The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy.3. If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.
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The Dirtbag Left Indigo Soup

Recently I’ve been listening to the podcast TrueAnon, which does leftist cultural commentary/ conspiracy shit. The hosts are self-proclaimed members of the “Dirtbag Left”. Wikipedia calls the Dirtbag Left “a style of left-wing politics that eschews civility to convey a left-wing populist and anti-capitalist message using vulgarity”. I have some thoughts.

Here’s my optimistic take on the Dirtbag Left: Liberalism is a fucking parasite; political correctness and gallantry are just extensions of of their grubby little fingers keeping the wool pulled squarely over our eyes. Times are dire, we’re living in a functional dystopia, and a little vulgarity is the least of our worries. See, optimistic!

I’m sympathetic to this. Liberalism picks the most fucking STUPID hills to die on, usually in the name of civility. Like why the hell is “pronouns matter” the beginning, middle, and end of gender discourse. People have the best intentions at heart, but all it achieves is distracting from any sort of actual progress (this is a whole different rant, I hate hate “pronouns matter”). But anyways, “pronouns matter” and other slogans of the politically correct libs, are bandaids on amputated limbs. I feel as though I, and everyone around me, has been systematically trained against critical thought, and a realization thereof of course makes me want to throw all of this “civility” bullshit to the wind.

Here’s my pessimistic take on the Dirtbag Left: It’s a pathetic defense mechanism that ultimately encourages apathy and inaction. Oh and also it’s reserved for those who aren’t actually suffering at the hands of what they are critiquing. As I listen to TrueAnon and other Dirtbag Left media (see Chapo Trap House and Red Scare (oh don’t even get me started on Red Scare I hate those motherfuckers)) I get the sense that this Dirtbag Left identity is this signaling mechanism, making sure that everybody knows that they’re not like these woke snowflake liberals. No no no, they’re cool. They don’t care about political correctness or civility… but sometimes it seems like they don’t care about anything at all. In a desperate effort to be seen as cool and edgy, they accidentally distance themselves from the whole project they’re supposedly subscribed to. A leftist in concept only isn’t really a leftist at all. I do think that an important prerequisite is caring about something, for god’s sake.

And that’s the other thing. This level of apathy seems only attainable to certain people. Certain podcast hosts for example, who live comfortable lives that make this kind of apathy pretty easy. And yeah yeah yeah one of the TrueAnon hosts was a heroin addict turned YPG volunteer soldier. But now he runs a podcast that pulls in $136,600 a month on Patreon, so.

I am bored of wokism just as much as the next guy. But I'm bored first and foremost because it just distracts from any real goal. I am also bored by it because it’s lame, but if you lead with that in mind, you end up with apathy. I guess I think that leftism isn’t really supposed to be cool.

Okay there’s ramble number one. It was pretty vague because I get really stressed when I have to describe things that I believe. I am forced to admit that I go off of vibes just as much as the next guy. Goodbye for now

Postscript: I just read this back and I used the word hate a lot and so I changed some of the hates to other words. I do not want to be a hater. I will try to make the next one more positive. Finn if you are reading this I only realized I was being a Debby Downer because you are always on me about it so thank you and fuck you.

1/16/2025


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