This is really excellent and timely as I'm essentially making the same argument in a response to a piece on communist strategy. I'll make sure to reference and send on, I'd very much welcome your thoughts.
Hey Alexander, I didn't make as much reference to this aspect as originally thought, but the reference is in there and sharing for your interest. Cheers
I'm now completely through it, it's a good piece. I haven't heard from the group, but I'm sceptical as well based on what I can glean from your treatment. What I also noticed is that they defined communism as the "self-emancipation of the working class". The abolition of the working class still wouldn't get to the heart of the issue, but it would be an alright definition, but "self-emancipation" is a definition that is prone to becoming workerist.
Physicist/programmer here. Raised by Marxists, politically inert for 30 years (now 51), brought back to stuttering incomprehending political life like a gasping subject of mouth-to-mouth in 2016, not by Trump, but by the behaviour or people I had previously thought were reasonable in the fac e of Trump. Now learning about Marxism, and world history, and stuff. Where do I sign up?!?
You once replied to dne of my Patreon-comments, right? I thought about proposing that we could do a podcast about socialism and science or something like that. I'd still be open to that idea. We could maybe do one a month, and maybe we could do most of the editing with AI, that way it wouldn't be all that time-intensive. Apart from that, I don't know where you could sign up either. Of all the socialist sects I like Platypus the best, but they are very much in the critical tradition of Marxism, I don't know whether they would be open to incorporating a more scientific perspective. Also, C. Derick Varn has created a small community which has some science-interested people in it, but not really anything resembling an organization.
I'd be interested if you follow up on the idea of a podcast including science & socialism, (in any way and form whatever angle!), and I'll also check out Derick Varn's community, thanks for the info.
I have a physics degree from long ago and I am also a programmer. I have been thinking recently about maybe making some simple computer 'games' that help to illustrate basic economic ideas (both Marxist and mainstream) in an engaging way (I used to work in the videogame industry). But that probably won't be for awhile...
Well, I'm still open for it. We could do the first episode maybe at the end of April and maybe one a month. I'm a mathematician (a category-theoretician if that tells you something), but I have some knowledge about lots of things. I thought we could do the first episode about the degree to which the economic structure of society influences scientific knowledge, which is a fairly contentious topic among some of the left.
I've been thinking about video games and the left too. There are problems with making them though: the amount of time that goes into them means they are hard to make on the side. Financing over Kickstarter would be an option, but the other thing is that at this point probably only people would play a socialist game or probably even an economic-educational one that already basically know what it is trying to teach (although it could be useful if they give them to their children). But I'm thinking we should maybe have something like socialist leagues or teams or servers, similar to how the early SPD had bowling leagues. Or maybe tournaments.
The topic of " the degree to which the economic structure of society influences scientific knowledge," sounds interesting to me, and I have no idea what the current streams of thought on this are. ( Unless you mean the very relativist stream which says science is all colonialism and so on. But since I come from physics, there is less of that (so far). Questions (very valid questions) are raised about the structure of scientific institutions or about which topics get funding and so on, but not so much about the very content of the science itself. )
I'd be interested in sitting in on a session about this and seeing what people are saying. I can't do any organising at the moment, but may be able to in future (I just found out I have insanely low iron levels, which explains why I have been so tired recently. But it's likely because of a stomach ulcer, not diet, so I need to get on top of it generally, and I am trying not to take on too much)
I also think the idea of socialist leagues within online gaming is amazing! I have not been gaming at all recently but would be happy to start up again if there was a socialist league :) And agree we should get creative about taking things from the past and making them new again.
And I also agree probably there's not a huge audience for the types of games I want to make, but I think it would be helpful for those who maybe are into the humanities/philosophy side of Marxism but are pretty unclear on the critique of capitalism from the nuts and bolts side. Also to explain the stuff that mainstream economists are saying and so on. But since I barely understand it myself so far, that may take awhile!
I'm figuring that once I get back into coding and get familiar with some easy to use frameworks (like D3.js and P5.js, maybe some python stuff, ) I'll be able to make little prototypes as I am learning concepts myself - ie - a simple game about what mainstream economists say about international trade and the effects of tariffs, and so on.
If you set up any sessions on anything at alI I'd be interested in attending, so let me know, and is possible you can email me direct at lollipopenator@gmail.com as I don't always see all my notifications and so on in every app.
This is really excellent and timely as I'm essentially making the same argument in a response to a piece on communist strategy. I'll make sure to reference and send on, I'd very much welcome your thoughts.
