is the only place in human history were randomly insulting others is seen as a good thing and pushing someone to suicide is perfectly legal. In Edo Japan, insulting someone could result in loosing your head, getting into a massive fight or being whipped by the county magistrate for being a dick. The internet just took this permissive Western attitude and accelerated it. Most websites have this "no harm principal" ideology where mocking someone isn't considered harm and if you let humans be cruel and make it a virtue they will crank it up to the max. Its no wonder that ZOMG where are teh ruelz 4chan became the hellscape it is.

Back in the 70s, gays had this retarded permissive culture of mass orgies and having tons of sex with random strangers in bathhouses, like 30 a night. Then AIDS hit and they screamed and refused to close down the whore houses or change their behavior. It got dozens of them (and other people) killed. Today they accept virtually no responsibility, it was all Reagan's fault or bisexuals did it or blame the Africans for shooting chimps in the Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>5350
>Western civilization is the only place in human history were randomly insulting others is seen as a good thing and pushing someone to suicide is perfectly legal.
I got some bad news for you if you truly believe that. Not saying its not a problem, but its a worldwide problem not limited to just the west. In Japan, people are often bullied harshly, especially kids, to the point of suicide and in some case outright murder. The teachers will either not care or cover it up to protect the school's reputation. This isn't a problem that stops only at school either, jobs in Japan are notorious for shaming people outright, underhandedly mocking or subverting people, or if they don't want to fire them (due to workplace culture) but want them gone they will put you in rooms with the most menial labour possible until you quit. It's a far cry from Edo-era Japan that we are taught about. In the middle east and Africa there are humiliation rituals done on people. And Asia has plenty of horror stories of people just being outright twats (mainland china is particularly aggressively hostile to commoners and foreigners alike).
Where the west differs, however, is that there is a weird sense of morality attached to being a dickhead. "Don't care, didn't ask, plus you're white", "I don't like foreigners invading my country", "Trans people are ruining the country", "Black fatigue" etc etc
The west seems to know that this sort of behavior is shunned but justifies it with moralistic values to get away with it. You see this on twitter on the time. It's not just because they don't like the person, its because their views are "corny" or they are an external characteristic that they can't control and that external characteristic has "history" to the abuser. It's almost like the west has a toddler-like mentality of trying to abuse others but explain to their mother that it was okay they did it. Nobody truly accepts their own accountability but lops the accountability on famous people, ecelebs, political figureheads, etc for a culture that the average person had a part in making.

https://youtu.be/FOGSUSW98eI
https://youtu.be/Azms2-VTASk
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>5351
Well yeah, America has spread its values to the world. Pretty much every country on earth is influenced by liberal principals that go back to Locke and are baked into the legal system and capitalist property regime. Japanese can be pretty bad but they aren’t as overt and aggressive as Americans.

>It's a far cry from Edo-era Japan that we are taught about. In the middle east and Africa there are humiliation rituals done on people.
Humiliation rituals were passed as a legal punishment for crimes and misdeeds, not on the innocent. They were designed to knock a person down a peg by hurting their pride and reputation. Generally, in Asia there were strong cultures of honor so slight insults can and did cause serious fights and feuding. Insulting a person was a criminal offense in many places. In Islamic law, you can be whipped for calling a woman a slut or insulting a Jew and one Chinese emperor had a magistrate executed for hate speech against Huis. Non-European cultures tended not to separate signs from meanings, they often attributed power to symbols (good example: talismans) and literally believed words could cause physical harm (hence taboos on witchcraft, songs to cure sickness or demanding prayers as a civic duty) whereas we think words are just air.

>Where the west differs, however, is that there is a weird sense of morality attached to being a dickhead.
A popular character archetype in Western pop culture is a guy who’s a blunt asshole and gives no fucks, the bad ass. But it’s always reasoned away that his opponents deserved it so he’s a tough good asshole who’s beating up the right people. e.g. Kiefer Sutherland in 24 has no redeemable qualities. All he does is torture people but he’s torturing the right people (bad guys) so he’s a good torturer. This brings up another disturbing side to Western culture, the way they paint certain groups as irredeemably evil subhumans and so anything, no matter how sickening, can be done to punish them for their sins. You see this in online mobs where these people claim to be avenging some injustice, but then stoop to the same lows as the people they attack.

And then vibes like this and Kill6BillionDemons