Comrade Anklebiter |
Comrade Anklebiter |
And, finally, there's one here from Doug's Workshop. Citizen Workshop is a long-time listener, first-time caller and he asks:
"Comrade A, I didn't want to clutter your Fun Timey Revolutionary Thread with this question, so it's via PM instead.
I understand that one of the tenants of socialism is that the "means of production" are publicly owned. In an agrarian society, that would mean land and farms, as well as the tools used to grow the food and tend the crops. Industrial societies have factories.
But what about a knowledge society? For instance, I work in an IT job. The means of production are my hands, typing out the code I first develop in my head.
Just curious, thanks.
Enjoy your revolution!
-Workshop"
Kirth Gersen |
Programmers should develop code for the betterment of the State! If it works well, the State will reward them with cubicle-mates who do not steal lunches out of the refrigerator, and with reduced scrutiny on TPS reports. On the other hand, if the code entails planned obsolescence like most Microsoft products, the programmers be sent to the gulag.
Vive le Galt!
Comrade Anklebiter |
There you go, Citizen Workshop.
But, srly, I don't know. I guess I don't accept "Knowledge society" as anything other than Wired buzzspeak and the basis for cool books by William Gibson and Neal Stephenson (once we get that stuff from The Diamond Age, though, we should talk).
I mean, isn't most of the hardware that you run your programs on assembled by wretchedly exploited workers in factories in China? At least, that's what my friends tell me.
It seems to me, however, that your question really speaks to the division in society between manual and mental labor. I know Marxists have had a lot to say about that over the years, but, honestly, I don't really know what it was.
So, no, we have no interest in nationalizing you at the moment. Your miniature displays, on the other hand, we'll be sending the Red Guards around to expropriate any day now. Does tomorrow at noon work for you?
Doug's Workshop |
There you go, Citizen Workshop.
Instead of the hardware being assembles by wretchedly exploited workers, I see it more as how you might use a pencil. Sure, a bunch of people assemble a pencil, and some may even use it to draw stick figures. But what place does Shakespeare have if he can just say "No, I don't feel like using it to create Othello. I'll draw stick figures like everyone else."
It was just a thought circling around my skull that managed to hook up with the "be lazy and ask someone instead of doing all the research yourself" part of my brain.
I'm glad you like the minis. Once I was told to take them down for "new employees," I had them stage a little eminent domain revolt. My coworkers thought it was amusing. When I talked to my director about the display, I said I'll raze the community, and if they put up any fuss, I'll break their riot by breaking out the paper shredder.
Because, you know, nothing beats down peaceful protests like massively outgunning the peacenick cardstock villagers!
Thanks, Comrade. And noon works. I'm usually at lunch, so it'd make my day to return to my cube and find my paper buildings stolen . . . er . . . expropriated. Say "Hi" to cube-neighbor Patricia (her girlfriend makes fantastic gumbo, so get on her good side).
Doug's Workshop |
Doug's Workshop wrote:Say "Hi" to cube-neighbor Patricia (her girlfriend makes fantastic gumbo...So YOU are the one stealing the lunches from the People's Refrigerator! To the gulag with you!
No, no, no! You misunderstand! You see, I needed that gumbo more than Patricia needed it. Because . . . I'm bigger, and need more calories so my fantastically awesome brain can keep functioning and working for the Collective. And, if you grant me reprieve, I'll spill the beans about how Ed down the hall is abusing the People's Freezer.
Gark the Goblin |
Obviously, if it is used for labour, the brain belongs to the people.
Actually, what about the programs used to do your normal work? You may do a lot of original coding, but there are still external inputs right?
I don't know; I'm not really sure what was being talked about.
Kopimism is fairly legit.
Comrade Anklebiter |
I'll put this here so that we can avoid the partisan bickering and just agree that Congress is dumb.
Of course, if you follow the links you will discover that using this Flesch-Kincaid dohickey, ERB's Tarzan of the Apes is written at a 9th-grade level and James Joyce's Ulysses is at a 6th-grade level, so, take with your own level of salt.
Gark the Goblin |
I hate salt, so I will trust the test entirely. I appreciated Orwell's rant about English, and though I don't agree that it's a bad thing, he is right in saying that much of our language is extraneous.
I don't know, though, I haven't read Ulysses.
I have seen Turin the Mad around but I think that they are probably crazy?
Comrade Anklebiter |
Copied from another thread:
So, Lord Dice, (EDIT: and others) when are we going to get together and play some D&D?
I've got this idea for an East Coast FAWTL RefugeeCon that I think would be awesome. We've got the numbers, let's do it!! Drive up to NH, pitch a tent on the Free NH Goblin Resistance Commune, maybe play Skull & Shackles: what do you think?
TheWhiteknife |
copied from another thread:
n all seriousness, the article about Afghanistan made me cry.
I would have posted them in Comrade Anklebiter's Fun-Timey Revolutionary Socialism Thread, but that thread has lately been taken over by Libertarians and declared a "fake politroll" thread.
F*#&ing Libertarians
I sincerely wish to apologize. Not so much for the libertarians taking over your thread (youre popular with us plutocrats!), but for declaring this a "fake politroll" thread. I should have been more specific, but in my quitting-smoking rage-fueled haze, I wasnt. Only the part where I was declaring myself to be your self appointed campaign manager was meant to be the politrolly part. If I actually offended you, I apoligise many times.
Thank you for you consideration,
TheWhiteKnife, esq.
Campaign manager for "Goblins do it in the street" PAC
Don Juan de Doodlebug |
Don Juan de Doodlebug wrote:Hey, sexy, wha's happenin'?Are you talking to the Badger or me? Someone else?
I'm busy trying to convince the other Paizonians to drop napalm and daisy cutters on Florida. Or at least run to the Georgia and Alabama borders and saw off the Wang of America.
It's ambiguous, innit?
Comrade Anklebiter |
copied from another thread:
Comrade Anklebiter wrote:n all seriousness, the article about Afghanistan made me cry.
I would have posted them in Comrade Anklebiter's Fun-Timey Revolutionary Socialism Thread, but that thread has lately been taken over by Libertarians and declared a "fake politroll" thread.
F*#&ing Libertarians
I sincerely wish to apologize. Not so much for the libertarians taking over your thread (youre popular with us plutocrats!), but for declaring this a "fake politroll" thread. I should have been more specific, but in my quitting-smoking rage-fueled haze, I wasnt. Only the part where I was declaring myself to be your self appointed campaign manager was meant to be the politrolly part. If I actually offended you, I apoligise many times.
Thank you for you consideration,
TheWhiteKnife, esq.
Campaign manager for "Goblins do it in the street" PAC
This exchange, for me, brought home two points.
First, no wonder I get in so many flamewars, when even my friends can't read my tone half the time.
Second, Communist Revolution comeback!!!
F~@%ing Libertarians better sleep light tonight!
(Reusing links, it's sad, I know.)
Gark the Goblin |
Please tell when when this napalming and daisy cutting of Florida is to take place I have some close friends who live there I would like to make certain they make it out alive.
Yes me too but lately she's just been rambling about lizards and iguanas and s~!@.
I think the heat's getting to her.
Robert Hawkshaw |
It's going good so far. Haven't tried raki yet, have been drinking effes, but that's not too special, I can get it in Vancouver.
Some observations - no one in Istanbul wears shorts except tourists, even though its hotter than balls out they all wear what in Vancouver would pass as business casual or fancier (well, not all, but most).
Their public transit is awesome.
We've been in the Levant and New Town districts up until now, Doing the Hagia Sophia etc... tomorrow.