Thanks! If you send me a link to your response piece once it's done I'll read it and tell you what I think.
Hey Alexander, I didn't make as much reference to this aspect as originally thought, but the reference is in there and sharing for your interest. Cheers
https://jmknight.substack.com/p/notes-on-notes-from-below
I'm now completely through it, it's a good piece. I haven't heard from the group, but I'm sceptical as well based on what I can glean from your treatment. What I also noticed is that they defined communism as the "self-emancipation of the working class". The abolition of the working class still wouldn't get to the heart of the issue, but it would be an alright definition, but "self-emancipation" is a definition that is prone to becoming workerist.
Thanks for sharing!
Physicist/programmer here. Raised by Marxists, politically inert for 30 years (now 51), brought back to stuttering incomprehending political life like a gasping subject of mouth-to-mouth in 2016, not by Trump, but by the behaviour or people I had previously thought were reasonable in the fac e of Trump. Now learning about Marxism, and world history, and stuff. Where do I sign up?!?
You once replied to dne of my Patreon-comments, right? I thought about proposing that we could do a podcast about socialism and science or something like that. I'd still be open to that idea. We could maybe do one a month, and maybe we could do most of the editing with AI, that way it wouldn't be all that time-intensive. Apart from that, I don't know where you could sign up either. Of all the socialist sects I like Platypus the best, but they are very much in the critical tradition of Marxism, I don't know whether they would be open to incorporating a more scientific perspective. Also, C. Derick Varn has created a small community which has some science-interested people in it, but not really anything resembling an organization.
Yep, that was me :)
I'd be interested if you follow up on the idea of a podcast including science & socialism, (in any way and form whatever angle!), and I'll also check out Derick Varn's community, thanks for the info.
I have a physics degree from long ago and I am also a programmer. I have been thinking recently about maybe making some simple computer 'games' that help to illustrate basic economic ideas (both Marxist and mainstream) in an engaging way (I used to work in the videogame industry). But that probably won't be for awhile...
Well, I'm still open for it. We could do the first episode maybe at the end of April and maybe one a month. I'm a mathematician (a category-theoretician if that tells you something), but I have some knowledge about lots of things. I thought we could do the first episode about the degree to which the economic structure of society influences scientific knowledge, which is a fairly contentious topic among some of the left.
I've been thinking about video games and the left too. There are problems with making them though: the amount of time that goes into them means they are hard to make on the side. Financing over Kickstarter would be an option, but the other thing is that at this point probably only people would play a socialist game or probably even an economic-educational one that already basically know what it is trying to teach (although it could be useful if they give them to their children). But I'm thinking we should maybe have something like socialist leagues or teams or servers, similar to how the early SPD had bowling leagues. Or maybe tournaments.
Hi, I only just saw this!
The topic of " the degree to which the economic structure of society influences scientific knowledge," sounds interesting to me, and I have no idea what the current streams of thought on this are. ( Unless you mean the very relativist stream which says science is all colonialism and so on. But since I come from physics, there is less of that (so far). Questions (very valid questions) are raised about the structure of scientific institutions or about which topics get funding and so on, but not so much about the very content of the science itself. )
I'd be interested in sitting in on a session about this and seeing what people are saying. I can't do any organising at the moment, but may be able to in future (I just found out I have insanely low iron levels, which explains why I have been so tired recently. But it's likely because of a stomach ulcer, not diet, so I need to get on top of it generally, and I am trying not to take on too much)
I also think the idea of socialist leagues within online gaming is amazing! I have not been gaming at all recently but would be happy to start up again if there was a socialist league :) And agree we should get creative about taking things from the past and making them new again.
And I also agree probably there's not a huge audience for the types of games I want to make, but I think it would be helpful for those who maybe are into the humanities/philosophy side of Marxism but are pretty unclear on the critique of capitalism from the nuts and bolts side. Also to explain the stuff that mainstream economists are saying and so on. But since I barely understand it myself so far, that may take awhile!
I'm figuring that once I get back into coding and get familiar with some easy to use frameworks (like D3.js and P5.js, maybe some python stuff, ) I'll be able to make little prototypes as I am learning concepts myself - ie - a simple game about what mainstream economists say about international trade and the effects of tariffs, and so on.
If you set up any sessions on anything at alI I'd be interested in attending, so let me know, and is possible you can email me direct at lollipopenator@gmail.com as I don't always see all my notifications and so on in every app.
Wendy :) :)